Developing, Assessing and Maintaining a Global Network Academy Computer Graphics Course.

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Developing, Assessing and Maintaining a Global Network Academy Computer Graphics Course.

Andrew Marriott
School of Computing
Curtin University of Technology
Hayman Rd, Bentley. Western Australia.
Email: raytrace@cs.curtin.edu.au URL: http://www.cs.curtin.edu.au/~raytrace

Joanne Ng
SilkRoute Ventures Pte Ltd
287 Beach Road #02-00. Singapore 0719
Email: ngsej@cs.curtin.edu.au URL: http://www.cs.curtin.edu.au/~ngsej

Abstract
This paper explores the advantages and disadvantages of World Wide Web (WWW) based courses and gives results from a successful case study. Techniques developed to aid in developing, assessing and maintaining a WWW course are also detailed.
Keywords
WWW world wide web courses online computer graphics

Introduction

Advances in technologies have brought about new methods to pursue distance education, but the wide variety of mediums used to deliver lectures and course notes has not made it conducive to a distance learner. The arrival of the World Wide Web (WWW) presents new opportunities in distance learning: the ability to deliver text, images, sound, movies and software to any site means that lectures, tutorials, seminars and practicals can be conducted in a format that is more informative than in a straight text situation. Its ability to support more sources of networked information than any other networked information retrieval tool implies that it will no longer be necessary to cope with different information formats and sources.
In 1994, a set of WWW-based electronic course notes were created and introduced into a Computer Graphics curriculum. The course notes were for learning X Windows and were crafted to utilise the functionality of HTML. The Web pages were announced on Usenet in various newsgroups and a survey was used to obtain users' attitudes and perceptions towards such a form of electronic tuition. At the end of the trial period, a class of 120 students as well as some 400+ sites worldwide (See footnotes 1) had accessed the course notes and an analysis of the survey was undertaken. The survey findings indicated a very positive outlook towards this form of learning and an attempt was then made to assess and describe its potential usage in the distance learning environment.
At the same time, the Global Network Academy suggested that the course notes should be included into their curriculum. This widened the scope of the tuition to be a formal global course and opened up the study to global criticism. The advantages of such a WWW open learning environment as well as the issues involved in implementing it were then used to formulate guidelines for developing the current course and for future Web-based courses.
However, the use of HTML and the Web does not mean that all distance education problems are now solved - it simply advances the state-of-the-art to the next set of problems. This paper discusses the development, assessment and subsequent maintenance of our GNA Computer Graphics Course with reference to some of the problems encountered as well as to perceived future problems.

Developing a WWW-based Course

Hypertext documents on the World Wide Web (WWW) are created using a markup language called hypertext markup language (HTML), which adheres to the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) tag format. Basically, there are three ways to produce an HTML document:
understand the syntax of the language and write the codes with the help of a text editor;
use an HTML editor which assists in doing the above without learning the syntax; or
write a program which converts the document from its original format to an HTML format.
While the methods used to convert linear text into hypertext have been argued to be difficult, the importance of large-scale conversions is also acknowledged. Methods 1 and 2 can be classified as manual conversion as they involve using an authoring tool to create the nodes and links manually. Hence, it depends on the way the person (who builds the hypertext structure from its linear form) understands the structure and flow of the presented materials. As the process can be very time consuming and is prone to human error, it is therefore only suitable for small documents.
Method 3 is also known as automatic conversion. The output of such a conversion can be easily modified and enhanced. Since most of the documents prepared on computers use a certain markup language, the documents can then be easily converted from their own markup to the hypertext markup using a conversion program that is able to understand the original structural elements (e.g. titles, sections, paragraphs, bold, italics, tables, figures etc.) and map them to the appropriate hypertext markup. For instance, a section heading may begin with some special characters that both indicate that it is a section heading and further indicates the position at which it is located in the full text document. The conversion program can then begin by converting the existing document that has this recognizable markup into text block and link objects.
Converters
In this study, the printed copy of the course notes were previously prepared using the text-formatting program called GTROFF that runs on the UNIX operating system. As such, the notes were converted into its hypertext structure using a conversion program called groff2html. Currently, many conversion programs are available in various anonymous FTP sites including: LaTeX to HTML, RTF to HTML, Framemaker to HTML, WORD to HTML and MAN to HTML. The groff2html converter is written in PERL (Practical Extraction and Report Language) with basic formatting functionality. It was extended to include more macro definitions to minimise the need to handcraft the converted documents. It also catered for changes to be made to the original notes and these could then be converted into HTML within a (long) working day.
The converter breaks the existing course notes into smaller hypertext pages and builds the links between each page. Typically, a hypertext page comprises a set of link objects and text blocks where each link object specifies a source concept, a target concept and a pointer to a text block. The link objects then form a hypertext network which can be browsed/traversed by selecting the links.
In the conversion process, a heading may become the name of a source node and the text following it the target node. Each section has a heading, and any text may link to any other section by mentioning the appropriate section name. One page will appear on the screen at a time, and the links to other pages are by highlighted text or icons. The arrow icon allows reader to jump to the previous/next page in the direction pressed.
groff2html takes the existing structure of the linear text and directly maps it onto the hypertext structure. In other words, the hypertext structure reflects the markup commands used in the paper document very closely. For example, sections headings are given more emphasis, italics and bold face words are converted to HTML's italics and bold tags.
Although guidelines have been developed by several authors for the construction of a coherent hypertext document, there are still no established guidelines for writing hypertext documents. The construction of a coherent hypertext document is still very much a design problem.
This study helped to gain a better understanding of the design issues involved in creating hypermedia documents. The experience gained has resulted in new groff macros being created and a new version of groff2html converter emerged. The new version of the converter is able to take care of all formatting in HTML and thus facilitate easy restructuring of new notes.
The document creation is now handled by a single Imakefile with sub-directories to handle the notes, the assignments, tutorials, images, examples, etc. To create HTML documents, a user may use:
                            make docs
To create postscript, a user may use:
                              make
This produces a very flexible, not necessarily linear, quality document in either case. These web_pages were produced directly from the Groff source as were the PostScript pages.
Assessing a WWW-based Course

A questionnaire was designed to extract information about:
general characteristics of the student body.
students' impressions of the notes and their attitudes towards this form of learning.
students' impressions of Mosaic and WWW.
students' suggestions for improvement and difficulties faced.
In order to elicit a reasonable response, the questionnaire was kept to one page. Fixed-alternative questions were preferred as they are easy to ask and quick to answer since they do not require writing by either the respondents or interviewers and their analysis is straightforward. Some questions required a yes/no or true/false answer while others required the respondents to tick whether the factors were regarded as strongly agree, agree, satisfactory, disagree or strongly disagree.
Open-ended questions were also included as the respondents' answers were recorded in full and it did not force them into preconceived answers. This is deemed to be appropriate because the advantages of the Web technologies in the areas of teaching and learning were not fully established. This would provide a first hand gauge of a user's perception rather than the researcher's perception.
The data collected in this study were nominal data and as such, the analysis involved determining the frequencies for major variables and conducting a chi-square test to determine if a systematic relationship existed between two variables.
During the two month trial period, a total of 126 responses were received: 30 general comments and 96 survey forms. Of these 96, 7 were discarded because they were incomplete.
The results were tabulated according to the responses given by each category of users to the questions asked. It is noted that there is a consistency in the response rate to most of the questions by all groups of users. A numerical summary of the results can be found in table 1 and table 2 .
The key findings from the survey are summarised as follows:
a significant number of students indicated that the ability to integrate graphics, images, sound and text greatly enhanced the information content of the subject.
the search index facility and table of contents were found to be very effective in navigating the electronic course notes.
demonstration of X-based programs and on-line viewing of source code were thought to make the course more interesting.
the design guidelines adopted in the electronic course notes were found to be acceptable to most students.
students were generally happy with Mosaic as an instructional medium.
there were concerns about slow system response and network load.
a very small percentage of students did not succeed in making an acceptable start to using the Web-based course notes.
Implications for Distance Education

The findings from the pilot study strongly indicate the potential of teaching/learning from a WWW-based electronic course notes at tertiary level: the electronic course notes are found to be more informative and motivating; and the Web is found to be easy and pleasant to use. In view of the nature and characteristics of distance learning programmes, this will have important implications for carrying out such programmes in future.
The WWW site can offer text, images, sound, movies, data and software to any person who connects to it. This means that lectures, tutorials, seminars and practicals can be "served" in a format that is better and more informative than conventional learning methods. It also provides great potential in terms of access, learner control and collaboration. Moreover, the ability of the Web to support more sources of networked information than any other networked retrieval tool greatly enhanced the amount and sources of information available to the learner's desktop.
In attempting to describe its potential use in distance learning, the following issues will be examined in this context:
adequacy of contents and interfaces
acceptability of system to users
cost of production and dissemination
Adequacy of Contents and Interfaces
Electronic course notes can show text in a non-linear fashion with links to other sources of information as well as present images at any desired quality. The lecturer can also provide an audio narrative to explain algorithms and difficult concepts. This will greatly enrich the information content of the materials being delivered to distance learners.
As distance learners are adults with more world knowledge and work experience, they may have different uses of the same databases and select parts of the courses and programs to learn. They generally prefer exploratory rather than prescriptive learning in the acquisition of knowledge. The existence of linkages to other sources of information provides the distance learner with the ability to explore the Web of knowledge using a variety of pathways that best suits individual needs. Hence, allowing the learner greater control over his/her learning pace and style.
The ability to conduct lectures, tutorials, seminars and practicals through the same channel reduces the cognitive overheads of having to learn and adapt to different interfaces presented by the different medium used. In addition, it promotes greater collaboration with the instructor as feedback/communication is easily effected through the same channel.
Acceptability to Users
Most of the distance learning courseware programs and video discs that are available in regional study centers require the use of special equipment. As a result, the distance learner has to deal with the different interfaces presented. In the case where the distance learner lives far from the regional study centers, he/she will be deprived of its use.
On the other hand, the WWW enables better integration of different types of study materials (plain text, postscript, graphics, software etc.) and presents a uniform interface to access these sources of information. The existence of Public Domain viewers for a multitude of platforms would mean that any person from any site can access this information with minimal effort.
The graphical interface of the browser is intuitive and appealing and therefore, it is foreseen that the distance learner will not have much difficulty with the system.
The need for self-regulated study in distance learning is also supported by such WWW-based learning materials as the emphasis is on resource-based investigated learning rather than directed learning.
Cost of Production and Dissemination
Cost has been an inhibiting factor in the innovative use of technology in the distance-learning environment. In the past, universities that conduct distance learning courses have been hesitant in introducing electronic course materials because the small pool of students does not provide enough incentive for establishing the electronic equipment to run the applications.
Moreover, some of the electronic course materials were created using proprietary systems and this poses serious portability problems. The use of WWW-based learning materials helps to address these issues as the course notes can be accessed from a multitude of platforms and from any site. The number of sites that are connected to the Web has risen significantly over the last years.
From these universities' view point, the cost associated with producing such electronic course notes is relatively insignificant compared to the value and quality of information created. Typically, the cost involved would be hardware resources (disk space and computer memory) to house and deliver the course materials.
Alternatively, the course notes can be stored in CD-ROMs whose cost is not very high and the students can view them using their preferred Web browser, thus restricting network communication to the transmission of dialogue and feedback between instructor and students. This will help to reduce the demands on communication to a minimum and speed up retrieval of documents.
The success of this experiment has led to these (and other) course notes being further modified to use enhanced typesetting directives relevant to the production of high quality multi-media hyperlinked documents.
Web-based learning will have important educational implications as it presents exciting opportunities for a distance learner in the following ways:
better quality course notes
access to various information sources using the same interface.
possibility for collaboration with instructors.
ability to tailor individual learning paths.
promote greater interactions with course notes.
low cost in producing the electronic material.
world-wide access to learning material.
Maintaining a WWW-based Course

The maintenance of a web site involves feedback and time. Remember that once the notes are on the net, you can expect questions from all over the world and you should answer these questions to the best of your ability. This takes time. Therefore:
You will need to conduct and take heed of continual surveys.
You should automate the process of handling trivial things (for example have a FAQ available to email to appropriate requests).
You should use an automatic conversion process which does everything - hand tweaking afterwards is a waste of time and energy.
This will ensure the best possible quality with the smallest amount of wasted work.

Footnotes

Footnote 1

Computer Graphics Users Worldwide

The total number of unique sites accessing the Computer Graphics Course notes is now >6,500.
This is similar to someone just browsing through a book not necessarily buying it.
It is estimated that >1000 sites worldwide are using the course notes as a complete Computer Graphics Course.
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