Integrating logical video and audio segments with content-related information in instructional multimedia systems

Multimedia used in instructional systems currently delivers substantial amounts of information without providing reasons for accumulation or guides to ordering and comprehension. The lack of pedagogical control thus often causes student-users to become overwhelmed. This paper contributes an architecture for instructional multimedia systems that reduces the information overload and disorientation through the provision of pedagogy and individualisation of the learning process. Content indexing and integration with logical video and audio segments within the architecture is achieved with the use of multimedia frames (m-frames). The application of m-frames and the architecture is demonstrated in the development of MAT, an instructional multimedia system that teaches young children about animals. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.