Abstract

The digitization of educational content is radically transforming the learning environment of the student. A single lecture, as well as supporting reference material, textbook chapters, simulations, and threaded chat system archives, may be captured on one hour of video, a set of 20 or more slides, and ancillary text resources. A single course may contain 25 such lectures and a single department may have 30 distinct courses that have been digitized in a single year. If, while taking one course, a student wants to find a relevant definition, example, discussion, or illustration of a concept, then the student would potentially need to search as much as 750 hours of video, 15,000 slides, and a huge volume of text in order to find the desired information. Thus the online student is overwhelmed by a flood of multimedia data which inhibits the development of insight.