SBIR Phase II: Enabling Pedagogical Choice and Cost-Efficiency in the Development of Web-based Curricula

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will build a first-release Web-based system for content authoring and delivery that supports multiple approaches to pedagogical practice and provides efficient, easy to use methodologies with which course designers can employ system capabilities. Specifically, this project will continue the work started and demonstrated to be feasible in Phase I to create online authoring and complementary course management systems, which have features and benefits that are immediately available to innovative instructional designers. The goal is to enable the development of technology-mediated instruction through cost-effective means for producing new content and to do so with a focus on supporting instructional design innovation without compromising the capabilities of the technology. The goal is an innovation that will empower content providers to use principled learning theories and pedagogical practices for creating new online curricula that support technology-mediated instruction. The project will produce a new type of authoring and delivery system in which the functionality available to create course structure; manage multimedia content development; translate course specification into reliable production delivery; and access course-related activities for learners and their teachers or mentors, including dynamic learning interactions and real-time behavior tracking and reporting reflects the authors' preferred learning theories and pedagogies. This project seeks to provide a set of enabling tools that support the development of technology-mediated instruction through cost-effective means for producing content, focused on supporting instructional design innovation without compromising the capabilities of the technology. The commercial applications of the research result are sales and licenses of the created systems, both with and without content, to content developers, publishers, and also middle and high schools, districts, and other local entities for use by individuals and groups who desire to create and to publish content and assessments for communities of practice and who are impeded by cost and time constraints. The resulting systems will address a major problem in education: the consolidation of content development and dissemination in the hands of a small number of publishing conglomerates and the consequent lack of quality and diversity of choice that have been a result of that consolidation. With an extensible authoring system, the company would be positioned to tap into a large market with a business model that supports both new business development and the legacy assets of publishers and eLearning providers, and to create major new opportunities for many other types of content providers.