The purpose of the Eclass Tool is to allow instructors and students to effectively use the technology provided by the university to enhance the learning process. To individually assist instructors and students in a classroom environment, the Eclass Tool offers three main interfaces. The first interface is the Instructor Prep Mode, where the instructor creates his/her lecture slides and updates the class roster. The second and third interfaces are the Instructor and Student Presentation Mode, where the instructor presents his/her lecture slides and where the students view them. These two interfaces allow the instructor and students to interact during class through the terminals. In order to have the class material viewable and transferable outside of school, the Eclass Tool saves all files in a database.
The Eclass Tool has several main objects. "Lecture" is composed of the lecture slides created by the instructor in the Instructor Prep Mode, modeled by the "Prep" module. The "Tools" module models the toolbar in the Instructor and Student Presentation Mode, which includes the drawing and note taking tools. The "File", "Edit", and "View" menu items are also individually modeled to cover the slide navigation functions provided by the Eclass Tool. The "QandA" and "Roster" modules define the Question and Answer log created during lecture presentation and the roster database downloaded from SIS.
The major features of the Eclass Tool are the Private and Public Layers, which allow the instructor and students to interactively participate in the lecture with the use of the toolbar and individual access controls.
In conclusion, the most difficult part of implementing the tool is designing the EclassML, used to correctly display lecture slides in the tool. There are a total of three databases: the roster, question and answer log, and the post it log. These databases plus the lecture slides are what make up the core of the Eclass Tool.