A model of authoring system for e-learning courses

Abstract

An Authoring system is a software with pre-programmed elements which allows both programmers and non-programmers to easily create interactive multimedia software courses. An author simply makes use of the  templates of an authoring system by following online instructions to create and structure his subject matter to suit his choice. On the other hand,  students use the graphical user interface to select and study any subject of interest. The focus of this research work was to model a robust authoring system that will help both computer and non-computer experts to prepare courseware in any subject of interest and as well as help him teach the authored courses to his students online. The entire package comes in form of a software template, which can be customized for individual users. This work is timely because it will totally eliminate the burden on programmers to write a different code for every computer-aided learning course. It will also give room to non-computer experts to author their own courses with ease. The software is user-friendly and interactive. Test questions are generated by random selection from pool of questions relevant to the subject matter and are administered at strategic points. The system design approach used in this research was the ADDIE model which employs five stages of Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation. Visual BASIC programming language, Microsoft Access and Audio software were used for the implementation. The major contribution of this work is that it eases courseware preparation and delivery by exploiting high technology effectively. This software template is also of immense benefits to students of different disciplines as it will help them to learn their respective subjects with ease.

Keywords: Courseware, e-learning, Authoring Software, Learning,  educational