CourseSmart® Launches First Mobile Web Application for eTextbooks
World's Largest Provider of Digital Course Materials Application Immediately Makes Available More Than 20,000 eTextbooks on Amazon's Kindle Fire and on Other Mobile Devices
SAN MATEO, Calif., Nov. 21, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- CourseSmart®, the world's largest provider of eTextbooks and digital course materials, today announced the launch of their new, industry first, mobile Web app that provides students and faculty access to a catalog of more than 20,000 eTextbooks and other digital course materials on a variety of mobile devices including the Kindle Fire and the iPad®. This breakthrough brings thousands of digital course materials to the most popular mobile reading devices furthering the company's mission of anytime, anywhere access to course materials in higher education.
"Our mission is to connect students and faculty with affordable course materials that they need to become successful. With this new Web-based application, we are putting the world's largest catalog of eTextbooks and digital course materials in the hands of an increasingly growing number of digitally-dependent students and faculty," said Sean Devine, CEO at CourseSmart. "As mobile devices like the Kindle Fire and iPad continue to make their way onto college campuses and into the classroom, we are excited to offer yet another option for our users to not only access their digital textbooks but to improve their reading experiences with features such as page fidelity."
The mobile Web app is optimized to best support multi-touch screens of today's most popular mobile devices and it is designed to offer users the:
-- Same page fidelity experience as found in a print textbook version
equivalent.
-- Capability to zoom in on text and graphs as well as to add and view
notes, and
-- Ability to search for a topic within your eTextbook including access to
the Table of Contents,
-- Convenience to view all eTextbooks from a single location,
There is no downloading process to access the free Web app. On supported browsers, CourseSmart users with an active eTextbook account will automatically be prompted to sign into the Web app when they begin reading their eTextbooks. Any future enhancements for the app are automatically updated, eliminating the need to visit an app store to obtain the latest app version.
The app is supported by Amazon Silk, Safari and Google Chrome browsers on the following devices: Kindle Fire, iPad and Android(TM) 3.0 and higher OS tablets. Users can find out more about the app at http://www.coursesmart.com/go/mobile.
As the world's largest provider of digital course materials, CourseSmart® connects education publishers to consumers by providing an efficient distribution platform for their best-selling content in digital form. Founded in 2007, the San Mateo, Calif.-based company provides services to four business segments: Online direct retail for students; Indirect distribution of course materials to students through bookstores; Online faculty textbook evaluation services; and Institutional solutions for faculty and students that are integrated within campus technology ecosystems. CourseSmart improves the educational process and experience by offering all users anywhere, any-time access to the course content they need, including those with vision- and print-related disabilities. With more than 90% of the same core titles offered by major print publishers, the company's eTextbooks can be purchased for up to 60% less than the cost of new print textbooks. For more information about CourseSmart, visit the company's Web site at http://www.coursesmart.com.