Interactive electronic book operating systems and methods

• US 8,352,876 B2
• Filed: 02/21/2008
• Issued: 01/08/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 02/21/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: University of Central Florida Research Foundation Inc. (State University System of Florida)
• Original Assignee: University of Central Florida Research Foundation Inc. (State University System of Florida)
• Inventors: Batarseh, Issa, Haddad, Ghaith, Oreifej, Rashad, Al-Haddad, Rawad
• Primary Examiner(s): Vu, Kieu
• Assistant Examiner(s): Bycer, Eric J
• Application Number:
  US12/034,935
• Publication Number:
  US 20080222552A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,783 Days
• Field of Search: 715/776, 345/901, 446/147, 708/250, 708/254, 708/255
• US Class Current: 715/776
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/0291 for reading, e.g. e-books constructional details of portable computers G06F1/1613
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0483 Interaction with page-structured environments, e.g. book metaphor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04847 Interaction techniques to control parameter settings, e.g. interaction with sliders or dials
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 7/582 Pseudo-random number generators
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/60 Editing figures and text; Combining figures or text
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 23/185 for building block systems
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 23/186 for digital electronics; for computers, e.g. microprocessors
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 5/02 with visual presentation of the material to be studied, e.g. using film strip
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 5/125 the stations being mobile
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 7/00 Electrically-operated teaching apparatus or devices working with questions and answers mechanically operated G09B3/00; computing arrangements G06F
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 7/02 of the type wherein the student is expected to construct an answer to the question which is presented or wherein the machine gives an answer to the question presented by a student
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 7/04 characterised by modifying the teaching programme in response to a wrong answer, e.g. repeating the question, supplying a further explanation
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 7/073 all student stations being capable of presenting the same questions simultaneously
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 7/077 different stations being capable of presenting different questions simultaneously
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 345/901 Electronic book with display

Abstract

Interactive electronic book operating systems and methods for displaying and allowing customization of content of scientific, engineering and other technical and professional digital books. The display screen can include icons for forward and backward page turning, generating of dynamic indexing and tables of contents, bookmarking, color themes, floating pages, highlighting, adding sticky notes, hiding selected content on the pages, quizzing the reader, lecturing the reader, tutoring the reader, showing the reader additional designs and practical relevance, and allowing the instructor to generate uniform seed numbers for problems and designs and/or allowing the instructor to generate random seed values for problems and designs.

Claims

1. An interactive electronic operating system for science, engineering and other technical and professional books, comprising:

a computer platform having a single viewing screen, the single viewing screen for displaying pages of an open book;

a digital book having contents selected from the group consisting solely of a scientific topic and a technical topic stored in the computer platform;

at least one image on the viewing screen for replicating a complete open page of the digital book;

an icon menu on the viewing screen including;

a page flipping icon on the viewing screen for allowing backward flipping of pages of the digital book, and forward flipping of pages of the digital book;

a dynamic index icon for creating and using a dynamic index that allows the user to search for a keyword and search string in a specific chapter, section, and displayed pages, save search results to the dynamic index, add a new item to the dynamic index, and delete an existing item from the dynamic index, the dynamic index including a default index created by a publisher and an arrow to return to an original location; and

a dynamic table of contents icon on the screen that activates a dynamic table of contents module, the dynamic table of contents module allowing the user to customize a table of contents of sections and chapters and parts of the open book, the dynamic table of contents module comprising;

a default table of contents;

a dynamic table of contents selectable by the user, each dynamic table of contents identified by at least one of a table of content name, description, creation date and last modified date, each dynamic table of contents including selectable chapters and sections that are modified by the user and saved in a database; and

a customized table of content profile developed by an instructor for a course, the customized table of content profile including chapters and sections designed by the instructor to meet the instructor'"'"'s course and imported into the dynamic table of content of a student in the course, the digital book material adjusted in accordance with the selected customized table of content profile.

2. The interactive electronic operating system of claim 1 further comprising:

a quiz me icon on the screen that activates a quiz me module, the quiz me module allowing the user to selectively take interactive tests on any section and chapter of the open book.

3. The interactive electronic operating system of claim 2, further comprising:

a tutor me icon on the screen that activates a tutor me module, the tutor me module allowing the user to be interactively tutored with additional teaching materials on any section and chapter of the open book, the tutor me module comprising;

a login to allow the user to select one of a login mode or an anonymous mode;

a first tutor session combining a lecture me module and a quiz me module;

a problem solving session requiring a student to input an equation as a solution to a problem, the system analyzing, expanding and chopping the equation into terms to compare term by term to a correct term and display an error message corresponding to the term by term comparison.

4. The interactive electronic operating system of claim 3 further comprising:

a timer running in a background to estimate a time period spent by the student on a section of the digital book to determine a level of quiz problems.

5. The interactive electronic operating system of claim 4, further comprising:

a seed generator icon on the screen that activates a seed generator module, the seed generator module allowing an instructor to selectively insert a different selected value for at least one problem or design in the open book.

6. The interactive electronic operating system of claim 5 wherein the seed generator module comprises:

an assignable seed corresponding to a fixed variable in a drill problem, design example, quiz and end of chapter problem;

a seed selection to allow the instructor to select one of;

a different seed for each student to solve a different drill problem, design example, quiz and end of chapter questions,

a same seed for each student to solve the same drill problem, design example, quiz and end of chapter questions; and

a random seed assigned to each student to solve the different random drill problem, design example, quiz and end of chapter questions.

7. The interactive electronic operating system of claim 6 further comprising:

plural pages each having multiple layers containing analysis of a topic with different difficulty levels, each page containing up to four different levels of difficulty, each of the up to four levels including up to four different techniques of solutions, each technique being either symbolic or numerical.

11. The interactive electronic operating system of claim 1 further comprising:

a problem solving session requiring a student to input a symbolic equation as a solution to the problem, the system analyzing the symbolic equation, expanding and chopping the symbolic equation into terms to compare term by term to a correct term and display an error message corresponding to the term by term comparison.

8. An interactive electronic operating system for science, engineering and other technical and professional books, comprising:

a computer platform having a single viewing screen, the single viewing screen for displaying pages of an open book;

a digital book having contents selected from the group consisting solely of a scientific topic and a technical topic stored in the computer platform;

at least one image on the viewing screen for replicating a complete open page of the digital book;

plural pages each having up to four different difficulty layers, each of the up to four different difficulty layers containing text on a topic at a different level of difficulty, different techniques of solutions, each technique being selectable as either purely symbolic or purely numerical, and a set of rolling images each having the same elements arranged in a different configuration, the rolling images including an arrow for switching between images in the set;

an icon menu on the viewing screen including—

a page flipping icon on the viewing screen for allowing backward flipping of pages of the digital book, and forward flipping of pages of the digital book that includes increasing and decreasing a displayed thickness of the pages based on current flipping;

a quiz me icon on the screen that activates a quiz me module, the quiz me module allowing the user to select one of a login mode or an anonymous mode, to selectively take interactive tests to solve plural multiple choice questions on any section and chapter of the open book within a selected time period, and providing feedback to the user at the end of the quiz;

a seeded content corresponding to end of chapter drill problems, practice designs and quiz to allow an instructor to selectively assign a different seed for each student so that plural students each solve the same problem with different seed values for fixed values in each drill problem, practice design or quiz resulting in a different answer or to selectively assign a same seed value for a class to solve the same drill problems, practice designs and quiz resulting in the same answer; and

a dynamic table of contents icon on the screen that activates a dynamic table of contents module, the dynamic table of contents module allowing the user to customize a table of contents of sections and chapters and parts of the open book, the dynamic table of contents module comprising;

a default table of contents created by the publisher that cannot be deleted by the user;

a dynamic table of contents selectable by the user, each dynamic table of contents identified by at least one of a table of content name, description, creation date and last modified date, each dynamic table of contents including selectable chapters and sections that are modified by the user and saved in a database;

a customized table of content profile developed by an instructor for a course, the customized table of content profile including chapters and sections designed by the instructor to meet the instructor'"'"'s course and imported into the dynamic table of content of a student in the course, the digital book material added and deleted to/from the viewable contents of the digital book in accordance with the selected customized table of content profile;

an import/export table of content option to allow the user to export the selected table of content to an external file and to import the exported table of contents to a different stored digital book; and

a manage profiles option to view a list of table of content profiles showing the default table of content, one or more dynamic table of contents, the customized table of content and the imported table of content each identified with a name, description, creation date and last modified date to allow the user to select one of the listed table of content profiles as the active table of contents for the digital book, to add a new table of contents, update an existing table of content, and delete one of the listed table of contents.

9. The interactive electronic operating system of claim 8, further comprising:

a tutor me icon on the screen that activates a tutor me module, the tutor me module allowing the user to be interactively tutored with additional teaching materials on any section and chapter of the open book;

the tutor me module comprising;

a log in session to allow the student to log into the tutor session or to enter the tutor session anonymously;

a timer to time the students tutor session for responding to multiple problems in a quiz and record the students response to the problem; and

a feedback to display solutions to incorrect answers.

10. The interactive electronic operating system of claim 9 further comprising:

a timer running in a background to estimate a time period spent by the student on a section of the digital book to determine a level of quiz problems.

12. The system of claim 8, further comprising:

a dynamic index icon for creating and using a dynamic index that allows the user to search for a keyword and search string in a specific chapter, section, and displayed pages, save search results to the dynamic index, add a new item to the dynamic index, and delete an existing item from the dynamic index, the dynamic index including a default index created by a publisher and an arrow to return to an original location.

13. An interactive electronic operating system for science, engineering and other technical and professional books, comprising:

a computer platform having a single viewing screen, the single viewing screen for displaying pages of an open book;

a digital book having contents selected from the group consisting solely of a scientific topic and a technical topic stored in the computer platform;

at least one image on the viewing screen for replicating a complete open page of the digital book;

an icon menu on the viewing screen including;

a sequential page flipping icon on the viewing screen for allowing backward flipping of pages of the digital book, and forward flipping of pages of the digital book; and

a section title along an edge of the page displayed when the user moves a cursor over a left or right edge of the page and to allow the user to click on a corresponding section title to open a section corresponding to the section title;

a lecture me icon that links to one or more of an animation, a video and an audio lecture content stored in a database that corresponds to a topic in the section;

a tutor me icon on the screen that activates a tutor me module, the tutor me module allowing the user to be interactively tutored with additional teaching materials on any section and chapter of the open book, the tutor me module comprising;

a login to allow the user to select one of a login mode or an anonymous mode;

a first tutor session combining a lecture me module and a quiz me module;

a problem solving session requiring a student to input a symbolic equation as a solution to the problem, the system analyzing the symbolic equation, expanding and chopping the symbolic equation into terms to compare term by term to a correct term and display an error message corresponding to the term by term comparison; and

a symbolic simulation tool for linear electronic circuits for a user to obtain a symbolic time response and frequency response corresponding to a node of an electrical circuit.

14. The interactive electronic operating system of claim 13 wherein the tutor me module further comprises:

a log in session to allow the student to log into the tutor session or to enter the tutor session anonymously;

a timer to time the students tutor session for responding to multiple problems in a quiz and record the students response to the problem; and

a feedback to display to solutions to incorrect answers.

15. The interactive electronic operating system of claim 14 further comprising:

a dynamic table of contents icon on the screen that activates a dynamic table of contents module, the dynamic table of contents module allowing the user to customize a table of contents of sections and chapters and parts of the open book, the dynamic table of contents module comprising;

a default table of contents;

a dynamic table of contents selectable by the user, each dynamic table of contents identified by at least one of a table of content name, description, creation date and last modified date, each dynamic table of contents including selectable chapters and sections that are modified by the user and saved in a database; and

a customized table of contents developed by an instructor for a course and imported into the dynamic table of content of the student.

16. The interactive electronic operating system of claim 13 further comprising:

a seed generator icon on the screen that activates a seed generator module, the seed generator module comprising;

an assignable seed corresponding to a fixed variable in a drill problem, design example, quiz and end of chapter problem;

a seed selection to allow an instructor to select one of;

a different seed for a different student for each student to solve a different drill problem, design example, quiz and end of chapter questions,

a same seed for each student to solve the same drill problem, design example, quiz and end of chapter questions; and

a random seed assigned to each student to solve to solve the different random drill problem, design example, quiz and end of chapter questions.

17. The interactive electronic operating system of claim 13 further comprising:

a quiz me icon on the screen that activates a quiz me module, the quiz me module allowing the user to selectively take interactive tests on any section and chapter of the open book.

18. The system of claim 13 wherein the book is an electrical engineering book further comprising:

an electronic lecture content to introduce a method for circuit analysis, a theory behind the circuit analysis, and equations used to apply the circuit analysis;

a difficulty level selection to allow the user to select a level of difficulty combined with a arrow button to switch between levels of difficulty; and

an interactive problem solving session to allow the user to contribute to a solution of a circuit by inputting solution equations and receiving feedback on the validity of the inputted solution equations.

19. The system of claim 18 wherein the symbolic simulation tool comprises:

an interactive linear/switching symbolic circuit solver module for a user to draw the electronic circuit using a graphic editor;

a set of instructions executable on the computer platform consisting essentially of;

a netlist set of instructions to convert the drawn circuit into a netlist of node data corresponding to the circuit;

a matrix set of instructions to populate an indefinite admittance matrix from the netlist data for the drawn circuit;

one or more output nodes selected by the user;

a set of instructions to compute determinant and cofactors symbolically;

a display set of instruction to reduce the computed cofactors to a s-function form and display transfer functions;

a set of instructions to substitute circuit component values into the transfer function, extract a root of the s-function denominator, and applying Lafuerre'"'"'s method to find poles and residues; and

a set of instructions to apply a symbolic inverse Laplace Transform to construct a time response and graphically plotting the response with respect to time.

20. An interactive electronic operating system for science, engineering and other technical and professional books, comprising:

a computer platform having a single viewing screen, the single viewing screen for displaying pages of an open book;

a digital book having contents selected from the group consisting solely of a scientific topic and a technical topic stored in the computer platform;

at least one image on the viewing screen for replicating a complete open page of the digital book;

an icon menu on the viewing screen including;

a sticky note icon to allow the user to write a note and attach the written note to an object in the digital book, to delete a note previously attached, to manage notes by listing notes attached in the digital book and to select one note and view page on which the note is attached;

a page flipping icon on the viewing screen for allowing backward flipping of pages of the digital book, and forward flipping of pages of the digital book with animated page flipping, the page flipping icon including page flipping arrow displayed on the right and left corner of each page to control page flipping direction, page flipping speed and group page flipping;

a key points to remember message displayed at an end to a topic to remind the user of key points on the topic;

an attachment icon to allow the user to attach a file including a presentation, an audio/video file and an image to the object, delete an attachment, and manage attachments in the digital book;

plural pages each having up to four different difficulty layers, each of the up to four different difficulty layers containing text on a topic at a different level of difficulty, different techniques of solutions, each technique being selectable as either purely symbolic or purely numerical, and a set of rolling images each having the same elements arranged in a different configuration, the rolling images including an arrow for switching between images in the set;

a lecture me module that includes one or more of a video, audio and animation about a selected subject;

a tutor me icon that combines the lecture me module with a quiz feature to compare a user'"'"'s solution to a problem to a correct answer including checking the number of terms in the solution, analyzing plural terms, and making a term by term comparison and displaying an appropriate message selected from one or more of “

wrong sign,”

“

wrong term,”

“

too many terms,”

or “

missing a term,”

in response to the comparison that identifies error in the user'"'"'s solution, allow the user to view the correct answer; and

a seed generator icon on the screen that activates a seed generator module, the seed generator module allowing an instructor to selectively insert a different selected value for at least one drill problem, or design example, quiz or end of chapter problem in the open book, the seed generator module including an assignable seed corresponding to a fixed variable in a drill problem, design example, quiz and end of chapter problem;

a seed selection to allow an instructor to select one of;

a different seed for each student to solve a different drill problem, design example, quiz and end of chapter questions,

a same seed for each student to solve the same drill problem, design example, quiz and end of chapter questions; and

a random seed assigned to each student to solve the different random drill problem, design example, quiz and end of chapter questions.

21. The interactive electronic operating system of claim 20 further comprising:

a dynamic table of contents icon on the screen that activates a dynamic table of contents module, the dynamic table of contents module allowing the user to customize a table of contents of sections and chapters and parts of the open book, the dynamic table of contents module comprising;

a default table of contents set as a default profile that contains the material from the entire digital book that is protected and cannot be deleted by a user;

a dynamic index icon for creating and using a dynamic index that allows the user to search for a keyword and search string in a specific chapter, section, and displayed pages, save search results to the dynamic index, add a new item to the dynamic index, and delete an existing item from the dynamic index, the dynamic index including a default index created by a publisher and an arrow to return to an original location;

a

a dynamic table of contents selectable by the user, each dynamic table of contents identified by at least one of a table of content name, description, creation date and last modified date, each dynamic table of contents including selectable chapters and sections that are modified by the user and saved in a database; and

a customized table of contents developed by the instructor for a course and imported into the dynamic table of content of the student.

22. The interactive electronic operating system of claim 20 further comprising:

a timer running in a background to estimate a time period spent by a student on a section of the book to determine a level of quiz problems.