In early 2003, in a major shift in policy, the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) announced that its learning materials would progressively move from a predominantly print-based mode of delivery to a new 'hybrid' mode of delivery across all discipline areas. Central to this delivery would be a resource-rich CDROM containing all study materials, supported with a range of multimedia based enhancements, online support and selective print materials. As this represented a fundamentally new approach to the delivery of materials at USQ, it was essential to ascertain a clear understanding of about the implications of this change for student learning. In implementing this policy it was necessary to establish a range of pedagogically sound, cost effective delivery guidelines, for the development of the course materials and the multimedia based enhancements. In response to this need, this study has developed a set of 10 multimodal design heuristics used to guide the development of these materials. In establishing these guidelines, this thesis contextualises important issues associated with hybrid delivery and considers how catering for a multiliterate clientele by using a combination of multimedia based enhancements in an electronic environment may improve the learning opportunities for students. Two Faculty of Business courses delivered in 2004, ECO2000 'Macroeconomics for Business and Government' and MGT2004 'People Development', were chosen to pilot the new hybrid mode of delivery. The combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches was used to investigate how students have utilised this new environment. This approach rendered a clear indication of student views about the CD based delivery and, more particularly, an appreciation of how they utilised the multimedia based enhancements to augment their studies. Analysis of the research data indicated a strong acceptance of the CD based learning environment. This was particularly true for off-campus and international students. On the whole, students reported a preference for a CD based resource, though this acceptance was moderated by a desire to still receive some print-based materials. Importantly, from this analysis it was possible to add a further four multimodal design heuristics to the original set of ten which informed the design of the multimedia based enhancements for each course. This study demonstrates that higher levels of student engagement are possible when integrating a range of multimedia based enhancements to cater for a range of student learning modalities, whilst also maintaining a balanced environment for more traditional learners1.

I det här arbetet undersöker jag vad som krävs för att göra ett digitalt läromedel tillgängligt för elever i specialskolans senare åldrar. Jag har valt att utgå från ett redan existerande digitalt läromedel som heter Utkik och ställt materialet mot en rad forskningsslutsatser. Detta arbete lutar sig därför mot två typer av forskningsfält, varav det ena fältet berör hur döva och hörselskadade elever som har teckenspråk som sitt första språk, bäst tillgodogör sig ny kunskap. Det andra forskningsfältet rör sådant som handlar om digitala läromedel.Dessa två fält har i nuläget en ganska spridd och spretig forskning. När det gäller dövas inlärning i en skolsituation så finns det verkligen mer att önska av det fältet, även om den forskning som finns är av väldigt god kvalité.Då det handlar om digitala läromedel finns det däremot mer forskning, men en intressant aspekt är, vilket jag upptäckte under arbetets gång, att det inte finns en samlad uppfattning kring just exakt vad som definierar ett digitalt läromedel. I några sammanhang talas det om lärverktyg och i andra talas det om läromedel och i vissa sammanhang har jag insett hur jag själv benämner det för digital lärplattform.Att utgå från Utkik har varit ett tacksamt sätt att kunna förena de olika forskningsfälten och applicera de olika forskningsresultaten i ett material som finns. För att förstärka om forskningen var förenlig med Utkik tog jag hjälp av expertis utifrån i form av en intervju. Denna genomfördes med Ingela Holmström, fil.dr. i pedagogik samt biträdande lektor vid Institutionen för Lingvistik vid Stockholms universitet, som har mångårig pedagogisk erfarenhet av att arbeta med elever i specialskolan men även i SPSM. Till henne vill jag passa på att ge ett stort tack för hennes medverkan.I arbetet med uppsatsen har jag kommit fram till att det går att tillgänglighetsanpassa digitala läromedel för målgruppen och har i och med detta tagit fram kriterier som utvecklare bör ta hänsyn till i sin framställning av sådana.Jag hoppas att denna uppsats kan ge läsaren inspiration till att ta fram ett sammanhållet tillgänglighetsanpassat digitalt läromedel som tillmötesgår de krav som gruppen ställer på innehållet.

Den här studien undersöker hur förutsättningar för lärande förändras genom digital humanities.Utgångspunkt för lärande hämtas ur designteoretiskt multimodalt perspektiv. Teoretiskutgångspunkt för att uppnå förståelse inom digital humanities är hermeneutisk teori. Studien hargenomförts med den öppna metoden litteraturanalys och analyserar antologin DigitalHumanities Pedagogy: Principles, Practices, Politics. Studien belyser digital humanities utifrånolika kunskapsskapande aktiviteter inom lärande och hur lärande kan främjas genom digitalaverktyg och inlärningsmiljöer. Studien belyser exempel på hur digital humanities ställer nyakrav på undervisning och den lärande samt att digitala öppna universitet med fri tillgång tillmaterial och undervisning, förändrar förutsättningarna för institutioner. / New digital open universitites with free access to knowledge change the conditions of how learning occurs. This is a study into the new conditions of learning through the digital humanities. A designtheoretical multimodal perspective as well as hermeneutic thoery have been deployed to problematize the digital humanities. The study has been performed with the open method of literature analyses and the anthology Digital Humanities Pedagogy: Principles, Practices, Politics has been the object of study. The study questions the digital humanities from knowledge creating activities within learning and, at the same time, how learning may benefit from interacting with the digital. The study concludes what the effects of the digital humanities may be on theories of learning, on the student and on the institutions

Studies show that instruction manuals are rarely read, and Volvo CE often finds the manual in the bookshelf at the office at customer visits. The instruction books are thus far from the users. How will information reach users? In this study I have worked with Volvo CE, Eskilstuna based on the question "How can information about how best driving economy be achieved and be designed to motivate drivers of wheel loaders to drive fuel efficiently?". Based on literature studies, interviews, analyzes and hearings, a prototype with accompanying concepts has been developed for Volvo CE for continued development. The prototype consists of a design where three factors that affect fuel efficient driving have been selected and constructed. The elements are text and image-based and then placed in an ECO OPERATOR program in the Volvo CE Co-pilot. Volvo CE already works with information via Co-pilot, which is a display located in the wheel loaders cab. Conclusions are that human centered design where the user is put in focus can be used to generate fuel efficient driving information adapted for wheel loaders.

Due to a current lack of principle-driven multimodal user interface design guidelines, designers may encounter difficulties when choosing the most appropriate display modality for given users or specific tasks (e.g., verbal versus spatial tasks). The development of multimodal display guidelines from both a user and task domain perspective is thus critical to the achievement of successful human-system interaction. Specifically, there is a need to determine how to design task information presentation (e.g., via which modalities) to capitalize on an individual operator's information processing capabilities and the inherent efficiencies associated with redundant sensory information, thereby alleviating information overload. The present effort addresses this issue by proposing a theoretical framework (Architecture for Multi-Modal Optimization, AMMO) from which multimodal display design guidelines and adaptive automation strategies may be derived. The foundation of the proposed framework is based on extending, at a functional working memory (WM) level, existing information processing theories and models with the latest findings in cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and other allied sciences. The utility of AMMO lies in its ability to provide designers with strategies for directing system design, as well as dynamic adaptation strategies (i.e., multimodal mitigation strategies) in support of real-time operations. In an effort to validate specific components of AMMO, a subset of AMMO-derived multimodal design guidelines was evaluated with a simulated weapons control system multitasking environment. The results of this study demonstrated significant performance improvements in user response time and accuracy when multimodal display cues were used (i.e., auditory and tactile, individually and in combination) to augment the visual display of information, thereby distributing human information processing resources across multiple sensory and WM resources. These results provide initial empirical support for validation of the overall AMMO model and a sub-set of the principle-driven multimodal design guidelines derived from it. The empirically-validated multimodal design guidelines may be applicable to a wide range of information-intensive computer-based multitasking environments.