Abstract
The innovation and diversification of development in multimedia technology and network infrastructures have brought a significant impact to education, especially for distance learning. This paper presents a model-based asynchronous distance learning system development that consists of a presentation semantic model called the multimedia augmented transition network (MATN) model and an asynchronous distance learning system called the Java-based Integrated Asynchronous Distance Learning (JIADL) system. The MATN model is powerful in modeling the synchronization and quality-of-service (QoS) for distance learning multimedia presentations. The JIADL system can support diverse asynchronous distance learning services by integrating RealPlayer and Java technology to augment the superiority of both models. A course sample is used to illustrate and validate the effectiveness of the system. How to use the MATN model to model the diversity requirements of a distance learning multimedia presentation is also discussed. Furthermore, the initial experimental results show that our system is cost effective and has a wide range of applications.