eLearning Department

The eLearning Department of MTA SZTAKI has become a key player of the domestic eLearning market in the last decade, especially in innovative web and mobile development and different expert areas. The versatile application of the experiences in the areas of education, mobile applications, multimedia and R&D made it possible to reach our results.

Besides deploying eLearning systems, we can create specific and generic training materials very efficiently based on the experience obtained in the course of our development projects. Our colleagues were involved in the development of several thousands of multimedia elements serving the satisfaction of our clients. Our products are developed in harmonised teamwork; with the goal to create standardised training material packages, their local installations and configurations.

By extending our eLearning experiences to new areas, the innovative development for web and mobile platforms has become one of the most relevant activities of the Department during the last years. The mobile development for touristic purposes is a key area which covers an ever increasing range of applications.

Applied research, professional consultancy and training are the crucial parts of our activities. We have been conducting continuous and successful cooperation with the  the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences for several years on the development and research of multimedia applications. Implementing and coordinating complex domestic and EU projects also belong to important activities of our department.

Main research areas

• eLearning frameworks, training and examination management systems
• eLearning standards, training methodologies, eLearning training services
• Location-dependent services, mobile services, services for virtual reality headsets and video display glasses
• Cultural heritage preservation, digital repositories, web services
• Presenting multimedia, HTML5
• Multimedia delivery optimisation (adaptive distributed multimedia servers, host recommendation, content adaptation, P2P streaming and self-organising algorithms)

Major results

The eLearning department is committed to the application of international standards in courseware development and played a significant role in promoting their widespread use in Hungary. We initiated the eLearning Forum conference series in 2002 and still take part as co-organisers of the forum. We work on programming the control of the video display glasses using an embedded microcomputer. Our HTML5-based "Multiplatform (Web and mobile) English training material for beginners" was granted with the special award of the most innovative solution on the competition of the Excellent Hungarian Content eFestival 2012.
The GUIDE@HAND software package has been primarily developed to provide public touristic services. The operation of this service requires continuous customer and development support maintained by our staff. GUIDE@HAND is a multilingual audio tourist guide application available on smart phones. It was granted with several prizes in domestic and international competitions (e.g., Excellent Hungarian Content eFestival 2012, European Youth Award in category "Education for All!, Best practice eLearning Quality Prize). Thanks to the dynamic development, there were 22 self-standing touristic applications created. These applications, covering 7 countries, contain more than 360 interactive packages.  In order to support further content preparation and application development, the implementation and the permanent improvement of a Multiplatform-based Content Development Method and a System for Content Management and Presentation were needed. GUIDE@HAND proved to be useful in further application areas as well, e.g., it was successfully applied in the Ottlik Géza: The Rooftops at dawn - Literary walk project.
Our market-oriented innovative developments are based on our research activities. Several valuable domestic and international conference presentations, journal papers and book chapters were issued in the area of optimal multimedia delivery.

Products/services

• GUIDE@HAND - multilingual offline application running on smart phones and tablets (iOS and Android) for providing thematic services
• SZTAKI SSS® Technology (Synchron Slide and Stream) 2.0 - application for archiving presentations and conference materials, capable of displaying videos and presentations in a synchronous manner
• Specific and generic training materials for Web and mobile platforms (e.g., eCourse on "KRESZ" rules of the road, Microsoft Office, Libre Office, Multiplatform (Web and mobile) English training material for beginners, etc.)
• Online training and examination management system
• Professional consultancy for introducing eLearning solutions
• Education on eLearning content development