Authoring Environment

"Authoring Learning Objects is not a simple task: Content has to be comprehensively shaped for covering a single, self-consistent subject. Meta data, in a certain amount, are inevitably needed. It is a necessary but ambitious challenge to provide an authoring tool for seamless production of ELOs."

hylOs Author

The hylOs learning object editor allows for a coherent authoring of complete learning objects, i.e. content, meta data and referential relations can be develop within one application. The tool attains three main views: The content navigator, the content editor and the metadata builder.

Content Navigator

The content navigator is used by authors to compose single eLearning objects to a knowledge tree.

Content Editor

The content editor is dedicated to the production of entire content, i.e. descriptive paragraphs, tables and rich media objects. It hides the underlying XML content structure by providing a WYSIWYG interface to the authors.

Meta Data Builder

The meta data builder takes care of generating the learning object meta data set with minimised authoring effort. Relevant manual specifications are arranged on one sheet, where obligatory data are reduced to seven fields. The acquisition of meta data is essentially done in three ways:

  • Automatic Generation for most of the LOM attributes: All technical data (author, formats, sizes, dates, locations, aggregationLevel…) are directly provided by the MIR system. The content title is used as the LOM title, the sectional titles as coverage fields and as a description the (reformatted) first content paragraph. An additional set of faintly fluctuating data, e.g. language or intendedEndUserRole, are taken from user specific presets.

  • Obligatory manual provision for seven LOM attributes: Keywords, semanticDensity, difficulty, context, learningResourceType, structure and documentStatus require editing, if presets taken from previous editing do not apply.

  • Facultative manual provision for the remaining LOM attributes may be added either on the front sheet or by accessing the complete meta data tree.