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The use of multimedia learning environments in educational institutions is often associated with the need of uncomplicated content production and moreover, the problem to animate users to maintain the system and its content. A recently developed prototype, 'Instant Seminar', which is being used at the University of Applied Sciences Brandenburg in Germany, can be seen as an approach for creating an easy-to-use, low-price learning management system (LMS) for multimedia learning environments. The system could be suitable as a solution for those universities wishing to extend their teachings with an electronic learning environment, but which are presently not prepared for a commercial LMS implementation, mostly due to financial or organizational reasons. 'Instant Seminar' follows the didactic concept of 'Hybrid Learning Arrangements' and we considered corresponding features for communication and personal tutoring as part of the design. Important part of the prototype is a production tool called 'Lecture Wizard', which is basically a Web-based application running on Apache and MySQL servers. It employs Windows Media Services to allow production, modification and broadcasting of AV streams corresponding with the other content of created lectures. Produced streams may have different bandwidths and the distribution of lectures is possible within local and wide area networks. Recently, 'Instant Seminar' has been further developed to serve mobile devices.

The study of haptic perception and cognition requires data about how humans interact with tactile surfaces in the context of performing cognitive tasks. MIDAS is a set of three tools for the digital capture, coding, analysis, and interpretation of timeseries, multitouch, interactive behaviors on a tactile surface. The MIDAS-logger uses the current screen technology of tablet computers to capture touches (up to ten fingers at high spatial and temporal resolution) through conventional tactile graphics that are overlaid on the screen. The MIDAS-analyser is a software program for the qualitative and quantitative analysis of MIDASlogger touch data, which includes a fully interactive visualization of the data and a yoked display of a conventional simultaneous video recording made of the interactions. MIDAS-tactile protocol analysis (TPA) provides a scheme and a method to enable the rich coding and interpretation of tactile behaviors over multiple spatial and temporal scales. The efficacy of MIDAS was assessed against a set of criteria drawn from the successes and limitations of prior approaches to the study of tactile interactions. To demonstrate the functions of MIDAS, its three components were used to capture, analyze, code, and interpret the behavior of an experienced user and an inexperienced user of tactile graphics as they performed a shape-matching task.

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