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Case study "Multimedia Information Systems "
Lead institution: University of Zilina, Faculty of Management Science and Informatics
Authors: Peter Fabian

Faculty of Management Science and Informatics of the University of Zilina is a relatively young, dynamic and innovative faculty with two study centres: Zilina and Prievidza. It was established 15 years ago. From the very beginning faculty leadership decided to support the implementation of support of the study process in the form of information and communication technologies.
The reasons for such a decision was the existence of human and technological resources in the field of informatics and communication technologies, capable of development of the e-learning material, spatial distribution of the faculties (formerly there were three faculty sites, the one in the town of Ruzomberok has been closed since 2007-2008 academic year).

Course details

For the case study subject “Multimedia Information System” has been selected. The subject concerns information on media elements, their capture, storage, editing and maintenance and their integration into the multimedia applications of various types. Its workload at the Faculty consists of 2 hours lecture/week and 2 hours labs/ week during the autumn semester and its ETC value is 6. To get the credit, student must actively participate in the laboratory exercises, develop semester thesis, which contains multimedia application and pass the written and oral exam. The current pedagogy is based on the face-to-face learning with Web based support. The subject is elective, each year there are about 100-200 students taking up the subject, according to their desire.

Results achieved

The result of the first cycle of the project was the implementation of LMS Moodle – based Web site, in order to support the education in this subject. Although there exists a possibility to use University-wide system, the choice was to have a „private“ Web site for the project purposes, located at the Faculty, in order to be able better to control the contents, access and provide better feedback to learners, without the need of using the central administration services.
The second validation group consisted of students who have chosen the subject. In the 2nd cycle (academic year 2007-2008) there were 135 students who have chosen the subject in Zilina (180 in 2006) and 12 at the detached faculty site in Prievidza 12 (30 in 2006), in total 147 students (264 in 2006). This is within standard yearly variation of attendees of the elective courses and also dependent on the total number of students at the faculty.
The communication between teachers and students has been made possible through face-to-face contacts during the lectures and lab exercises and with the use of e-mail. Communication among students was not monitored by any means.
To facilitate the monitoring of student activities it has been decided to implement learning management system (LMS) Moodle. In the first cycle the original material developed earlier was used, in the second cycle material developed and improved in the first project cycle has been used. The use of the content was monitored and user appreciation was assed through evaluation of the cross-case questionnaire.

Nature of the blend

The preparation of the blend has been made so, that the material available on-line should be sufficient to gain the necessary information. The supplementary available on-line tools a – discussion forums, e-mail were used for on-line support of the students in case of need of further information. Apart from these on-line tools student could use face-to-face consultations with the lecturer and teachers, who conducted the exercises in the lab. Due to the organizational issues, the face-to-face lectures for those willing to attend were also held. As described in the document above, there were regular face-to-face exercises of the subject held in the lab, with the mandatory participation, where peer-to-peer discussions could be held.
This situation can be regarded as application of Model 2: Instructor-led program bended with self-study e-learning of the Five Specific Blended Learning Models, as described in the article [1] Alvaraez, S. (2005). Blended learning solutions. In B. Hoffman (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Educational Technology.

Media used

The main delivery medium has been the Web site content, dedicated to the subject. At this site presentation contain lecture notes, animations and audio files have been stored, accessible to the target group via LMS Moodle.

Learning outcomes

The results obtained in the both cycles of the project were similar. Appreciation of the WWW contents has been high, however no significant breakthrough in the knowledge of the students could be observed.

Analysis, findings, evaluation

The problems that became apparent in the Cycle 1 were seemingly persistent and have remained also in the Cycle 2 of the project. They are common to the situation of other subjects taught at the faculty, so it relates to wider educational context there. The schedule of lectures is composed so, that it gives priority to scheduling of time and location of the obligatory courses, with rest of the time and space (left-over) given to mandatory subjects. Because of the optional solution of the mandatory subjects by students of different grades, to satisfy their availability, they are often pushed in the schedule into time slots, which are considered by students as unsuitable. This leads often to absence of students at the lectures and connected difficulties with catching up of the subject matter at the laboratory exercises, where the attendance is compulsory.

Organizational problems

Form the formal point of view, as any other subject at the „regular“ study, the subject chosen for the case study is taught in a traditional face-to-face method with the traditional lectures and labs. Due to the relatively large number of students, large lecture room is needed. There is a shortage of such lecture rooms at the University, since they are used for large student audiences in the first years of study, where the subjects of general nature are obligatory and the lectures are usually dedicated to the whole grade. Because the case study subject is elective and student stem from various core study groups, the only time available is either early morning, or late evening, which are not the best times suitable for learning and therefore numerous and frequent absenteeism can be observed.
This situation did not change in the second cycle of the project and even if the effort has been made with the University department managing the schedule, because of the above-mentioned constraints it proved to be impossible to change the timing of lecture hours.

Educational problems

The situation concerning the educational problems also did not alter in both cycles. Since the subject is mandatory, not based on the results of study in other subjects, it is attended by students with variable degree of skills and knowledge on the subject, from various study specialization and from bachelors’ as well as masters’ courses. Some of them are already specialists, skilled in professional development of multimedia applications, but usually without any theoretical background, others are beginners, with almost no practical skills in development of multimedia applications. By joining the core curriculum provided in form of lectures with Web based e-Learning support and resources it is possible to create possibility for students with different skill levels and backgrounds to gain the necessary information and to make development of their own learning paths possible.

Recommended directions for action

As it seems, the further development of the subject matter is necessary, not only due to the rapid development in the field of multimedia technologies, but also with respect to the blended learning approach taken. It will be necessary to further improve the on-line content with self-evaluation tests, in which the students will be able to assess the gained knowledge prior to attending the examination. The further improvement can be gained also with publication of the new lecture notes (in paper and in an enhanced electronic version), for the students who prefer written material, with possible use in the off-line manner.

References

Alvaraez, S. (2005) "Blended learning solutions". In B. Hoffman (Ed.), Encyclopaedia
of Educational Technology. Retrieved March 1, 2007 from http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/articles/blendedlearning/start.htm