by Nicholas Skelton

Design specifications
This course was made at the end of 1995, and it is hoped it will be added to and modified in subsequent years. The course content is mostly a modification of an existing slide-tape (caramate) review course.The course is written in a markup language called HTML( HyperText Markup Language) is designed around the Netscape version 1.1N viewer which at the time when this course was developed it was the best HTML viewer avaliable.
The course is not been designed for use over a network as it is only intended to be used on stand alone Macintosh computers in the AV lab in the Macleay Building Sydney University. However the course can be easily modified for working on a network at a later date if required. The course is designed to be used on a Macintosh Proforma 580 which has a built in 14 inch screen capable of thousands of colours and a screen resolution of 640 by 480 pixels.
To make the understanding of the how the course works and to simplify and speed up the course the course was designed not to be served but to be client file based. This also allows updating without the need to know details about client/server relationships and enables the course to be run and modified without much knowlage of computers or programming. Image maping will be used if the need comes up it will be client based not serve. Movies and sound are not included due to; the file sizes involved, fast computer hardware costs and the time and expense of capture the information to disc. Movies, sound and dimentional walk throughs are possible future options.
It has been decied not to connect the computers to the network or to printers or to encourage students to take the software home or to cut and paste to other documents.

Font, styles and standards
The following font styles and standards have been fixed and are adhered to. All text in the course will be in the font Palatino. The button typeface is Brushscript either 30 or 22 point bold colour RBG 150, 150, 150 with a displaced white background of one pixel up and to the left. The titles are 48 point Palintino colour RBG 16, 167, 27 with a light green background that has been displaced. Image labelling in the manuscript and of the image files will be done using the Photo CD identifier and image number followed by sequential copy identifier if the image is used more than once. For example B23b, is an image from the compact disc B, it is a modification of the 23 rd image on the Photo CD and it is the second copy of this image to be used in the course. Most pages will have one large image and a small amount of text and some buttons and will not need scrolling. All pages will have a glossary and help button.

Image guidelines
Set the monitor to 640 x 480 and thousands of colours using the Monitors, Control Panel. To make an image at the correct resolution and size use CD images of the resolution 768X512 pixels. In Photoshop set the crop perimeters by double clicking on the cropping tool and set the dimensions to 21.4cm wide for a landscape images. The height is dependent on the number of lines of text. Allow half a centimetre for every line of text. In the image size dialogue box set the image resolution to 72 dpi.

Background colour yellow 63834, 65535, 30951, Blue 29201, 11583, 64545 image size 12cm - No of lines/2 4 lines 285 3 295 2 305 1 312 605 pixels wide 5 pixels per line and 21.4 cm wide Highest quality no compression Jpeg Image enhancement and labelling can now be done. This may include enhancements such as edge sharpening, background removal, removal of dust and scratch marks, changes in contrast and the making of transparent areas. Areas of interest should be highlighted by selecting the area of interest and changing the contrast, or colour or by outlining the area using a line (eg. Yellow). Other annotation may include text, arrows, blow ups and symbols. Save a copy the file using "Savecopy" to JPEG format 32 bit with no compression. This should produce a file with a size of about 130K.
Other style specifications are yet to be set.

Why HTML
Three formats that could be used for computer based learning module (authoring) were identified as possiblilities and assessed for suitability for the project they were; Hypercard, Authorware and HTML. The selection process involved talking with experts in the field, bench marking and considerations such as cost, future support and development and ease of use.
The area of authoring is a very new and growing area and there were 2 packages that were due to be released soon but were not available for assesment at the start of the project, these are AdobeAcrobat and Netscape Gold (the next version of HTML). HTML was selected for the following reasons.

Ease of updating the text graphics and order, it is expected that future level A Academics will be able to make any nessesary changes without training if HTML is used. The other packages need training.

No special software is needed to make changes it can be changed using any word processor such as "Word".

The software to display the work is free to academic institutions.

HTML allows a very large screen area for graphics. Graphics are the most important part of this course.

The system can incorperate a glossary function.

There are hundreds of thousands of users of HTML and thousands of people writing HTML script throughout the world.

HTML is independent of computer platform, so the course can be used on a PC, Mac or UNIX systems.

HTML is able to be accessed over a network and the internet allowing students from home or from other universities to use the course if this is required later.

HTML can incorperate sound and movies if required and will soon support 3 dimentional walk-throughs.

It can be linked to external data sources across the university and internet such as the University library databases, and other plant anatomy information sources.

It is flexable enough to allow students to easily go back and forward or to jump ahead or back or stop when they want or restart where they wish.

If you make changes cold you let me know I may have made changes also and I would like to know how it is going. Nick nicksk@extro.ucc.su.edu.au

Work was suddenly stopped on this on the 19th June. there were many projects in progress including a change in the quizes using frames, checking spelling totlly rewriting and replaceing the pictures in 1a and many others. I hope to get back to these. Nick.