eBooks! The New Reference Option

The electrical training ALLIANCE is excited to announce that select eBooks are now available. Students and Instructors will be able to access content on the go, wherever they are, without need of carrying the printed books. This is just one beauty of eBooks where the content is also much more than a book in pdf form. It offers many other great features.

Double-tapping images opens them in a zoom window where you can pinch and zoom to enlarge and move them around to inspect different areas.
Selecting text opens a flyout menu to let you search the dictionary, create a comment, or highlight the text.
Using the search icon offers the ability to find content quickly.
When using either the mobile app or the web portal, the system will remember where you are and what you have done (highlight, note, bookmark) from one device to another.
More features are explained from within the eBook reader itself. ***Be sure to review that area once you are assigned an eBook.

First things first, read on and see what is available, how to purchase, and learn the simple process to distribute eBooks to users.

the Currently Available list

There are currently 5 topics available and each new textbook being developed is done so for both options – Print or eBook.

Fire Alarm 2017
Grounding and Bonding 2017
Electrical Safety-Related Work Practices 2018
Health Care Facility Electrical Systems (2017 NEC)
Instrumentation

here are the steps on How to Purchase

Like textbooks, eBooks are purchased from the electrical training ALLIANCE bookstore. These may be found two ways:

In Group 1 choose eBooks and in Group 2 Select the Title desired — you will note an E at the end of the Item ID (click on images to enlarge)

In Group 1 choose Journeyman/Advanced and Group 2 Select the topic then look for the E in the Item code or review the title of the item as it will state that it is an eBook.

Example Item ID and Bookstore Description

S600E

Applied Science of Instrument eBook

While the workflow there in the bookstore is unchanged, the concept of shipping is. First, it looks a bit like the image to the left…or so I am told. Second, that makes delivery really fast.

As a way to explain the process a bit, let’s assume after we buy our reference materials, they ship to our training center and get stacked in our Book Closet, Book Room, or Reference Storage Room/Area. This area for your eBooks is the Training Management System where your control for managing content access is.

then after bookstore purchase, Time to Distribute

After eBooks have been purchased from the bookstore, next up is delivering them to users. The users you may deliver an eBook to are only those rostered in the TMS. This means, whether a person is teaching or learning, the person wanting to utilize an eBook just simply needs to be rostered into the TMS. Instructor, CET, and Apprentice roles may have an eBook assigned to them. The video below assumes the eBook has been purchased in the bookstore, thus the eBook license has been shipped to your storage area, and the user of the eBook has been rostered in the TMS.

Please watch the videos below to see the process for the distribution of a purchased eBook.

Oh…one more thing, breaking the cellophane…

Internally with our dev team, this is the terminology we have been using to identify how we can capture when a digital item is still returnable to your closet/storage area. This concept is for that moment when you realize the eBook assigned was either the wrong one or to the wrong person. This feature allows you to place the item back in the TMS ready for distribution to another person. — Similar to putting a textbook back in storage knowing another learner or trainer may utilize it later. The allowance to return an eBook only occurs if the Assignee has not opened the eBook (aka, broken the digital cellophane).

Please watch the video below to see the process for the return to the closet of an assigned eBook.