Course work

Buzz 3D can enable you to display whatever multimedia content is required, all within a bespoke ‘branded’ 3D interface. The ability to combine text, PowerPoint, videos, audio, animated 3D models, and even live TV, offer the potential of achieving a far higher level of understanding and involvement; especially when integrated video-conferencing can support one-to-one coaching, mentoring, and relationship building among participants.

Compared to a traditional 2D web page presentation a photorealistic 3D world can engender the feeling of ‘being there’ which, when integrated with high quality course material can create a powerful learning environment.

With Buzz 3D inputting course content can be undertaken by the Tutors, so there is no necessity to incur the cost of additional staff for data input. Tutors are given the responsibility to prepare and publish materials for the courses that they present, as happens in the real world? In fact, it is likely to be exactly the same material, or predominantly similar in the majority of cases, therefore adding no additional burden on the tutors.

Moreover, a comprehensive and automatic system also makes it possible to support any number of courses, as well as it being immaterial where tutors or students are located.

Buzz 3D can provide a Content Management System (CMS) that will incorporate a Microsoft SQL database. The full Administrative Rights offered to clients will enable them to not only view, create, edit and delete content, but also to grant access to all hierarchical levels of users, ie. Tutors, Students, and potentially their Clients (if relevant).

In addition, the system also would enable the Course providers to offer their clients the ability to query the database and ascertain how their staff Training is progressing, in real-time online.

1. Preparation of Course materials by Tutors
Each tutor can be responsible for creating their own Course material within their bespoke version of a Virtual Training Centre (VTC), whether that is video, audio, images or slideshow content (PowerPoint, etc). Tutors can assign any media content to be displayed on specific screens, or on any screen in a specific room, or indeed on any screen throughout the VTC environment. Media types that make up a course can be grouped at the Tutor’s discretion into a number of named ‘sets’, or ‘modules’, each one of which may contain a variety of different media types appropriate for the course. Similarly, within each module, the tutor may also create ‘playlists’, which would further group subsets of course material into a coherent sequence for display in a particular order.

a) An SQL, or similarly ODBC compliant, database is appropriately formatted in a manner suitable for both the storage of the data to be posted to it, as well as the retrieval of such data. In order to minimise the size of the database, ‘future proof’ the overall flexibility of the system, accommodate a wide range of servers for course materials (and thus make it possible to have course materials on any web server from any point on the internet), the database will be used to store ‘pointers’ to the data, rather than store the data itself.

b) We assume all course data to be a mixture of video, audio, text files and images, stored in a number of different sequences (or ‘playlists’) to be assigned to a specific screen or number of screens for playback. A course is then assigned a name, and that name may further be part of a hierarchy of sub-categories. Both tutors and students will be able to upload and download material via the database, with appropriate limitations based on the ‘permissions’ they have been allocated by the Administrator. Tutors will decide whether student responses to their courses are written answers to specific questions, multiple choice, or an essay assignment.

c) Once the tutor has assembled how he/she wishes a course to be presented they will then be able to use the tools to automatically process their raw data into a format suitable for distribution over the Internet. For example, video recorded via a Digital Camcorder will result in the creation of very large file sizes (in the order of 100’s of megabytes, which would take many hours to transfer to your server). Consequently Buzz 3D will supply a Video & Graphics Wizard where, at the click of a button, tutors will be able to re-encode and compress duplicates of the raw source data (controlling the degree of compression applied), and then retain the highly compressed version for students to download.

i. For photographic images this will be either JPG, or a similar ‘lossy’ compression algorithm; and for images where fine detail at a high magnification is an important factor a lossless codec with good compression capabilities will be used, such as PNG.

ii. Video is to be compressed to WMV, see above, at the appropriate level of quality that the tutor desires. We will create some pre-sets for this > low, med, high – which we will agree with individual clients in order to strike an acceptable balance between quality and compression.

iii. Audio will be handled in a similar manner as with video, giving the tutors the option to downgrade it to WMA, MP3, or Speex. If it is vocal only content, Speex could well be ideal as its ability to compress such content is unrivalled. However, since it is not in general use in hand-held devices, it would be an inappropriate choice if the tutor wished the course material to extend beyond the VTC, such as publishing a lecture to an iPOD, or similar.

d) When compressing any raw source data element, the CMS will remember where that source data originated from, so that after creating the compressed version, the tutor can choose to re-compress the original version (using different quality settings), or edit the content and recompress as a new download.

e) Once the course content has been created, the tutor will summon the Course ‘User Interface’ (UI) that will act as a folder browser, a file selector and a file-type sorter, as well as offering the ability to group data to create the aforementioned modules, playlists, packages, etc. Once a course has been collated as a whole, the data will then be compressed and transferred to the Distribution file-server, posting its details of ‘what goes where’ into the CMS database on the client’s SQL Server.

2. Delivery of Course material to Students
Having enrolled on a Course, either by telephone, post, email, or an online transactional interface, the Administrator will grant rights for a student to access and download the Course(s) that they have purchased. This could be made into an automated real-time online process via a payment gateway linked to a ‘shopping basket’ on the Course-Selection web page, if deemed appropriate.

a) An overview of courses could be available for all students to browse within the standard version of the VTC, either as an overlay, or on specific screen or UI Page within the 3D environment. Alternatively, course information could be withheld until a student has entered a Password supplied by the client, commensurate with their permitted level of access. Irrespective, once a course has been selected and the appropriate database permission granted, the student would then be able to download the course onto their PC, either as a whole, or progressively in modules. Either way this will not require students to exit and restart the application.

b) Any updates to existing courses (whether downloaded or delivered as part of a starting-package on CD-ROM) will be handled automatically, and the VTC will query the SQL database for new updates, downloading new data as needed. This will ensure that all students see the latest version of all courses.

c) The ability to stream content, particularly videos, can be incorporated if desired.

3. Submission & Management of Student’s course work
The CMS can also be further extended so that –

a) Using the full screen option within the VTC (by ‘shelling out’ to a Microsoft Word), students can read the course material set by the tutor. On closing the file the student will automatically return to the VTC where they can respond to tutors by attaching their answers as an external Word document. The resulting data files will then be uploaded to the client’s file server, which the tutor can access for marking. The system will also run a small application within the VTC that will warn students if what they are proposing to upload exceeds a pre-determined limit. For example, this feature would be invaluable in minimising data transfer time and space on the client’s file server if students use very high resolution images embedded into Word DOC files, where the VTC would not ‘see’ them. Consequently, the tutor would need to be involved in designing the method of student-response to ensure a workable solution in this area may be developed.

If considered necessary, because of any perceived lack of students’ technical knowledge, the system to be adopted in 1.c) could be introduced into the VTC application.

b) The tutor will be able to view a list of his students associated with the VTC via an HTML page, providing an ongoing reference that illustrates who has purchased the course, as well as providing confirmation of students that have submitted work for marking. The latter would also reference the version of the course, the module the work relates to, and the date the answers were submitted. The suggestion for a standard web browser interface outside of the VTC in the first instance will simplify development and reduce cost; however, adding the UI capability for displaying this information within the VTC would not be an onerous task.

c) The tutor could then view the answer sheets by clicking on a link within the HTML web page, or open a data file, award them a mark, and add any comments that is considered appropriate. The record could be saved with a flag that states 'marked' or 'marking in progress', depending on choice when initially downloading, or subsequently saving the document (the HTML page would prompt for which flag to apply to the record). We would request as with point (a), that tutors have an input in designing this mechanism so that it complies with their desired way of working.

d) The next time the student goes online, they could be notified that there is a response from the tutor, after which they could enter the VTC and view the ‘flagged’ comment, as well as effecting a download of any associated documents. eg. a ‘marked’ essay, if appropriate.

e) Students could access all prior responses, and potentially a Summary sheet, in order to see their marking history, and monitor their own progress through the course, as indeed could our client, together with anyone else that has provided permission to access specific information on the database. Potentially a service that can be offered to Employers in order to monitor the progress of their staff.