Do not mess with copyrights
As the author of content intended for commercial use, you are legally responsible of the intellectual property of the content you create on and/or upload to eduPad servers. If asked eduPad, will investigate and unpublish any content that does not respect this basic requirement.
Copyright concerns texts, media and the general organization of the content (themes, chapters, progress chart…).
- Concerning texts and organization of the content, the author has a contractual obligation to create original content upon which he guarantees he has full intellectual property, and for which he gives unlimited license to eduPad.
- Concerning media, the author is responsible for explicitly describing the copyright information of all media (photos, pictures, videos, sounds…) uploaded to eduPad servers.
License-wise, media can be of 3 different types:
1. Original creation of the author, on which he has full copyright rights. Minimum expected copyright information: “Original creation of [author_name], [year], who has full copyrights on the media, and allows unlimited use by eduPad on any device and format. Any other kind of reuse by a third party is prohibited without explicit consent of the author. All rights reserved worldwide.”
2. A media under commercial license, for which the author has acquired the appropriate copyright rights, enabling him to incorporate the media in eduPad products. The author is responsible for verifying that the open media license fits the eduPad distribution model. Expected copyright information: proof that appropriate commercial licensing rights have been granted for the media, and direct link to the licensed media in the website providing the commercial license.
Example of commercial license media (Fotalia) :
Copyright information associated to this commercial media:
– Link to image source: http://fr.fotolia.com/id/1076837
– Fotalia license: http://fr.fotolia.com/Info/Agreements/Download/M/KVZt9kiiB4hAUrNkhJYtvNecKMQWQfga
3. a media under an open media license compatible with the inclusion in eduPad products like the ones found in the Wikimedia Commons‘ website. The author is responsible for verifying that the open media license fits the eduPad distribution model. Expected copyright information:
- open media license information. The media license must explicitly authorize media modification and inclusion in a commercial product.
- direct link to the licensed media and media author information (attribution).
Example of copyright information for an open media with attribution and share alike constraints:
Copyright information to include for this example media:
- Source of the media: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nembrotha_kubaryana_(Nudibranch).jpg
- Author: Nhobgood Nick Hobgood
- This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
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You are free:
- to share: to copy, distribute and transmit the work
- to remix: to adapt the work
Under the following conditions:
- attribution – You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
- share alike – If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled GNU Free Documentation License.
Where can I find open source, commercial use media?
Here are two great open media sources you can use to search for open media. Remember to always check for yourself that the license authorizes commercial use:
1. Google image search, with advanced search options set to “results filtered for images that are free to use, share or modify even commercially”.
Choose the right browser
To date, supported browsers are:
- Chrome for Mac and PC
- Firefox for Mac and PC
- Safari for Mac
Internet Explorer is not supported, there are a lot of known issues you don’t want to experience, so please stay away! Mobile browsers are not supported either. In a nutshell, you can do pretty everything on your iPhone/iPad with Safari Mobile, but not everything (popups are not supported, and media management features doesn’t work well).
The free answers drama
Free answers are pedagogically better than closed answers like multiple-choice questions, because they force the user to search for the right answer. As such, it is highly recommended that you widely use free answer questions in your content.
But… Free answers are a very tricky tool, because free answer questions look for an exact match between what the author has specified and what the user inputs. Which results in a terrible user experience if not carefully implemented. Here are the main pitfalls that the author has to avoid:
- Subjective answers that can be formulated in different ways: this is simply not an option!!
Example 1: Imagine the question is to fill in a gap in a sentence. You have to make sure there is absolutely no ambiguity as to the word expected as the answer. If two synonyms can be used, only one will be accepted, which is very frustrating for the user…
Example 2 : take the following question: “What’s the verb is the following sentence: Tom’s cat is sleeping close to the chimney.” Some users will answer “sleep”, others “to sleep”, or “sleeping” or “is sleeping”… In this case, it would have been better to formulate the question the following way: “What’s the verb is the following sentence: Tom’s cat is sleeping close to the chimney. To _____” (the expected answer being “sleep”)
- Keep answers short
The longer the expected answer is , the more typing errors you’ll get.
Keep if possible free answers to ONE (SHORT) WORD, and in no cases more than two words. - Thousands separator and other numeric issues
This is such a frequent issue that it has a dedicated page. See below - Capital or not capital letters?
After long and passionate debates with teachers arguing different strategies, the rule applied in eduPad apps is the following: capitalization is not taken into account.
Example: If the question is: “What’s the name of the capital of France?”, expected answer filled in by the author is (should be!): “Paris”.
The following answers will be accepted by the app: “Paris”, “paris”, “PARIS”…
Wrong or imprecise syntax of numeric answers
When using a free numeric question, the author specifies the numeric value of the answer. The software in the app will expect the user to give an answer that matches exactly the one associated to the question by the author. Here are the 4 most common sources of errors, which are extremely frustrating for the app user:
- Missing thousands separators:
When the user types in his answer, the app keyboard automatically adds the thousands separator (a coma in the US, a space in France).
If the author forgets to type in the thousands’ separator in the answer, it will be impossible for the user to answer correctly to the question. For instance, if the expected answer is 1,000 (one thousand) and if the author has typed in 1000, if the user types 1,000 as an answer, the app will display an error message, stating that the right answer is “1000”. Grrr!!! - Use of characters in the answer which are not accessible to the user:
The numeric keyboard only contains 0 to 9 keys. It does not handle minus sign nor fraction sign. So, if you expect a 2/3 or a -10 answer, use the alphanumeric keyboard, not the numeric keyboard. Otherwise, the user will have no way to answer your question. Grrr!!! - Imprecise instructions concerning rounding.
Since the software will look for an exact match, the author may not leave room for imprecision in rounding.
As you know, there is an infinite number of ways to write a numerical value of 1/3. The software will accept only one. So be precise, and specify what is expected (eg. “round to the hundredth”). - Years do not use the thousand separator, so for years above 999, use the alphanumeric keyboard
If you ask for a year, let’s say “1945”, use alphanumeric keyboard, because otherwise, the only thing the user will get using the App’s numeric keyboard is “1,945”. Grrr!
Do not mess with special characters
You can’t imagine a math, science or music app without the use of special characters like π, ∑ or ♫. Neither do we.
That’s why we have included a list of supported special characters. This list can be directly accessed with a link at the bottom of most of the pages of the eduPad web studio.
The only thing to know is that you must only copy-paste special character from this positive list of supported special characters.
If you paste special characters from another, unsupported, source, it might very well display well in the web studio, but the odds are that it will not work on the mobile devices, and it might even cause the app to crash.
If you need support for a special character that is not yet supported, tell us, and we’ll have a look.
Avoid portrait images
Oversized images (limit width and height vary depending upon devices) are automatically resized and can be zoomed-in by the user.