Announcing the Introduction to GIScience Collaborative Interactive Multimedia Textbook for iPad Project

The Introduction to GIScience iBook leverages the capabilities of iBooks to deliver rich, interactive content on the iPad. This iBook is designed to capture the attention of digital and mobile natives; the target audience is high school, community college and first year undergraduate university students. The price will be right as well: Free! Funding support for this project is through the National Science Foundation, GeoTech Center and SDSU Geography.

Here’s how to download the most recent version of the Introduction to GIScience iBook prototype to your iPad (delete old version from the iBook library on your iPad first):

  1. Make sure the iBooks app is installed (free download from App Store)
  2. Open the Safari app
  3. In Safari: Navigate to http://mappingideas.sdsu.edu:8080/Book/public/Download/view
    (Be sure to use the correct case)
  4. Click on the download icon or the adjacent text link to begin the download
  5. After the download completes, select Open in “iBooks”
  6. The iBooks app will open to the Introduction to GIScience iBook

The Introduction to GIScience iBook prototype includes Chapter 1, the first section of Chapter 2 and the rough outline for the rest of the textbook. We hope to encourage collaborators to contribute content for the other chapters in the iBook by demonstrating the potential of iBooks to enhance text with rich interactive multimedia content on a mobile internet-connected iPad. You do not need a Mac or iPad to participate as a contributor or reviewer. You may contribute your content in a standard format; we will integrate them into the iBook. Other roles in the development process where you may participate include:

Contributor: Contributes original content
Reviewer: Subject matter expert; verifies content
Editor: Integrates content into iBook
Reader: Reads iBook chapters; offers feedback

We hope that you will consider participating in the Introduction to GIScience iBook project!

Co-Editors:
Dr. Ming-Hsiang Tsou, Professor, San Diego State University
Cynthia Paloma, graduate student, San Diego State University

For more information, please contact Cynthia Paloma:  paloma@rohan.sdsu.edu