Object-Oriented Content: Importance, Benefits, and Costs

1. Object-Oriented Content: Importance, Benefits, and Costs Cesar Bandera Director of R&D Creneaux 145 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10013 cbandera@creneaux.com www.creneaux.com

2. Content Providers Face Growing Scalability Problems • Diversity in demographics, content personalization, revenue models • Distributed content management • Diverse delivery, client platforms • Internet, removable media, broadcast, … • PCs, PDAs, kiosks/embedded devices, entertainment consoles, …

3. Object-Oriented Principles Apply to Content • Content is composed of media objects • Tailoring to demographics impacts few media objects, not the entire content • ROI via reuse of labeled objects • Delivery, interactivity @ individual objects • Optimized by object type (including DRM) • Conforming to different revenue models • Versus “baking” into single format, location

4. Object OrientedContent Standards • SCORM • Courseware standard • Promotes interoperability of content among different Learning Management Systems • MPEG-4 • Multimedia standard • Promotes interoperability of content among different delivery channels and clients

5. Example of MPEG-4 Content and Delivery Benefits • Objects: • Chromakeyed video • Slides • Text • Synthetic 3-D set • Total: 4.7MB, 2 min • 13x smaller stream than MPEG-2 @ same quality (4Mb/s) • 7x smaller stream than WMv9 @ same quality (2Mb/s) • Similar significant bandwidth savings over other delivery channels, narrowband and broadband

6. Example of MPEG-4 Personalization • Five MPEG-4 streams: Audio: 0.99 Mbytes Video: 3.48 Mbytes Graphics: 5×0.23 Mbytes Total: 5.62 Mbytes • Five MPEG-2 streams: 5×61 Mbytes = 305 Mbytes • Savings in size translates to savings in production and delivery expenses.

7. Similarity & Difference Between SCORM and MPEG-4 • Content is a hierarchy of labeled objects • Standards that define how content is delivered, not how it is created • Quality set by tools, authoring practices • An object (SCO) is a pedagogical unit • Objects delivered sequentially • An object is a media asset • Tight spatiotemporal synchronization

8. Example of Tight Spatiotemporal Composition • Recorded audio, pre-recorded head video, synthetic mouth video • Synthetic audio, pre-recorded head video, synthetic mouth video

9. Nesting OO Architectures: Immersive Simulations • Media asset < ? SCO ? < Training level • Media asset has no pedagogical value • Training level is too context-specific • Learner is graded on end state and on intermediate state trajectory

10. OO Immersive Simulations: Milestone SCOs • Decompose simulation objective into milestones • One per SCO (an MPEG-4 show in a SCORM wrapper) • Consistency between SCO transitions is prerequisite • LMS instructs client to use initial state authored in SCO, or final state of previous SCO (cached)

11. The Beneficiaries of Object Oriented Content • The consumer • Greater interaction with relevant information • The manager of content • Interoperability and reuse • New markets • “Shareable content economy” • E.g., Object developers, syndication • New revenue models enabled by fine-grain DRM, pervasiveness of information

12. The Cost of OO Content Is Borne By The Author • Context independence of objects • independence = reusability • But when creating a course (lecture, lab, etc.), context drives the thinking process • Object labeling • Which semantics? • Conversion of legacy content • If possible

13. Policy Required to Achieve Shareable Content Economy in Academia? • Current situation: • Rich media tools are difficult to use (well) • IT groups creates content, consult with SME • Some faculty obligated by grant • Incentive? • Problem: faculty not paid to create content • E-learning research alone will not achieve critical mass