Research and Development of CAIBuilder: an Innovative Authoring Tool for Creating E-Courseware Easily

Abstract

Objective: In recent years, educators have increasingly adopted e-learning. Unfortunately, most e-coursewares or Computer-Aided Instructions (CAI) could not always fulfill educatorsû needs. This results in a need to develop their own e-courseware by using available electronic authoring tools; however, there are difficulties in using these tools. The present study was intended to research on the difficulties in using authoring tools and to identify features needed by educators, the results would de used to develop an innovative CAIBuilder software.
Methods: Waterfall model, human-computer interaction and object action interface model have been employed in designing and implementing CAIBuilder. The software was written with ToolBook OpenScript. The beta version was tested, bugs were fixed and additional features were coded. The final version was used to conduct two workshops for fifty-three non-programmer university educators. Pre-test and post-test questionnaires were distributed to collect demographic data, knowledge, concepts, skills, experience, and confidence on creating multimedia applications, including key features of CAIBuilder.
Results: The results were analyzed and presented in percentages, and the Wilcoxon signed rank test was used for comparison. The results demonstrated that over 85% of non-programmer educators found CAIBuilder was user-friendly, easy to learn, and also powerful. The Wilcoxon signed rank test at a significant level p < 0.0001 indicated that, after the CAIBuilder workshops, over 80% of participants had increased their knowledge and confidence in creating multimedia applications by themselves, creating computerized test items, navigational controls and program flows. The Autonomic Nervous System and Physical Modalities are two examples of interactive e-courseware implemented by using CAIBuilder. and they have been Currently, they are being used in the teaching of physiology and physiotherapy to medical students at the Faculty of Medicine, Siriraj Hospital.
Conclusions: CAIBuilder is an innovative electronic authoring tool of choice for non-programmer authors to create an interactive e-courseware of good quality with feedback in a reasonably quick time frame without programming.