Guenter Hilmer - Phd Thesis - Glamorgan Dspace - University of ...

4.5 EM-Layer 4 HEAT
4.5 EM-Layer
The EM-layer of the EFTECS will work as the frontend to the user during the
authoring process of the educational material. The author will create EMs, TLSs
and EHPs within the HEAT. Furthermore, the modification of EHPs within TLSs,
the production of the educational material for the presentation to the student via
the WWW and the usage of the stored educational material in the content space
are implemented as the main HEAT working interface.
4.5.1 Design aspects
As mentioned above, it has been decided to use the implementation of the EM-
layer as the main HEAT interface to the author. This results in the effect that the
author is not able to distinguish between the EM-layer and the HEAT, because for
him it is basically the same. Therefore, the EM-layer becomes transparent to the
author.
• Creation
The creation of a new EM is seen as being rather easy for the author. Due
to the fact that the main working interface of the HEAT represents the EM-
layer of the EFTECS, the author creates a new EM immediately when he
creates some new educational material.
• Removal
The removal of an EM is seen as being very easy to achieve. However,
every TLS and every EHP within the EM is also removed, as long as they
were not stored in the content space. However, a warning is given to the
author by the HEAT.
• Linking
The linking of different EMs is not implemented in this version of the
HEAT. Every EM is regarded as a stand-alone course. However, the fu-
ture work in this domain will have to address the issues of inter-EM-linking
(cf. section 9.2).
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