META: multimedia environment for training applications

In present days there are no longer jobs for life: continuous training is a necessity and workers will often require a multitude of skills. Training must therefore evolve to become a more pro-active process of self-education. Distance learning and self-instruction systems can meet the demand that arises from the rapid obsolescence of knowledge and the need for lifelong education. According to surveys, companies that have switched from traditional training to multimedia tools based one have saved a great deal of money and time. META project starting point was the need to overcome the present drawback of multimedia products development: its unpredictable length. This mainly depends on raw material and authoring packages quality, authoring packages flexibility and response to courseware increasing complexity. Existing products are mainly oriented either to presentation or to CBT-like applications. In both cases, available tools are not properly suited to flexibly respond to all needs of courseware development. In addition almost no tools allow one to derive both stand-alone and distributed products as well as distributed tutoring. META authoring system tries to present a possible solution.