Abstract:

The world of education is changing rapidly under the pressure of technological innovation. The increasingly pervasive adoption of digital technologies as teaching support (LIM, Tablet, edutainment, eLearing, MOOC) is changing both the way students learn that the cultural boundaries of that which is considered training.

Furthermore the students themselves belong, on the one hand, to the generations of so-called digital natives, on the other hand – with the phenomenon of lifelong learning – to groups of digital migrant no longer considered part of the educational market. In this context also the educational publishing sector is facing new challenges.

The introduction of eBooks, Apps and a massive gamification approach also in dissemination and learning field, the shift from the traditional analogic/printed media to mobile devices and cloud pose new problems. After the invention of writing, printing and internet we face the challenges of the fourth revolution: digital publishing.

The real dare, however, is played not so much in terms of technology, but rather in facing the crisis of the concept of the ‘book’ itself, in the form that we have known up to now and have learned to use.

In this laboratory of transition the answers are many: mimesis or simulation of the printed book in a simple transposition of support; hybrid when it remains within the same editorial language, at least, borrowing from the web the potentiality of hypertext structures, multimodal, collaborative, and social communication; outsider much more kin to the digital world of games or of hypermedia.

The paper explores, maps and offers a critical review supported by a comparative analysis of different case studies and best-practice guidelines outlining the project experiences and open issues of a world in transition.

Keywords:

Educational publishing, eBooks, digital publishing design, digital learning tool.