Livresq

Livresq is an online application for editing digital textbooks, requiring  registration. There are two registration options:

1. Register for the PRO version (payable)

2. Register for the free version

The application has two activity zones:

1. Author
2. Library

The Livresq Library Zone is divided into a private user zone and a public zone.

My Shelf, or private user zone, is where we store our own unpublished, but already usable course materials, exported from the Author’s Zone. These works are only available to users with whom we share the link to our own material. The public zone is where you find the teaching material that has been given permission to be published. We can request publication approval for our own lessons. Once published, our work is available to anyone.

The author-editor zone is able to add the following types of digital content to your edited learning material:

• Movies from YouTube or similar repositories (movies can be edited and subtitled in Livresq)
• Audio files (mp3 format)
• Images
• Photo galleries
• SCORM-compatible (SCORM 1 and 2) tests and test items
• Own web text formats: accordions, tabs
• Application designer (requires IT programming skills)
• Attachments (files)
• Hotspots
• Assistants (talking assistants, for which you can create your own voice recording, or animated human figures with text bubbles)
• Barriers

These resources can be inserted in cells within the rows of the section. Once created, you can edit each of the resources individually (e.g. trim and subtitle YouTube movies, add captions to images, add title pages to movies, adjust the way they appear, record and upload the assistant's instructions for each task, etc.)

The types of content listed are grouped together in a framework called sections. The sections are filled with content, resources. One or more stages create the final editing product, the project, prior to export. The project can be exported in different formats as online or offline digital lessons or textbooks. Livresq also provides users with prefabricated sections and project templates for editing learning materials. However, users can also create sections and projects of their own design, with content, design and settings tailored to their preferences. 

The section allows structurally multi-line, single or multi-column editing, similar to the classic publication editing programs. We can insert our content (in the program's own parlance, "Resources") into the resulting editing interfaces, in the cells within the rows.

You can edit the colours, transitions and custom settings of the inserted resources using the right-hand menu in the section's editing interface.

Livresq creates fully responsive learning materials, which means that Livresq products can be used on all types of digital devices (PC, laptop, notebook, tablet, smartphone) with the right settings.

Designed to produce test papers, the module is capable of producing most types of papers that can be edited on a computer today. The exercises can be set up as practice exercises or as test exercises.

With the right settings, Livresq instantly calculates the results achieved as a percentage. As Livresq is SCORM-compliant, it can also perform the tasks of scoring and logging in the appropriate learning management environments, depending on the module settings (e.g. MOODLE).

Lessons can also be timed, meaning that students can only move on to the next part of the lesson after completing the relevant parts of the lesson or assignments, which can significantly help learning at home.

Projects completed can be:

• Exported to the Library Zone and share it with our students via a copiable link. From there we can publish the finished material, making it available to everyone on the web.
• Exported as a SCORM package, which then uploaded to SCORM-compliant learning environments makes it possible to take full advantage of the SCORM standard.

Exported in HTML format for offline use (in this case, the result is a ZIP package that can be launched from an .exe file).

Before exporting, we add each section to the project, enter the project title, and then set the export parameters using the very rich toolbar on the left. The latter can unify all parameters within a project, from design standardization to full responsiveness. You can also set the navigation modes here.

Lessons edited in Livresq are stored on Microsoft servers. The free version offers 1 GB of storage space, which is a generous offer for lessons that take up 15-30 MB per lesson. Nonetheless, you should also know that at the moment the free version only allows the creation and export of five projects, which makes it worth considering the long-term use of Livresq if you want to invest time, money and energy in training and using the app.