Full Paper

A C Lynn Zelmer

l.zelmer@cqu.edu.au

Department of Mathematics and Computing

Central Queensland University

Central Queensland University is a regional university with five campuses in Queensland and two interstate campuses for international students, plus domestic and overseas programs which utilise the university's ability to deliver tertiary units at a distance. The university was, for example, the first in the world to offer professional computing studies at a distance and offers a number of information technology (IT) courses, all with an applied focus.

In 1996 the Faculties of Applied Science (Department of Mathematics and Computing), Arts and Business jointly developed an undergraduate award course, the Bachelor of Multimedia Studies (Table 1), as an entry level qualification for multimedia professionals. The new course is primarily a repackaging of current offerings with only four new units specific to the degree. It was first offered in the Autumn semester of 1997 with the introduction of the core first year unit 00101 Introduction to Multimedia Systems. Subsequent years of the course will be offered in 1998 and 1999; delivery to students studying at a distance has been rescheduled to begin in 1999 because of resource constraints, some of which are discussed in this paper.

Introduction to Multimedia Systems provides an overview of the use and development of multimedia and introduces students to a number of areas which may be studied in greater depth in later units. This unit requires staff with broad experience as it is meant to be a "fun" unit, providing an opportunity for students to explore the breadth of the discipline.

Unfortunately, the initial offering of this unit occurred when one of the two lecturers designated for the unit was on study leave and the other had just returned from study leave. Unit materials had not, therefore, been prepared prior to the start of semester except for the unit profile (a brief outline of unit objectives, structure, assessment style, etc.) and selection of a textbook (Hofstetter, Fred 1995, Multimedia Literacy with CD-ROM, McGraw-Hill). A Chancellery imposed freeze on all non-essential purchases meant that the installation of the first year multimedia teaching laboratory was delayed beyond the start of semester.

Eighty-five students enrolled in this unit for its first offering, 14 of whom were taking the multimedia degree. The others were primarily business and information technology students taking the unit as an elective. As a result computer literacy, multimedia, programming, and "people" skills varied widely. The skills of the teaching staff varied almost as widely. The lecturer (the author) is an experienced non-commercial multimedia designer and developer but is not a programmer. The tutors were Business Information Systems graduates with considerable enthusiasm and student rapport but minimal multimedia and programming skills.

Institutional constraints and lack of preparation might have suggested delaying the start for another year. However, the unit was delivered in a "just-in-time" format using "IT to teach IT", primarily e-mail and web-based technologies for distributing materials and communications. Students met each week in one of the university's multimedia lecture theatres for a two hour face-to-face session organised as one hour of "lecture" and another of demonstration or class instruction. As well, there were weekly two-hour small group tutorial sessions scheduled in the computer laboratory (maximum 20 students per session) and the lecturer demonstrated multimedia technologies on an 'ad hoc' basis. Assessment was by assignment-two introductory exercises to demonstrate competency with the technology (10% each) and a group assignment (40%) to develop a small project-and final written exam (40%).

At the end of the semester eleven students did not sit the exam, thirteen received a Fail mark, fifteen a Pass, twenty a Credit, fourteen a Distinction, and nine a High Distinction.

This paper examines the difficulties of delivering this unit and provides some suggestions for others considering the use of "just-in-time" technologies for the delivery of a high-tech unit.

Scheduling problems were common at CQU during 1997. The multimedia sessions were scheduled to avoid conflicting with other degree units but students, who were taking this unit as an elective were not so lucky. Many stayed with the class but skipped lecture or demonstration sessions, with implications for the last assignment as they did not know their classmates.

The textbook provided a general introduction to the discipline and was augmented with class visits from working multimedia professionals. The CD-ROM examples were relevant but the presentation software was a demonstration version only and could not be used (as was anticipated when the textbook was selected) for the assignments.

The lecture and demonstration sessions in the large theatre followed the designated topic schedule. The author's initial difficulty using the theatre projection system would have been much more significant if he had not purchased a laptop computer with an appropriate video output; other colleagues using the lecture theatre often had to install software and presentations on the theatre computer every class. In the end-of-term assessment most students indicated that the presentations were acceptable although the demonstrations did not always work as planned due to hardware limitations.

The scheduled tutorials, conducted in the multimedia computer laboratory, received a mixed review. Unlike tutors in the programming units, the multimedia tutors did not normally conduct a formal lecture-type session. Many sessions started with a demonstration or assignment activity, followed by an opportunity for students to work on their assignments. Some students appreciated the opportunity to ask the tutor for assistance when necessary, knowing that the tutor would guide them towards a solution, others wanted a more formal presentation and demanded 'answers'.

Facility and time constraints resulted in one of the tutors resigning about four weeks prior to the end of the semester. Rather than attempting to recruit another tutor at this time the author took on these tutorial duties but moved the sessions out of the computer laboratory. This was quite effective as most of the problems by that point in the semester related to group organisation and similar issues.

After about five weeks it became apparent that some students needed more depth than was possible in the class demonstrations, particularly for more sophisticated multimedia development processes (eg video capture and CD-ROM production). An optional weekly session was scheduled and, although these sessions conflicted with many students' timetables and were conducted in a small tutorial room, they were enthusiastically received.

The first assignment required students to learn and use PowerPoint and provided a good introduction for novice computer users. The second required students to create a page in html (Figure 1) and replicate it to display supplied images.

Figure 1: Sample page to be replicated for HTML assignment; each student received 10 JPEG files to be displayed in a similar manner.

As is normal with group assignments, some students participated fully, others did not. In the following exchange (some spelling and punctuation errors in the e-mail messages below have been corrected for readability), two of the students in one group finally made contact through the class discussion list, even though other messages had failed (see Table 2).

The author created and managed a web site for the class containing links to all class materials, including unit profile, assignment details, images for the first two assignments, marks and comments on completed assignments, and lecture notes (Figure 2). During the course of the semester this site was expanded to include sample multimedia presentations, etc. While it might be more appropriate for class materials to be made available on a university server, rather than on a staff member's "feral" site, policies and procedures did not permit easy updating and maintenance and officially require all on-line materials to be approved by a university committee prior to posting.

Figure 2: Lecture note extract with a superimposed image from one of the links.

Basic Infrastructure Requirements

Students taking an introductory multimedia unit need access to networked multimedia enhanced computers (perhaps in the ratio of 4 Wintel to 1 Macintosh) with CD-ROM drives, sound systems with headphones, large hard drives, etc., for:

• viewing and evaluating current multimedia products and tools,
• accessing information sources and resources (local and Internet), and
• designing and developing basic multimedia presentations.

Other required facilities include:

• monochrome laser printer for text, and colour inkjet printer for presentations,
• consumer level digital cameras,
• video recorder and playback facilities;
• inexpensive video cameras for network videoconferencing with appropriate software;
• audio recorder and microphones;
• flatbed or handheld colour scanner;
• colour slide/negative scanner with appropriate software;
• audio and video digitising facilities with appropriate software;
• graphical input tablet(s);
• CD-ROM recorder(s); and
• removable hard disk storage devices (Zip/SyQuest, on the network and for student loan).

For most efficient use these peripherals should probably be installed in a small number of faster machines which can be used as shared workstations. A Power Macintosh with the integrated Avid Cinema card and video editing software, for example, would be ideal and could also support the flatbed and slide/negative scanners.

Software includes appropriate operating systems, network tools, browsers and e-mail, virus checkers and other utilities, sample multimedia projects and tools for review, plus at least one presentation tool (PowerPoint in 1997) and one development environment (VisualBasic in 1997) and tools/utilities for developing basic projects. Other production tools could be light versions of industry-standards such as PhotoShop Lite and a range of shareware utilities.

Students also need good access to "productivity" tools (word processors, etc.) for completing assignments and a secure but easily updated web/ftp site or equivalent for the distribution of student resources and the display of student projects.

Access to a collection of copyright free resources (digitised photos, video, audio, illustrations, backgrounds, etc.) is important for assignment use (in 1997 these were supplied from the lecturer's personal collection) since students at this level typically lack image production skills.

Conclusion

Some aspects of 'just-in-time' delivery should be adaptable to tertiary education but we need to remember that the automobile and other industries using this approach invest in planning and infrastructure prior to initiating their programs. This unit was both challenging and rewarding but new units should not be delivered in an 'ad hoc' fashion, even if the Internet and on-line tools enable us to do so. Most students, while agreeing that the unit had its moments of fun, would argue that there were too many delivery problems. In particular, they would highlight the inadequate resources for completing assignments, the late start to the optional small group demonstrations of industry standard software and techniques, and the difficulties with the groupwork in the third assignment. None of these issues are insurmountable but all must be overcome prior to the next offering of the unit.

Multimedia offerings, especially when delivered on-line, require significant infrastructure funding. The author's request for digital cameras, scanners and other basic tools for first year students was characterised as a 'Rolls Royce' approach. CQU may never have the funding to provide Silicon Graphics or similar workstations to its students, and indeed should not do so if it is to deliver the course to students at a distance, but administrators and others need to understand that quality education requires adequate resources.

 

(c) A C Lynn Zelmer

 

The author(s) assign to ASCILITE and educational and non-profit institutions a non-exclusive licence to use this document for personal use and in courses of instruction provided that the article is used in full and this copyright statement is reproduced. The author(s) also grant a non-exclusive licence to ASCILITE to publish this document in full on the World Wide Web and on CD-ROM and in printed form with the ASCILITE 97 conference papers, and for the documents to be published on mirrors on the World Wide Web. Any other usage is prohibited without the express permission of the authors.

 

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