A framework for supporting quality-based multimedia presentation in educational digital libraries

An educational digital library is a specialized digital library containing instructional materials, such as class lectures, seminar presentations, and various training materials. These materials consist of the combination of audio, video and image data. We believe that such an environment has diverse uses, including student training, human resource development, and asynchronous distance learning. In this paper, we investigate a framework for supporting the continuous and synchronized presentation of multimedia streams in educational digital libraries. This framework includes the design of an information infrastructure built on top of a distributed multimedia database environment, the specification and representation of synchronization on media streams, the realization of appropriate synchronization granularity and the scheduling principles for the presentation of multimedia streams. This investigation will formulate criteria for specifying and scheduling the skipping/pausing of media streams with asynchronous presentations when various delays occur. Adaptability to various quality-of-service requirements are supported in the framework. Synchronization mechanisms at the client side are then proposed to implement the framework. Experimental analysis are conducted using instructional materials. Thus, this framework can be readily used to facilitate various education and training applications