Page 24 - Campus Technology, March/April 2018

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includes an emphasis on displaying media, so that links can highlight visual relationships among audio and video elements.
Reveal is based on a tree data structure (with branch and leaf nodes), which can help support the logical organization of the content. But at the same time, Reveal allows numerous annotations that effectively link nodes to other nodes, making the spontaneous exploration of visual relationships possible. An assignment feature enables instructors to insert brief questions or problems that will appear with the media item specified.
The application is protected by the university’s single sign-on authentication system for the convenience of using one set of login credentials. Media items like images, audio files and video files are all automatically converted to required formats, so that it is easy for authors to upload files. And a simple interface offers a uniform presentation.
Reveal has a happy development home at Johns Hopkins. Developers have considered it an interesting and worthwhile challenge, and they included eight student workers on the team. Project lead Reid Sczerba, a multimedia developer in the Center for Educa- tional Resources, commented: “The project really engaged the student staff to think creatively and take ownership for their part on this unique application.”
Several technologies have been used to create Reveal. The framework was built using Backbone.js. And the server’s MySQL database is an important component, with Java servlets used for server-side programming.
As a developer, Sczerba is struck by the uniqueness of the application. “One of the most exciting aspects of Reveal is that we haven’t seen anything like it developed yet,” he said. And because the developers have not identified any commercial application on the market that compares to Reveal, Johns Hopkins University plans to share a generic version with other universities in the future.
Meg Lloyd is a freelance writer based in Northern California. CAMPUS TECHNOLOGY | March/April 2018
2017 CT IMPACT AWARDS IN DEPTH
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