Electronic books as teaching supplements

The next wave of the computer revolution in Engineering education is the implementation of the electronic book as an important supplement to course materials. It can contain everything that a printed text contains, but it can also incorporate self-pasting problem statements, live worksheets, and multimedia elements. The electronic book is an editable document, allowing each student to incorporate his/her own notes from classroom discussion or self-study. Problem solutions can be provided at the click of a mouse, and these are also editable. Distribution can be as simple as a file drag and drop into a public server directory. Commercially available tools now make the creation of electronic documents as easy as using a word processor. The example that forms the basis of this presentation is a Mathcad electronic book that has been used for two years by students in a Freshman/Sophomore course on Material and Energy Balances. The document is described briefly, but the focus is on an instructor´s investment in time and resources required to produce such items for classroom use