Multimedia Production
Anselm Spoerri, Ph.D.
SC&I, Rutgers University
aspoerri@rutgers.edu
Course Website:
http://comminfo.rutgers.edu/~aspoerri/Teaching/MPOnline/Home.htm
and Lectures:
http://comminfo.rutgers.edu/~aspoerri/Teaching/MPOnline/Lectures/Lectures.htm
Course
Description
This course will focus on the design of educational multimedia for
libraries and media centers. The objectives of the course include
 To facilitate an understanding of how to create and design usercentered, instructional multimedia.
 To provide hands-on experience in multimedia production,
including digitization of images, sounds, animation and video, and
hypertext authoring.
The specific learning objectives are:
 Learn how to create effective web page layouts and interactive
navigation structures.
 Design engaging visual compositions to communicate key ideas.
 Develop and create well-structured animations and/or videos.
Grading
Policy
Exercises - 50%
 There will be five exercises that are designed to help you create
components that you use in your Term Project.
For description of the Exercises, please visit:
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http://comminfo.rutgers.edu/~aspoerri/Teaching/MPOnline/Exercises.htm
You will be able to resubmit an exercise to address the feedback
provided to improve your score (provided you submitted the
exercise on time and made a valiant effort).
Due Date is Wednesday Midnight of the week the exercise is
due; you need to submit the URL of where you have stored the
exercise via the Exercise specific dropbox (just add the URL in the
comment field) – late exercises will not be accepted. For example,
if the schedule states that Exercise 1 is due Week 4, then you
need to submit the URL of where you have stored the exercise
by the Wednesday of Week 4 by Midnight the lasted.
Please keep in mind that you can resubmit the exercise, so it
does not have to be perfect, but at same time you do not want to
hand in poor work. In short, give it your “best shot” and know
that you will have the opportunity to learn from the feedback
provided and improve your score if you did not initially receive a
full score of 100. You can resubmit as soon as you have received
my feedback (and you don’t need to wait until the Resubmit
Deadline, but you need to have done so by the deadline). The
URL for revised exercise is submitted via the same dropbox
initially used.
The URLs of your exercises will be made available to the whole
class so that you can see everybody’s work and learn from it.
Term Project - 50%
 Create a website that communicates your vision of "Why be a
Librarian in the 21st Century?"
 Build a cool site you can use as your calling card in your job
search.
 Demonstrate your technology and media savvy - use text,
images, animations effectively.
 Demonstrate your understanding of lecture materials and class
discussions.
 The site needs to include at least 12 - 15 separate pages that
are designed for easy scanning. If you have 4-5 main themes and
2-3 pages per theme, then you will satisfy this requirement.
 Evaluation criteria
1. Mechanics (50%) - technical competency in web and
multimedia design: navigation, layout, animations, access
performance.
2. Meaning (30%) - concise presentation of content and effective
use of multimedia.
3. Creativity (20%)
(Keep in mind these three criteria are interrelated).
Grading
Scale
95
90
85
80
75
–
–
–
–
–
100
95
90
85
80
A
B+
B
C+
C
Please note this is a different grading scale than the standard one
since you are able to resubmit your exercises.
Textbooks
The required textbook is "Castro: HTML, XHTML & CSS: Visual
QuickStart Guide" which is the same book used in (most of the
sections of) the 550 InfoTech course.
You will be required to use Adobe Creative Suite 6 : Web
Standard Edition (which incl. Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks etc).
You can use for free Adobe Creative Suite 6 via the
SoftwareAnywhere@SC&I web service or decide to rent Adobe
Creative Cloud service or you can buy the Educational Version of
Adobe Creative Suite 6 (for more info, please see
http://comminfo.rutgers.edu/~aspoerri/Teaching/MPOnline/Requirements.htm ).
Adobe CS5 / CS4 are fine to use if you already own it, but if you are
about to purchase the software, make sure to purchase CS6. Adobe
CS3 is okay to use if you already own it, however the CS4+ interface
is different and certain CS3 features are not supported anymore.
As mentioned, you do not need to buy the software and you can
use SoftwareAnywhere@SC&I (previously called Citrix@Rutgers)
to access the CS6 Adobe software for free – detailed instructions
provided on the Requirements page on the course website. Students
have been using the SoftwareAnywhere@SC&I in the past: some had
a great experience and others not ... it can depend on the speed of
your network connection (needs to be fast and best to be plugged
into your internet box) and/or "unknown" factors... the only way to
find out is to try it.
You will need a SC&I network account to use SoftwareAnywhere
@SC&I web service.
To activate or reactivate your SC&I Network account, please
visit: http://account.comminfo.rutgers.edu and login with your NetID.
To login to SoftwareAnywhere@SC&I web service:
http://sa.comminfo.rutgers.edu.
As indicated, accessing the CS6 Adobe applications via
SoftwareAnywhere@SC&I may not be a “smooth and easy
experience” for all of you and so you will have to test it on your own
to see if this is a viable solution for you ... you may decide to buy the
CS6 education edition or rent Creative Cloud service because you
want to use them in the future ... you don't have to decide now and
you can wait until Week 3.
You can try the different Creative Cloud (CC) software applications
on a 30 day trial basis (adobe.com/products/creativecloud.edu.html )
and please keep in mind that the application interfaces and some of
the functionality in the CC applications are not the same as in the
CS6 applications. You can also decide to use the 30 day trail a month
before the end of semester.
SC&I is subscribing to a service called LyndaCampus that is a
school-wide version of lynda.com, an online training library of over
80,000 video based training movies on over 1400 software titles.
LyndaCampus is available for free for students registered in SC&I
courses and can be used to learn software (Adobe CC / CS6, such as
Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash ... all programs we will be using in
this course), programming skills, video techniques, etc.
The lectures for this course have been redesigned to make extensive
use of the LyndaCampus content to complement and enhance the
lectures and video demos I have created. You must be logged into
LyndaCampus - https://lynda.comminfo.rutgers.edu/Login - to be
able to access the lynda.com videos included in the Lectures page
of this course.
The Help section of the different Adobe software applications is a
useful resource. I venture to guess that most of us may not like
consulting the Help section of a software application, but I encourage
you to do so anyway.
The goal of this course is to teach you useful software skills so that
you are able to create media rich Term Project.
This course lectures will teach strategic skills so that you will be
able to create a project that you can be proud of, but this course will
not be able to do full justice to all the great features included in the
Adobe software applications.
I hope you complement the course lectures by consulting the Help as
well as books find useful. I have also included links to useful
resources, such as tutorials and videos, to complement the materials
presented in the weekly lectures.
Email
Policy
I will make an effort to respond to your emails within 48 hours –
often it may be faster and sometimes slower. As we are approaching
the due date for Term Project, you can expect that I will answer your
emails within hours in the week before the project is due.
Threaded
Discussion
Policy
Virtual
Office
Hours
Most weeks I will suggest a topic to be discussed in a threaded
discussion and I expect you all to participate at least once in
every discussion that is assigned to the different weeks.
A discussion will become active on the Wednesday of the week it is
assigned to and it will close Sunday at Midnight of that same week.
Thus, you will have three days to make your contribution to the
discussion.
Threaded Discussion is meant to serve as community resource for
all of you, where you can ask for technical or content help from your
fellow students and myself.
Adobe Connect: a weekly virtual office hour will be held on a day
and time TBA. We will use the free Adobe Connect service because it
supports voice conferencing (good to have a headset with a builtin mic) and screen & application sharing (this way you can see me
perform specific steps on your screen in real-time and vice versa).
The chat attendance is voluntary.
Adobe Connect / Skype / Phone: I will make myself available to
talk to you via Adobe Connect, Skype or the phone by appointment
only if a question can not be answered or technical problem can not
be solved via email or chat. In the week before the Term project is
due, I will post hours when I can be reached by phone and you can
call me during those time periods or we can schedule a phone
appointment.
In Person: if email and chat are not able to solve a problem related
to your course work, then it is possible that we meet at Rutgers by
appointment only.
Attendance / Participation Policy
Attendance and participation in each class session is an important requirement as they
provide indicators of engagement with the course, learning needs, and important
foundations for all class assignments. The availability of course material and notes online
does not represent a replacement of class attendance. Students should inform the
instructor, in advance when possible, of conditions warranting absence from class:

Illness requiring medical attention;

Curricular or extracurricular activities approved by the School;

Personal obligations claimed by the student and recognized as valid (for example,
death / serious illness of relative or family member);
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Recognized religious holidays;
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Severe inclement weather causing dangerous travel conditions; (note that the
university
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formally advises via the Rutgers Web site if classes are cancelled due to weather)
Written documentation is strongly recommended for absenteeism.
Academic Integrity and Plagiarism
The consequences of scholastic dishonesty are very serious. Rutgers’ academic integrity
policy can be found at: http://ctaar.rutgers.edu/integrity/policy.html.
An overview of this policy may be found at http://cat.rutgers.edu/integrity/student.html.
Multimedia presentations about academic integrity may be found at
http://academicintegrity.rutgers.edu/multimedia.shtml and
http://www.scc.rutgers.edu/douglass/sal/plagiarism/intro.html
If you are doubtful about any issue related to plagiarism or scholastic dishonesty, please
discuss it with the instructor.
Serving Student with Disabilities
Rutgers University welcomes students with disabilities into all of the University's educational
programs. In order to receive consideration for reasonable accommodations, a student with
a disability must contact the appropriate disability services office at the campus where you
are officially enrolled, participate in an intake interview, and provide documentation:
https://ods.rutgers.edu/students/documentation-guidelines. If the documentation supports
your request for reasonable accommodations, your campus's disability services office will
provide you with a Letter of Accommodations. Please share this letter with your instructors
and discuss the accommodations with them as early in your courses as possible. To begin
this process, please complete the Registration form on the ODS web site at:
https://ods.rutgers.edu/students/registration-form.
Students with disabilities (both short‐ and long‐term) who wish accommodations in this class
must do so through the Rutgers Disabilities Services Office and/or the Associate Dean Karen
Novick (knovick@rutgers.edu).
Other Information
Students seeking help with the content of this course should contact the instructor either
during office hours, or make a separate appointment.
Students seeking help with the scheduling of classes or registration should contact the SC&I
Student Services Office in Room 214 of the SC&I Building.
A great deal of information is available on the SC&I website, including course descriptions
and details about all degree programs: http://comminfo.rutgers.edu.
Rutgers has Learning Centers on each campus where any student can obtain tutoring and
other help; for information, check http://lrc.rutgers.edu/ Rutgers also has a Writing
Program where students can obtain help with writing skills and assignments:
http://plangere.rutgers.edu/index.html.
SC&I IT Services offers help with a variety of technology problems. They are located in the
SC&I Building in Room 120 (first floor); (848) 932-5555; help@comminfo.rutgers.edu.