Papers in PDF format

development tools to the northern cyber climes, we have managed to develop several innovative solutions to
our technical stumbling-blocks. Slow modems, bad phone lines, and old computers (without readily available
support) necessitated a minimalist approach. We pared down the graphics to 16 colours, used clickable
thumbnails throughout, made our imagemaps redundant line drawings and avoided audio and video altogether.
Since courses inevitably seem to require lectures, we developed a PERL package that combines search engine
and indexing functions with virtual pagination. The end product is paginated, for ease of reference for both
students and instructors. As well, it provides a standard for on-line bibliographical documentation and
reference, forcing page 3 to always be page 3, regardless of the screen size, browser type or font preference of
the user.
The search engine, developed by Dr. Stan Beeler, (accessed on-line through an HTML form)
addresses the slow modem problem by loading only the page requested. It uses a CGI interface to either load
an index of the document in question or do a word Boolean AND search. Either way, the engine yields a list of
"hits." Each hit is a hot link on an HTML page. Accessing any link will yield that virtual page of text, with
the search term listed on top and bolded throughout. From there, it is possible to move forward or backwards
in the database (like leafing through a book) or to go back to the home page (the search engine page). So, in
response to any one request, only a single virtual page of data is being transmitted.
Part of the mandate of the project was to develop courseware tools to enable professors, who were
novices at Unix computing, to produce effective on-line courses. Naturally, we felt that the virtual pagination
search engine was something that was ideally suited to our cyber-milieu (the low tech north), so we created a
preprocessing package to transform text into a format that the search engine could use. The preprocessor (this
was my contribution to the project Basia Siedlecki) requires ASCII text, uses no command line arguments,
sticking to a question and answer format instead, and allows for a very minimal knowledge of the Unix
environment on the part of the user. It allows the course developer to specify the length of the virtual page and
provide a custom header and footer if desired. It also provides for users with a knowledge of HTML, allowing
them to insert custom tags, links, images, etc. An appended program transforms special characters from hex
to HTML numerical tags if needed.
Once the text is preprocessed, it is ready for the search engine and needs only be loaded into the
appropriate directory where it resides as ASCII text. Acknowledging the limitations of human endeavour, we
have also provided for on-line post-processing or editing. This part of the project (developed by Dr. Beeler and
embellished by Lynda Williams) is intended for touch-up work, adding images, correcting spelling errors,
adding cosmetic HTML, etc. Essentially, it splits the text into paragraphs, putting each paragraph into an
HTML form TEXTAREA, and allows for on-line editing. The resulting text is saved on the dedicated server
under a different name, and can be viewed immediately following editing as a web page. Editing can continue
until the course developer is satisfied with the resultant page. The new file is then saved under the old name
and the old file is put into a backup directory. All this is done on-line, through a browser, without any backend
Unix work.
Our project was tailored for a very specific audience. The courses are aimed at users (students) with
very limited computer resources and poor Internet connections. This, unfortunately, is a reality of Northern
living. The courseware development tools are aimed at a more general spectrum of people, ranging from web
novices to HTML experts. Internet distance education shows every indication of being the most practical and
cheap solution to the problems of providing quality educational options to people in remote and isolated places.
Our work is already being used as a paradigm for the development of distance education courses in the north.
We are publishing our software package for general academic use and in the spirit of academic freedom will
not be charging for copies.
Visit our site at http://donne.fac.unbc.edu
Acknowledgments:
Special thanks to the agencies that funded our project: The Open University Planning Council, The Innovations Fund of
British Columbia and the University of Northern British Columbia. As well, we would like to thank Dennis Macknac and
the Regional Operations Department at UNBC for providing support, encouragement and lab space. Finally, we would
like to acknowledge the technical support and general guidance of Dr. Stan Beeler and everyone else involved directly and
indirectly in the project