Abstract:
The Central University of Technology, Free State has introduced the use of e-books as
opposed to printed hard-cover textbooks for students. This is in line with international
campaigns seeking the adoption of e- books for educational purposes, while reducing the costs
of printing material. This study is aimed at developing an Integrated Framework Model for
evaluating the usability of e-books in higher education, thereby enhancing mobile learning
adoption at a university. Despite the advantages of usability, continuous emphasis is still
placed on the gap which exists between software development and usability evaluation. It is
for this reason that the results of usability evaluations frequently have little or no significant
influence on the software development of mobile learning applications. This paper reports on
the results of a pilot study where a questionnaire was developed to evaluate the use of e-books
on mobile devices by students in higher education. The sample size consisted of 49 IT
students who registered for a Computer Security module during 2015, where the majority
were Sesotho speaking. The outcomes of the study may create provision of a framework
useful for evaluating mobile learning usability which may subsequently lead to enhanced
adoption.
