Technical Report No. 91, July 1997 - Abstract

Bacher, Chr.; Müller, R.; Ottmann, Th.; Will, M.:
Open Hypermedia Educational Environments: A Feasible Approach to Overcome Some Difficulties

This report describes our efforts to develop an interactive hypermedia environment to enhance traditional education at university level. While we have chosen the field of Algorithms and Data Structures which is a key area in the curriculum for computer science students, the concepts we use are equally valid for other disciplines as well. As the common result of a number of well-tuned projects we establish a computer based teaching and learning environment which provides both lecturers and students with a large variety of information resources, tools and services: They have access to electronic libraries including journals and books, animations and simulations of algorithms and data structures, courseware, collections of programs, tests and notes. The environment in particular includes so--called AOF (Authoring On The Fly) products. These are recorded lectures delivered by using a computer whiteboard and transferred into multimedia documents. We report about the tools necessary to generate and post-process AOF products and discuss in particular the difficulties arising when controlling animations and simulations both in on-line and in off-line mode. We describe what an advanced computer based teaching and learning environment in the future might look like. Our view is not pure speculation but solidly based on considerable experience gained in the past.