Timothy Arndt

A survey of distance education challenges and technologies

Distance education, e-learning, and virtual university are similar terms for a trend of modern education. It is an integration of information technologies, computer hardware systems, and communication tools to support educational professionals in remote teaching. This chapter presents an overview of distance education from the perspective of policy, people, and technology. A number of questions frequently asked in distance learning panel discussions are presented, with the suggested answers from the authors. The survey presented in this chapter includes communication, intelligent, and educational technologies of distance education. Readers of this 2 Shih, Hung, Ma, and Jin Copyright

A unifying approach to iconic indexing for 2-D and 3-D scenes

Several iconic indexes for representing three-dimensional scenes are presented. The approach extends previous work in iconic indexing of two-dimensional scenes in a unified manner. Good characteristics for iconic indexes are also pointed out. OPP2 and OPP3, two-dimensional iconic indexes for three-dimensional scenes, are introduced. The problem of ambiguity in the OPP2 and OPP3 representations of three-dimensional scenes is studied in detail and a class of images for which they are unambiguous is identified. The Genstring, a linear iconic index which can be used to represent two-, three-, or higher-dimensional scenes, is introduced. It provides a compact, unambiguous representation of a three-dimensional scene. The Genstring takes advantage of previous work, thus providing fast pattern matching for higher-dimensional scenes. In fact, the pattern matching algorithm given for k-dimensional scenes is as fast as that previously given for two-dimensional scenes. >

An XML-based approach to multimedia software engineering for distance learning

Multimedia Software Engineering (MSE) is a new frontier for both Software Engineering (SE) and Visual Languages (VL). In fact multimedia software engineering can be considered as the discipline for systematic specification, design, substitution and verification of visual patterns. Visual Languages contribute to MSE such concepts as: Visual notation for software specification, design and verification flow charts, ER diagrams, Petri Nets, UML visualization, visual programming languages etc. Multimedia Software Engineering and Software Engineering are like two sides of the same coin. On the one hand we can apply software engineering principles to the design of multimedia systems. On the other hand we can apply multimedia technologies to the software engineering practice. In this paper we concentrate on the first of these possibilities. One of the promising application areas for Multimedia Software Engineering is Distance Learning. One aim of this paper is to demonstrate how it is possible to design and to implement complex multimedia software systems for Distance Learning using a Teleaction Object transformer based on XML technology applying a Component-Based Multimedia Software Engineering approach. The paper shows a complete process of dataflow transformation that represents TAO in different ways (text, TAOML, etc.) and at different levels of abstraction. A component-based tool architecture is also discussed.The use of an XML-based approach in the Distance Learning field has other advantages as well. It facilitates reuse of the teaching resources by using metadata. Standards for representing multimedia distance learning materials are currently evolving. Such standards are necessary in order to allow a representation which is independent of hardware and software platforms so that this material can be examined, for example, in a web browser or so that it may be reused.

The evolving role of software engineering in the production of multimedia applications

The traditional approach to software engineering is based on the waterfall model or some variation of this model. It is well known, however, that this approach is not particularly well suited to the production of one-of-a-kind or experimental systems due to fuzzy user requirements-users are not sure what can be accomplished. Since most multimedia applications are currently of this type, we must search for alternative approaches. One such alternative is based on rapid prototyping in which we quickly generate a working system that we use to validate user requirements. For distributed multimedia applications, we have experimented with a prototyping environment based on grammar formalisms and utilizing Web technologies such as HTML/XML to generate a working prototype. Such an approach seems to be promising and we are currently pursuing this line of research. For the future, researchers working at the interface of software engineering and multimedia systems may identify high-level abstractions common to such applications which will permit the traditional approach to software engineering, backed up with appropriate CASE tools, to be used.

Visual software tools for multimedia authoring

Multimedia authoring tools were originally developed more than 20 years ago to help non-programmers construct multimedia presentations, especially in the area of primary education. Since then, both the application scope and the target audience have broadened. In this paper, we review several of the more popular visual tools for multimedia authoring.

Multimedia languages for teleaction objects

A teleaction object (TAO) is a multimedia object with associated hypergraph structure and knowledge structure. The user can create and modify the private knowledge of a TAO so that the TAO will react automatically to certain events. The hypergraph structure supports the effective presentation and efficient communication of multimedia information. TAOs are extremely valuable since they greatly improve the selective access and presentation of relevant multimedia information. Following the ideas of Chang (1996), the authors show how visual languages can be extended to multimedia languages for production of TAOs.

Visual software tools for bioinformatics

Bioinformatics is the application of techniques from computer science, statistics and mathematics to problems in molecular biology. This interdisciplinary approach is rapidly revolutionizing biology. A survey of software tools for bioinformatics is presented. A special emphasis is placed on the visual aspects of these tools. The most important visualization tasks in bioinformatics are data sequence visualization and visualizing protein structures. The visualization of interactions between molecules in a metabolic pathway or network is an emerging area. Many important visualization techniques have yet to be applied in this application area.

A visual editor for multimedia application development

Multimedia applications are becoming increasingly important in areas such as education (digital libraries, training, presentation, distance learning), health care (telemedicine, health information management, medical image systems), entertainment (video-on-demand, music databases, interactive TV), information dissemination (news-on-demand, advertising, TV broadcasting), and manufacturing (distributed manufacturing, distributed collaborative authoring). In this paper we introduce a visual software engineering tool which is part of a suite of tools called MICE used for the rapid prototyping of distributed multimedia applications.

Transformation Dataflow in Multimedia Software Engineering Using TAO_XML: A Component-Based Approach

Multimedia Software Engineering (MSE) is a new frontier for both Software Engineering (SE) and Visual Languages (VL). In fact multimedia software engineering can be considered as the discipline for systematic specification, design, substitution and verification of patterns that are often visual. Visual Languages give such contributions to MSE as: Visual notation for software specification, design and verification flow charts, ER diagram, Petri Net, UML visualization, visual programming languages etc. Multimedia Software Engineering and Software Engineering are like two sides of the same coin. On the one hand, we can apply software engineering principles to the design of multimedia systems. On the other hand, we can apply multimedia technologies to the practice of software engineering. In this paper we deal with the first of these topics. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how it is possible to design and implement complex multimedia software systems using a TeleAction Object (TAO) transformer based on XML technology with a component-based multimedia software engineering approach. The paper shows a complete process of dataflow transformation that represents TAOs in different ways (text, TAO_XML, etc) and at different levels of abstraction. The transformation process is a reversible one. We will also show the first experiences conducted jointly from DIS, DCSI, and DMI laboratories using a tool named TAO_XML_T. The tools component-based architecture is also discussed in the paper.

Formal Specification and Prototyping of Multimedia Applications

Multimedia systems incorporating hyperlinks and user interaction can be prototyped using TAOML, an extension of HTML. TAOML is used to define a Teleaction Object (TAO) which is a multimedia object with associated hypergraph structure and knowledge structure The hypergraph structure supports the effective presentation and efficient communication of multimedia information. In this paper, a formal specification methodology for TAOs using Symbol Relation (SR) grammars is described. An attributed SR grammar is then introduced in order to associate knowledge with the TAO. The limitations to achieve an efficient parser are given. The grammatical formalism allows for validation and verification of the system specification. This methodology provides a principled approach to specify, verify, validate and prototype multimedia applications.