Objective
To develop and integrate the technology necessary to take a multi-media work from origination at one or more authors, through conventional publishing and their retail outlets, to educational suppliers who will recombine works and add educational value, and thus to the end-users, the students, who will be able to use the materials across a range of presentations, unconstrained by the particular platforms available to them. Example works will be taken completely through this supply chain during the pilot, with pilot educational courses benefiting within the life of the pilot.
Special attention will be given to the disabled and underprivileged. Care will be taken that the methods and technology are widely applicable in publishing outside of education.
This project will determine the feasibility of a pilot application which will demonstrate the collaborative development of multi-media materials between authors, publishers, and educational establishments.
Authors need to be able to use the latest multi-media development technology, publishers need to be able to make multi-media works available for sale both through conventional retail outlets and across networks, and educational establishments and authors need to be able to incorporate materials from other works into new works. The end-users of the multi-media materials, students and the public at large, need to be able to use the materials on a range of equipment, which may fall well below the specifications of the equipment used by the originators of the materials. All of this needs to be managed in a way which protects the commercial interests of the stake-holders, particularly the publishers who are important brokers within this supply chain.
This feasibility project will address the key risk areas for such a pilot application. Technical risk lies in the areas of transfer and provision of materials on a range of systems at a range of levels of capability right down to print and audio, and the use of networks in the delivery of multi-media works. Technology available from the partners and commercially will be integrated exploiting data interchange standards where possible. Commercial risk lies in the marketing areas of retailing, and the legal and economic areas around intellectual property rights. Special attention will be given to making the multi-media works available to the disabled and underprivileged.
In addition to the expected proposal for a Framework IV project, this project will produce a general publicly available report on the area setting out the current potential and research problems related to publishing multi-media works within an educational setting. This public report will be produced as a multi-media work available on the networks.
Topic(s)
Call for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
CSC - Cost-sharing contractsCoordinator
MK7 6AA Milton Keynes
United Kingdom