The Authoring Environment:
by Brad Ryder
for
MCTE 626, Authoring Systems Design
Prof. George Fornshell
School of Computer and Information Sciences
Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, FL
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. Communication Tools: Graphics, Text, Audio,A. Artwork & Text
B. Audio & Video
C. Animation
II. Authoring Tool Selection, Application to
Real World Situations
III. Authoring Processes For Creating a
Real World Application
IV. References
These elements are all relevant communication tools within the authoring environment. It may be possible to leave out one of these elements, but the overall loss would be very noticeable. Even though it takes some amount of skill to do graphics, for instance, is not a good reason to omit them. There are royalty-free souces of clip art where an author can find nearly any image needed [Jacobson, 1996].
If an author wants to do his own artwork, there are many ways to do it, such as coordinate systems, which do vector imaging. The author becomes an artist, defining the type and attributes of the object, the layers and colors, and combines these in a way that creates meaningful images. It is time consuming, but the artist is pretty much assured that the outcome will be original.
Even when using clip art, the artist can size and color and manipulate the image in a manner to make it at least unique. In my job at MonadNet Internet Service Provider, I created an advertisement inviting people to come to our offices during lunch and learn about the Internet. We called it "Surf & Sandwich." For a cartoon graphic I found a man sitting at a table reading from a menu. The table in front of him had a checkered tablecloth and a candelabra. I also found clip art of a computer, which I placed on the table where the candelabra had been. For this I used a shareware program called Paint Shop Pro. There are other paint programs available, such as Microsoft's Paintbrush and Corel Draw.
Good graphics can improve a good presentation, and it may be possible to tell a story using only pictures; however, a good portion of the message needs to conveyed using text. Even though text is often relegated to a supporting role, its appearance may be enhanced by some kind of special effects [Eichler-Martin, 1995]. The artist can dress up the copy by choosing from a variety of fonts or type faces; the copy can be shadowed or curved or in outline form; and it can be made to fly or slide or come in by some other special effect. Text doesn't have to be boring.
One shouldn't get too carried away with effects, though. Even with all the bells and whistles, if the content doesn't lend itself to a multimedia presentation, the material should be presented in a more appropriate way [Jacobson, 1996].
If the presentation needs to be rewritten or converted to a foreign language, most authoring programs allow this to be done easily. The author only has to rewrite or convert the text from an outline, and it will be placed in its proper location within the multimedia presentation. If the text is a new length, longer or shorter, this will of course affect its appearance within the slide, so proper adjustments may need to be made.
It's easy to include audio within a presentation. (Video, as we'll discuss in a moment, is still problematic, since the system requirements are quite demanding.) Even though audio wave files (.wav) take up a lot of room, they do not necessarily have stringest system requirements. Wave files can store any kind of analog sound that can be recorded with a microphone. Midi files (.mid) are small but limited to computer-generated sounds. So sound should be a basic part of the presentation.
The author can easily find sounds or can record them with a sound card or midi instrument. For a presentation we are working on at MonadNet, I wrote a short jingle using a small midi keyboard and a program called MusicTime. This lets me select from dozens of instruments, such as organ, electric bass, clarinet, as well as percussion. Once the jingle was completed I saved it as a midi file and this can be played using the Windows Media Player. The jingle sounds fine as a midi file and we may include it on our web page.
Then we wanted some lyrics added to the jingle. This required going back to the studio with our singer, recording her voice on tape, and mixing it with the jingle. Now the jingle, with lyrics, cannot be a midi file. To store it on the computer it must be recorded (using Sound Recorder) as a wave file. This makes it ten times as large as the midi file. For this to be heard through an Internet connection would require the user to download or stream the file. However, when we put this jingle in a multimedia presentation, it would play directly from the CD or hard drive almost immediately. Space is a consideration, but not much of one as long as the access time to the file is brief.
New technology may eventually ease some of the technological considerations. A multimedia extension standard (MMX) by Intel Corp. calls for a sound controller to be incorporated right on the motherboard. This would mean audio-enabled multimedia with just one set of connectors for speakers and microphones, which would therefore save on hardware costs [Scannell, 1996].
Using video would be much more difficult. Astound! (the presentation software we have) comes with quite an elaborate video module. It includes generators for doing special effects on resources, images, transitions, masks, and text. Our only problem at MonadNet at this point is the lack of professional video equipment and an overlay card. As we become more serious about doing such presentations we may look into this technology.
We have done a little more animation than video. A few of the designers with whom we contract have provided us with animated gifs, plus we've found some on the Internet. As far as sophisticated animation, this is not something we have incorporated into our presentations. It could be useful, however. We are developing a presentation to tell people why they should have a web site. Animation always seem to get attention, and I can see the benefit of creating a little animated character. This character could appear from slide to slide and tell how one company created a web presence.
Authoring Tool Selection, Application to Real World SituationsAt MonadNet we recently acquired a program called Astound. It bills itself as "Number 1 in Multimedia Presentations." It is similar in many ways to MS PowerPoint, a program I worked with at a previous employer, Crockett Log Homes. (At Crockett we also tried Harvard Graphics; the decision, not mine to make, was to go with PowerPoint.)
Astound is designed for someone who really doesn't want to spend a lot of time programming. Using the HeadStart feature, the user can choose from a dozen possible presentation formats, such as Company Profile, Marketing Plan, and Dealing With A Crisis. Then, once the outline pops up, the user replaces the boilerplate information with the specific information required for the new presentation.
A user can also input data from the slide view. In this format the slides show up and the text and graphics can be clicked on and changed. Astound allows input from either slide or outline view; from the sorter view (a number of slides are seen at once, as thumbnails), the slides can be dragged and dropped. This eliminates the need, as with older versions of PowerPoint and other presentation software, to cut and paste, and makes for good flexibility overall.
Although I haven't worked with PowerPoint in a while, this version of Astound would seem to be much more powerful. Some of the features are:
As Manager of Internet Services, I need to train prospects on the advantages of having a presence on the World Wide Web. This is difficult when they are not on the Internet. Using Astound, I could create simulations of how their web site might look. This kind of presentation would be valuable to me, since it would answer many of the questions prospects ask over and over. Although the development (hardware, software, and other technology) may be a significant cost at the outset, the delivery cost is less than a repetitive expense of my time. The multimedia presentation can also be taken by disk and presented simultaneously at various sites. In the long run this would be less expensive than having me do the training [Hall, 1996].
The benefit of using Astound is that integrating objects is practically seamless. Since the modules can handle the same formats, Astound handles multitasking and OLE (object linking and embedding) well, whereas a graphic created with an outside program might not be readable in Astound. In this case DDE (dynamic data exchange) might be preferable. The problem with Astound and other full-fledged applications (including Authorware Professional, IconAuthor, Quest) is that many users have spent months or years becoming familiar with programs such as Paint Shop Pro, Photoshop, Freehand, Corel Draw, etc. Many users want the flexibility to use the creative tools they like and then import them into the authoring program.
There are many other things to consider when choosing an authoring tool. In my place of business we would do mostly information delivery and merchandising presentations. Our audience is mostly small business owners. We need linear presentations as well as random-access interactivity; we need audio, still images, maybe motion video in the future, animation, graphics, mouse control, and keyboard entry, although touch screens would be nice some day.
Although we have Astound, we are not sold on it. We will no doubt look into an authoring tool selector application as we become more serious about doing multimedia presentations. This will no doubt be one of my duties in the future, and it's one I feel I'll be much more capable of handling now that I've seen the possibilities.
Authoring Processes For Creating a Real World ApplicationIt's amazing how many platforms (operating systems) these authoring tools can run on. An author has several interfaces to choose from when developing a multimedia presentation: DOS, Windows, OS/2, Windows NT. At MonadNet we use Windows 95. We have a few Macintosh computers to help customers who are having trouble connecting to the Internet with theirs. But our authoring tool would need to run on Windows 95.
Much of the creation process is something we could (and have done) in our offices or in my home studio. The text is all created rather than acquired, written by me and reviewed, critiqued, and rewritten by my boss and others in the office whose opinion I respect. I then polish it up. The audio, as mentioned, is mostly created and captured, then edited and mixed. There are a few clips that we've acquired from Internet sources; however, we hesitate to use them extensively due to possible copyright infringements. In order to use pre-existing works, creators of multimedia works need to know who owns the rights to that material, how to obtain permission, and how the rights for such use should be priced [Anonymous, 1995].
We don't do anything yet in the way of vector graphics. If we did we would probably acquire it from a clip library.As virtual reality becomes more popular on the Internet, we will probably want to include it in our presentations. It is quite fascinating, although I believe the visual gimmickry overwhelms any educational value. One of the deceptive elements of multimedia presentations is that they sometimes look "too slick," says Lucille Levesque, 1994 Maine State Teacher of the Year. She says the students work hard to do a good job and the end result just looks too easy [Milone, 1994].
Motion video and animation would be included. We would acquire video from a professional camera. There are a few places in this area that make commercials for the local cable company; one of these could provide acceptable video for us. The designers we contract, as mentioned, could create some animation if needed.
Our presentations will mostly be linear, but since we have fast and easy access to the Internet, we should publish these and make them widely available. There are already a number of multimedia files on the Internet, including movies, exercise videos, and snippets of music from rock bands. Many of the information can be downloaded and then viewed offline using the proper application [Johnson, 1995].
With our fast Internet connection we could allow prospects to view the multimedia presentation from the Internet or after downloading; however, staying connected would allow for more interactivity. Many think of "interactivity" as just allowing the user to press a button. Making the presentation less linear increases the interactivity [Jacobsen, 1996]. If we were to offer a strict linear presentation it may as well be done offline. Allowing the user to point and click, and therefore move around the World Wide Web a little, would go a long way toward selling our product.
One drawback of the Internet is the transition types. So far as I know, the Internet is limited to having the pages pop up as they are downloaded. There are no wipes, dissolves, bleeds, etc., to dazzle the person watching the presentation. This may all be for the best. The Internet itself is quite dazzling.
No matter how we dress up our presentations, with animation, video, still graphics, sounds, the most important element is content, especially for persuasive purposes. Most sources I found emphasize this. Computer-generated presentations are becoming quite the trend when trying to sell a client. However, as Jill Robbins Israel put it, "What makes or breaks a presentation are your selling skills, plain and simple" [Israel, 1996].
Ultimately, I believe there is a place for multimedia presentations at MonadNet. Whether we use it as a marketing tool or to train staff, the value can be great. Some say the cost of developing such a presentation outweighs the value and instead recommend off-the-shelf programs [Hall, 1996]. However, we could still benefit by having such presentations, especially if the people we train eventually take over much of the responsibility for developing them.
References
Anonymous. (1995.) Multimedia: Which way forward? OECD Observer, 196, p. 21.
Eichler-Martin, K. (1995.) Authoring tools. CD-ROM Professional, 8, 1, pp. 82-83.
Hall, B. (1996.) Is multimedia worth the money? Training & Development, 50, 2, pp. 77-78.
Israel, J.R. (1996.) Show and sell. Home-Office Computing, 14, 8, pp. 50-54.
Jacobson, W. (1996.) Business goes show biz! Managing Office Technology, 41, 2, pp. 25-28.
Johnson, S. (1995.) Multimedia on the Internet: As easy as point and click? Online Access, 10, 11, pp. 46-50.
Milone, M. (1994.) Multimedia authors, one and all. Technology & Learning, 15, 2, pp. 25-31.
Scannell, E. (1996.) Analog mixes audio, video, telephony. InfoWorld, 18, 13, p. 30.