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Top1. Introduction
The current study arose out of an attempt to tackle three practical problems which were limiting the effectiveness of a university English for Academic Purpose (EAP) writing course preparing students for admission to an undergraduate or postgraduate degree. As perceived by the teachers, the first problem was a reluctance on the part of the students to buy the course text. From discussion with the students this appeared to be a purely financial calculation, i.e. they were reluctant to spend money on a textbook that they did not believe was central to their main degree programme and which they felt would be used for only 10 weeks during their degree. Neither students nor staff expressed dissatisfaction with the text itself, however. The second problem was that, although the university courses that the students were being prepared for assume competence in ICT and digital literacy skills, the EAP course was predominantly paper-based, with the students making little use of the online resources that were linked to the textbook. There was therefore some question about their level of digital literacy. The third problem was that, although the course adopted a process approach to teaching writing, there was limited time in class for the reflective and collaborative writing practice activities that such an approach depends on, there were practical difficulties in arranging collaboration outside class, and it was not always clear to what extent the students acknowledged the importance of revising and editing their writing.
To tackle these problems the staff therefore decided to explore the electronic delivery of the course materials in the form of an electronic textbook (e-textbook) (Hawkins, 2000), exploiting tools and services available within and external to the institution (Landoni, Wilson & Gibb, 2000; Rockinson-Szapkiw et al., 2013). Effective learning with such materials, however, would require the students, especially those from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) populations, to develop not only their language skills but, also a range of academic digital literacy skills (Walker, 2014; Zheng, Yim, & Warschauer, 2017) that would be essential for their degree studies.
An e-textbook of this kind would therefore potentially solve the first two problems the teachers had identified. The third problem of providing sufficient opportunity for reflection and collaboration outside class could be addressed through access to resources such as blogs, wikis, discussion forums, social-networking sites and cloud-based writing tools. The use of individual tools such as these to improve students’ language skills has been the subject of a number of studies (Kennedy & Levy, 2008; Johnson, 2008; Sun & Chang, 2012; Bikowski & Casal, 2018), although e-textbooks pose particular challenges for researchers and course designers, as they can involve not just one, but a combination of such tools (Landoni, Wilson & Gibb, 2000; Rockinson-Szapkiw et al., 2013).
The aim of the current study was therefore to identify a procedure for creating an e-textbook version of the printed textbook, hosted on the university Moodle Learning Management System, and to explore the effectiveness of the redesigned course delivery in tackling the problems identified in the original course, and student perceptions of that redesign. A blended learning approach was adopted, using the affordances of the technology to supplement the normal classroom-based work by encouraging online reflection, collaborative writing practice, and the development of digital literacy skills. Data from student journals, teacher observation and logs of online activity were analysed to explore the reactions of course participants to the e-textbook and the approach to teaching and learning, and the effect on their writing practice and digital literacy.