Objective
Purpose
Generating multi-media courseware requires a large number of highly specialised skills for different areas of the courseware life-cycle. Today's authoring systems do support merely the production phase of this life-cycle, ignoring issues, that need to be resolved in the equally important design phase. The main objective of DISCOURSE, therefore, is to develop and pilot test a modular multi-media authoring environment that comprises tools to support courseware authors in the design as well as the production phase of the courseware life-cycle.
The environment is seen as a CASE system for courseware engineering. It includes special tools for the development of multi-media simulations. It will be constructed in accordance with explicit standards (including those associated with CTA) in order to allow communication and co-operation between tools and the integration of third party tools.
The DISCOURSE project developed and pilot tested a modular, multimedia authoring environment of tools to support authors in the various steps of the design and production of courseware - including special tools for multimedia comprising the Domain Authoring Tool, the Instructional Design Tool, the Learner Interface and Modelling Tool (which includes a Learner Attribute Database), Multimedia Production Tools, Simulation Tools (DISCOSIM) and the Common Information Space (CIS).
Approach
The DISCOURSE system is aimed at increasing the cost-effectiveness of learning materials development. It achieves this by emphasizing and supporting the upstream processes of design and by supporting the integration of design and production. Enhanced design can lead to greater reusability of courseware throughout its life-cycle. This is especially true when the courseware is expensive-to-produce multimedia material. The DISCOURSE project explicitly addresses the design process by bringing together expertise gained in the DELTA EA projects ESM-Base SAFE/SIMULATE and TOSKA. In the design area it will concentrate on interlinked tools for: domain representation, the specification of learner modeling techniques, the selection or creation of instructional strategies and database-related courseware design activities including the accessing of remote information.
Support for the design and production phases will be integrated by linking the design toolset to an existing sophisticated multi-media courseware production environment namely SHIVA; - the system built by the DELTA EA project AAT. The SHIVA tools are exposed to field testing from the very beginning of the DISCOURSE project as part of our interactive development cycle. (Information about the usability and methods of use of SHIVA will serve to guide the development of DISCOURSE design tools). Major attention will be given to the interface between design and production tools to ascertain the best ways for design tool output to support the author's courseware production work.
Pilot testing is carried out both inside and outside the project. Inside the project testing will enable us to get fast specific feedback from the users perspective - that is form prospective authors. Large scale testing will take place outside the project. Links have already been made with two Series 300 projects. Large scale testing will allow us to get an independent broad-based assessment of the DISCOURSE system and its constituent tools and associated methods and concepts.
Finally DISCOURSE is explicitly addressing questions under the remit of the CTA task force. The project is making its contribution to this work as well as to the horizontal tasks in Series 100.
Simulation is increasingly being used as a technique to support learning and training. Consequently tools for the creation of simulation-based learning environments must form a part of an authoring tool kit. As the DISCOURSE approach to simulations envisages an instructional component providing learner support there is a great benefit in making links between the aspects of that work and the corresponding aspects of the more general authoring tool kit. These links will be closer and stronger where both tasks are addressed within a single project.
Based on the experience gained in the DELTA I project NAT*LAB, DISCOURSE will address the question of user interfaces referring to the author's system interface as well as to questions of authoring an interface for the learner. Tools will be developed and applied that ensure a unified look and feel of the entire system from a user's perspective.
Output
It is expected that the DISCOURSE project with result in a full-scale prototype that is able to demonstrate the feasibility of the underlying concepts. A workbench for courseware authoring will be provided that integrates design and production support tools linking these to a specialised simulation authoring environment. The entire environment will use an object-oriented multi-media data base as a common information space.
Impact
The DISCOURSE authoring workbench has the potential to change the courseware market in a number of respects. Firstly, it will allow to streamline the authoring process proposing a methodology that represents a good practice in courseware generation; secondly, it will integrate simulation into other types of courseware much easier than possible with today's systems; and finally it will foster the reusability of courseware components and doing so increase the efficiency of authoring.
To each of these improvements, measures of success can be defined. According to these the uptake of the DISCOURSE workbench will result in:
better pedagogical quality
increase of multi-strategy courseware, including simulation
better cost/benefit ratio of multi-media courseware.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences computer and information sciences databases
- natural sciences computer and information sciences software software applications simulation software
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Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Coordinator
88048 Friedrichshafen
Germany
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.