Open System for Collaborative Authoring and Re-use

Abstract

The paper gives an overview of the OSCAR system which supports collaborative and distributed authoring of multimedia training materials. OSCAR refers to an application scenario featured by the distribution, both over local and wide areas, of the authoring resources such as actors involved, authoring tools, information base and equipment. Increasing needs of uniformity, quality, productivity and reliability of the course development process along with new opportunities for large scale training projects are making collaborative and distributed authoring one of the most promising sectors of the educational technology market. OSCAR, based on an open system architecture, provides multimedia communication facilities supporting distribution of the authoring process, a common information space allowing cooperation between different tools and actors, and high level services (co-authoring services) for multimedia authoring, collaboration, co-ordination, co-decision and re-use. In this paper the organizational and architectural models of OSCAR are described with a special emphasis on the authoring and co-ordination services offered by the system.