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

FOREIGN TRADE UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF BUSINESS ENGLISH

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


i

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

Table 1.1: Milestones in the evolution of e-book..................................................................6
Table 1.2: Comparing among three most common of e-books' formats........................14
Figure 2.1: The study population.........................................................................................18
Figure 2.2: Society's selection for the best institutions training Business English.......20
Figure 2.3: The use of information sources........................................................................24
Figure 2.4: Trustworthiness level of common information sources................................26
Figure 2.5: Sources of Trust..................................................................................................27
Figure 2.6: Frequency of e-books usage (all FBE students).............................................29
...................................................................................................................................................29
Figure 2.7: Percentage of students never/...........................................................................29
rarely using e-books by different courses...........................................................................29

...................................................................................................................................................29
Figure 2.8: Frequency of e-books usage (as of different courses)...................................29
Figure 2.9: Reasons for rarely/never using e-books..........................................................31
Figure 2.10: How to find e-books.........................................................................................32
Figure 2.11: Purposes for using e-books.............................................................................33
Figure 2.12: Preferences for e-books over print books.....................................................35
Figure 2.13: Evaluation on e-book usage’s effectiveness role in the study....................35
Figure 2.14: Valued e-book features....................................................................................36


i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my gratitude to a number of people who pleasantly
involved themselves in helping me complete this Graduation thesis.
I am grateful to all lecturers of Hanoi Foreign Trade University, especially
lecturers of Faculty of Business English for their precious knowledge and tireless
devotion which stimulated me to follow the studies at the university and to write up
this thesis.
I am deeply indebted to my supervisor Ms.…, MBA – lecturer of Faculty of
Business English whose invaluable encouragement, careful guidance; and helpful
feedback from the initial to the final level enabled me to develop a comprehensive
understanding of the subject.
I owe my deepest gratitude to all lecturers and students of Faculty of
Business English who participated in the survey. I would like to thank them for
their 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 and
friends whose patient love helped me overcome all stressful hours and enabled me
to complete this work.

ii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
CHM

Compiled HTML Help File

DOC

Document

DRM

Digital Rights Management

FBE

Faculty of Business English

FTU

Foreign Trade University

ICT

Information and Communication Technology

NEU

National Economics University

OEB

Open E-book

PDF

Portable Document Format

VINAPO

Vinapo Online Services and Software Development
Joint Stock Company


iii

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........................14
Figure 2.1: The study population.........................................................................................18
Figure 2.2: Society's selection for the best institutions training Business English.......20
Figure 2.3: The use of information sources........................................................................24
Figure 2.4: Trustworthiness level of common information sources................................26
Figure 2.5: Sources of Trust..................................................................................................27
Figure 2.6: Frequency of e-books usage (all FBE students).............................................29
...................................................................................................................................................29
Figure 2.7: Percentage of students never/...........................................................................29

rarely using e-books by different courses...........................................................................29
...................................................................................................................................................29
Figure 2.8: Frequency of e-books usage (as of different courses)...................................29
Figure 2.9: Reasons for rarely/never using e-books..........................................................31
Figure 2.10: How to find e-books.........................................................................................32
Figure 2.11: Purposes for using e-books.............................................................................33
Figure 2.12: Preferences for e-books over print books.....................................................35
Figure 2.13: Evaluation on e-book usage’s effectiveness role in the study....................35
Figure 2.14: Valued e-book features....................................................................................36


1

INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
In the past decades, the world has witnessed an incredible development of
Internet. In Vietnam, according to the "Vietnam Net Index" report from Yahoo 1,
there were 28 million Internet users in 2010, ranked 6 th in Asia. The increasing
penetration of Internet in every area of life has been changing significantly reading
patterns and reading behavior. Along with the introduction of Internet, digital
content has appeared to reach critical masses. The ubiquity of digital content has
created inestimable value in making more information available to more users, of
which, e-books are the latest entrant into this field. In spite of being a newly born
technology, e-books have been received much attention; and surely, the progress
toward e-books can only move forward. Besides, technical development and
sophistication of reading devices provide users a more interesting and different
experience when using e-books. Currently, there is no official statistics on numbers
of e-book users in Vietnam, but according to Mr…., Tiki Shop 2 CEO, hundreds of ereaders was sold in peak months, which demonstrates that using e-books is
becoming a habit of Vietnamese.
In the field of education, e-books have increasingly proved its important

roles. E-books provide substantial advantages to both lecturers and students such as
24/7 access, simultaneous user access, wider selection, immediate update, full text
searching, and so on. Many lecturers and students recognize that e-books offer an
ideal opportunity to enhance their research experiences. In Vietnam, although ebook 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 are
taught 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 FBE
curriculum are foreign ones which are not popular or even do not appear in
Vietnam'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.


2
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 a
large percentage. The FBE lecturers also recommend their students to use electronic
version of some books for more comprehensive understandings.
In order to have an overview on the usage and the increasingly important
roles 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 some
recommendations 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 to
K50?
(2) How do the FBE students from K47 to K50 evaluate e-book and its
effectiveness in their study life?
(3) What recommendations should be made to promote effectiveness of e-book
usage 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 an
overview of e-book usage in the study of FBE students from K47 to K50 and some
general 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, Hanoi
Foreign Trade University are involved in the conducted survey, results from
students of other courses or faculties or universities (if any) will not be used.


3

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 about
e-books and relating issues. Besides, the author also conducts a survey with a
structured 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 this
survey in the class will be sent an online version with the same structure and
content through their email addresses. More details will be discussed later in
Chapter II of this graduation thesis.
5. Structure of the thesis
Apart from the introduction, conclusion, table of contents, appendixes, list of

abbreviations, and list of tables and figures; this graduation thesis will be divided
into 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.


4

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 in
the digital era. E-book is coming to be a new trend in the world of Information and
Communication 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 20114.
Understanding precisely about "What is e-book?" is essential to use it
properly 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 a
result, e-book has been defined in various ways. Simply, e-book is an electronic
version 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-book
computer or on a dedicated, portable device with a large storage capacity and the
ability to download new titles through a network connection (Cox, Andrew and
Mohammed, 2001). PC Magazine Encyclopedia (2012) defines e-book (Electronicbook) as “The electronic counterpart of a printed book, which can be viewed on a

desktop 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 in
digital form produced on, published by, and readable on computers or other digital
devices. E-books are presented visually or aurally, with the audio book as a
precursor 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?”


5
Components other than text have been considered enhancements, including
multimedia (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 that
the first e-book might be the Index Thomisticus prepared by Roberto Busa in the
late 1940s. Others believe that e-books had been developed in the mid-1960s, with
the NLS project headed by Doug Engelbart at Stanford Research Institute, and the

Hypertext Editing System and FRESS project headed by Andries van Dam at
Brown University (Steven J. Derose and Andries van Dam, 1999). Alternatively, ebooks are considered by some to be born in 1971, with the first steps of Project
Gutenberg found by Michael Hart, a digital library for books from public domain
(Cameron Chapman, 2009). Even being counted from the time of the newest
hypothesis (i.e. from 1971), e-book is more than 40 years old already; however, this
duration is still a fraction if being compared with five century of development of
print books. In the 1990s, Internet became popular, making transference of
electronic files much easier, including e-books. However, e-books were not paid
much attention until the online publication of Stephen King’s novella riding the
Bullet in March 2000. Within 24 hours, the text had been downloaded by 400,000
computer users (Mahajan and Chakravarty, 2007). Since then, booksellers have
begun selling books online within and outside their home country and posting
books' description and excerpts on their websites. Libraries have created websites as
a virtual window, more and more e-libraries began coming into life. Newspapers
and magazines have begun being available online, as well as their archives. Some
journals have come to be only electronic to limit the costs of print publishing.


6
Authors have begun creating websites/blogs to introduce and self-publish their
works without publishing or while waiting to find a publisher. New online
bookstores have begun selling e-books only. Aggregators have partnered with
publishers to produce and sell digital versions of their books.
Followings are some milestones in the evolution of e-book from the
beginning until now:
Table 1.1: Milestones in the evolution of e-book
Late 1940s/ First e-book was born. (not confirmed)
mid-1960s
1971

Project Gutenberg was the first digital library.

1990

The web boosted the internet.

1993

The Online Books Page was a list of free ebooks.

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.

2007

- Various electronic devices have been

present

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 been
introducing new formats, manufacturers are building new devices, companies are


7
creating new business models, and – most importantly – new readers are making the
leap from paper books to e-books. Experts agree that e-books and e-readers are
getting up speed and are ready to make the breakthrough that will significantly
change 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 expectations
for the digital future of the book industry. If markets for legal e-books are to

become established, and if publishers are to be able to benefit from the
development, so all providers can consider the process of digitizing the book
industry as an opportunity of establishing book reading as a popular leisure time
occupation in all target groups, including the younger generation. E-books will not
replace print book but will be available in parallel with them and will stimulate
reading behavior.
The e-book market is in its infancy, particularly with regard to mass market
publishers. There are two factors will significantly foster the development of the
market and pave the way to a mass market including attractive devices and
availability of content (Werner Ballhaus, 2010). Nowadays, it is important that
consumers are able to access a choice of attractive devices. Besides, a wide range of
available e-books is also a key factor. Before, one of the main reasons for limit
number of e-book usage regards to the shortage of e-books. Many publishers now
recognize the attractiveness of opportunities created by e-books which impulse
them to significantly expand their e-book portfolio, as well as publish new books in
both print and digital form. As mentioned before, additional content is a crucial
criterion because it creates added value for consumers and opens up further revenue
possibilities in the digital environment. However, it is necessary to consider how
added value can be offered to consumers with publisher’s content and also what
services would have to be developed to make the content interesting.


8
Besides, challenges facing e-book usage status include high prices of e-books
and electronic reading devices, the lack of compatibility of the devices with
different formats, and restrictions posed by digital rights management 5 (DRM)
(Werner Ballhaus, 2010). Pricing e-book is still a controversial topic. There are
major differences among experts with regard to the pricing of e-books. Overall,
approximately half of industry representatives consider that a discount of between
20% and 30% compared with the price of printed book is necessary to kick-start the

market (Werner Ballhaus, 2010). Consumers are less willing to pull money out of
their wallets for e-books because of being still unfamiliar with owning intangible
objects. Therefore, online bookstores, intermediaries, and device manufacturers
believe that publishers should permit a reasonable discount. However, in the
opinion of publishers, this does not appear to be very acceptable. Even some
publishers also suggest that the prices of e-books should be higher than the prices of
print ones if the e-books contain advanced features, especially multimedia
enrichments.
Although the attractiveness of e-readers is praised by many experts, prices of
them are still too high. Currently, an e-reader costs average US$135 while
according to customers; an ideal e-reader should cost no more than US$70 (Allen
McKiel, 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. Ebook formats and file types continue to develop and change through time through
advances and developments in technology or the introduction of new proprietary
formats. Print books remain readable for more than 1,000 years (Hidehiko
Nakanishi, 2009), while e-books may need to be copied or converted to a new
carrier or file type over time.
Due to DRM, customers typically cannot resell or loan their e-books to other
readers. This policy allows the user to read e-books on many devices, but not to
transfer 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).


9
expect that cumbersome DRM will be eliminated and that development on the ebook market will follow those that have been seen on the music market. Music
publishers abandoned DRM in spring 2009, after a lengthy battle against file

sharing. Nevertheless, it is believed that consumers are still interested in e-books
and the e-book market will breakthrough in years to come.
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 as
print, just in digital form. The e-book of the not-too-distant future will be much
more than text. Interactivity has arrived and will change the nature of the e-book.
For example, imagine video that demonstrates a chemical reaction or solves
complex math problems in statistics; audio that pronounces foreign language words
as you read them, and assessment that lets users check whether they you remember
and comprehend what they just read or not. These interactive features are being
developed 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 these
efforts 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 ereader software that will work on multiple other devices (Kindle 6 also works on the
iPad7, iPhone8, etc., for example), consumers can care less about the device and
more about user experience of e-reader software, portability of titles from one
device to another, and access to a full catalogue of titles.
Publishers will be more important than ever. Despite the hype around selfpublishing via the web, publishing houses will play an even greater role in the ebook world. Commodity content is everywhere (and largely free), so high-quality
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).

10
edited content will be worth a premium. At McGraw-Hill9, the average technical
and reference book engages teams of editors, copy editors, proofreaders and
designers 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 greater
user and learning experience. Furthermore, with the huge amount of content being
served on the web, customers will seek and pay expert content providers that
aggregate and contextualize information for them efficiently and provide highly
accurate and specific search options. Publishers with expertise and resources in
these and emerging areas will be the ones that write the new rules of e-book
industry.
1.2.4. The evolution of e-books in Vietnam
On 19 November 1997, Internet was officially introduced in Vietnam. At the
same time, e-book appeared and step by step changed the reading behavior of
Vietnamese people; however, it was still considered as pirated book or copyright
infringement in the early days. After nearly fifteen years of development, e-books
have made some significant advances, especially in the fields of training and
education; however, Vietnam is still held back from making full use of its
opportunities. Actually, e-books are now a serious option in Vietnam.
One of the biggest problems is that Vietnamese Government as well as
Ministry 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, particularly
e-book exploitation companies (publishers, bookstores, device manufactures, etc.).
Another obvious reason is that most of publishers themselves have not joint hands
with e - reader providers in order to develop this special product in Vietnam. In
Computex 201010, when being asked about the cooperation plan with providers, an
official 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.


11
of publishers, developing e-books is not an easy task, in which the major barriers
maybe copyright problems and Digital Rights Management (DRM) ties. Besides,
some issues as constraints to the growth of e-books are defined as massive concern
about the revenue of e-books, preference of Vietnamese people on print books to ebooks, etc.
Nevertheless, there is "a light at the end of the tunnel". Since 2005, some
private enterprises have caught the developing trend of online bookstores in other
countries 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 the
company is the largest online bookstore in Vietnam with more than 30,000 book
titles. 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 the
market by providing e-readers in Vietnam. The result was totally surprising; one or
two e-readers were sold each day without any marketing or sale promotion program.

Also in 2011, Vinapo Online Services and Software Development Joint
Stock 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 ebooks - a promising land.


12
In 2010, Tre Publishing House announced to join hands with Viettel, Tinh
Van Information Technology joint stock Company, and Viet Thong Minh Media
joint stock Company to exploit e-books. In June 2011, the publishing house of
National 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 signals
for the future of e-book in Vietnam as IDGVV indicates that Vietnam e-commerce
market 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 has
been expanding continuously; but the avenue has not formed a certain scale and
does 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 about
the interest of both authors and publishing houses. However, there are still large
quantities of books whose copyright issues need solving. The number of e-book
users has increased significantly and changed from organization users to internet
users, mobile users and others who own special reading equipments. Despite the
lack of unified standards; both the quantity and quality of e-books have developed
rapidly in the past fifteen years. Surely, the development of e-books in Vietnam will
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 common
formats of e-books that can be read by most of devices as well as operating systems.
1.3.1. DOC (Document)


13
DOC is the most popular and simple e-book format created by Microsoft
Word software. This format can contain text, images, tables, charts, etc.; and it is
easy to copy and share all of these contents. This convenience makes DOC become
one of the most favorite formats of technology addicts.
The best way to open a DOC file is to use MS Word; however, in case users
can not afford to own an official MS Office of Microsoft, choosing Writer in the
free application OpenOffice.org is another solution. Besides, Google Docs,
ThinkFree Office, Zoho Office, etc. may be other useful tools to approach this most
common format of e-book. From MS Office 2007 version, Microsoft has provided
DOCX using Open XML, which helps storage content better as well as reduces file
size.
1.3.2. PDF (Portable Document Format)

PDF stands for Portable Document Format launched by Adobe Systems Inc 12
in 1993 (Tim Bienz, Richard Cohn and James R. Meehan, 1996). PDF is suitable
for richly formatted documents including textbooks, magazines and similar
publications. Moreover, users can reproduce visually rich books by positioning text
and images within a PDF file. This format is often component of a production
workflow which makes creating electronic versions totally simple.
PDF was considered by Joe Eschbach, Vice President of Adobe's ePaper
Solutions Group13, as a reliable digital master because PDF acts as a complete
wrapper containing all fonts, images, and text used within a document.
Consequently, PDF is becoming increasingly used in the workflows of prepress
agencies and professional print production. It is a reasonably easy process to
redirect 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 are
free to work with PDF files including Foxit PDF Creator package and Reader of
Foxit 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).
13


14
OEB is suitable for trade books, simple text and graphics. The Open eBook
Publication Structure Specification 1.01 provides a specification for representing
the content of electronic books. From the latest edition, July 2, 2001, of the
specification, its purposes are to give content providers and tool providers minimal
and common guidelines which ensure fidelity, accuracy, accessibility, and
presentation of electronic content over various electronic book platforms, to reflect

established content format standards, to provide the purveyors of electronic-book
content a format for use in providing content to multiple reading systems.
OEB is a non-proprietary specification that specifies e-book file format and
structure. OEB is based on XML, well-formed not valid and is expected to comply
with XHTML. An OEB package file specifies the OEB documents, images and
other objects that comprise the ‘publication’. No means is defined for physically
bundling files together (zip, tar, etc…)
1.3.4. CHM (Compiled HTML Help File)
CHM is used to save documents which are compiled under HTML 14 and
compressed in one file only. Users often create e-books by CHM due to its good
capacity 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 other
less common ones such as PRC, LIT, PDB, PS, RB, etc. The following is a
comparison among three most common formats of e-books including DOC, PDF
and 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)
Criteria
Text

14

DOC

PDF

OEB

Yes

Yes

Yes

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)


15

Graphics

Yes

Yes

Yes

Sound/Movie

No

Yes

No

Tables

Yes

Yes

Yes

Print

Yes

Yes

Limited

Handheld

No

Limited

Yes

Palm

No

Limited

Yes

Windows

Yes

Yes

Yes

Mac

Yes

Yes

Yes

Unix

Limited

Limited

Yes

No

Yes

No

Security

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 reading
culture 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 today
modern life, people feel inconvenient if having to spend for hours together to find a
favorite book at store. In addition, the development of other media makes books
become less attractive. Moreover, buying several books is also a big problem, since
their 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 the
above demands. Nowadays, many online bookstores show books’ description or
excerpt from the content, which helps readers easy to select favorite books without
spending too much time. Besides, e-book now is not just an electronic version of
print book, because, producers have added many multimedia enrichments into an ebook. Taking a scientific book for children name "Science and Nature" provided by
VINAPO, for example, to describe the process of evaporation, a demonstrated video
is added to make learners be more interested in and fully understand this
phenomenon. In term of price, although this is still a controversial topic, the average


16
price of an e-book is just equal to one third of a traditional one. Readers just have to
invest in an e-reader at the initial stage. In long term, it is obvious that choosing ebooks is a cost-effective option.
Fewer natural materials are needed to produce an e-book in comparison with
print book. Specifically, to have a print book, 3 times more raw materials and 78
times more water are used (Goleman and Daniel, 2010). Depending on possible
digital rights management, e-books can be backed up to recover them in the case of
loss or damage and it may be possible to recover a new copy without cost from the
distributor. Also, libraries can lend more current e-book titles for limited times, free

samples are available of many publications, and there are other lending models
being piloted as well.
In the field of education, e-books have been giving and will continue to give
new instruments to explore. They also serve as an effective tool for e-learning
which include flexibility and convenience for learners. Although a relatively limited
amount of e-book titles are available currently, but it is obvious that e-books can
become a promising resource in future education. E-books could help to solve the
challenges being faced in higher education including ever increasing student
population, their changing profiles and lack of funds in the libraries. E-books are
available for convenient 24 - hours access both on and off - site, which increases
availability to those patrons who are not able to frequent the library during regular
hours. Electronic texts can be searched and scanned in seconds to assist users in
their quest for information. In addition, electronic content can be quickly updated so
users can access to the most recent editions and updates.
Education is a field that rarely stays static and advances at roughly the same
rate as technology in society advances. Taking video player for example, once this
technology 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 years
ago this technology did not exist. As technology continues to evolve it will
invariably 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


17
technology becomes more and more popular the devices appear more certain than
ever to penetrate and influence the educational field in similar ways the video
player did a decade before.
The primary method in which e-books can influence education is through
their ability to create new teaching methods which are currently not utilized in
traditional practices. Whereas learning acquisition has usually been seen to come

from three disparate areas – visualization, aural learning and cognitive engagement
– new technology has the potential to teach in all of these fields simultaneously. The
interactivity available of e-book can prove to be a real dynamic and engaging
learning tool by utilizing all of these areas and will undoubtedly be seen to be of
utmost benefit to any student who prefers one type of learning acquisition model
over 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 improve
their environmental credentials; e-book facilitates the move away from literally
thousand of pages of paper.
The ability to access huge pools of information will make electronic devices
hugely appealing to both students and teachers. The environmental benefits, as
mentioned before, will also be complimented by the money a school can save on
purchasing dozens of text books as thousands of e-books containing all necessary
information can be stored in just one small e-reader.
Of course, all of the above are not the entire roles of e-books. However, it
can be affirmed that e-books will be a pertinent and beautiful part of humanity for
the 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 of
controversy, emotion, education, and challenges. So human experience is just
waiting to be fired into minds to explode and grow”.


18

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 the
Faculty of Business English, Hanoi Foreign Trade University. The actual number of
students from these 4 courses is about 265 students, among them, 35 students are
from K47, 60 from K48, 120 from K49, and 50 from K50. (See Figure 2.1)
Figure 2.1: The study population

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


19
2.1.3. Sampling
The study population is FBE students of four courses from K47 to K50, of
which the total number of students is not too large. Therefore, the author decides to
include 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 English
Department of Hanoi Foreign Trade University (FTU). Since June 2007, FBE has
become an independent functional faculty whose main mission is to educate and
train Bachelors of Business English (full-time program, part-time program, and
second major). After thirteen years of development, nine courses with more than

1,000 Business English students from K38 to K 46 had graduated. Currently, nine
classes with 265 students from K47 to K50 are continuing their academic work
under 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 the
same major, as well as highly appreciated by Vietnamese society (FTU Quality
Guarantee Center, 2009) (See Figure 2.2).
Economics and Business - related subjects taught in FBE’s training program
are divided into of three main areas of knowledge:
1. Fundamental knowledge: Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing, Business
English, 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 of
Economics, International Business, International Marketing, Finance,
Business Communication (Correspondence + Contract)


20
Figure 2.2: Society's selection for the best institutions training Business English

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 English
fluently in many fields, especially business and international commerce. They have
deep knowledge of economics, business, and management; which helps them adapt
rapidly to the international business environment, as well as understand thoroughly
about 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 the

university. FBE students have proved their capacity in whatever national and
international organizations that they present. Another prominent characteristic of
FBE students is the eagerness to learn new things. In short, FBE students are highly
qualified due to the fact that they are trained in such a professional education
environment.