Customers Interested in Customizing the Product
Our products and their components can be customized. The sections of the textbook are put together with an automated system, which means they can be re-ordered, added to and deleted with a reasonable amount of ease. If you wanted to add to the textbook, you would author the content in Word; the art is typically done in Macromedia Flash. Our tools combine these elements into a page and insert it into the textbook. The lab manuals are authored in a similar fashion but are simpler to produce.
The simulations are authored using a database front-end and a Java run-time. It takes about a day or two for a person to get up-to-speed in authoring simulations. That person could use the "physics" that the Java engine "knows" and author new simulations. For example, they could set the parameters in the database for an elliptical orbit, mass of body being orbited, and the Java system will take it from there without requiring additional programming.
The Java engine was designed to be extensible and perhaps open source. If we go the Open Source route, the usual terms and conditions would apply – enhancements would be available to the community and so forth. If you wanted to extend the Java engine’s functionality, you would have to program in Java. For instance, perhaps you wanted to show the dispersion of light as it passes through a prism - our system does not do that, so you would have to add that functionality to the engine.
If you are interested in any of these topics, we would like to hear from you. We are assessing how much interest there is in these areas so we dedicate the appropriate amount of resources. Please fill out this form to help us determine how we could work with you.
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