Appendix B.5 : MENTOR

Helyn Thornbury, MENTOR Project, Dept. of Management Science
University of Strathclyde, 40 George Street, Glasgow G1 1QE
Tel +44 141 552 4400 x3499 Fax +44 141 552 6686
Email Helyn@ManSci.Strath.ac.uk
www Address http://www.strath.ac.uk/Departments/MgtSci/mentor.html

The MENTOR project is the consortium TLTP project for Operational Research. The project is producing 17 multimedia modules covering a variety of commonly taught OR subjects. The material produced by MENTOR is intended to run on a 486 PC under Microsoft Windows.

Development Decisions

Early in the project, it was decided that the material MENTOR produced should have hands-on input from authors who are well recognised experts and experienced teachers of the subject matter (but who were not necessarily programmers or cal developers). This posed some problems from a development point of view. It meant that the system we adopted had to be easy to use for our authors but also incorporate sound interface and system design (Belton, Elder, Thornbury, 1995).

We also felt it was important to make sure that the material produced is widely used. To achieve this we had to ensure that individual lecturers had the ability to modify the material to suit particular courses and students.

After looking at a variety of authoring packages which did not quite match our requirements we took the decision to create our own system. By producing our own system for authoring (LearnOR) we could combine the needs of both our subject authors and the lecturers who would be implementing the material.

LearnOR - How does it work?

The interface and navigational facilities were designed by the MENTOR team at Strathclyde University (including a graphical designer and an HCI expert). These features are standard in all modules produced so that once a student has used one module, they can use any of the modules. The system behaviour has been designed to allow students of different abilities to use the same system by layering the information using a hypertext approach.

Figure 1 thumbnail
MENTOR: Figure 1.

LearnOR acts like a glue which combines and presents different resources. The text which is contained in the module can be written in a word processor (Word Perfect or Microsoft Word) then loaded in or typed straight onto the screen. The formats which have been used are standards (e.g., graphic.bmp, video.avi etc.) so that they can be created in the author's preferred package and imported straight across. This also means that lecturers can modify and add extra material without problems related to format.

What is a Module?

A MENTOR module is a courseware unit designed to cover equivalent material to around 10 hours of a traditional lecturing course. It is intended to be used as a replacement for some (but not all) lectures in combination with tutorials and drop-in sessions. A module contains hypertext, graphics, animations, video, interactive exercises and technique software integrated into a supportive learning environment.

Figure 2 thumbnail
MENTOR: Figure 2.

The learning material is structured by the learning structure file which is created in LearnOR by the author. This file defines the way the material is presented to the student and provides an author defined route through the material, a glossary, hypertext, interactions, maps etc. The LearnOR provides navigational tools and support to the student without the authors having to create them individually for each module.

There is a common icon for all the modules. When the student clicks on the MENTOR icon they are presented with a menu of the particular modules loaded on that system from which they can make their choice. This allows lecturers to have different versions of the same module on their system for different classes e.g., an option for Linear Programming 3rd Class and Linear Programming MSc Class. The lecturer can define the titles shown on this menu by modifying a .txt file held on the system.

Figure 3 thumbnail
MENTOR: Figure 3.

LearnOR automatically logs student activities when they are using a module. This information can be accessed through the Tutor Support System which graphically displays student usage information. It allows the lecturer to check on the progress of individual students or compare particular groups of students (perhaps a tutorial group).

How does the MENTOR System interact?

The way the system interacts is shown in Figure 4. The original Learning Structure file which makes up the module is created (using LearnOR) by the module author. The lecturer who is using the module can use LearnOR to modify this file.

Figure 4 thumbnail
MENTOR: Figure 4.

When the student uses the system, LearnOR calls up the Learning Structure file to find the resource files and see how they are to be presented. As the student uses the module, LearnOR creates unique Log files. When the lecturer checks the progress of the student they access these files through the Tutor Support System (TSS). The TSS does not interact with LearnOR.

Picking & Mixing

As you can see, the MENTOR system has been designed so that individual resources are held separately. Thus, each resource can be accessed externally to LearnOR.

The LearnOR authoring/teaching software which lecturers receive is the full authoring version which the module author used to create the courseware. This gives the lecturer full freedom to modify/add/delete material in the system. Major alterations can be achieved quickly as the system was designed to be no more difficult than, for example, a spread sheet package. (Obviously the difficulty involved increases if you wish to do complicated alterations to interactive exercises.) The system is accompanied by the MENTOR Teaching Guide (Belton, Elder, Thornbury, 1994). This guide contains information on integration, how to use the system and the full technical manual for LearnOR. (LearnOR also contains a full on-line help system for authoring.)

Separate modules can be joined using the Merge Facility with LearnOR. While this is not technically difficult it can be time consuming and is not recommended unless you have first discussed it with the MENTOR team at Strathclyde University.

The MENTOR system allows a high degree of flexibility in modifying the modules. As the resource files are held separately it also allows transfer of resources to other systems. As yet, the system will not read other courseware from different packages (with the exception of launching the software within a MENTOR module). Future developments are planned in this area.

References

Belton V, Elder MD, Thornbury HE (1995). Early experiences of MENTORing: Design and Use of Multimedia Materials for Teaching OR/MS. Working paper 95/5, Management Science : Theory Method and Practice Series, University of Strathclyde.

MENTOR Teaching Guide (1994)

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