Studying Online;Succeeding through Distance Learning at University

56 Studying online 
students. It is always worth checking with your university library 
about the facilities and options available to you, especially if you 
prefer to see some items in print and you cannot print them out 
yourself. 
If none of this is possible because your university does not ofer 
printing and you do not want a printer yourself, then consider 
getting a tablet device. Research from Germany has shown that 
when people read from devices like paper format, the outcomes 
are much the same as reading from print (Kretzschmar et al., 
2013). Tablet devices that have a screen size of around ten inches 
and that can be held in portrait mode are a similar size and format 
to a typical book. Tat means it is easier for our brains to cope, 
compared with reading from a 27-inch computer screen, not held 
in our hands, for instance. If you are not able to print anything, a 
10-inch tablet is a reasonable alternative. 
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GETTING THE MOST FROM EBOOKS 
Printing ebooks is just one issue facing students who read mate-
rials online. However, reading ebooks online poses some other 
issues for students. Quite apart from the health and well-being 
issues of reading a large amount of materials from a computer 
screen, there are practical issues involved in using ebooks. Of-
ten these relate to not understanding the software. Each ebook 
provider has a range of features enabling you to do some useful 
things within the textbook. However, in my discussions with stu-
dents who use online ebook readers, I am surprised how many of 
them have not explored what the software can do. Instead, they 
just start reading what they need, scrolling through the pages. 
Tis can waste time and can also reduce the value the book pro-
vides. Te most popular online academic ebook readers, such 
as Kortext, Perlego, and Vital Source, provide various features 
to enhance the ebooks they make available. Common to each 
of these services is the ability to highlight passages, add notes 
to specifc items within the book, and bookmark specifc pages 
to quickly return to them. In some ebook readers, you can also 

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