Theoretical and Empirical Background to the eBook

Abstract

A textbook in any e-educational system is an important element that requires a closer look at its components and structure, as well as identifying the barriers that affect the level of learning. This can be achieved in different aspects such as the analysis of textual content or sentence structure which is one of the concerns of linguists. On the other hand, examining the textual content can determine the appropriateness of the education level for students. This type of assessment is part of educators' concerns and by examining and defining the factors that could affect reading a text on screen, this is usually related to the way of displaying text such as font size, colour, background colour, amount of text and the location of the text on the screen. This is a key focus of this research. In this chapter, the concern will be to define the concepts and the structure of an e- document as a starting point to investigate the usability of e-texts as it covers the following: definition of e-document; history of eBook; structure of e-textbook; contribution of e-textbook for education; comparison between reading electronic and paper book; young people and the use of the internet and computer; statistical data for using the internet in Arabic countries; designing an e-textbook.