Online·courses·2024

Publish your Book

Design, layout and edition of an interactive digital book

Contextualisation

Nowadays, disseminating of knowledge is a priority and publications are often the vehicles of diffusion. For this reason, teachers, researchers and academics often need to produce materials or texts that require a presentation in digital o printed publication format.

Through the Training and teaching innovation course Publish your book, the Compostela Group of Universities wants to equip its university community with the essential skills to create their own professional publication.

During the training, participants will gain the knowledge and assimilate the necessary techniques to design and layout a book, such as graphic and content structure, grid design, style sheets, typographic elements and colour. They will also learn how to handle all the digital formats for editing, whether it is an interactive PDF or a digital book format (epub, mobi, azw, etc.), which allows direct online dissemination.

Students will work with Adobe InDesign layout and Adobe Photoshop graphic editing programmes on a personal project (or on standard material proposed by the trainer) so that at the end of the course the book will be ready for public distribution. If these programmes are not available, all the steps will be explained so that they can be applied to any graphic design programme and limited supplementary support will be given to adapt to other programmes (Illustrator, Corel Draw, Word, etc.).

They will work with layout and graphic editing programmes, such as Adobe InDesign and Adobe Photoshop, on a personal project (or on standard material proposed by the trainer), so that at the end of the course the book will be ready for public distribution. If these programmes are not available, all the steps will be explained so that they can be applied to any graphic design programme and limited supplementary support will be given to adapt to other programmes (Illustrator, Corel Draw, Word, etc.).

Register now

Objectives

  • Learn the basics of graphic design and typography in a personalised and scalable way. 
  • Acquire the essential design skills to create a digital/print publication by using layout and editing programmes.
  • Achieve autonomy to design, layout and edit a book ready for professional dissemination.

Contents

  • Design of the layout.
  • Paragraph and text style sheets.
  • Page format, margins, grid, columns, footers and headers…
  • Typography and orthography.
  • Colours, ranges and calibration.
  • Inclusion of images and other multimedia elements.
  • Interactivity (forms, questionnaires, hypertext…).
  • Indexes, structure, footnotes, bibliography.
  • Export and formats (PDF for printing, interactive PDF, digital book -epub, mobi, azw…-).
  • Cover.
  • Promotion and dissemination.
  • InDesign: workspace, workspace navigation, tools, file formats.
  • Basic Photoshop: workspace, workspace navigation, tools, file formats. Scaling and processing images for publications.

Target group

This course is aimed at the entire university community: undergraduate and postgraduate students, researchers, university teachers, administrative and support and services staff that need to create a digital publication or for a group, project, institution or company.

Admission

  • No prior knowledge of graphic design or layout is required.

  • Basic computer skills and web browsing are recommended.

Technical requirements

  • A computer with a screen of at least 13 inches and HD resolution.
  • Good internet connection (minimum 3Mb/s, preferably 10Mb/s).

Start and duration

  • The course is permanently open for registration. The student chooses on the registration form the month in which he/she wishes to receive the training.
  • The student will have access to the course materials for 6 months. Besides, during this same period, the trainer will continue to support and assist him/her in the development of his/her personal project and related materials.
  • Students can progress freely, with a permanent online tutoring service available. However, they will have to respect this time frame to complete the training:
    • Minimum: 15 days.
    • Maximum: 1 month.

Training and language

  • Academic training hours. 20 hours of direct online training, distributed as follows: 10 hours of video tutorials at your disposal and 10 hours of live-streaming classes, to work on students’ projects. Attendance at these 2-hours live sessions, which will be distributed over five days, is not compulsory but is recommended for clarifying doubts. After the live session, the video can be viewed in deferred, and the trainer will be available to answer questions on the microsite of the course, through its various channels of communication.
    The trainer and the students of each group will agree on the schedule for these live sessions at the beginning of the course.
  • Practicum. 30 hours of individual work with constant support from the trainer, the forums and the virtual classroom.
  • Permanent online tutoring.
  • Materials in the virtual classroom. Permanent access to tutorials and support materials for 6 months.
  • Groups. Work will be carried out in groups of between 4 and 12 students, prioritising individual work and project support through individual tutorials. Students will be notified by email once a group is formed.
  • Trainer. Adolfo Ramonde, an expert in graphic/web design and programming. Estudio Galego de Deseño.
  • Languages: Spanish and English. The English course option will depend on demand and will only be offered from March. All the materials will also be available in this language.

Evaluation and diploma

The evaluation will involve the effective completion of:

  • The online tests on each section, which are mandatory to pass to successfully complete the course.
  • A book ready for dissemination with cover, table of contents, style sheets, interactive elements and exported to any digital format.

Completing this course will give the right to obtain the Diploma of the training and teaching innovation course “Design, layout and edition of an interactive digital book” issued by the Compostela Group of Universities.

Registration and enrolment

Registration. Fill in the online form. The data provided through this form will be available to the CGU Executive Secretariat and the trainer.

Registration fee. 200€ (includes taxes).

Registration deadlines and fee payment

Registration is permanently open.

Payment of the registration fee. After the online registration, the student will receive a confirmation of registration from the Compostela Group of Universities with the steps to formalize the enrollment: course, price data and bank account for the payment. The student must pay the registration fee and send the proof of payment to grupo.compostela@usc.es.

Conditions for cancellations and reimbursement Publish your book CGU.

Register now