Appendix B.3 : HyperCourseware

D.Siviter@sbu.ac.uk
South Bank University

Phil.Siviter@brighton.ac.uk
University of Brighton

Courseware Structuring in HyperCourseware

An overview of HyperCourseware ideas was presented in the main body of this report under Issues addressed by existing Courseware Management Systems. In particular, the generic approach to courseware structuring and basic features of HyperCourseware were described. In the sub section Picking and Mixing within HyperCourseware, we presented a simplified view of how HyperCourseware's generic structure of Topics and Activities maps onto an underlying resource of directories and files. In this appendix, we provide a more detailed description of this mapping, including those features which enable HyperCourseware to support arbitrary network structures. In addition, some of the other main features of HyperCourseware are summarised.

Mapping the Topics and sub Topics onto directories and sub directories

We will use a deliberately miniature example to illustrate the important ideas, viz., our aptly named "Mickey Mouse Multimedia Course" (see figures 1 and 2).

Figure 1. The Mickey Mouse Multimedia Course outline.

Figure 2 thumbnail
Figure 2. Mapping the Topics and sub Topics onto directories and sub directories.

Educational Activities within Topics are implemented as files within directories

The idea of "Directories and Files" is a very familiar and very flexible technique for managing resources in a structured way. Computer users are familiar with operations like moving and copying files from one directory to another and creating sub directories within directories, etc. By mapping directly onto this traditional resource structuring metaphor HyperCourseware offers the same kind of structuring flexibility for Topics and Activities within courseware. Hence installing Courseware Topic Y as a sub topic of Courseware Topic X is analogous to installing Directory Y as a sub directory of Directory X, and installing Educational Activity B into Courseware Topic X is analogous to copying File B into Directory X (see figure 3).

Figure 3 thumbnail
Figure 3. Installing Activities in Topics is analogous to copying files into directories.

Sharing and linking Activities

In addition to these fundamental operations HyperCourseware also offers features which are analogous to other file resource management facilities; for example, Macintosh users are familiar with the idea of an "alias" file whereby a file which resides in just one directory appears to also have copies residing within other directories. HyperCourseware provides an equivalent facility by allowing Activities which reside in one Topic to be exportable to other Topics (equivalent to allowing files to have aliases in other directories).

HyperCourseware takes each of these file resource management ideas and provides their conceptual equivalents at a courseware management level. It then adds further facilities for linking courseware resources (taking Hypertext linking as a metaphor) and further facilities for viewing and navigating the structure of those resources.

"Picking and Mixing" within a HyperCourseware Management System

A HyperCourseware Management System provides a suite of tools for automating the manipulation, viewing and navigating of courseware resources. End-users of HyperCourseware interact with whatever educational super-structures have been designed by authors (see in main report within section 3.1.1 Issues of structure, views, navigation and orientation); end-users need never encounter such low level concepts as files and directories. Courseware developers operate at the same levels as users but also use the HyperCourseware Management System to map these user-level structures onto the underlying files and directories. Ignoring the specific details of how these tools actually operate, one can see a summary of the kinds of "pick and mix" available within HyperCourseware by looking at the following diagrams. These diagrams illustrate how the various high level facilities of picking and mixing Topics and Activities translate into moving, copying, linking and embedding files within directories.

Figure 4 thumbnail
Figure 4. Linking to a file/application which resides outside of the course.

Figure 5 thumbnail
Figure 5. Making an Activity "exportable" and linking to it from other Topics.

Figure 6 thumbnail
Figure 6. Copying Activities from one course to another by physically copying the file from one directory to another.

Figure 7 thumbnail
Figure 7. Copying an entire Topic from one Course to another by copying entire directories (and sub directories with sub Topics).

Other features within a HyperCourseware Management System

Based on the courseware structuring and "pick and mix" capabilities outlined above, a HyperCourseware Management System provides both a suite of tools for automating the manipulation, viewing and navigating of courseware resources, and a set of templates which provide courseware developers with well behaved (i.e., they communicate properly with the HyperCourseware CMS) starting points for Topic and Activity development.

The tools include:

a courseware editor, for easy and fast configuration and reconfiguration of the courseware - i.e., restructuring of the Topics hierarchy, and "pick and mixing" of Activities within and across Topics.
"smart" application launching, for (shallow) integration of diverse resources;
viewing tools: utilities to generate various maps, and automatic generation of indexes;
a sequencer for sequencing / animation of events within Activities;

The templates provide all the necessary functionality to enable interaction with the CMS - e.g., invocation of maps and indexes, interaction with the sequencer, exporting of navigational information to a history manager, orientation status information and a range of navigational controls, etc. They are immediately usable by courseware authors and developers, providing a consistent look and feel, and they can be further customised by authors as required. The templates include:

course controls palettes;
course maps - screens which show the available Topics within the course, and their structural relationships as presented by the courseware authors;
lessons maps - maps showing the set of Activities making up a particular Topic;
title pages - screens which clearly identify particular Topics, facilitating learner orientation;
lesson templates - commonly required types of educational Activity;
excursions - controlled, temporary diversions from a lesson, guaranteed to return the user to the main lesson;
authors' on-line help for learners;
collections of functional "widgets" which authors can use to further customise the templates.

Authors have a very wide scope to customise these functional templates. Examples in use will be functionally similar but can be visually very diverse. For examples of these tools and examples of how the templates have been used, see in the main report within section 3.1.2 under the sub-heading Picking and Mixing within HyperCourseware and further examples here in figures 8 and 9.

Figure 8 thumbnail
Figure 8. A fragment of a course map, plus a controls palette on which the user has invoked an index of Topics.

Figure 9 thumbnail
Figure 9. An example lesson showing standard orientation and navigation facilities.

Contents