| In August 2004, e-Learning center was renamed and upgraded from e-Learning studio which was established in January 2002 and affiliated with Audio-Visual center in the library. The purpose of establishing e-Learning center is to solve the two key bottlenecks in e-Learning at our university:
(1)
It is difficult and time-consuming to make multimedia instructional materials.
(2)
The need for professional platform server and video & audio server is not fulfilled.
Therefore, the scheme of e-Learning center especially focuses on getting support from our staff and equipment for building a professional and effective team to help lecturers with making online courses.
E-Learning is different from face-to-face lectures. The most difficult challenge is to make the most of transmission capability of e-media to relieve the problem of lacking for face-to-face communication between the lecture and learners in distant learning. At the moment the development of post platform for the process of e-Learning is approaching mature. However, there is a shortage of professional staff putting great efforts into the effects of video & audio multimedia in the fore. Furthermore, most lecturers are not willing to have a try in making e-Learning courses. Even though there are some pioneers, lack of professional and technical skills makes it difficult for them to know how to take the first step. Finally the enormous amount of time and energy required to put into making multimedia instructional materials makes an invisible obstacle for lecturers toward making e-Learning courses.
To break through the bottlenecks described above in making e-Learning courses, we need to have a professional team for making multimedia instructional materials and arrange appropriate multimedia facilities. To exploit lecturers’ teaching principles effectively, e-Learning materials are produced according to the needs of lecturers. In other words, lecturers only have to focus on preparing teaching materials and do not have to worry about technical skills. As an expected result, the number of lecturers who are willing to involve in making e-Learning courses will increase.
The equipment for e-Learning also needs to be upgraded. For the past three years, the servers for e-Learning have been subjected to advanced Linux system and PC which are not suitable for making video-based materials. Besides, video & audio server is merely replaced by a PC with real video server installed and this will not be able to meet the increasing need in quality and quantity for video-based materials in the near future. System server and video & audio server will need to be upgraded and a comprehensive scheme will need to be planed beforehand if the service to be available to a large number of users simultaneously is considered. |
