AN INTERACTIVE WEB-BASED MULTIMEDIA COURSEWARE WITH XML

Computer technologies are redefining the way of people's teaching and learning.Many Elearning environments have been proposed, but they are yet to be fully implemented.To fulfill the promises of these environments, an interactive Web-based multimedia (IWM) courseware with XML has been designed and implemented in this thesis.It provides functions for displaying instructor's lecture, including texts, images and video materials, in a tree like view and for student's notes customization.Student's inputs to the notes can be collected as feedback for future learning pattern analysis.The courseware can work either alone in an asynchronous mode or in a synchronous mode when integrated with other multimedia real time web presenting systems.The courseware is implemented with the latest technologies.XML is used as the standard Internet/Intranet data format for information exchange.Java and its APIs, JAXP and JMF, are used due to its platform independence and versatility for working with XML and multimedia processing.The courseware system consists of a front-end applet and a back-end servlet for student's notes customization and student's feedback generation, respectively.The hosting web server used is Tomcat web server.This courseware can be integrated with additional modules, such as student learning pattern analysis module, easy-to-use lecture editor for instructor, to provide a comprehensive environment for improving teaching and learning.