If you are an English teacher, you will probably have heard or used the Express DigiBooks Library, or DigiBooks for short. DigiBooks was created by Express Publishing, one of the leading publishers in English Language Teaching, to host their portfolio of more than 3,500 titles. Read on to find out what it is and how you can get started in just minutes.
What is the DigiBooks Library?
DigiBooks is an innovative way to educate students of all ages. It creates a friendly digital environment that promotes cooperation among students, teachers and parents. Students become engaged in the learning process through a carefully crafted, gamified educational experience.
DigiBooks is designed to be used at home, in the classroom or on the move. Designed by a team of experienced teachers, it is packed with intuitive interaction, rich multimedia content and many other versatile features. It may be downloaded for offline use and student progress may be synced whenever an internet connection becomes available.
The platform is built on top of state-of-the-art technologies and widely recognised online-security standards that guarantee private data safety without sacrificing user friendliness.
How to get started with DigiBooks
Description of roles and users
There are 6 types of user on the Express DigiBooks platform. These are: Member, Student, Teacher, School Manager, School Master, and Parent.
The users are divided into two groups, as can be seen in the following diagram. The Members are in one group, and the other group consists of Students, Teachers, Managers, Masters, and Parents.
Members are individual users who are using the platform for self-study, without a teacher, and only have access to the books they have bought. They can do the exercises and the platform will correct them, but they have no interaction with other users.
The other group follows the hierarchy of Student + Parent → Teacher → School Manager → School Master
The School Master is the owner/head teacher of the school. They must ‘create’ their school and do some initial organisation. They must follow a series of steps (explained 3 in detail below) to create their Students, their Teachers, and School Managers, as well as organise things, in general.
The School Manager is in charge of the school or department, responsible for its operation and administration. This role is not required to operate the platform. There are schools where the manager and owner are the same person. Therefore, it is not necessary to create school managers. They are only necessary if a school has branches, to make administration easier for the School Master.
Teachers work at the school. Their accounts can only be opened by the School Master, and their job on the platform is to assign exercises to the Students, to check their work and help them with whatever problems they may face.
Students attend the school. Their accounts can only be opened by the School Master.
Parents are the Student’s parents or legal guardian. They can use the platform to keep up to date with their children’s progress, without having to physically go to the school.
Registering on the DigiBooks platform
If you visit www.expressdigibooks.com, there is a series of buttons at the top of the screen: About, Download Apps, Contact, Sign Up, Log In, and Create School. You can see it in the image below:
What the buttons do:
• Contact: When you click on Contact, a contact form will open, as you can see below.
Fill in your name, email, and the subject line. Use the Message section to ask your question or make your comment.
• Sign Up: This choice is only used by users who wish to register as Members. The Student account is created by the School Master/Manager via the platform.
• Log in: When you click on Log In, a window will pop up for you to enter your Username and Password (which you will have received by mail), so that you can connect with the platform.
Enter your Username or email and then your Password, and click on the Log In button.
There is also a link on this page to help you retrieve your Password; click on Forgot Password.
If this is the first time you are connecting with the platform, there is a link that will take you to the SIGN UP page.
• Create School: This is only for users who want to create a School on the platform.
• About: The About page is informational. It includes information about Express DigiBooks platform, as well as a few words about Express Publishing.
• Download Apps: On this page, you can find and download the Express Digibooks apps, compatible with MS Windows Vista+, macOS 10.11+, Android 4.4+, iOS 8.0+.
Teacher
Once the Manager has completed your registration as Teacher and you have received your username and password via the email you have provided, go to the top right-hand side of the screen and select Log in.
Enter your username or email and then your password, and click on the Log In button, as was explained earlier.
Navigating DigiBooks
As soon as you are successfully connected to the programme, the following page will appear:
It is the main page of your account. To the left, you can see the Dashboard/main menu for the platform, from which most functions are accessed. In the centre, there is general information about your account, as well as the calendar. To the top right, there is a contact form, notifications, as well as the button to disconnect from the platform.
More specifically:
Centre
The calendar will inform you of which lessons you have and when. For greater ease, you can use the filters that are above the calendar to make your searches more specific.
Note: If the Calendar does not appear, it means that the School Master/Manager of the school to which you belong has not activated the Lessons as a function, so you assign exercises to a class and not to a Lesson.
Top right
1→Form for contacting the platform support team
2→Notifications
3→Change of platform language
4→Information about the platform.
5→Button to disconnect from the platform.
Centre
1→Express DigiBooks Logo/Home Page
2→Personal settings menu
3→Ebooks
4→Students’ progress on the platform
5→Homework that you have been assigned.
Buttons 2, 3, 4, and 5 comprise the main menu for managing the platform. From here on, this menu will be called the Dashboard.
Consists of My Profile, My Devices, and Browsers. By selecting My Devices or Browsers, users can see which of their devices and which browsers have been connected to the Express DigiBooks platform. You can connect to a maximum of 4 devices at the same time. You can add/remove devices from this menu.
From the My Profile menu, users have access to the personal information they have submitted to the platform, as well as their password. You can change whatever information you want, as long as you click on Update Account when you have finished. Finally, you can activate the Security Settings (these are explained in a separate manual).
My E-Books
If you click on My E-Books, you will be taken to the following page:
As you can see, there are no books in this account. You have to add your books. Click on the ‘+‘ sign to make this window appear.
Enter the code that you find on the first page of your book into the field marked ‘Redeem Code‘ and click Unlock My Book.
A message confirming successful activation will appear. You now have access to the specific book.
If you click on Read More, a window opens with information about your book, as well as the choice to Read Online.
Click on Read Online to open your book.
Using the arrows at the top, you can navigate the book and select the exercise you want. When you find the activity you want,
click on it to make it appear. There is a separate guide online for how to do the exercises and what the various symbols mean. At the bottom of each exercise you will find the choice to Assign Activity to Class. Use can use this option to assign activities to the Classes you have created.
Select the Level and Lesson to which you wish to assign the task. You must also select the deadline for the exercise and then click Assign.
Progress
The system allows the School Master to follow Students’ progress. The Progress page shows the percent success rate of each Student in the activities they have done.
At the top of the page, there are a number of choices and filters for presenting the results, which are shown in the second half of the page. There are the following choices:
• Presentation of the number of attempts the Student made
- Only the last attempt
- Select date
- All attempts
- Best/worst attempt
• Categorisation of results by Student
- By level
- By package (book)
- By skill type (grammar, listening, etc.)
The button Export as PDF allows the School Master to export the results to a PDF file. The choices here are Default Report and Daily Report. In categorisation of results by Student, only the first choice is available. The Default Report contains the students’ scores according to the filters that have been used. You must click on the Download button to download the file.
Assignments
On this page, you can see what homework you have given your students. At the top, there are search filters, so that you can find an assignment faster. The assignments are at the bottom.
For every assignment you can see:
1→the name of the Lesson to which the assignment belongs
2→which book it is from
3→the number of the exercise
4→the deadline you have set
5→the link that will take you to the exercise
6→the link that will take you to see your students’ progress
7→the link that will allow you to change the settings for the exercise 8→Delete the assignment
Calendar
The Calendar shows all your lessons. You can see them separately by changing the search filters at the top of the Calendar. Open a Lesson by clicking on it, and you can do the following:
1→Assignments: see all the homework that has been assigned to your class.
2→Classwork: make a note of what happened during the lesson, so that absentees and the school master can be informed.
3→Homework: you can assign further exercises to your students, using the special writing tool provided.
4→General information about each lesson.
5→Register: Select Yes or No to indicate whether a student was present or not for a specific lesson.
Gamification in DigiBooks
If the school to which you belong has activated Gamification, the following choices will appear on the Dashboard.
1→Give your students Badges (independantly of Missions).
2→See the progress of your students in the Missons you have assigned them.
3→Handle the requests for help that your students have sent. This choice will be activated by the School Master before it is active for you. Each student for whom this choice is active can ask for help either from his/her teacher or from a fellow student.
School
By clicking on School, the following choices become available:
Note: Testlogs, Scoresheets and Messages only appear if your School Master has activated them.
Users
From this page you can see the students who belong to your class and give them Badges and ELECS to reward their efforts.
TestLogs
Use TestLogs to record by class the tests that your students are due to take. (This option must be activated in School Settings)
1→Select the class that will take the test
2→The name of the test
3→Give a description of the test
4→Set when the deadline expires for the School Master to amend the TestLog. Click on Create.
The School Master will automatically receive notification that you have created a TestLog and that he/she must act accordingly.
Scoresheets
Scoresheets are a means by which a school gives grades to its students. The School Master is responsible for creating them. You have to enter them and enter your students’ marks.
Select the Add Grades button and enter your students’ marks in the form your are given. Then click Submit.
Messages
This page allows the School Master and Teacher to send messages to each other. It also works between teachers.
If you have any questions or extra information, please add it in the Comments section below.