A Web Based Framework for E-Learning: A Model for Online Presentation Authoring

A recent trend in the E-learning community is the emergence of Learning Content Management System (LCMS). An LCMS is generally defined as a system which combines content creation and course administration tools. A model for online presentation authoring system is presented in this work, following the notion of LCMS. It serves as a framework for people to author and manage their presentation over the Internet. In particular, this project explores the potentials of Flash-based authoring tools and lays a foundation for further developments. The key advantage of the system is the convenience of online access. Simplification of the authoring tasks has also been achieved by separating the roles of the layout designer and content author. Furthermore, the system provides learners with the flexibility to view any contents using any defined layouts. Recently, a growing number of Institutions and business organizations have embraced the concept of e-learning. They use web based learning systems to fulfill their educational needs. However, as the system became larger with many users and various contents, some sort of management system was required. Subsequently, a system which provides administration over a web based learning system is often referred to as a Learning Management System (LMS) (Robbins, 2002). Apart from the need for a tool with administrative capabilities, the e-learning community then saw the need for a system which also focuses on the learning contents. This was because authoring learning contents in large organizations would require a significant amount of time. This kind of system was later named a Learning Content Management System (LCMS). International Data Corporation (IDC) in its white paper defined LCMS as “a system that is used to create, store, assemble, and deliver personalized e-learning content in the form of learning objects” (Brennan et al., 2001). While many of the commercially available LCMS are different with each other, they generally share the same components: automated authoring application, dynamic delivery interface and administrative application (Brennan et al., 2001). These common features enable users to actually create and edit the learning contents instead of merely managing them. A desired characteristic of the content authoring tools is that they can be used by users with little or no programming experience. This characteristic is aimed to achieve the main objective of LCMS: faster content development time. Some of the examples of LCMS systems can be found at www.epathlearning.com or www.wbtsystems.com . The systems presented in these examples are large scale commercial systems. However, this project is a simplified model of such systems. It is fully operational, but the aim is more to explain the concepts and explore new possibilities of an LCMS. Online versus Offline Authoring The work presented in this paper is more focused on the content authoring feature of an LCMS, in particular, authoring a presentation. There are two ways with which content authoring can be carried out: online and offline. Online authoring means that users can log on to the learning site and do their authoring using a web browser without any need to install the authoring software in the client computer. Offline authoring, on the other hand, means that users can author the materials without any Internet connection and upload the created materials into the learning site at a later time. Currently, many applications for offline authoring are readily available. They can build various kinds of formats. Some examples of offline presentation authoring tools would be Microsoft PowerPointTM (Microsoft, 2004) and Macromedia BreezeTM (Macromedia, 2004b). These applications normally are sophisticated in nature with the abilities to handle complex contents and produce good layouts. However, users would need to purchase a license and install it in his/her personal computer in order to use them. When there are many users in the organizations, these applications would incur a significant cost. Also, the authoring would then be restricted only in the terminals with these applications installed. Online authoring systems, on the other hand, are usually restricted in terms of complexity due to the limitations on the connection bandwidth, file access permission, and browser capabilities. However, online authoring systems provide users with the convenience of authoring in any place connected to the Internet without much software setup required.