-- under construction --
The prototype we are building is an courseware management system with the emphasis on visual manipulation of the data objects. It looks like a file system from the outside, with desktop and browser facilities, but in contrast to a file system, the objects can be stored under more than one relation. Several types of objects are recognized by the system, and appropriate editors for these objects can be assigned. The storage for the objects will be provided by a database instead of a file system, which makes it possible to store various extra attributes for each object.
Another difference is that in a file system, the smallest accessible objects are files, which are aggregates of smaller objects. A document file for example may consist of chapters, which in turn consist of smaller objects. In the Skit System, data is stored in these smallest objects themselves, and larger entities like documents are formed by structuring the sub-components under a relation. This creates a sharp distinction between the structure of the document and its content, and also allows for true sharing of the sub-components
Because different presentations for the same source material are required (for example web pages as well as printable documents), the system contains a separate presentation facility. An advantage of this separate presentation facility is that the generated documents have a very uniform appearance. Changing the appearance for a document will only require changing the presentation and not the actual document source itself.
At the moment, the prototype does provide support for storing knowledge, or mapping courseware objects to the knowledge they convey. We are still investigating what the exact nature of such a mapping would be, and how we could use it to aid in generating presentations, check consistency, and navigate over the source objects.
A schematic overview of the several components of the system can be found here.
Screenshots are available for the following three main features of the prototype: