Multimedia: Theory and Applications

Information systems that employ multimedia digital information to communicate ideas represent the next wave of business computing. This course discusses the development of multimedia systems, starting with their evolution from earlier presentation and electronic publishing systems, to the current theory and practice of such systems, and ending with the unanswered or unsettled technical and ethical issues facing developers today and tomorrow. Topics include the cognitive and communication theories of information, multimedia applications, and current multimedia technologies, relationships with database, connectivity, and object-oriented technologies. Students will be required either to prepare a research paper on a course topic or to develop a demonstration project illustrating one of the technologies or applications discussed in the course.