2. Agenda Introduction on the COST€R project Why educational multimedia producers could use COST€R Why COST€R is not about eLearning? What COST€R is about? How does COST€R work? Demonstration of beta version with eProject Shortcomings beta version and how version 2 will be different Testing COST€R

3. What is COST€R ? COST€R is a website, which contains a multilingual decision making tool that enables producers and designers of educational multimedia as well as content providers to estimate and plan the costs of a multimedia application.

4. The COST€R project is… partially funded by DGEAC under the Socrates Programme: MINERVA action (ODL and ICT in Education) active from February 2002 until July 2003

5. The COST€R partners are… ATiT - Audiovisual Technologies, Informatics & Telecommunications, Belgium University Nancy 2-Vidéoscop, France Open University Catalunya, Spain Audiovisual Services K.U.Leuven, Belgium

6. Why an educational MM producers uses COST€R ? Trend: –Need for educational multimedia on a large scale – Increase in number of multimedia producers: teachers and institutions create their own materials –Lack of production experience and costing information –Demands on the expertise of the educational multimedia producer

7. Why an educational MM producers uses COST€R ? Making a budget=always start again, no standardised formulas to identify cost categories Repeated searches for costing information Express and identify hidden costs Compare across countries and producers

8. Why COST€R is not about eLearning… Onion peeling: many layers Costing elements: Personnel, Content, Length Interface design Functional requirements Media elements Interactivity levels Testing and certification Integration with other systems Quality checks Hidden costs Enough attempts, not always succesful

9. Existing attemps to budget eLearning? The theory –http://www.shu.ac.uk/schools/cms/research/terg/http://www.shu.ac.uk/schools/cms/research/terg/ –http://www.tltgroup.org/ (flashlight handbook)http://www.tltgroup.org/ –http://research.cstudies.ubc.ca/nce/summary.htmlhttp://research.cstudies.ubc.ca/nce/summary.html Some useful tools –http://www.marshall.edu/distance/studentsize.asphttp://www.marshall.edu/distance/studentsize.asp –http://www.bnhexpertsoft.comhttp://www.bnhexpertsoft.com –http://www.wcet.info/Projects/tcm/index.asphttp://www.wcet.info/Projects/tcm/index.asp –http://www.intellinex.com/flash/animations/calc/costcalc_playintr o.htmlhttp://www.intellinex.com/flash/animations/calc/costcalc_playintr o.html Custom built excel sheets

10. What COST€R is about? Calculation of the product, the most single unit vs calculation of eLearning

11. How does COST€R work? Visit http://www.coster.ws/ Explanation of background and rationale of the tool 2 entrance levels –Inexperienced level: Library of Examples –Expert level: COST€R tool itself

12. Inexperienced level: Library of Examples Archive of existing multimedia productions Each production description includes: –Short description and title –Type of multimedia application –Producer’s name –Target audience –Duration/length/size –Total cost –Time from concept to delivery –Description of the production process –Spreadsheet of costs

13. Library of Examples

14. Expert level: COST€R tool Database driven Costing info. from Spain, France and Belgium on all production stages for video and audio production, webdesign, videoconferencing, CD- ROM creation, Mixed media applications, and other Available for adaptation to own prices User manual and Glossary of AV-terms in French, Spanish, Dutch and English Beta version is finished, second version being made

15. Shortcomings of the beta version To much focus on the production process instead of the different media and their specific activities. Distinction between OOP – CIK – COP is too complex for a novice user Lot of redundant information, too much Not user-friendly

16. COST€R 2: Main features Activity based Adding / removing activities to the project on the fly. Each activity is hierarchically divided in sub- activities, represented in a tree structure. The tree structure guides the user through all the necessary steps to complete the activity.

17. COST€R 2 – Graphical User Interface MENU & TOOLBAR PROJECTGUIDING INFORMATION REGARDING THE CURRENTLY SELECTED (SUB)ACTIVITY. ACTIVITY 1 … … … … … ACTIVITY 2 COST TABLE RELATED TO THE SUB-ACTIVITY. (Note: this table is only present at the final level of the tree)

18. COST€R 2 – Early preview

19. Testing version 2 Version 2 is ready within a month! Interested in a free copy of the tool ? Provide us with your contact details and we’ll send you the full version (and a test user questionnaire…)

20. For more information…. contact: helena.bijnens@atit.be URL: http://www.coster.ws/ Thank you!