Announcing draft standards and procedures for evaluating electronic textbooks

Photo caption — Illustration photo: Thanh Tung/VNA

Compiling e-textbooks contributes to creating a rich source of digital learning materials associated with the specific conditions of Vietnam and in line with advanced educational trends in the world, ensuring the best interests of learners; ensuring the goal of promoting national digital transformation and developing digital citizens.

The draft Circular consists of 5 chapters and 17 articles, regulating the scope of regulation, subjects of application; principles of compilation; standards for electronic textbooks; process of converting printed textbooks into electronic textbooks; organization and operation of the national council for appraisal of electronic textbooks; documents, order and procedures for requesting appraisal, approval and permission to use electronic textbooks.

Regarding standards, the draft Circular stipulates that the prerequisite for electronic textbooks is to fully meet current textbook standards. The content must be consistent with the content of printed textbooks. The digital format of electronic textbooks must comply with current technical standards and regulations, and support multiple platforms (computers, phones, e-readers). Electronic textbooks must also fully meet current regulations on copyright, intellectual property rights, security standards, and deposit standards.

The draft Circular stipulates that the interface of electronic textbooks must be optimally displayed on different devices; suitable for the health and vision of students at all levels in terms of font, font size, color, visual effects, and sound.

The format of electronic textbooks must comply with national technical standards and regulations on file formats for electronic publications, in accordance with international open standards for educational electronic publications or popular formats, ensuring cross-platform compatibility and supporting access for people with disabilities.

The draft also stipulates that advertisements, business content, shopping suggestions, and external introductions cannot be inserted into electronic textbooks.

According to the draft Circular, e-textbooks have features for searching, highlighting, taking notes, zooming in and out of content; allowing basic interactions (selecting answers, dragging and dropping, listening repeatedly, entering text...); flexible integration and updating features, and the ability to link with learning management systems (Learning Management System) according to popular standards, artificial intelligence (Artificial Intelligence), virtual reality technology (Virtual Reality)... At the same time, e-textbooks can be used online or downloaded when there is no stable internet connection, ensuring users can always use them.

Regarding infrastructure, the draft Circular stipulates that the data storage server system located in Vietnam, with a Vietnamese internet domain name, is assigned by the Ministry of Education and Training to a competent unit according to the provisions of law to organize operation, maintenance, and periodic updates under the supervision of the Ministry.

Electronic textbooks must comply with the provisions of the current Publishing Law, Cyber Security Law, and Digital Technology Industry Law; strictly comply with regulations on security and privacy of personal data; have measures to prevent and protect against cyber security threats, and ensure that they do not contain harmful or offensive links or content.

The draft Circular stipulates that organizations, agencies, and publishers that fully meet the conditions for electronic publications or other organizations and agencies that have publishing links with publishers that fully meet the conditions for electronic publications are assigned by the Minister of Education and Training to convert textbooks from printed to electronic textbooks according to the provisions of law. E-books converted from printed copies must fully meet the criteria specified in this Circular.

The draft Circular also states that the adapting unit shall coordinate with general education institutions to organize technical experiments and evaluate user experience on groups of students and teachers; report experimental results including indicators of delay, technical errors and the level of convenience in operation and efficiency. The minimum number of experimental periods is equal to 10% of the total number of periods prescribed in the general education program of each subject and educational activity.

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