Hierarchical Control and Management in a CAI Visual Authoring Environment

• Author / Creator

  Garraway, Robert William Thomas

• A review of the historical development of CAI from the creative breakthrough
  in 1958, through the replication period [1959-66], the empirical period [1967-74],
  the theoretical period [1975-82], and the automation period [1983-90] was
  carried out. The evolution of the sequence control and courseware management
  aspects of CAI languages and authoring systems was examined. These two
  aspects are the focus of this thesis. It was found that almost all CAI
  languages and authoring systems tend to provide a two level system of
  management and control: a within-file system and a separate and distinct
  between-file system. It was concluded that a more unified multi-level system of
  management and control features in a CAI system would enhance courseware
  organization, design and development. Ideas for the design of a large scale CAI
  system were also contributed from the following areas of computer science: the
  concept of abstraction, visual programming, human-computer interaction, and
  graphical user interfaces.
  The design of a large scale, multi-user CAI system was proposed based on
  a modular CAI language, ERAS, which has six sub-languages: CONTROL,
  CONTENT, DISPLAY, INPUT, ANSWER, and MENU. The system supported a
  hierarchical courseware data base and a visual authoring environment. It was
  designed to have a unified look and feel for all classes of users, to incorporate
  features that support user and courseware registration, and to assist authors at
  the design stage of courseware development.
  Two single user prototypes were developed to test some of the design
  features and the user interface, one on a Digital Equipment VAX using Elf
  (Educational Language Facility) and the other on a Commodore AMIGA using
  Intuition and GFABasic with Extend. The features tested included a multibranch
  tree structured data base, the nodes of which held all courseware modules.
  The authoring environment was maintained on an execution stack as
  the author navigated the tree structure. The visual authoring environment
  consisted of a file card metaphor of the data in the tree structure as well as a
  tree structure editor which presented contextual information on the tree node
  currently being edited.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • CAI Languages
  • CAI Control Systems

• Graduation date

  Spring 1993

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-sdf4-wq38

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.