eSkript, the platform for Interactive Lecture Material, finally enables you to produce material that comes to life and activates students. You can easily enhance your material with interactivity modules –interactive videos, votes, timelines, etc.– and use it collaboratively with e.g. web annotation.
Fed up with the limitations of paper and files (PDF, DOC,…), we started the project ‹Interactive Lecture Material› and aimed at rich media (video, simulations,…), interactivity, collaboration and web annotation to challenge and activate students at times when they used to just passively read. We think that lecture material is inherently embedded in the learning process of the students, and the new components of interactive lecture material significantly enhance the learning outcome because of the diverse codification and unification of the activities.
eSkript enables lecturers (and students) to easily produce online (lecture) material. It is easy to embed videos, render LaTeX formulas, be collaborative and add interactivity. In addition to the simplicity of producing the material, all the possibilities that HTML offers can be used.
eSkript is now being used in seven departments at ETH (D-ERDW, D-HEST, D-MATH, D-MATL, D-MTEC, D-PHYS, D-GESS, D-USYS). At D-HEST, there are already 15 eSkripts in use with students. Many of those have been produced for the new BSc Medicine. At UZH, at the Department of Banking and Finance, one lecture with an amazing eSkript and more than 50 students has started in September 2017 (https://eskript.ethz.ch/testuzh/).
With every new department that begins to use eSkript, new scenarios (https://eskript.ethz.ch/scenarios/) and features arise. Students can explore visual timelines, navigate interactive videos, play with lots of different interactive modules, vote on important content, complete simulations, use web annotation and more. All activities are fully integrated in the online lecture material.
LET has decided to launch the same (or very similar) platform and integrate it into moodle. We are very happy that eSkript has been sustainable and will become an official service provided by LET at ETH Zurich.
