MANIC: an open-source system to create and deliver courses over the Internet

This paper describes MANIC, an open-source, cross-platform system to create and deliver courses over the WWW. MANIC allows instructors to create courses and deliver them to students as HTML slides shown in synchrony with the voice of the instructor in an audio stream. Courses are organized as modular units to teach individual topics; students can drive their learning experience by browsing the material freely and controlling the pace of the presentations. MANIC provides an on-line authoring tool that does not require knowledge of HTML and that makes it easy to create, maintain, reuse, and share courses. MANIC has been used to deliver a variety of courses. Students benefit from around-the-clock access to material; the combination of audio and text also makes it easy to understand and remember the material. Instructors are able to cover more material during their lectures and to adapt the digital material for future use.