LV Thạc sỹ_Ebook usage in the study of the faculty of business english students current situation and recommendations

E-BOOK USAGE IN THE STUDY OF THE FACULTY OF BUSINESS ENGLISH STUDENTS: CURRENT SITUATION AND RECOMMENDATIONS TO PROMOTE ITS EFFECTIVENESS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIRE

E-BOOK USAGE IN THE STUDY OF THE FACULTY OF BUSINESS ENGLISH STUDENTS: CURRENT SITUATION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

TO PROMOTE ITS EFFECTIVENESS

SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT

OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE

OF BACHELOR OF ARTS IN BUSINESS ENGLISH

TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ii

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES iii

INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Objectives of the thesis 2

1.3 Scope of the thesis 2

1.4 Methodology 3

1.5 Structure of the thesis 3

CHAPTER 1: AN OVERVIEW OF E-BOOKS 1.1 Definitions of e-book 4

1.2 Origin and evolution of e-books 5

1.2.1 A brief history of e-books 5

1.2.2 Current status of e-book 7

1.2.3 The future of e-books 9

1.2.4 The evolution of e-books in Vietnam 10

1.3 The common formats of e-books 13

1.3.1 DOC (Document) 13

1.3.2 PDF (Portable Document Format) 13

1.3.3 OEB (Open E-book) 14

1.3.4 CHM (Compiled HTML Help File) 14

1.4 The roles of e-book 15

CHAPTER II: SURVEY ON CURRENT SITUATION OF E-BOOK USAGE IN THE STUDY OF THE FBE STUDENTS FROM K47 TO K50 2.1 Methodology 19

2.1.1 The study population 19

2.1.2 The study design 19

2.1.3 Sampling 20

2.1.4 The setting 20

2.1.5 Measurement procedures 22

2.1.6 Problems and Limitations 23

2.2 Data analysis 24

2.2.1 An overview of the K47 to K50 FBE students' study 24

2.2.2 Current situation of e-book usage in the study of the FBE students from K47 to K50 29

2.2.3 FBE students' evaluation on e-book and its effectiveness in their study.35 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE EFFECTIVENESS OF E-BOOK USAGE IN THE STUDY OF THE FBE STUDENTS FROM K47 TO K50 3.1 Findings from survey on current situation of e-book usage in the study of the FBE students from K47 to K50 42

3.1.1 High perception and evaluation on the role of e-books 42

3.1.2 Co-existence of print books and e-books 43

3.1.3 Extensive e-book usage in research and class assignments 44

3.1.4 E-books usage reduction due to some of its shortcomings 45

3.1.5 Little attention to new features of e-books 46

3.2 Recommendations to promote the effectiveness of e-books in the study of FBE students from K47 to K50 47

3.2.1 Identify information needs 48

3.2.2 Find, evaluate, and select trustworthy sources of e-books 48

3.2.3 Utilize prominent features of e-books 51

3.3 General resources for trustworthy e-books 52

3.3.1 International resources 53

3.3.2 Vietnamese resources 54

CONCLUSION 56

REFERENCES 58

APPENDIXES 61

Appendix 1: Survey Questionnaire (Vietnamese version) 62

Appendix 2: Survey Questionnaire (English version) 64

I am deeply indebted to my supervisor Ms.…, MBA – lecturer of Faculty ofBusiness English whose invaluable encouragement, careful guidance; and helpfulfeedback from the initial to the final level enabled me to develop a comprehensiveunderstanding of the subject

I owe my deepest gratitude to all lecturers and students of Faculty ofBusiness English who participated in the survey I would like to thank them fortheir enthusiastic response, constructive comments, and generous suggestions.Without their contribution, I could never complete this thesis

Last but not least, I would like to give my special thanks to my family andfriends whose patient love helped me overcome all stressful hours and enabled me

to complete this work

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CHM Compiled HTML Help File

DRM Digital Rights Management

FBE Faculty of Business English

FTU Foreign Trade University

ICT Information and Communication Technology

NEU National Economics University

PDF Portable Document Format

VINAPO Vinapo Online Services and Software Development

Joint Stock Company

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1.1: Milestones in the evolution of e-book 6

Table 1.2: Comparing among three most common of e-books' formats 15

Figure 2.1: The study population 19

Figure 2.2: Society's selection for the best institutions training Business English 21

Figure 2.3: The use of information sources 25

Figure 2.4: Trustworthiness level of common information sources 27

Figure 2.5: Sources of trust 28

Figure 2.6: Frequency of e-books usage (all FBE students) 30

Figure 2.7: Percentage of students never/ rarely using e-books by different courses 30

Figure 2.8: Frequency of e-books usage (as of different courses) 30

Figure 2.9: Reasons for rarely/never using e-books 32

Figure 2.10: How to find e-books 33

Figure 2.11: Purposes for using e-books 34

Figure 2.12: Preferences for e-books over print books 36

Figure 2.13: Evaluation on e-book usage’s effectiveness in the study 36

Figure 2.14: Valued e-book features 37

1 Rationale

In the past decades, the world has witnessed an incredible development ofInternet In Vietnam, according to the "Vietnam Net Index" report from Yahoo1,there were 28 million Internet users in 2010, ranked 6th in Asia The increasingpenetration of Internet in every area of life has been changing significantly readingpatterns and reading behavior Along with the introduction of Internet, digitalcontent has appeared to reach critical masses The ubiquity of digital content hascreated inestimable value in making more information available to more users, ofwhich, e-books are the latest entrant into this field In spite of being a newly borntechnology, e-books have been received much attention; and surely, the progresstoward e-books can only move forward Besides, technical development andsophistication of reading devices provide users a more interesting and differentexperience when using e-books Currently, there is no official statistics on numbers

of e-book users in Vietnam, but according to Mr…., Tiki Shop2 CEO, hundreds ofe-readers was sold in peak months, which demonstrates that using e-books isbecoming a habit of Vietnamese

In the field of education, e-books have increasingly proved its importantroles E-books provide substantial advantages to both lecturers and students such as24/7 access, simultaneous user access, wider selection, immediate update, full textsearching, and so on Many lecturers and students recognize that e-books offer anideal opportunity to enhance their research experiences In Vietnam, although e-book has not been considered as a main learning instrument, it is still used widely

by students in their academic activities, especially by the ones whose subjects aretaught mainly in English like students of the Faculty of Business English (FBE),Foreign Trade University (FTU) This is because most of textbooks used in the FBEcurriculum are foreign ones which are not popular or even do not appear inVietnam's book market Moreover, the FBE students need to conduct tens of reports

1 Yahoo! is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States

2 Tiki Shop is a one of the largest e-reader distribution channels in the Southern Vietnam.

and class assignments each semester, and almost all of them are in English Hence,

it is necessary for them to refer to other sources, of which e-books account for alarge percentage The FBE lecturers also recommend their students to use electronicversion of some books for more comprehensive understandings

In order to have an overview on the usage and the increasingly importantroles of e-books in academic study of FBE students, the author has chosen to write

up this graduation thesis with the topic " E-book usage in the study of the Faculty of Business English students: current situation and recommendations to promote its effectiveness".

2 Objectives of the thesis

The thesis aims to capture an overview of e-book usage and to provide somerecommendations to promote its effectiveness in the K47 to K50 FBE students’study

Specifically, the research questions are stated as follows:

(1) How are e-books used in the study life of the FBE students from K47 toK50?

(2) How do the FBE students from K47 to K50 evaluate e-book and itseffectiveness in their study life?

(3) What recommendations should be made to promote effectiveness of e-bookusage in the study life of FBE students from K47 to K50?

3 Scope of the thesis

Due to limited time and resources, this thesis focuses on providing anoverview of e-book usage in the study of FBE students from K47 to K50 and somegeneral evaluation on this matter from these students, no thorough analysis is made.Besides, only students from K47 to K50 of the Faculty of Business English, HanoiForeign Trade University are involved in the conducted survey, results fromstudents of other courses or faculties or universities (if any) will not be used

4 Methodology

To write up this thesis, the author uses both desk research and field research

as the methodology The desk research is used to collect available information aboute-books and relating issues Besides, the author also conducts a survey with astructured questionnaire (See Appendix 2) which will be distributed directly to each

of 265 students of FBE from K47 to K50 Those who can not take part in thissurvey in the class will be sent an online version with the same structure and contentthrough their email addresses More details will be discussed later in Chapter II ofthis graduation thesis

5 Structure of the thesis

Apart from the introduction, conclusion, table of contents, appendixes, list ofabbreviations, and list of tables and figures; this graduation thesis will be dividedinto three chapters:

Chapter 1 provides an overview of e-book

Chapter 2 presents and analyzes data and information collected from survey on

current situation of e-book usage in the study of the FBE students from K47 to K50

Chapter 3 provides findings and recommendations to promote the effectiveness of

e-book usage in the study of the FBE students from K47 to K50

CHAPTER 1: AN OVERVIEW OF E-BOOKS

1.1 Definitions of e-book

E-content in general and e-book in particular play such a significant role inthe digital era E-book is coming to be a new trend in the world of Information andCommunication Technology (ICT); the use of e-book over regular paper book has

also witnessed a dramatic rise "The e-book era is going to be one of the incredible innovations and unlimited opportunities, the whole world racing toward this new draw!” said Mr James Macfarlane, CEO of Easypress Technologies Limited

Company3 at E-books and E-content 2011 4

Understanding precisely about "What is e-book?" is essential to use itproperly as well as take full advantage of opportunities created by this modern kind

of book E-book is a young medium and its definition is still a work in progress,emerging from the history of the print book and evolving technology; and as aresult, e-book has been defined in various ways Simply, e-book is an electronicversion of a print book, hence “E” for electronic (FASTmaketingPlan.com, 2012);

or e-book is digital reading material that one views on a desktop or note-bookcomputer or on a dedicated, portable device with a large storage capacity and theability to download new titles through a network connection (Cox, Andrew andMohammed, 2001) PC Magazine Encyclopedia (2012) defines e-book (Electronic-book) as “The electronic counterpart of a printed book, which can be viewed on adesktop computer, laptop, smart phone or e-book reader”

Besides, Eileen Gardiner and Ronald G Musto (2010, p.164) in "The Oxford

Companion to the Book" suggested a more detail definition of e-book: An electronic

book (also e-book, Ebook, digital book) is a text- and image-based publication indigital form produced on, published by, and readable on computers or other digitaldevices E-books are presented visually or aurally, with the audio book as aprecursor to, and limited exemplum of, electronic publishing's potential

3 Easypress Technologies Limited Company is a global supplier of XML technology - based Digital ePublishing software located in New York, USA; Guildford, UK; and Toronto, Canada

4 E-books and E-contents 2011 is a part of e-content - related series held by the University College London

Department of Information Studies The theme in 2011 was “E-books revisited: where are we now?”

Components other than text have been considered enhancements, includingmultimedia (sound, images, and film/video/animated graphics).

Based on these suggestions, e-book can be defined in a simple but quite

adequate way as follow: An electronic book (variously, e-book, Ebook, digital book)

is a book in digital form, but consists of many components, including multimedia, and can be read on computers or other electronic devices such as e-readers, tablets, smart phones, and also on some mobile phones.

1.2 Origin and evolution of e-books

1.2.1 A brief history of e-books

The invention of e-books is being questioned Some researchers suggest thatthe first e-book might be the Index Thomisticus prepared by Roberto Busa in thelate 1940s Others believe that e-books had been developed in the mid-1960s, withthe NLS project headed by Doug Engelbart at Stanford Research Institute, and theHypertext Editing System and FRESS project headed by Andries van Dam atBrown University (Steven J Derose and Andries van Dam, 1999) Alternatively, e-books are considered by some to be born in 1971, with the first steps of ProjectGutenberg found by Michael Hart, a digital library for books from public domain(Cameron Chapman, 2009) Even being counted from the time of the newesthypothesis (i.e from 1971), e-book is more than 40 years old already; however, thisduration is still a fraction if being compared with five century of development ofprint books In the 1990s, Internet became popular, making transference ofelectronic files much easier, including e-books However, e-books were not paidmuch attention until the online publication of Stephen King’s novella riding theBullet in March 2000 Within 24 hours, the text had been downloaded by 400,000computer users (Mahajan and Chakravarty, 2007) Since then, booksellers havebegun selling books online within and outside their home country and postingbooks' description and excerpts on their websites Libraries have created websites as

a virtual window, more and more e-libraries began coming into life Newspapersand magazines have begun being available online, as well as their archives Somejournals have come to be only electronic to limit the costs of print publishing

Authors have begun creating websites/blogs to introduce and self-publish theirworks without publishing or while waiting to find a publisher New onlinebookstores have begun selling e-books only Aggregators have partnered withpublishers to produce and sell digital versions of their books

Followings are some milestones in the evolution of e-book from thebeginning until now:

Table 1.1: Milestones in the evolution of e-book

Late 1940s/

mid-1960s

First e-book was born (not confirmed)

1971 Project Gutenberg was the first digital library

1990 The web boosted the internet

1993 The Online Books Page was a list of free

e-books

1994 Some publishers went digital

1995 Amazon.com was the first main online

bookstore

1998 Libraries took over the web

2001 Copyright and Creative Commons were

founded

2003 E-books were sold worldwide

2005 Google got interested in e-books

-present

Various electronic devices have been continuously introduced

Source: Chronology cited in Maril Lebert, 2009, p 85

1.2.2 Current status of e-book

The book industry is undergoing a phase of transition Developers have beenintroducing new formats, manufacturers are building new devices, companies are

creating new business models, and – most importantly – new readers are making theleap from paper books to e-books Experts agree that e-books and e-readers aregetting up speed and are ready to make the breakthrough that will significantlychange this industry

The recent technology boom has created a digital age The explosive growth

of e-book market has had a major impact on such entities as Publishers, Online bookstores, Device manufactures, and Intermediaries, etc who are trying to grasp

the huge opportunities of this new technology All of them have high expectationsfor the digital future of the book industry If markets for legal e-books are tobecome established, and if publishers are to be able to benefit from thedevelopment, so all providers can consider the process of digitizing the bookindustry as an opportunity of establishing book reading as a popular leisure timeoccupation in all target groups, including the younger generation E-books will notreplace print book but will be available in parallel with them and will stimulatereading behavior

The e-book market is in its infancy, particularly with regard to mass marketpublishers There are two factors will significantly foster the development of themarket and pave the way to a mass market including attractive devices andavailability of content (Werner Ballhaus, 2010) Nowadays, it is important thatconsumers are able to access a choice of attractive devices Besides, a wide range ofavailable e-books is also a key factor Before, one of the main reasons for limitnumber of e-book usage regards to the shortage of e-books Many publishers nowrecognize the attractiveness of opportunities created by e-books which impulsethem to significantly expand their e-book portfolio, as well as publish new books inboth print and digital form As mentioned before, additional content is a crucialcriterion because it creates added value for consumers and opens up further revenuepossibilities in the digital environment However, it is necessary to consider howadded value can be offered to consumers with publisher’s content and also whatservices would have to be developed to make the content interesting

Besides, challenges facing e-book usage status include high prices of e-booksand electronic reading devices, the lack of compatibility of the devices withdifferent formats, and restrictions posed by digital rights management5 (DRM)(Werner Ballhaus, 2010) Pricing e-book is still a controversial topic There aremajor differences among experts with regard to the pricing of e-books Overall,approximately half of industry representatives consider that a discount of between20% and 30% compared with the price of printed book is necessary to kick-start themarket (Werner Ballhaus, 2010) Consumers are less willing to pull money out oftheir wallets for e-books because of being still unfamiliar with owning intangibleobjects Therefore, online bookstores, intermediaries, and device manufacturersbelieve that publishers should permit a reasonable discount However, in theopinion of publishers, this does not appear to be very acceptable Even somepublishers also suggest that the prices of e-books should be higher than the prices ofprint ones if the e-books contain advanced features, especially multimediaenrichments

Although the attractiveness of e-readers is praised by many experts, prices ofthem are still too high Currently, an e-reader costs average US$135 whileaccording to customers; an ideal e-reader should cost no more than US$70 (AllenMcKiel, 2011) Besides, there is no device that can be read all the available formats

of e-books, which makes people feel inconvenient and less willing to use them book formats and file types continue to develop and change through time throughadvances and developments in technology or the introduction of new proprietaryformats Print books remain readable for more than 1,000 years (HidehikoNakanishi, 2009), while e-books may need to be copied or converted to a newcarrier or file type over time

E-Due to DRM, customers typically cannot resell or loan their e-books to otherreaders This policy allows the user to read e-books on many devices, but not totransfer it to a device registered to someone else In the long term, most experts

5 Digital rights management: is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale (Wikipedia, 2012).

expect that cumbersome DRM will be eliminated and that development on the book market will follow those that have been seen on the music market Musicpublishers abandoned DRM in spring 2009, after a lengthy battle against filesharing Nevertheless, it is believed that consumers are still interested in e-booksand the e-book market will breakthrough in years to come

e-1.2.3 The future of e-books

Enhanced e-books are coming and will only get better Due to the

convenience and accessibility of e-books, customers are more and more interested

in this new medium; but ultimately almost half of e-books today are the same asprint, just in digital form The e-book of the not-too-distant future will be muchmore than text Interactivity has arrived and will change the nature of the e-book.For example, imagine video that demonstrates a chemical reaction or solvescomplex math problems in statistics; audio that pronounces foreign language words

as you read them, and assessment that lets users check whether they you rememberand comprehend what they just read or not These interactive features are beingdeveloped now and will be on the market just in weeks to come, not months.Publishers are already adding enhanced features into the future e-books All of theseefforts will surely bring consumers a much greater experience

The device war is nearly over There are many confusions relating to

devices, but as far as devices go, consumer confusion is likely to drive quick

consolidation around a few winners in the market Because most developers are

developing e-reader software that will work on multiple other devices (Kindle6 alsoworks on the iPad7, iPhone8, etc., for example), consumers can care less about thedevice and more about user experience of e-reader software, portability of titlesfrom one device to another, and access to a full catalogue of titles

Publishers will be more important than ever Despite the hype around

self-publishing via the web, self-publishing houses will play an even greater role in the book world Commodity content is everywhere (and largely free), so high-quality

e-6 Kindle, also Amazon Kindle, is a series of e-book readers developed by Amazon.com subsidiary Lab126 (Dudley and Brier, 2007).

7 iPad is a line of tablet computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc (Wikipedia, 2012).

8 iPhone is a line of smartphones designed and marketed by Apple Inc (Wikipedia, 2012).

edited content will be worth a premium At McGraw-Hill9, the average technicaland reference book engages teams of editors, copy editors, proofreaders anddesigners to produce a single book (Werner Ballhaus, 2010) In the digital world,the role of publishers will be larger as new technologies provide for an even greateruser and learning experience Furthermore, with the huge amount of content beingserved on the web, customers will seek and pay expert content providers thataggregate and contextualize information for them efficiently and provide highlyaccurate and specific search options Publishers with expertise and resources inthese and emerging areas will be the ones that write the new rules of e-bookindustry.

1.2.4 The evolution of e-books in Vietnam

On 19 November 1997, Internet was officially introduced in Vietnam At thesame time, e-book appeared and step by step changed the reading behavior ofVietnamese people; however, it was still considered as pirated book or copyrightinfringement in the early days After nearly fifteen years of development, e-bookshave made some significant advances, especially in the fields of training andeducation; however, Vietnam is still held back from making full use of itsopportunities Actually, e-books are now a serious option in Vietnam

One of the biggest problems is that Vietnamese Government as well asMinistry of Information and Communication have not issued any legal documents

on e-books and relating activities (publishing, producing e-readers, trading, etc.)yet, which causes many adverse effects on the development of e-books, particularlye-book exploitation companies (publishers, bookstores, device manufactures, etc.).Another obvious reason is that most of publishers themselves have not joint handswith e - reader providers in order to develop this special product in Vietnam InComputex 201010, when being asked about the cooperation plan with providers, anofficial of Acer Inc11 just listed the US - UK ones However, from the point of view

9 McGraw-Hill is a company driving the financial services, education and business information markets through leading brands such as Standard & Poor’s, McGraw-Hill Education and J.D Power and Associates (McGraw-Hill, 2012)

10 Computex 2010, also know as the International Information Technology Show, is the second biggest computer expo in the world (Clay, 2010).

11 Acer Inc is a Taiwanese multinational hardware and electronics corporation headquartered in Xizhi, New Taipei city, Taiwan.

of publishers, developing e-books is not an easy task, in which the major barriersmaybe copyright problems and Digital Rights Management (DRM) ties Besides,some issues as constraints to the growth of e-books are defined as massive concernabout the revenue of e-books, preference of Vietnamese people on print books to e-books, etc

Nevertheless, there is "a light at the end of the tunnel" Since 2005, someprivate enterprises have caught the developing trend of online bookstores in othercountries and begun developing this model in Vietnam Among them, Vinabook can

be the most notable name Mr Huynh Ngoc Hung, CEO of Vinabook said that thecompany is the largest online bookstore in Vietnam with more than 30,000 booktitles Vinabook has about 250,000 customers, 20% of them order books online

daily "Since IDG Venture Vietnam (IDGVV) invested in Vinabook in 2009, our growth rate has increased by 150% till now In 2010, Vinabook reaped over one billion of VND for the first time after five years of operation ", added by Mr Hung.

In early 2011, Phuong Nam Culture Joint Stock Company (PNC) sounded out themarket by providing e-readers in Vietnam The result was totally surprising; one ortwo e-readers were sold each day without any marketing or sale promotion program

Also in 2011, Vinapo Online Services and Software Development JointStock Company (VINAPO) introduced A1 - the first made in Vietnam e - reader.Following the success of A1, on 22 February 2012, VINAPO, Vietnam e-Commerce and Information Technology Agency (Ministry of Industry and Trade),and Samsung released A2 - an improved version of A1 with many advanced

features which meet international standards "E-books become an essential tendency when more and more devices can read this modern kind of book However, e-books still have some drawbacks such as limitations on interaction and appearance In the context of regressing reading culture but increasing visual culture, readers require

a more simple and effective reading experience Realizing that, VINAPO has been developing a completely new A2 generation", said Mr Tran Xuan Phuong, Director

of VINAPO Moreover, some publishers have started their journey to exploit books - a promising land

e-In 2010, Tre Publishing House announced to join hands with Viettel, TinhVan Information Technology joint stock Company, and Viet Thong Minh Mediajoint stock Company to exploit e-books In June 2011, the publishing house ofNational Economics University (NEU Publishing House) has started digital trend by

introducing 55 electronic textbooks "E-books will be a norm in the field of education Many countries begin using e-books instead of paper ones to educate and train students at all levels For example, Japan and Korea promise to skip traditional textbooks entirely by the year 2015", said Mr Nguyen Anh Tu, Deputy

Director of NEU Publishing House All of those can be considered as good signalsfor the future of e-book in Vietnam as IDGVV indicates that Vietnam e-commercemarket will break through in 2011- 2015 period PC World also forecasts the value

of this market will exceed two billion of USD by the year 2015

In conclusion, after nearly fifteen years, the e-book market in Vietnam hasbeen expanding continuously; but the avenue has not formed a certain scale anddoes not influence the traditional book publication industry detrimentally The issue

of e-book intellectual property has been paid much attention by the Government,Ministry of Information and Communication, and other authority agencies In fact,

it has been changing from no consideration on e-book copyright to concern aboutthe interest of both authors and publishing houses However, there are still largequantities of books whose copyright issues need solving The number of e-bookusers has increased significantly and changed from organization users to internetusers, mobile users and others who own special reading equipments Despite thelack of unified standards; both the quantity and quality of e-books have developedrapidly in the past fifteen years Surely, the development of e-books in Vietnamwill be more mature as time passed by

1.3 The common formats of e-books

E-books can be saved in many different formats Some of them are popular;others are specialized for private purposes of users Followings are several commonformats of e-books that can be read by most of devices as well as operating systems

1.3.1 DOC (Document)

DOC is the most popular and simple e-book format created by MicrosoftWord software This format can contain text, images, tables, charts, etc.; and it iseasy to copy and share all of these contents This convenience makes DOC becomeone of the most favorite formats of technology addicts

The best way to open a DOC file is to use MS Word; however, in case userscan not afford to own an official MS Office of Microsoft, choosing Writer in thefree application OpenOffice.org is another solution Besides, Google Docs,ThinkFree Office, Zoho Office, etc may be other useful tools to approach this mostcommon format of e-book From MS Office 2007 version, Microsoft has providedDOCX using Open XML, which helps storage content better as well as reduces filesize

1.3.2 PDF (Portable Document Format)

PDF stands for Portable Document Format launched by Adobe Systems Inc12

in 1993 (Tim Bienz, Richard Cohn and James R Meehan, 1996) PDF is suitablefor richly formatted documents including textbooks, magazines and similarpublications Moreover, users can reproduce visually rich books by positioning textand images within a PDF file This format is often component of a productionworkflow which makes creating electronic versions totally simple

PDF was considered by Joe Eschbach, Vice President of Adobe's ePaperSolutions Group13, as a reliable digital master because PDF acts as a completewrapper containing all fonts, images, and text used within a document.Consequently, PDF is becoming increasingly used in the workflows of prepressagencies and professional print production It is a reasonably easy process toredirect a for-Print book to a PDF-based e-book and vice versa PDF can be created

by Adobe Acrobat software and read by Acrobat Reader Similar to DOC, users arefree to work with PDF files including Foxit PDF Creator package and Reader ofFoxit Software

1.3.3 OEB (Open E-book)

12 Adobe Systems Inc is an American multinational computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States (Wikipedia, 2012).

OEB is suitable for trade books, simple text and graphics The Open eBookPublication Structure Specification 1.01 provides a specification for representingthe content of electronic books From the latest edition, July 2, 2001, of thespecification, its purposes are to give content providers and tool providers minimaland common guidelines which ensure fidelity, accuracy, accessibility, andpresentation of electronic content over various electronic book platforms, to reflectestablished content format standards, to provide the purveyors of electronic-bookcontent a format for use in providing content to multiple reading systems.

OEB is a non-proprietary specification that specifies e-book file format andstructure OEB is based on XML, well-formed not valid and is expected to complywith XHTML An OEB package file specifies the OEB documents, images andother objects that comprise the ‘publication’ No means is defined for physicallybundling files together (zip, tar, etc…)

1.3.4 CHM (Compiled HTML Help File)

CHM is used to save documents which are compiled under HTML14 andcompressed in one file only Users often create e-books by CHM due to its goodcapacity and arrangement Some CHM e-book can be opened via Web browsers;others need special applications (xCHM, GNOCHM, Chmox, CHM Viewer, etc)

to be used

The above are some most common formats of e-books, there are some otherless common ones such as PRC, LIT, PDB, PS, RB, etc The following is acomparison among three most common formats of e-books including DOC, PDFand OEB to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of them (KarlDe Abrew, 2001)

Table 1.2: Comparing among three most common of e-books' formats

(DOC, PDF, and OEB)

14 HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language which is the main mark up language for web pages HTML elements are the basic building blocks of webpages (Wikipedia, 2012)

Graphics Yes Yes Yes

Source: Comparing e-book formats cited in Karl De Abrew, 2001, p.18

1.4 The roles of e-book

Standards of living gradually improve; however, it seems that the readingculture is being buried in oblivion The world witnesses the rise of listening as well

as visual culture There are several reasons of this phenomenon Firstly, in todaymodern life, people feel inconvenient if having to spend for hours together to find afavorite book at store In addition, the development of other media makes booksbecome less attractive Moreover, buying several books is also a big problem, sincetheir cost is up to tens of dollars, even hundreds of dollars Therefore, the invention

of e-books can be considered as an effective solution E-books can meet most of theabove demands Nowadays, many online bookstores show books’ description orexcerpt from the content, which helps readers easy to select favorite books withoutspending too much time Besides, e-book now is not just an electronic version ofprint book, because, producers have added many multimedia enrichments into an e-book Taking a scientific book for children name "Science and Nature" provided byVINAPO, for example, to describe the process of evaporation, a demonstrated video

is added to make learners be more interested in and fully understand thisphenomenon In term of price, although this is still a controversial topic, the average

price of an e-book is just equal to one third of a traditional one Readers just have toinvest in an e-reader at the initial stage In long term, it is obvious that choosing e-books is a cost-effective option

Fewer natural materials are needed to produce an e-book in comparison withprint book Specifically, to have a print book, 3 times more raw materials and 78times more water are used (Goleman and Daniel, 2010) Depending on possibledigital rights management, e-books can be backed up to recover them in the case ofloss or damage and it may be possible to recover a new copy without cost from thedistributor Also, libraries can lend more current e-book titles for limited times, freesamples are available of many publications, and there are other lending modelsbeing piloted as well

In the field of education, e-books have been giving and will continue to givenew instruments to explore They also serve as an effective tool for e-learningwhich include flexibility and convenience for learners Although a relatively limitedamount of e-book titles are available currently, but it is obvious that e-books canbecome a promising resource in future education E-books could help to solve thechallenges being faced in higher education including ever increasing studentpopulation, their changing profiles and lack of funds in the libraries E-books areavailable for convenient 24 - hours access both on and off - site, which increasesavailability to those patrons who are not able to frequent the library during regularhours Electronic texts can be searched and scanned in seconds to assist users intheir quest for information In addition, electronic content can be quickly updated sousers can access to the most recent editions and updates

Education is a field that rarely stays static and advances at roughly the samerate as technology in society advances Taking video player for example, once thistechnology invented, it is rapidly widespread in numerous educational institutions

It is hard to imagine a classroom without this type of visual aid yet only thirty yearsago this technology did not exist As technology continues to evolve it willinvariably shape education and the way it is taught One type of IT equipment that

is becoming more and more popular is e-book As the adoption of this type of

technology becomes more and more popular the devices appear more certain thanever to penetrate and influence the educational field in similar ways the video playerdid a decade before

The primary method in which e-books can influence education is throughtheir ability to create new teaching methods which are currently not utilized intraditional practices Whereas learning acquisition has usually been seen to comefrom three disparate areas – visualization, aural learning and cognitive engagement– new technology has the potential to teach in all of these fields simultaneously Theinteractivity available of e-book can prove to be a real dynamic and engaginglearning tool by utilizing all of these areas and will undoubtedly be seen to be ofutmost benefit to any student who prefers one type of learning acquisition modelover others Similarly e-book devices will provide an ideal tool in the classroom due

to their versatility; an aspect which is not currently available in traditional practices.Another point of note is their appeal for education institutes who want to improvetheir environmental credentials; e-book facilitates the move away from literallythousand of pages of paper

The ability to access huge pools of information will make electronic deviceshugely appealing to both students and teachers The environmental benefits, asmentioned before, will also be complimented by the money a school can save onpurchasing dozens of text books as thousands of e-books containing all necessaryinformation can be stored in just one small e-reader

Of course, all of the above are not the entire roles of e-books However, itcan be affirmed that e-books will be a pertinent and beautiful part of humanity forthe rest of its existence as in the words of Ray Bradbury, an American fantasy,horror, science fiction, and mystery writer, “e-book is a loaded gun which is full ofcontroversy, emotion, education, and challenges So human experience is justwaiting to be fired into minds to explode and grow”

CHAPTER II: SURVEY ON CURRENT SITUATION

OF E-BOOK USAGE IN THE STUDY OF THE FBE STUDENTS

FROM K47 TO K50 2.1 Methodology

2.1.1 The study population

This survey is conducted to get responses from students (K47 to K50) of theFaculty of Business English, Hanoi Foreign Trade University The actual number ofstudents from these 4 courses is about 265 students, among them, 35 students arefrom K47, 60 from K48, 120 from K49, and 50 from K50 (See Figure 2.1)

Figure 2.1: The study population

The study population is the current students from Hanoi Foreign TradeUniversity whose major is Business English (FBE students) Since these studentsare taught the same training program and skills, the author chooses the cohort studydesign which are based upon the existence of a common characteristic (RanjitKumar, 2005) In addition, a cross-sectional study design is also used to collectsuperficial information, which means that the author meets the study populationonly one time and then collects data after giving them the survey questionnaire(Ranjit Kumar, 2005)

2.1.3 Sampling

The study population is FBE students of four courses from K47 to K50, ofwhich the total number of students is not too large Therefore, the author decides toinclude all of the 265 FBE students in this survey As a result, the size of the sample

is the same as that of the study population

2.1.4 The setting

2.1.4.1 Faculty of Business English

Faculty of Business English (FBE) was firstly a Faculty of EnglishDepartment of Hanoi Foreign Trade University (FTU) Since June 2007, FBE hasbecome an independent functional faculty whose main mission is to educate andtrain Bachelors of Business English (full-time program, part-time program, andsecond major) After thirteen years of development, nine courses with more than1,000 Business English students from K38 to K 46 had graduated Currently, nineclasses with 265 students from K47 to K50 are continuing their academic workunder the dedicated guidance of more than twenty lecturers (FBE's official website,2012) The FBE of FTU has been positioned in the map of universities having thesame major, as well as highly appreciated by Vietnamese society (FTU QualityGuarantee Center, 2009) (See Figure 2.2)

Economics and Business - related subjects taught in FBE’s training programare divided into of three main areas of knowledge:

1 Fundamental knowledge: Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing, BusinessEnglish, Semantics, Phonetics

2 Knowledge of Literature and Culture: American – English literature,American – English culture, Business communication culture

3 Knowledge of Business English: Translating, Interpreting, Principles ofEconomics, International Business, International Marketing, Finance,Business Communication (Correspondence + Contract)

Figure 2.2: Society's selection for the best institutions training Business English

College of Foreign Languages - Hue University

Foreign Trade University University of Hanoi International Business

Academy of Finance

Source: FTU Quality Guarantee Center: A survey with 2739 samples in 10/2009

2.1.4.2 The students of Faculty of Business English

FBE students are those who own high research capacity and use Englishfluently in many fields, especially business and international commerce They havedeep knowledge of economics, business, and management; which helps them adaptrapidly to the international business environment, as well as understand thoroughlyabout culture, society, politics, and custom of vernacular countries

In addition, like most of the students of FTU, FBE students are very active.They take part in various extra-curricular activities both inside and outside theuniversity FBE students have proved their capacity in whatever national andinternational organizations that they present Another prominent characteristic ofFBE students is the eagerness to learn new things In short, FBE students are highlyqualified due to the fact that they are trained in such a professional educationenvironment

2.1.5 Measurement procedures

The survey uses a structured questionnaire Basing on the objective set, theauthor makes a list of eleven questions (See Appendix 2); of which, the first threequestions aim at determining an overview of the study of FBE students (K47 toK50) through their sources of information, level of trustworthiness on those sources,and reasons for that ranking The five - point Likert scale15 is used in the secondquestion The next four questions (number 4, 5, 6, and 7) are designed to understandcurrent situation of e-book usage of FBE students (K47 to K50) Question number 4four identifies the frequency of e-books usage of FBE students with five options tochoose Participants choosing the fourth or fifth options are directed to questionnumber five to explain why they choose those two options and then stop there;while the ones who select the left options continue from question number 6 to thelast one The sixth question clarifies how FBE students find and access e-books; andtheir purposes for using e-book are determined in question number seven Fromquestion number eight to question number ten, the author aims at identifyingevaluation of FBE students on e-book and its effectiveness in their study throughtheir preference between print books and e-books, their evaluation on e-books'roles, and their ranking of the importance of some common e-books' features Thelast open-end question is to take suggestions from FBE students to promote theeffectiveness of e-book usage in their learning process

Choosing the cross – sectional study design, thus, the author came to eachFBE class and directly distributed the questionnaire to each student The instructionwas read out loud in a neutral tone Questions from students were answered beforethey did the questionnaire As a result, the author delivered 230 questionnaires andreceived 220 completed questionnaires (95.65%), of which, 29 from K47, 48 fromK48, 97 from K49, and 46 from K50 After receiving all of the completedquestionnaires, the author came to process data through a code book, coded theprimary data, and then analyzed them

2.1.6 Problems and Limitations

15 Likert scale: is also known as the summated rating scale which based upon the assumption that each statement/item on the scale has equal "attitudinal value", "important", or "weight" in terms of reflecting an attitude towards the issue in question (Ranjit Kumar, 2005)

2.1.6.1 Problems

This survey is conducted when K47 students of FBE do not go to school andstay at home, which seems to be quite hard for the author to contact with all ofthem Besides, some mistakes may occur due to the wrong use of the instruction.The other problem is that students of K48, K49, and K50 are following creditsystem, so the number of students and members of each class are not the same.Therefore, it takes time to collect information from these courses, especially K49ones (totally 4 classes), and repetition can occur Some students may not attendclass on the day the questionnaires are delivered, the author will try the best tocontact them through their phone numbers and email addresses, but not all theabsentees could join the survey by this way

Another problem facing the author relates to research tool At first, theauthor chose two research tools: questionnaire and interview However, afterfulfilling the questionnaire, the author finds that it is not necessary to carry outinterviews as the needed information is stated clearly in the questionnaire.Furthermore, making an interview will cost too much time and money while onlythe author conducts this survey, so only questionnaire is used as the research tool 2.1.6.2 Limitations

As being said above, the author can not deliver the questionnaires to all FBEstudents The total number of study population is 265, including 35 students fromK47, 60 from K48, 120 from K49, and 50 from K50; but only 220 students takespart in this survey (both offline and online), which makes up of 83% In otherwords, the study population is not enough Thus, the result of the study may beaffected to some extents Moreover, the study is conducted within a short amount oftime and the author encounters many problems, so mistakes are unavoidable

2.1.7 Data collection

Primary data were collected after launching the questionnaire On 28 March

2012, the author went to each FBE class to deliver survey questionnaires Besides,the online survey also publicized (on the address:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?

formkey=dERva3ZsM2hIamVfOU80dHgtT19iZkE6MQ) to collect data from thosewho did not attend class on that day (this online survey existed in two weeks, fromMarch 28 to April 4) The actual number of students from these 4 courses is about

265 students However, due to some personal reasons of the respondents as well asdifficulties in contacting with all FBE students, this study population only consists

of 220 participants (83%) which include 29/35 students from K47 (82.86%), 48/60students from K48 (80%), 97/120 students from K49 (80.83%), and 46/50 studentsfrom K50 (92%) Of course, purely basing on this sample is not absolutely accurate

to assess the role of e-books in the study of the FBE students; but it has animportant part in helping the author evaluate and analyze the population

2.2 Data analysis

2.2.1 An overview of the K47 to K50 FBE students' study

FBE students are always highly valued for their virtues Like most of thestudents from FTU, FBE students are very keen on updating new teaching andlearning approaches in order to have more efficient and effective learning methods.This commendable characteristic makes FBE students interested in using e-book, anew product of technology, in their academic work

As a faculty specialized in language, particularly Business English, FBE usesmany foreign textbooks in its training program which are not popular or even notexisting in Vietnam's book market Besides, prices of those books are often too highfor students to afford Therefore, FBE students (especially K47 and K48 students)usually try to find electronic books to update edited or reprinted versions Somestudents even use electronic version of those books to experience a new learningmethod In addition, due to limited time in class (average 9 classes/subject, 60minutes/class), FBE lecturers often have to reduce and edit the amount of content ofsome books Take the book “Principles of Accounting” used in the subjectLanguage of Economics - Commerce 4 for example, lecturers have to edit a morethan 600 - page book into a 70 - page book filled with the most essential andfundamental information only So, students who want to widen and deepen theirknowledge are advised to find original books for reference Nowadays, with the

development of technology, most of those books are available in electronic version

on the Internet

Obviously, using print textbooks only is not enough for FBE students to dotheir assignments, research, and other learning activities Then, in the questionnaire,the author asks three first questions in order to explore more about the use ofinformation sources in the study of FBE students At least three factors contribute tothe reported use including kinds of resources, trustworthy of those resources, andcriteria to determine if a source of information is trustworthy or not Each resourcelikely has its own mix of these preference factors for each student within theirrespective environments and assignments

The initial survey question, designs to identify resources which FBE studentsoften use for their research and class assignments, receives 220 responses Of thetotal respondents, 76.8 % indicated using print textbooks for their study (see Figure2.3); the use of e-books by 88.2% of the students is largely an expression of thelikelihood they will find the material they need; 85% report using e-journals in theiracademic work

Figure 2.3: The use of information sources

88.2% 76.8%

E-books Print textbooks

Source: Survey “Current situation of e-book usage in the study of K47 to K50 FBE students”, March 2012 (Participants can select more than one selection, so percentages add up to more than 100%)

"Other" responses include the followings:

The second question is aimed to clarify types of resources that FBE studentsconsider trustworthy (accurate and reliable) for their study They were asked to rate

on a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 equivalent to not trustworthy and 5 equivalent to verytrustworthy

Figure 2.4 below shows that print books, e-books, and print-journals provideassurance of validity to the highest percentage of students in this survey Printbooks are viewed as to be trustworthy by higher percentages of students thanelectronic resources Specifically, 81% of students rank print textbooks at thehighest level of trustworthiness (number 5), while only 15 % of them think that e-books are very trustworthy, print journals shares the same percentage with e-books

at this level More than half of participants (55%) are likely to rate e-books atnumber 4 (equivalent to trustworthy), followed closely by 48% of print journals

The perceived viability of print is not surprisingly given the constant refrains

of caution about, and personal experience with, the reliability of information on theinternet versus print Students know that electronic information is transient and easy

to produce compared to the product and processes of print publication The barriers

to print publication afford an intuitive impression of higher integrity It is notable inthis survey that even though students report that they trust print resources more,

they still use e-resources more Students will use the information resources that getthe assignment done with the least amount of time and effort Another notable result

is that no student considers e-books as an untrustworthy source of information,which is a positive sign of FBE students’ perception on e-books

Figure 2.4: Trustworthiness level of common information sources

5 4 3 2 1

Source: Survey “Current situation of e-book usage in the study of K47 to K50 FBE students”, March 2012

By contrast, the last three options including forums, social networks, andpersonal websites are received little or no trustworthiness from FBE students Thisresult is reasonable because those resources mainly come from individuals withoutassurance The students think forums, social networks, and personal websites asplentiful sources of information, but they have to consider carefully, even ask forexperts/lecturers before using them The more information is available on theinternet, the more caution students to be

Question number 3 is designed to clarify which criteria FBE students use todetermine the trustworthiness level of each information source As being shown inFigure 2.5 below, 88% of the students select lectures as the primary source oftrustworthiness This high percent reflects the fact that lecturers always introduceresources which are considered to be useful and reliable by them The selection forpublishers reaches 72.7% Nowadays, publishers issue becomes a major concern of

the society Lecturers also require their students to select books from crediblepublishing houses The selection of publishers suggests awareness of peer reviewprocesses, which in turn is an indication of instruction by lecturers and faculty in theuse of information resources The number of students who place their trust inGoogle as a trustworthy resource is equivalent to 41% Google is the biggest searchengine (Alexa16, 2012), many people depend on it, and FBE students are not theexception

However, there is a disjuncture in the number of students who place trust inGoogle as trustworthy resource and the number who use it as a resource forassignment This disjunction can be understood as duplicitous, or student awareness

of the need for information integrity, an expression of trust in the knowledge oflecturers, and confidence that they know how to effectively use Google Besides,only 2 students (1%) report that information is information; they do not worry aboutits trustworthiness They say that they would use that information if it meets theirneeds

Figure 2.5: Sources of Trust

7%

1%

41%

96% 26%

74%

Other (please specify)

I don't worry about it Google or other search engine

It's from a well-known publisher

My friend recommends it

My lecturer recommends it

Source: Survey “Current situation of e-book usage in the study of K47 to K50 FBE students”, March 2012

(Participants can select more than one selection, so percentages add up to more than 100%)

16 Alexa is a California - based subsidiary company of Amazon.com that is known for its toolbar and website.

"Other" responses include the followings:

 Qualifications of author(s)

 Self-evaluation

In short, three first questions provide an overview of the FBE students'academic work, especially issues relating to sources of information when doingresearch and class assignments Again, these results are not completely exact, butthey give fundamental and reasonable information and statistics of the FBEstudents’ study life, as well as created good conditions for studying theeffectiveness of e-books in learning activities of FBE students in the next sections

2.2.2 Current situation of e-book usage in the study of the FBE students from K47 to K50

After nearly 15 years of existence and development in Vietnam, e-bookshave shown its significant roles in modern life, especially in the field of education

As mentioned in Chapter I, more and more Vietnamese educational and traininginstitutions begin using electronic resources (e-textbooks, e-reports, etc.) as aneffective instrument in their teaching and learning process, including the ForeignTrade University Particularly, FTU has introduced their very first e-library at theend of 2011with more than 5,000 digitalized books; 5,500 e-journals; as well as 5digital collections of subjects at all levels, PhD thesis, MA thesis, Graduation thesis,and the university’s textbooks (FTU' e-library, 2012) In addition, many expertsand lecturers themselves recommend their students to utilize benefits of e-books notonly in doing research and class assignments but also in their daily learningactivities All of these positive actions lead to the increase in e-book usage of FTUstudents in general, and FBE students in particular In order to gain a quitecomprehensive view on this matter, some questions (number 4, 5, 6, and 7) wereasked among the 220 participants

Question number 4 is designed to identify the frequency of e-books usage ofFBE students They are asked to select among: “very often”, “often”, “sometimes”,

“rarely”, and “never” Participants who choose “rarely” and “never” options are

directed to question number 5; while the ones who select the left options continuewith question number 6 Among 220 participants, there are 22 students (10%) whoreport that they rarely or never use e-books, in which, mostly from K50 (13responses, equal to 59%), 18% (4 responses) from K49, 23% (5 responses) fromK48, and no one from K47 (See Figure 2.6 and Figure 2.7) Besides, the resultscollected from K47, K48, and K49 are quite similar; but there is a distinctlydifferent number between students at K50 with the other courses (See Figure 2.8)

Figure 2.6: Frequency of e-books usage

(all FBE students)

Very often O ften Sometimes Rarely Never

Figure 2.7: Percentage of students never/ rarely using e-books by different courses

Source: Survey “Current situation of e-book usage in the study of K47 to K50 FBE students”, March 2012

Figure 2.8: Frequency of e-books usage (as of different courses)

Source: Survey “Current situation of e-book usage in the study of K47 to K50 FBE students”, March 2012