ning course to just two days by using seminar-style training to introduce new financial products and video-based simulations to demonstrate appropriate sales techniques.
Today, CBT delivers training materials to users in almost every large public- and private-sector organization. Big organizations are often so lean and downsized that they can't afford to have staff members away from their jobs for long periods of time, making CBT a must. Furthermore, these organizations are often decentralized. For them, the consistency and reduced learning time that CBT offers are major benefits; in addition, the cost of training is lower than with other methods.
Soaring Sales
CBT is growing rapidly. According to Inteco's (Woking, U.K.) report titled "Software Markets in Europe," training-software sales
are growing at a rate of 25 percent per year. The market volume for 1996 was about $588 million; the company estimates a rise to $1.52 billion annually by the year 2000. It's no coincidence, then, that many of the multimedia developers in Europe with the highest revenues concentrate on CBT. In Germany, for example, eight of the top 10 multimedia applications developers are working on CBT applications, according to Joachim Graf, editor of the German Multimedia Magazin (Hightext Verlag).
Duncan Garfield of Training Direct (Harlow, U.K.), a training-resource provider, says that the same is true in the U.K. "Of those companies in the U.K. that produce genuine multimedia applications outside the consumer market, CBT developers are the most successful," he says.
Today, CBT applications generally run on stand-alone PCs that support audio, video, and a CD-ROM and that are usually not networked. However, the emergence of the Web and the proliferation of company intranets may eventually make the platform choic
e superfluous.
The major advantages of intranet CBT are platform independence and the networked interaction between learner and instructor. Other benefits are that on-line tests in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) format can be easily processed, and shared workspaces with whiteboards and audio permit communication between learners. Thus, the most persuasive argument for using the Internet and intranets in CBT applications may be a pedagogical one. "The Web and other networks let us take well-designed multimedia applications and strengthen them," says Patrick Littlefield of MicroMentor (Boston, MA).
One of the top multimedia developers in Germany, MIT (Friedrichsdorf), is creating a so-called virtual learning center (VLC) using intranet technology. This is an attempt to re-create on the network a content-rich physical learning center comprising a virtual information source, a library, a classroom, and an on-line meeting place for employees.
The important elements of pilot VLC projects are the serve
rs, with their training archives, statistical features, and message-distribution and message-retrieval modules. A VLC server also offers e-mail, voice mail, chat rooms, forums, BBSes, whiteboards for shared workspaces, audioconferencing and videoconferencing, and screen and applications sharing. A VLC knowledge base enables users to choose from a multitude of self-directed learning methods and explore individual training strategies.
MIT has been working with the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics (Darmstadt, Germany) and the University of Graz, in Austria, to design such a client-/server-based VLC. The first VLC project, which was completed in September, used custom C++ programming. The developers are now working on a new version, based on Java and ActiveX.
Hybrid Applications
Until independent intranet-based CBT applications become widely available, hybrid applications, such as CD-ROMs with Internet updates, will be the standard. Hybrid applications overcome Internet band
width shortage while enabling up-to-date video- and audio-enriched programs. They store vast amounts of multimedia data locally on a CD-ROM and only update the source materials that are stored on the network.
This approach works well for courses with rapidly changing content. The first hybrid CD-ROMs equipped with browser software and content in HTML format are just now emerging in Europe.
The architecture of today's CBT applications is basically a series of frames that take the student through the course material. Management of the information is based on a hypertext or flowchart mod-el with conditional logic and branching. Unlike a classical hypertext architecture, where paths through a body of knowledge are ad hoc and determined by the user, the branch model of a CBT flowchart requires predefined paths. A storyboard defines the content of the training course, user interface, and interactions, and it links the content to the flowchart (see "What's the Story?," March 1996 BYTE).
In the past, mult
imedia applications developers often had to create their own authoring tools and systems. According to Edgar Brütsch of HQ Lern und Informationssysteme AG (Sissach), one of Switzerland's top CBT companies, many developers continue to employ their own authoring systems, although they're getting too expensive to maintain and too complex to keep up to date. But he notes that while off-the-shelf tools have improved dramatically over the past few years, they are often too slow.
The off-the-shelf tools that European developers like the most are Asymetrix's ToolBook, Macromedia's Director and Authorware, and IconAuthor from AimTech. Most of these authoring tools do not require programming skills, but they offer visual approaches to developing CBT components that can be reused and recycled as training methods need refinement or as content has to be updated.
Easier Content Updates
One important rule most experienced CBT developers cannot overemphasize is to separate the programming st
ructure from the multimedia content. They say that graphics, animation clips, and video and audio segments best reside in their native formats. The practical benefit is that if a particular piece of content appears several times on the storyboard, it's sufficient to store it only once and refer to this original in different contexts. This also makes updates and changes more efficient and saves storage space and maintenance costs.
Furthermore, by separating the programming structure from the content, graphic designers and video producers can work in parallel with programmers to develop subsequent pieces of an application concurrently. Developers can redirect instructional paths and programming structures when course content changes, if globalization is required, or if relevant laws and regulations change over time and need to be updated. In addition, a training course's original writers, who are often experts on the subject matter in question, can more easily maintain and refine the content.
Separating
the programming from the content is closely related to the modularization of programs. Clearly, it's object-oriented programming that enables flexibility and moves CBT away from the complex, tailor-made software programs of the past. Developers in France, Germany, the U.K., and other countries say that they regularly reuse elements of their software libraries and combine them with either Visual Basic or an authoring tool. This helps to keep the program development time to a minimum.
Hypervideo Follows Hypertext
"Dramatized video is a superb way of engaging and sustaining the learner's involvement in a complex training assignment," says Mark Iliff of Price Waterhouse (London), a company that has been using and developing CBT for 10 years. But video also serves as an excellent user interface for navigation inside multimedia applications.
For example, Arts Video Infographique (Poissy, France) has developed MOVideo, a program that lets users navigate inside a video. This
hypervid
eo
software can turn any actor, object, or background in a video into a hot spot and link it to any other information source (see the sidebar "Create Hypervideo"). This feature is particularly useful for CBT applications because it allows a more direct interaction with the actors and objects in a video.
The constant improvements occurring in the processing, 3-D graphics, and video power of PCs will soon enable a new generation of CBT applications that includes smooth graphics animation, full-screen video, and realistic scenarios that you can solve using what-if simulations. These kinds of simulations are possible today only with the performance and graphics power offered by advanced, powerful multimedia PCs.
In one real-world example of the power of CBT, transportation authorities are starting to use sophisticated 3-D computer simulations to help their employees understand and predict emergency situations. Research has revealed that if staff members can run through simulated stress situations to
understand their own reactions to them, they will have a much better grasp of how to conduct a search-and-rescue operation or give directions in a real emergency.
Where to Find
Arts Video Infographique
Poissy, France
Phone: +33 1 39 79 41 60
Fax: +33 1 39 79 05 25
HQ Lern und Informationssysteme AG
Sissach, Switzerland
Phone: +41 61 9769111
Fax: +41 61 9769110
Inteco Corp.
Woking, U.K.
Phone: +44 1483 751777
Fax: +44 1483 751496
E-mail:
info@inteco.com
Internet:
http://www.inteco.com
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