EdTech'98 Proceedings: Sims and Melville

Teaching educational multimedia: Genesis, review, evolution, resources and assessment

Rod Sims and Julian Melville
School of Multimedia and Information Technology
Southern Cross University

As demand for quality education increases, so does the need for personnel qualified in the design and delivery of learning and instructional resources, especially with the current emphasis on electronic delivery and access. This paper describes the introduction and evolution of the Bachelor of Educational Multimedia (BEdM) at Southern Cross University, a vocationally-oriented course designed specifically for the multimedia and related industries. Of specific interest is the course structure and the decision processes used to include and exclude content, especially in terms of the balance between technical, multimedia and educational components. The value of a Course Advisory Committee in guiding the direction of the course is also considered with respect to current industry demands and the overall direction of the course. In addition, the paper will explain the technological environment supporting the course and identify the resources (academic staff, technical support, hardware, software, internet and texts) supporting the course. The formal presentation of the paper will include a demonstration of current implementations of internet-based access and delivery as well as samples of exemplary interactive educational multimedia products developed by students.

Genesis of a course

The Bachelor of Educational Multimedia (BEdM) was initially approved by the Academic Board of Southern Cross University in April 1995 with two completed unit outlines (Principles of Educational Multimedia and Electronic Networking and the Internet) and synopses of proposed units to complete major areas of study in CD-ROM and Networks. In late 1995 an advertisement was placed for a Professor/Associate Professor to undertake the role of introducing the program to the first intake of students and to further develop educational multimedia programs within the university. The position was filled by the first author in time for the start of Semester 1 1996.

Towards the end of the first semester (May 1996), reacting to student concerns about the level of multimedia content in a multimedia program, a proposal was put to the Faculty Board of Education, Work & Training for a major revision to the BEdM program. This included the introduction of an additional unit in Semester 2 1996. While this was unusual in terms of approval of new units, both the Academic Programs Committee and Academic Board recognised the urgency of the proposal and approved the new unit (Multimedia Development I). The program in Semester 2 therefore provided students with two units of study in multimedia, which was compounded by a demand from Information Technology students for elective subjects in multimedia. The result was that rather than the original one multimedia unit being taught, three were offered.

In addition to the increased teaching load and the fact that units in the major fields of studies had not been approved, it was also necessary to develop an additional seven unit statements to accompany the proposal for major revisions to the original program. These were finally presented to, and approved by, the first Academic Board of the restructured university in November 1996. The major thrust of the revision can be summarised as follows:

to provide a more cohesive instructional program based on current practices in the field of educational multimedia.
to reorganise the original major areas of study to focus on the foundations of any educational endeavour (Design and Development) in the context of educational multimedia rather than on specific, and potentially transitory, technologies.
to rename the units originally proposed in order to cater for the rapid changes in technology.

The newly approved program provided a comprehensive set of units at the undergraduate level by which graduates would be in a position to gain employment in the rapidly growing and expanding multimedia industry. The program also relocated to the new School of Multimedia and Information Technology.

What is Educational Multimedia?

Educational Multimedia is a term applied to over thirty years of endeavour in the field of educational technology, growing from the early Skinnerian models of programmed instruction through the intensely methodological Instructional Design strategies of the 1970s and 1980s to the current emphasis on learning tools adopting constructivist techniques. Educational multimedia therefore encompasses the application of technology to support the design, delivery and evaluation of educational resources in the context of formal schooling, tertiary education, adult and lifelong learning as well as generic information retrieval and dissemination.

The educational component of the course focuses on the ways in which people learn, the means by which educational resources can be developed, the different environments in which people teach or learn, the educational implications of the human-computer interface and the evaluation of educational delivery. The ability to apply interactivity to learning activities, using technological components, provides an incentive to increase motivation and transfer of learning and has a high profile in educational literature. To achieve this, Southern Cross University introduced the course to focus on the theories and principles of instructional design to ensure the resources developed are rigorous in their implementation. In addition, the extent to which any educational resource is effective in its application - whether through technological, traditional or electronic delivery - is critical and evaluation of both operational and instructional objectives remains a major component of educational development.

The multimedia component of the course considers a range of critical issues including the ways in which technologies to support educational delivery have now converged to a single computer-based device. At the foundation level the study involves a consideration of basic media elements (text, graphics, audio, video, animation), the current software tools used to create and manipulate these elements and the ways in which they must be designed to fit into an educational context. In addition, consideration is made of the ways in which navigation and interaction can be used to enhance instructional transactions. Finally, the actual creation of educational multimedia software involves the use of specialised development tools (authoring systems) which in turn involve the use of basic software development and engineering techniques.

The overall focus of the course is therefore on the use of (multimedia) technology to design, create and implement specific educational resources to meet the instructional or learning requirements of target audiences with diverse levels of motivation, education and technical literacy. By providing a comprehensive set of units at the undergraduate level, graduates are expected to be in a position to gain employment in the rapidly growing and expanding multimedia industry.

Qualifying Units
Current Issues
History of Ideas
Approaches to Social Sciences
Approaches to Psychology
Principles of Educational Multimedia
Electronic Networking and the Internet
Design Major
Multimedia Issues
Instructional Design I
Instructional Design II
Instructional Design III
Multimedia Design Update
Multimedia Design Project
Design Major
Interactive Multimedia Development I
Interactive Multimedia Development II
Digital Media I
Digital Media II
Multimedia Development Update
Multimedia Development Project B
Elective Units
Interactive Multimedia Development III
Digital Media III

The course structure

The table to the right illustrates the course structure as approved by the Academic Board in November 1996. The inclusion of units as diverse as History of Ideas and Current Issues was partly historical as they were core units offered by the Faculty of Education Work and Training from which the course originated. However, with the restructuring of the university, the transfer of the course to the School of Multimedia and Information Technology and student feedback, it became apparent that further assessment of the program was necessary.

Consequently, in early 1997 approval was given for the establishment of a Course Advisory Committee which met in July 1997 and produced a summary (see below) of the multimedia industry and the direction of programs which are focusing on the skilling of multimedia professionals. Following this review, the first activity was the creation of an on-line environment to provide a more interactive basis for delivery and access.

Online learning

EdMM [ http://edmm.scu.edu.au/ ] is the name of the teaching web-site associated with Southern Cross University's Educational Multimedia program, which has been under development since August 1997. There were several reasons for moving towards the web-based delivery of Educational Multimedia content, including an increased focus on international delivery of courses, a large cohort of mature and part-time students and an overall commitment towards more flexible delivery of our courses. As part of the preparation for Semester 1, 1998, it was decided to deliver the teaching materials for several units largely on the web, even though classes were delivered in internal (face-to-face) mode.

Initial analysis for the task consisted mainly of informal interviews with students, to discuss the content that would be most beneficial. Following these discussions an overall structure for the site was drawn up and refined several times. The initial site structure included:

a news area
details of unit statements for units within the BEdM program
staff contact details
a copy of the teaching timetable
sections for each of the units to be taught which would include a semester outline, links to web-based readings and library materials
lecture notes
online tutorial material
assessment specifications.

In this version of the EdMM site, the online teaching materials reflect the face-to-face teaching structure of each unit. Apart from some tutorial material, the educational content is not especially designed for online learning. While this is not a perfect situation, the major goal of the current phase of the EdMM project was to integrate the use of the website into the teaching program, and this has largely been achieved. Now that the site is truly a part of the Educational Multimedia program, more attention can be directed towards the successful implementation of online learning strategies.

One of the design parameters was the securing of various areas of the EdMM site to restrict access to enrolled students of the BEdM program. The two main options available were to restrict access by network address or by username and password. Initially the username and password option was ignored because of the potential administration problem of maintaining password lists. After considering that BEdM students could conceivably be accessing the site from anywhere in the world, making network address restrictions not practical, the second option was chosen. Fortunately the web server being used (Novell Web Server 3.1) allows the securing of web sites using existing IntraNetware account information, which has worked well in practice.

The design of the web pages themselves was driven by several main goals, chiefly the desire to make a site that was easy to navigate and pages that were fast to download over a modem. The wide range of client machines, operating systems and web browsers that would be used to view the site meant that the HTML code had to be simple and straightforward, avoiding browser-specific tags and scripting languages. Many of the conclusions of Nielsen about site navigation and page design were found to be very useful in achieving these goals (Nielsen & Sano,1994; Nielsen, nd)

The resulting site features a minimal number of graphics, with techniques such as table background colours being used instead. Pages are marked with the name of the author, the date first published and the date of the most recent modification to indicate to students when material has changed. A hierarchical navigation system at the top of each page indicates where in the site structure the student is currently browsing, and there are links down the left-hand-side to the top of each significant area of the site. Links to pages that are within the current site structure are marked with blue arrows, while links to other web sites are marked with red arrows, and links to non-electronic resources are marked in black.

Production of the EdMM site was implemented using a template-based publishing system (Userland Frontier), which allowed rapid development of the structure of the site. Because the overall look of the pages is governed by the templates, and the content of the pages is stored separately, changes to the whole site are quickly and easily made. The resulting web site incorporates most of the features of the original design, the major omission being the news area. Electronic mailing lists are already heavily used within the Educational Multimedia program to communicate with students and disseminate news, and it was decided not to create yet another place for news to be published, but instead to use the web site to archive postings to the mailing lists. The archival feature will be incorporated into the next major revision of the site.

Student reaction to the site has been generally positive. It has been used as the primary information resource for most of the ten units taught during the first semester, and has rated well in a mid-semester evaluation survey. There have been some difficulties in producing and publishing the information in a timely fashion. Many of these difficulties are related to the lack of suitable writing tools for online publishing. The traditional software packages used for writing have many problems when they are used to write material intended for online delivery, but this is obviously an area of great development and it is expected that the tools will mature over time.

The Course Advisory Committee

The purpose of establishing the Course Advisory Board (consisting of external advisers, industry specialists, teaching staff and students) was to review the content and structure of the Bachelor of Educational Multimedia program to ensure continued industry relevance as a consequence of the rapidly developing multimedia industry. The objectives of the review were:

to assess the existing program in terms of the content of an undergraduate program in educational multimedia
to develop a profile of the skills of a typical educational multimedia graduate
to consider the current state of the educational multimedia industry
to review potential postgraduate offerings in educational multimedia

As a result of the review process, a series of recommendations were formulated which focused on implementing modifications to the content and structure of the course to meet the current needs of employment groups in the multimedia industry - especially those involved in education, training and performance activities. The following details the deliberations of the review and provides a rationale for implementation of the recommendations.

Content

Following consideration of the content of the educational multimedia units offered, the Course Advisory Board ratified the content with the following observations:

business employers would require evidence of Performance Analysis being studied by all students;
the program should ensure that the theoretical elements relating to learning are emphasised and possibly strengthened, especially those which underlie educational multimedia development;
Computer Mediated Communication (CMC), and related Internet interactions, are becoming a dominant force in educational access and delivery and should therefore be clearly emphasised in the program;
multimedia development relies largely on effective teamwork, and the program would benefit by including aspects of team building and group dynamics;
the existing Social Science core units (History of Ideas, Current Issues, Approaches to Social Sciences and Approaches to Psychology) are not essential core areas of knowledge for the current multimedia industry;
the maintenance of existing and developing new industry contacts (both locally and nationally) is critical for the success of student projects;
the inclusion of content focusing on the "language of media" (the theory and discourse of media) would ensure students had a broader understanding of the overall media industry;
all students should have a thorough understanding of the fundamentals of software design and engineering.

Structure

The existing course, based on the core units and major streams in multimedia design and development, was structured to allow students to complete all theory and practical work prior to undertaking two project-based units working with a commercial multimedia project. The Course Advisory Board considered the existing structure and unit sequence as well as a range of options associated with the general concept of industrial experienced and identified the following as appropriate for the program:

the alignment of project work with specific learning outcomes, taking advantage of the "sandwich" concept for work experience;
the re-sequencing of units to more closely reflect the current and predicted needs of the educational multimedia industry;
the identification of major fields of study which would enable students to develop a specialisation

Recommendations

As a result of the review of the content and structure of the program, the following recommendations were developed:

That the core units be redefined to focus on multimedia-specific content.
That a selection of existing units be renamed to more closely express the content to industry employers.
That the industry project be restructured to a "sandwich" model.
That specific areas of the multimedia industry be targeted for the development of specific major areas of study. Potential content identified included: audio and video production; graphic design; business studies; software engineering; animation and 3d graphics; media and communications.
That options for enabling students to gain a teaching qualification be assessed.
That the program continues to addresses the current industry directions in terms of employability through regular (at least annual) meetings of the Advisory Board.
That students have exposure to all manifestations of educational multimedia products, including instructional games, internet-based games and interactive games.
That the university recognise that programs focusing on multimedia place extra demands on staff due to the dynamic nature of the industry.

Course structure

The following represents the proposed structure for the course based on the recommendations from the review process. These modifications would require a revision of content in selected units and the identification of a unit which focuses on the "language of media".

Semester 1 Semester 2

Year 1 Principles of Interactive Learning
Principles of Interactive Multimedia
Foundations in Media Studies
Group Processes Digital Media I
Multimedia Development I
Principles of Performance Analysis
Principles of Networked Learning

Year 2 Digital Media II
Multimedia Development II
Managing Interactive Learning
Elective 1 Multimedia Design Project
Multimedia Development Project
Evaluating Interactive Learning
Elective 2

Year 3 Advanced Networked Learning
Interactive Learning Update
Elective 3
Elective 4 Multimedia Issues
Contemporary Interface Issues
Elective 5
Elective 6

The evolution

While this course has achieved its goals, a series of factors have since necessitated a reassessment of multimedia-related courses offered by the university:

the Course Review identified a range of modifications that would ensure the on-going relevance of the course to the rapidly evolving multimedia industry;
feedback from University marketing indicated a broad-based multimedia course would attract a larger cohort of students;
the School of Multimedia & Information Technology (SoMIT) has been requested by international clients to offer an Associate Degree in Multimedia; and
multimedia is a multi-disciplinary field and a number of schools within the university offers units across this field.

The following details describe the ongoing evolution of the course in terms of the development of both an Associate Degree and Bachelors course in Multimedia. The proposed course was designed to replace the existing BEdM as well as incorporate specific disciplinary units and major studies from other Schools within the university.

Aims of course

The new course was designed to provide students with comprehensive study in the field of multimedia, taking advantage of specialisations within Schools to consolidate the multi-disciplinary nature of interactive multimedia. On completion of the course, it is expected that students will have:

developed comprehensive skills and knowledge in the foundations of interactive multimedia;
demonstrated skills in the design and development of multimedia applications incorporating digital media; and
undertaken a major study in one area of the multimedia field

In addition, the course was designed to allow students to exit after two years with an Associate Degree, in which the basic elements of multimedia will have been covered, but no specialisation completed. The following table illustrates the structure of the evolved Bachelor of Multimedia.

Proposed Structure: Bachelor of Multimedia

Year Semester Unit Code and Unit Name School

1 1 Foundations of Media Studies
Communication: Theory and Practice
Digital Media I
Design HMAS
HMAS
MIT
CA

2 Electronic Networking and the Internet
Interactive Multimedia Development I
Digital Media II
Group Processes MIT
MIT
MIT
SWD

2 1 Interactive Multimedia Development II
Fundamentals of Management
Major (a)
Free Elective MIT
Bus

2 Multimedia Design Project
Multimedia Development Project
Major (b)
Free Elective MIT
MIT

3 1 Multimedia Issues
Scriptwriting
Major (c)
Major (d) MIT
HMAS

2 Interactive Multimedia Development III
Digital Media III
Major (e)
Major (f) MIT
MIT

Proposed Structure: Bachelor of Multimedia
Year	Semester	Unit Code and Unit Name	School
1	1	Foundations of Media Studies Communication: Theory and Practice Digital Media I Design	HMAS HMAS MIT CA
2	Electronic Networking and the Internet Interactive Multimedia Development I Digital Media II Group Processes	MIT MIT MIT SWD
2	1	Interactive Multimedia Development II Fundamentals of Management Major (a) Free Elective	MIT Bus
2	Multimedia Design Project Multimedia Development Project Major (b) Free Elective	MIT MIT
3	1	Multimedia Issues Scriptwriting Major (c) Major (d)	MIT HMAS
2	Interactive Multimedia Development III Digital Media III Major (e) Major (f)	MIT MIT

In addition, the revised program structure allowed students to undertake a major area of study such as Interactive Learning, Business, Marketing, Law and Technology, Human Resources, Sport Management. This program was accepted by University Council on May 28th 1998 and will be offered for delivery from 1999. In three short years the program has evolved from two units and a vision to an broad-based industry relevant program which is designed to meet the needs of the interactive technology community into the 21st century.

Resources and assessment

To teach courses such as the Bachelor of Educational Multimedia and Bachelor of Multimedia requires a wider range of resources and infrastructure support. This was even more critical as the program was being introduced at the Coffs Harbour campus of the University, half-way between the major east coast centres of Sydney and Brisbane. By way of summary, the following provides an overview of the major resources supporting the program:

Academic
staff As at 1 July 1998, there are three full-time and two part-time/casual staff supporting the teaching of the program. It is anticipated that, subject to maintenance of EFTSU, this will increase to four full-time staff, especially once the postgraduate programs are established.

Technical
support The course has a full-time technical officer who is responsible for the installation and maintenance of the laboratories and network.

Hardware and software The support for the teaching is a Novell network linking one PC laboratory, one Macintosh laboratory and one Workshop which includes high-level machines, scanners and CD-burners. Students also have access to Digital Cameras and Video Cameras for borrowing. The PC laboratories operate with Windows NT and the Macintosh laboratories with OS-8.
The main software used is Macromedia Authorware and Director for multimedia development, Adobe Photoshop for graphics manipulation, Adobe Premiere for video digitising and Sound Edit for audio digitising. Additional packages are also provided for specialised 2D, 3D and animation work.

Textbooks We use a range of both instructional and multimedia textbooks. Specifically Alessi & Trollip (1991), Hofstetter (1997) and Boyle (1997). In addition, books of readings for each unit are also made available to students for purchase.

To the future ...

Technology continues to march forward at an alarming pace, with an ever expanding range of software options and upgrades, not to mention the insatiable demand for faster computers and the lurking presence of a corporate controlled Internet! For those whose work involves educating people for a technology-based career, there is comfort in the knowledge that the principles of good design and communication remain constant, but conflict with the new student who has difficulty seeing beyond the instant gratification of MHz and memory. Our challenge for the future is to keep pace with technology without being overwhelmed, to maintain our research to ensure effective delivery of technology-based information and never to forget that the computer is simply a tool for the information age.

Over the past 2.5 years the multimedia course offered by Southern Cross University has undergone significant evolution and change; fortunately this change has been content rather than technology driven and the current structure is anticipated to remain stable for the forseeable time.

References

Alessi, S. M. & Trollip, S. R. (1991). Computer-Based Instruction: Methods and Development. 2nd Edition. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Boyle, T. (1997). Design for Multimedia Learning. London: Prentice Hall.

Hofstetter, F. T. (1997). Multimedia Literacy. New York: McGraw-hill.

Nielsen, J. & Sano, D. (1994). SunWeb: User Interface Design for Sun Microsystem's Internal Web. http://www.sun.com/sun-on-net/uidesign/sunweb/

Nielsen, J. (nd). "Alertbox" series of articles. http://www.useit.com/alertbox/

Authors: Associate Professor Rod Sims and Julian Melville
School of Multimedia and Information Technology
Southern Cross University
Coffs Harbour NSW 2457 AUSTRALIA
Ph: +61 2 6659 3310 Fax: +61 2 6659 3612
Email: rsims@scu.edu.au, jmelvill@scu.edu.au
http://www.scu.edu.au/
Please cite as: Sims, R. and Melville, J. (1998). Teaching educational multimedia: Genesis, review, evolution, resources and assessment. In C. McBeath and R. Atkinson (Eds), Planning for Progress, Partnership and Profit. Proceedings EdTech'98. Perth: Australian Society for Educational Technology. http://www.aset.org.au/confs/edtech98/pubs/articles/sims2.html

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	Semester 1	Semester 2
Year 1	Principles of Interactive Learning Principles of Interactive Multimedia Foundations in Media Studies Group Processes	Digital Media I Multimedia Development I Principles of Performance Analysis Principles of Networked Learning
Year 2	Digital Media II Multimedia Development II Managing Interactive Learning Elective 1	Multimedia Design Project Multimedia Development Project Evaluating Interactive Learning Elective 2
Year 3	Advanced Networked Learning Interactive Learning Update Elective 3 Elective 4	Multimedia Issues Contemporary Interface Issues Elective 5 Elective 6

Academic staff	As at 1 July 1998, there are three full-time and two part-time/casual staff supporting the teaching of the program. It is anticipated that, subject to maintenance of EFTSU, this will increase to four full-time staff, especially once the postgraduate programs are established.
Technical support	The course has a full-time technical officer who is responsible for the installation and maintenance of the laboratories and network.
Hardware and software	The support for the teaching is a Novell network linking one PC laboratory, one Macintosh laboratory and one Workshop which includes high-level machines, scanners and CD-burners. Students also have access to Digital Cameras and Video Cameras for borrowing. The PC laboratories operate with Windows NT and the Macintosh laboratories with OS-8. The main software used is Macromedia Authorware and Director for multimedia development, Adobe Photoshop for graphics manipulation, Adobe Premiere for video digitising and Sound Edit for audio digitising. Additional packages are also provided for specialised 2D, 3D and animation work.
Textbooks	We use a range of both instructional and multimedia textbooks. Specifically Alessi & Trollip (1991), Hofstetter (1997) and Boyle (1997). In addition, books of readings for each unit are also made available to students for purchase.