Hellenic Academic Ebooks – Kallipos

Executive Bodies

The “Kallipos” Action is being developed by:

• Hellenic Academic Libraries Link/Heal Link
• National Technical University of Athens/N.T.U.A.
• National Research Network/E.D.E.T. SA

 
Funding Bodies

The “Kallipos” Action is being funded by:

• European Social Fund/Ε.S.F.
• Ministry of Education, OP “Education and Lifelong Learning”

 
Purpose

The purpose of the “Kallipos” action is the production and delivery of Open Access electronic books, which will be used by the students of Greek Universities (Universities and TEI). The e-Books created will not replace printed books, but they will work complementary to them.

 
The characteristics of modern Electronic Books

• They are books in digital format, readable by electronic devices (e.g., electronic readers, tablets, mobile phones or PCs)
• They include multimedia (images, sounds, videos, graphs) and/or interactive objects
• They have the opportunity for interactivity and ease of navigation, such as search, add and share notes, and to link to external information resources
• Each chapter and interactive e-book object may constitute an independent “learning object” that could be detached and reused in another book or become available on the internet or another electronic medium

The e-Book format used will mainly be EPUB (version 3), an open free access standard, used worldwide for creating electronic books. It is Preferred by “Kallipos” because it supports the following: HTML5, multimedia and interactivity, it incorporates improvements in the layout and appearance of pages, it supports many languages, and it has accessibility improvements for people with visual impairments.

 
Additional benefits for using Electronic Textbooks

Besides the advantages mentioned above, e-Books provide the following features:

• One can easily add or review educational materials created by university professors, even after an e- book has been issued
• One can retain several e-books on a single device, being able to underline, and take notes, just as it is true in printed books

 
Conditions for participation in the “Kallipos” Action

Subject Invitations

During the “Kallipos” Action there will be targeted subject invitations to cover all the thematic categories of the curricula of all the University Departments (both Universities and TEI). Each call will be communicated to the beneficiaries who may then submit a proposal for funding (see next section).

There are already five (5) Subject Invitations published in five respective areas:

• 1^st Call / Engineering and Computer Science
• 2^nd Call / Physical Sciences
• 3^rd Call / Medical Sciences and Life Sciences
• 4^th Call / Economic, Political and Social Sciences – Agricultural Sciences
• 5^th Call / Humanities and Law – Arts and Letters

The competent Thematic Committees (TS), assembled following a public call for expressions of interest, coordinate the evaluation and, upon completion, the public approved for funding proposals.

Beneficiaries

Beneficiary Categories: Teachers and University Lecturers, Professors and Visiting Professors, Emeritus and Retired Professors, Special Class Lecturers, Special Scientists (with doctoral degrees), Researchers and Professors from foreign institutions.

First priority will be given to writing e-books and study guides from beneficiaries whose proposals meet the following criteria:

1. Relate to at least one undergraduate level course of either a Department or a Program of Study and/or belongs to at least one of the respective scientific categories included in the Subject invitations
2. It is possible to use the e-Book for the teaching of more than one courses at undergraduate level in similar Departments / Programs of Study
3. The content covers required syllabus
4. Capitalize on as many new technologies as possible and make use of interactive and multimedia learning objects

 
Kallipos Action Registration

Registering for the Kallipos Action is mandatory and it precedes the proposal submission since it is essential for: submitting a proposal, setting-up a writing group, evaluate and select a Critical Reader.

In particular, any person involved in any capacity (Major Authors, Co-Authors, Reviewers, Critical Readers, etc) in the writing effort should be enrolled in the Kallipos action registry.

Moreover registration is also mandatory, for people contributing in the authorial effort (Computer graphic artists, editors, etc) so as to be selected as partners by the senior author and assist in the areas of language editing and processing techniques of the e-books.

 
Financing

Each prospective writer can submit a proposal as Main Author (or participate as a Co-author) for more than one proposals, taking into account the following:

• The maximum funding amount of a positively-evaluated proposal is ten thousand euro (€ 10.000), including the fees for the Critical Reader (€ 1.000)
• The maximum fees that a person gets paid as an Author (Principal or Co-author) is defined to fifteen thousand euro (€ 15.000)
• The maximum remuneration of any activity (Writer, Critical Reader or Assessor) in the Kallipos Action and throughout the duration of the project is twenty thousand euro (€ 20.000)
• The level of remuneration for the other participants in the authorial effort will be determined by the senior author

Details of the procedures, under which the beneficiary shall submit a funding proposal for writing an e-book, are provided at the site of the Kallipos action.

 
Authoring Duration

The maximum duration for writing an e-book after receiving the initial positive evaluation and approval of the funding proposal is one (1) year and minimum duration is four (4) months.

 
Writing Materials

Minimum requirement for the successful completion of the writing effort is the delivery by the author of all the original materials (text files, pictures, drawings, interactive objects, video production, figures, shapes, etc.), as well as the metadata and the book in PDF format. Finally, the conversion of the e-book in EPUB format can be done either with the responsibility of the Main Author or by the Kallipos Action staff, in consultation with the writing group and depending on the techniques, and particular features it may need.

 
Copyright

The authors grant to HEAL-Link an exclusive license (in electronic and printed form) for their work, which will be available to the public through an Open Access Repository. In particular, the Author may choose one of the proposed open content licenses via Creative Commons (Greek version) in order to be able to distribute the project to the users.