Multimedia features for course-on-demand in distance learning

The rapid evolution of communication technologies, contributed by the advanced data networks and the integration of multimedia information processing, has greatly impacted our approach to distance learning. Most existing research work emphasizes the communication aspects of multimedia roles in distance learning [3, 4]. On the other hand, we are initiating a new multimedia research activity which emphasises the development of tools for creating constructive multimedia features for course-on-demand in distance learning. In this research, we investigated the development of a course-on-demand system which allows students to access a multimedia database containing recorded video courses over various mechanisms, such as TCP/IP LANs, PSTN, and ISDN. The system is based on a client-server model. The recorded courses are stored in the server which allows multiple clients to simultaneously access the multimedia database over the networks. Students can access these pre-recorded sequences through Web browsers (e.g., Netscape, Mosaic, and Microsoft Internet Explorer) by clicking on the specific course numbers (e.g., EE440, EE505, etc) or on the specific contents (e.g., Z-transform, FIR Filters, etc). To help course instructors to create this multimedia features we have developed a hyper video editor tool. This tool allows instructor to mark various portions of the class video and create the corresponding hyper links and multimedia features by editing on line forms