SUMMARY
Is there a future for electronic books in education? This paper presents a preliminary evaluation of two categories of electronic book, reference‐type and textbook‐type, from an ‘outward’ perspective, focusing on implementation likelihood in school and university settings. The socalled ‘3G approach’ is combined with a ‘cost‐expectation’ perspective to provide a theoretical framework for making predictions about the future of electronic books and for making recommendations to increase the likelihood that electronic books will have an educational future.