Multimedia Formats - Recommendations and Future Work
It seems clear that we cannot say to people you should use a particular format in all circumstances. What we want to do is to help people to make the right choices in particular circumstances. The workshop recommended that the following projects should be carried out (in addition to this workshop report):
- a report should be written by a small group of experts who develop the issues raised above and use examples of formats and tools to illustrate these. This report would be aimed at the user who wanted to gain an understanding of the issues. It would contain a glossary and a review of books and publications in this area.
- a "live" online document should be created which has sections on multimedia formats with information about each in a standard way. The format of the document being defined using a forms interface and made available using World Wide Web. The information would have links to other sources of information. It would also have a second section on tools for conversion with pointers to further information. This work would build on other activities.
- AGOCG should do some work on good design in the use of multimedia tools through the SIMA project
- the recommendations and reports should be fed into other initiatives in HE such as TLTP and the Libraries Review.
The rest of this report contains summaries of the presentations made at the workshop and details of the discussions. It should be noted that the papers reflect the interests of the participants and should not be taken as an overview of the field. The recommendations reflect the need for overview materials with an even-handed approach to be available. The papers should be read in this light.
There was no consideration of copyright at the workshop. This reflects the focus of the workshop and not a lack of appreciation of this important issue.
For more information about the workshop, AGOCG or the SIMA project contact:
Dr Anne Mumford
Computing Services
Loughborough University
Loughborough
LE11 3TU
Graphics Multimedia
Virtual Environments Visualisation
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