Establishing Multimedia Authoring Skills in Higher Education

The Emashe products were designed to simplify the introduction to multimedia authoring. They were developed in a UK Information Technology Training Initiative Project.

The products from Emashe comprised tutorials in Hypercard, Toolbook, Authorware and Macromind Director for the Macintosh and PC, together with appropriate software resources. In addition, separate publications covered the design, planning and evaluation of computer assisted learning packages.

Each product was available independently. All stock is now used.

Tutorials

1. "AuthorWare Tutorial for the Macintosh" July 1995
2. "AuthorWare Tutorial for the PC" June 1996.
3. "ToolBook Tutorial for the PC" August 1995,
4. "HyperCard tutorial for Macintosh" as a downloadable file.
5. "Macromind Director tutorial" as a downloadable file.with web pages

This project developed in Glasgow University a package to train University staff in authoring and offering Hypertext/Multimedia packages, accompanied by a series of illustrative applications. The project started in August 1991, parts of the package were tested at Glasgow by October 1993, and revised by the end of the main phase of the project on 31st September 1994. Some further revisions and improvements was made until production was complete during 1997, for example tutorials in Macromind Director.

Guideline publications

1. "Evaluation 1: Planning, Developing and Testing of Courseware" December 1994
2. "The Design of Multimedia Learning Programs" May 1995

After an initial survey of existing Multimedia packages along with the hardware and software for authoring, the team established pedagogical guidelines and design criteria applicable across several faculties. This led to the definition of demonstration packages and their development. This was largely on the Apple Macintosh (which was then the best machine for creating multimedia) and the IBM PC compatibles, which have the widest usage (>80% in UK Higher Education). Experience in producing these demonstration packages was closely monitored and evaluated, so that the team could generate reliable material for the Emashe training package

For further information on the EMASHE project:

Dr Gordon Doughty,
EMASHE Project Director
Robert Clark Centre for Technological Education
University of Glasgow
Glasgow G12 8QQ
Tel: +44 (0) 141 330 4976
Email: G.Doughty@elec.gla.ac.uk

Abbreviations

There are a large number of abbreviations used in reporting the work of TILT, EMASHE and other UK higher education projects involving IT on teaching and learning. We have avoided their use as much as possible, but not completely. Those most likely to occur are listed under Abbreviations.

Glasgow Multimedia Developers
- a page linking CAL developers at the University