The IT Nerd

John Wiley and Sons Inc. a global research and learning company and Kortext, a world leading digital textbook and personal study platform, have secured a partnership with the Egyptian Knowledge Bank (EKB). The scheme will provide digital textbooks to every Egyptian citizen and all universities, empowering their students to learn anytime, anywhere.

The EKB is one of the biggest digital libraries in the world and hosts a diverse collection of content; online journals, books and videos. The EKB aims to meet the needs of all Egyptian citizens by customising each user’s experience with relevant content. The Kortext platform will provide digital textbooks for all Egyptian students, making their studies easier as they benefit from an enhanced, personalised learning experience, whilst creating insightful analytics.

By partnering with Kortext and Wiley for etextbook delivery, the EKB are planning to enhance the infrastructure, increase accessibility and deliver an enhanced user experience for engaging with learning content. Successful expansion of this exemplary national scheme will aim to ensure all the citizens of Egypt have the tools and digital learning resources to excel through lifelong learning as Egypt invests further towards a ‘Smart Nation Status’. The Kortext platform will deliver access to Wiley’s digital textbooks for all students who will also be able to access a host of smart study tools, allowing learners to highlight, make notes, connect to their teachers and intuitively navigate their learning content.

The EKB is an online library archive and resource that provides access to learning resources and tools for educators, researchers, students, and the general public of Egypt. The EKB initiative was formally launched on January 23^rd 2016.

Kortext, the UK’s leading digital textbook and personal learning platform, is being showcased by Microsoft as part of their global education offering. Microsoft first featured Kortext’s new Windows 10 app at their Learn What’s Next education event in New York last month. The app was made available on Microsoft Surface devices, highlighting the immersive learning experience that students can access while using their digital textbooks. More recently, Kortext has been featured on the Microsoft Education blog, focusing on Microsoft’s educational app partners.

Kortext’s new and improved Windows 10 app creates the most intuitive and beautifully designed user experience for engaging with digital content. The Inking functionality available on Microsoft Surface devices means that the experience with digital content on Kortext, perfectly mimics that of pen and paper, allowing users to freely annotate and draw on their learning materials and create hand-written notes, resulting in deeper levels of engagement.

Users of Kortext’s Windows 10 app can open and annotate a range of material, including etextbooks, digital books, journal articles or presentations. In addition to material which a user has been supplied by their institution, or purchased from the Kortext Store, users can also include other digital content, for example, from their university or school library. Kortext can, therefore, be used for lifelong, personal learning; not just for the time that a learner attends their course.

Kortext supports a growing trend in accessing learning materials digitally, and with the Inking functionality, an experience can be created with digital content that is similar to print. Digital learning materials are becoming increasingly important for distance learners, part-time students, and those with additional accessibility needs. Kortext’s Windows 10 app offers access to these materials, with added functionality for engagement that goes far beyond reading on a screen.

Kortext’s Windows 10 app is now available for download. Please visit the store here.