Events: IDPF Voting: Board Nomination

Dear IDPF Members,

My name is Richard Bellaver and I am the Associate Director of the Center for Information and Communication Sciences and a Professor at Ball State University. I have been working with digital readers for six years. Take a look at my web site http://www.bsu.edu/web/rbellave/exp.htm for some of the research that I have conducted (or Google - Bellaver eBooks.) I have demonstrated that digital content displayed on hand-held devices can be understood by graduate students and 3rd graders. My goal has been to relieve students of the need to carry back-packs.

I have participated in IDPF for two years attending the Spring conference and with some participation in the container standard, but the details soon got over my head. Standards are very important to the progress of digital publishing and I am happy we have the expertise to develop them. I got my University into IDPF quite frankly so I could get to publishers to convince them to allow me to use their content for more research with children. I have failed so far to do that.

I am an academic, but I did have some business experience with AT&T before I got into teaching and research. I have contacts with providers of the new hand-held devices and the research community. I have worked with local schools on a one-to-one basis with administrators and teachers who really think that digital devices can improve the learning of their students. I have the contacts, but haven’t been nearly as successful with state administrators. I am running for this Board position in order to provide some different prospectives from those already represented. I respectfully request your vote.