Authoring is essentially the process of creating a structure that will draw together all the multimedia "assets" - video clips, audio, text, graphics, etc. - and allow the user to access them in a controlled but interactive way, for example in response to button clicks on a menu or as a result of the user's performance in a quiz or other exercise.
The interactions that are available usually depend on the authoring software and the distribution channel - CD-ROM, DVD, intranet e-learning, database, etc.
The origins of interactive multimedia authoring go back to the teaching machines of the 1960s, which did little more than display one page of text after another for the user to read - much the way that battery hens are fed. Regrettably there are still some training departments whose multimedia does not do much more than this. Early programming providing more interaction included that for the 12-inch laser disk, which was horribly expensive to program and master.
There was also "interactive video". In this, a PC or even a simple microprocessor drove a video player to provide random access to segments of video. The Sony Responder was one of the simplest; an aluminium box with a single row of buttons - 0 to 9, Go and Cancel - linked to a Low Band U-matic player, using the spare audio channel on the tape as a control track. Very simple, very cheap to author, but it was true interactivity in that the user took charge of the learning process and could be given quizzes to do.
Modern authoring languages for interactive multimedia have developed from these muddled beginnings and, not surprisingly, come in various styles.
Different Authoring Styles
Perhaps the oldest is one that mimics a stack of index cards. Each "card", "page" or "screen" displays information in the form of text, graphics, stills or, more recently, video or audio. Cards can be sorted,
01695 727555
Enlightenment Interactive
East End House
24 Ennerdale
Skelmersdale
WN8 6AJ
What's New: Opus Pro 05 XE
What's New: Scribe Studio
Please note these are product reviews only. We are not resellers. For further information you will need to contact the developers.
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| Page from a multimedia for schools on public art, which was mainly constructed on the "stack of index cards" approach. Buttons below the main picture trigger video clips. The buttons on the tool bar at the foot of the page give access to other pages. The window in the centre of the tool bar tells the user the action of any particular button. Authoring was in Opus. |
Nowadays, a popular authoring style for training material uses the flow diagram or structure diagram model. The author literally builds the diagram on the PC screen, attaching actions and events to the structure. The structure is only visible in the authoring mode, not to the end user. As each item on the structure is activated, it calls the appropriate asset to be displayed on the screen or played through the speakers.
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| A typical "flow diagram" authoring structure, in this case using Dazzler. This describes what is to be displayed and what interactivity is available on just the first page of a multimedia on lease purchase finance. This structure is not visible to the student. |
Completely different in its approach, and used more for interactive presentations than for training, is Director. As the name suggests, the origins of the concept lie more in the film industry. The basis of the structure is not a flow diagram but a timeline, along which various events will happen, pictures be displayed, audio played and so on.
What happens when you build the diagram is that the authoring language, such as Authorware or Dazzler, is invisibly writing code. That means, with high level languages like this, provided you do not need to go beyond the standard range of actions and events offered by the software, you do not need to be a programmer as such, perhaps just a trainer with a logical mind.
Completely different in its approach, and used more for interactive presentations than for training, is Director. As the name suggests, the origins of the concept lie more in the film industry. The basis of the structure is not a flow diagram but a timeline, along which various events will happen, pictures be displayed, audio played and so on.
If you have ever been to a traditional film dubbing studio, where pictures, voiceover, dialogue, sound effects, music and so on are prepared as separate tracks and then built up in parallel, you will recognise this model. This is also the model for modern day non-linear, computer based video editing.
Design with a capital "D" can let rip with Director, while a flow diagram approach is much more restricting, giving more of a stop-start feel. On the other hand, structuring training exercises in Director is more demanding and requires Director's own programming language, Lingo.
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| Timelines read from left to right. In this simple example we start with a title displayed on the screen, while the first audio track, perhaps some music, is played. A graphic appears and then the title disappears as a video clip starts to play ... |
The three approaches listed above all construct multimedia for delivery by CD-ROM. An alternative is the pure internet/intranet route, providing you have the bandwidth to carry the material. Most, if not all, of the main authoring tools can produce versions for the internet, but a number of tools have been developed specifically for this; these include ILIAS from Cologne University, Trainersoft and LUVIT, Lund University's "interactive environment" for the internet/intranet.
For more information about authoring software, visit the Links page.
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