ABSTRACT
Case studies form an important and valued resource in teaching and learning, traditionally being presented as text, with the possible addition of simple role playing. The advancement of multimedia techniques provides us with the opportunity to extend this approach to teaching and learning and we propose that current paper-based case studies be transformed into interactive multimedia simulations to capture the students’ imagination and consequently enrich student learning.
This chapter relates research in the development of interactive case study simulations (ICSS), together with a case study language (CSL), to enable the production of multimedia case study scenarios for students of system analysis. The goal of the interactive case study is not to teach or argue the student towards a specific goal but to provide a context in which to explore the ‘real’ world. The CSL environment includes a mark-up language (CSL), a scene librarian and a text editor to enable the user to create case study scenarios containing scenes, people and documents using images, video clips, sound clips and text.
Research continues at Liverpool Hope with the study of virtual reality (VR) techniques to aid in the realism of the case studies, and the addition of a knowledge-based system to add ‘intelligence’ to the actors in the case study. Suggested future directions for ICSS involve the use of simulations via the Internet or CD-ROM for applications in distance learning.
