Challenges And Solutions To Creating Anddelivering Multimedia Content For Asynchronous Courses.

Abstract

This paper describes our current work on MANIC [1], an open-source, cross-platform system to create and deliver courses over the WWW and via CD-ROM. After several years of supporting both on-line and live classes with MANIC, we describe some of the challenges we encountered and solutions we are developing. MANIC allows instructors to create courses and deliver them to students as HTML slides shown in synchrony with an audio and/or video stream. Courses are organized as modular units to teach individual topics; students can drive their learning experience by browsing the material freely and controlling the pace of the presentations. MANIC has been used to deliver a variety of courses, both as stand-alone courses for distance education and as an accompaniment to live courses taught locally. In either case students benefit from around-the-clock access to material; the combination of audio and text also aids student understanding and retention of the material. Instructors are able to cover more material during their lectures or to spend more time on discussion, and to adapt the digital material for future use.