1. A Seminar Presentation On The
DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A WEB-BASED COURSEWARE
AUTHORING SYSTEM FOR TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS
BY
ANOZIE CHIOMA NNENNA(B.ENG)
2008366005F
A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF
ELECTRONICS/COMPUTER ENGINEERING IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF
ENGINEERING IN COMPUTER ENGINEERING FROM NNAMDI AZIKIWE
UNIVERSITY, AWKA
SEPTEMBER, 2010

2. INTRODUCTION
Paper and pencil correspondence courses have been available for over fifty years, and
for motivated students, have been proven to work adequately.
Tertiary institutions in Nigeria, in particular, have not only experienced a tremendous
increase in the number of students enrolled yearly but also experience the disruption
of normal school session frequently by strikes. This vast number and the frequent
disruption of normal school session have made it difficult for the few lecturers there
are to lecture and assess students effectively. Hence there is need for an e-learning
solution that enables lecturers to effectively tutor and assess students irrespective of
the permitted classroom time and the location of the students.
With the growth of information and communication technology, the advent of the
WWW and the introduction of e-learning technology, the development of a solution to
extend the classroom to the internet and educate students on a one-on-one basis, is
now possible. The web-based courseware authoring system is such a solution and also
incorporates a module for testing the student and hence assessing his performance. It
also has an easy-to-use interface, hence ensuring that any lecturer can be an author of
a courseware with minimal computer expertise.

3. AIM AND OBJECTIVES
The objectives of this research work are to
• Build a web- based authoring software for courseware production for
tertiary institutions, that will be accessible, easy to understand and used
by lecturers or teachers of limited computer knowledge
• Produce software that will allow courseware creators to have
responsibility for the content of their work, leaving the functionality to
be dealt with by the authoring program
• To produce an authoring software capable of offline editing
• To produce an authoring software that produces courseware that is
easily accessible by any student’s computer, so that students’ can
review lectures at their own time.
• To produce an authoring software that is at par with similar software
packages developed in advanced nations
• To produce a system for viewing created courseware

4. SCOPE OF THE PROJECT
This project is meant to develop an authoring
software that will be used both online and offline.
Offline it is used to develop the courseware and
add enhancements that include text, audio and
video. Hence the courseware will be used to
generate full multimedia.
Online it is used to tutor students and assess
students and show their grades, based on the
presentation of structured course work.

5. LIMITATIONS OF THE EXISTING SYSTEM
To establish the problem statement, the shortcomings of the present method of
knowledge dissemination in Nigeria(the blackboard and paper system) were
identified:
The Traditional Blackboard and Paper System
•If a student is not in the classroom whenever a lecturer is conducting a lecture
or happens to come late to the lecture, he misses a lot of information that
cannot be easily passed to him by his fellow students. This is because the
lecturer, who is seasoned by years and skills and education, knows exactly how
to describe a topic and what elements to employ to accelerate understanding.
Hence when a student misses a lecture, it becomes very difficult to understand
the topic that was taught.
•Traditional blackboard tutorship is not tailored to suit the different learning
paces of the different students in a classroom
•The unstable educational environment of the Nigerian tertiary institution,
caused by strikes, riots, make it almost impossible for any lecturer to effectively
teach all the topics in his course scheme of work. This poses a big problem as
information is mostly relevant in its entirety and not as an incomplete piece.
•The present system is not economically focused. This is because a lot of many
people who wish to be educated but are impaired by distance cannot harness
the power of education in Nigeria. Distance learning is a very economically
viable service and such cannot be conducted in the Traditional method of
education.

6. OVERVIEW OF ENVISAGED SYSTEM
The web-based courseware authoring system aims to eliminate all these
limitations of the present system mentioned above by being a platform that can
be used by a lecturer/author with little technical skills but basic computer
literacy. Also it is a platform that can be used for the courseware development
of any topic or course and can be used multiple times instead of just once for a
particular subject or instead of being tailored specifically for a particular course
User(s)
Online e-learning
User login portal
form
Instructional
Courseware Production display of
lessons in
Lesson Coding of courseware
parameters into courseware
parameters courseware
database
Student and
author
parameters

7. SYSTEM SPECIFICATION
The top-down design of the web-based courseware
authoring system (WCAS) in high level model is shown
below to illustrate the system specification of the
aforementioned project.
Web-Based Courseware Authoring
System
User Verification Courseware Courseware
Unit Authoring Unit Viewing Unit
Take Lecture
Log in Registrat Lecture
Quiz
ion Rootname Chapters
Objectives Lecture
Media
Fig 2: Top-down Design procedures for the Web-based Courseware Authoring System

8. SOFTWARE SUB SYSTEM
1) Rootname module: The rootname for every courseware is coined from a
concatenation of the author’s name, courseware title, and courseware topic and
courseware code. This way a unique name is formed for every courseware that
is created irrespective of whether it is by the same author. The rootname is
then stored in the courseware table with its corresponding courseware details
(topic, author, title, code).
2) Objectives module: This section is linked to the Objectives of the
courseware, thereby stating what is the aim of the courseware and what a
student should be equipped with after studying the courseware.
3) Tutorial module: the tutorial module is divided into the lecture notes
part and the media part. While the lecture notes (as the name implies) is culled
from the lecturer’s notes and/textbook, the media files are scenes captured
during a lecturer’s lecture. The media files help to further emulate the
classroom experience
4) Question module: This section displays the question associated to each
tutorial topic. In this module, students are exposed to questions on the
courseware topic and the answers associated to each question supplied as well.
It serves as a good revision venue. During the development of the quiz, the quiz
builder in the web-based courseware authoring system wizard is used to input
questions and save them directly to the quiz table along with their options and
the right answer. These questions are saved against the current rootname

9. Lecturer Attempt Registered Lecturer Table
Log in Lecturer
Return Lecturer data
Allow access to
home page
Display home page Select Page
Display Home Page Selector
Page Selector
page
Select web-based
Select Courseware List
courseware authoring
wizard
Display web-based Display Courseware List
courseware authoring
wizard
Create Courseware Select Courseware
Module
Store Rootname &
Courseware
information
Courseware table
Display Rootname
Generator Courseware module
Next Stage selector Get
Store chapter
Objectives Objectives table s
Display Objectives location Objecti
Get
module ves Chapters/Ob
Get Lecture
Next Stage Media Get / jectives
Store Qui Lecture notes/ table
Chapters Chapters table Return
z objectives
Display lecture notes location Chapters/
module Objs
Next Stage Multimedia
Store Lecture media Get / table
Multimedia Multimedia table Return
Display lecture media
location Media
module
Next Stage Quiz table
Store Quiz Quiz table Get /
Quiz
Display Quiz builder Question(s) Return
Question
Select Courseware list Page

10. Attempt log Get student data, if
Student Registered Student Table
in registered
Student
Return student data
Courseware Select Courseware
page
Get Courseware rootname
Courseware Table
Display Courseware
Select Return Courseware rootname
Courseware
Return Select Return Select
Lecture Notes/ Return
courseware coursewar coursewa coursew
Objectives coursew
Lecture Notes/ e Media re Media are Quiz
Objectives are Quiz
Lecture Notes/Objectives Lecture Media Return Answer & score
Module Module Quiz Module
Get Return Get Return
selected selected selected selected Select
lecture lecture Questio Get Question and
notes/ notes/
media media n Options Quiz Table
objective objective Question and
s location s location location location Question and Options
Answer
Correct
Option and Selected Option
Multimedia Table score
Chapter Table/
Objectives Table
Get correct Option Mark Question
Quiz Table
Correct
Option

11. PERFORMANCE EVALUATION
The performance of any software counts a
lot both to the developer end the user of the
software. The web-based courseware
authoring software was subjected to some
performance evaluation and it was
discovered that the software in its
integration of multimedia and quiz, is an
enhancement to some present e-learning
systems. Also it is relatively less expensive
than foreign courseware authoring systems
and very easy to use.