Multimedia Support

Back - Editing Questions Up - Questions Next - Importing Questions

Test Pilot support the inclusion of accompanying multimedia with its questions. Our support of multimedia includes those formats which can be displayed on web pages with browsers hosted on multiple operating systems. Supported formats include:

Type	File Extension	Description
Images	.gif .jpg	GIF and JPG images are the default standard for graphics on web pages.
Sound	.au	Sun's Audio 8kHz, uLaw-encoded format is supported by all major browsers.
Video Sound MIDI	.mov .mpg .avi .mid	Apple's QuickTime software is the gold standard for multimedia presentation and has been adopted by the international standards organization to form the basis of the industry's MP4 format. QuickTime 3 runs under MacOS and Windows and also supports the MPEG video format, the Intel-proprietary AVI format and the music industry's MIDI music format.
Shockwave	.dcr .swf	Macromedia's Shockwave (.dcr) and Shockwave Flash (.swf) are very popular cross-platform multimedia formats for presenting animated content for the Internet.
Streaming Audio & Video	.ra .rpm .rm	Real Networks' RealPlayer is a popular cross-platform format for streaming video and audio content on the Internet. We support their older audio (.ra) and their latest rpm format.
MathML, Tex, and LaTeX	.mml .tex .latex and .ltx	We're pleased to exclusively support IBM's techExplorer Hypermedia Browser plug-in for the support of MathML, TeX and LaTeX media files. v3.1.1 feature
Future	?	As more platform-independent, multimedia formats become popular, we can quickly add support for their formats.

Each media file, its size and its creation date are your directory is listed. Clicking on the filename will cause the media item to be displayed in a new browser window. To delete a file, simply click on its associated Delete button. You must have the enable deletion checkbox checked to confirm the deletion before it is permitted to take place.

To add or upload a file, click on the Choose File button to locate a file on your hard disk. Once you have located the file, click Upload. The time necessary to complete the upload is dependent upon the file's size and the speed of your internet connection. Please note that Test Pilot will discard all media files uploaded whose type it does not recognize.

To prepend a multimedia file to your question, simply enter its filename or URL into the question's media box. If Test Pilot recognizes its format, it will indicate its choice just below the entry area. If you enter a filename, you must remember to place that file on the web server in order for it to be available for Test Pilot.

Use the Position pop-up menu to specify where you want your media inserted in relation to the questions' text. You may have it shown above the question, before or to the left of the question, inside the question, after or to the right of the question or below the question. In the case of having media inside the question, enter two percent signs (%%) in the question text at the location where you want the media inserted.

In the case of sized media such as movies, Shockwave media and streaming video and audio, you should specify the size of the area on the web page to be set aside for the display window and player controls. Use the size controls to specify this information.

Using Media as Question Responses

With Test Pilot, you can also use media as choices in multiple choice, check all that apply and matching questions. Simply enter a filename or URL in the database's choice box for the appropriate media.

Expert Feature - custom sizing

If you use movie, sound, TeX, LaTex or MathML media as question responses, they will be displayed in a region of size 320 by 240 pixels, by default. You may specify the size of the player by following the media filename or URL by a comma, the word "resize" followed by a comma and the width followed by an x followed by the height. For example, if you wanted to resize a movie player for the file sample.mov to 160 by 120, the following could be entered as the question response. sample.mov,resize,160x120

Plug-Ins and Caveats

Most web browsers require plug-ins (additional software) to display multimedia files beyond simple images and Sun audio files. Your assessment's participants must have the appropriate plug-in loaded in order for them to be able to see or hear your media. Apple's QuickTime, which can handle nearly any format, is included with all MacOS computers but must be downloaded and installed on Windows-based computers. Direct your users to the QuickTime web site at http://quicktime.apple.com/ in order to download this software which includes the plug-ins for Netscape and Internet Explorer.

Please note that the use of video, streaming video and Shockwave animations requires significant amounts of memory to be available to the web browser. It is not unusual that web pages with such media require a computer with 64 megabytes of main memory. Also, placing multiple videos on a web page will increase these requirements. Finally, multimedia files are typically very large and take a significant amount of time to download. Be very careful to consider your assessment's participants. They may be using modem connections to the Internet and may not be able to download the media files in a reasonable amount of time.

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Help is Available!

Please note that, at any time while you are editing an assessment, you can click upon the titles of the fields listed for your entries. If you do so, a pop-up window with an explanation of the items use and features will be shown.

Saving your Changes - Don't Forget to Update

It should be noted that on the editing panels, you will see one or more Update buttons. Whenever you adjust a setting or make changes to any item, you must click an update button to record the changes. You may make multiple changes and then click Update, but if you fail to click the update button, your changes may not be recorded.

• for beginners - several of Test Pilot's more complicated options are hidden or preset to default values and pop-up assistance windows automatically appear to aid the user in the assessment authoring process.
  
  
• with assistance - most of Test Pilot's features are shown as controls which may be adjusted. Pop-up help windows must be manually requested for viewing by clicking upon any feature title.
  
  
• for experts - all of Test Pilot's features are shown as controls which may be adjusted. Help messages are minimized to maximize the number of controls that can be shown in a limited area. Pop-up help windows may still be manually requested for viewing by clicking upon any feature title.