Designing Multimedia for Differences: e-Lecturer, e-Tutor, and e-Student Perspectives

The outlook on the roles and needs of the centre players in the cycle of production and delivery of e-learning materials is investigated. The perspectives of e-lecturers, e-tutors and e-students on use and design of multimedia learning objects are presented in this paper. Their various cultures, skill levels and learning styles necessitate integration of flexibility into learning environment. Flexible use of multimedia learning objects and how the scalable design principles can be applied in practice are demonstrated. This adaptable framework relies on the learning style and background knowledge of the tutor in selecting, organizing, and presenting learning material produced by e-lecturers. It adopts a flexible approach to educational content organization and delivery based on multimedia components that can be integrated into a wide range of courses. The flexible framework leverages XML metadata for describing multimedia learning objects and XSL for their seamless integration into the existing e-learning systems.