MOSST: Modular Online Software for Self-Paced Tutorials

MOSST: Modular Online Software for Self-Paced Tutorials

About MOSST

MOSST allows librarians (and anyone else) to create complete web-based tutorials. Some of MOSST's features include:

• Tools to add automatically generated footers, headers, and navigational links (including "next" and "previous" links) to a set of HTML pages;
• Tools to add JavaScript popup windows to HTML pages so that users can interact with a remote web site and refer to the tutorial designer's instructions at the same time;
• Tools to create multiple choice, self-checking quizzes;
• Tools to record users' scores on the quizzes.

A complete introduction to MOSST is also available.

Frequently Asked Questions

A list is available.

Tutorials created using MOSST

Here are a few. If you want yours listed here, email Mark Jordan at mjordan@sfu.ca.

• MOSST Tutorial Designer Quickstart This tutorial is the standard documentation for people creating tutorials using MOSST. (Mark Jordan, SFU)
• Using the SFU Library Catalogue (Sylvia Roberts, Gordon Coleman, SFU)
• From Citation to Article: How to find journal articles in the SFU Libraries (Cindy Swoveland, SFU)
• University of Saskatchewan Education Library (MaryLynn Gagne, University of Saskatchewan)
• Certification Center uses a modified version of MOSST for its quizzes. Registration is free but required.
• Library Instruction for Geography Students (Cindy Swoveland, SFU)

Downloading MOSST

MOSST is available under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). The following warning is a standard part of the GPL: "This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE." See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You can get the latest version of MOSST (version 1b1) here.

Support

If there is interest in developing MOSST beyond what it is now, SFU Library staff will coordinate development through SourceForge. However, please be aware that no major changes to the MOSST source code will take place unless there is considerable interest in MOSST by the world at large.

• Documentation
  • The MOSST Tutorial Designer Quickstart is the standard documentation for people creating tutorials.
  • The README.txt file is the standard documentation for people installing MOSST on their web servers (until someone does a tutorial version!).
  • The Frequently Asked Questions database contains some useful information.
• Mailing lists
  • There is a MOSST users mailing list, courtesy of SourceForge. Currently this list is the only place to get support. Please check the archives before posting. The developer of MOSST, Mark Jordan, monitors the users list and will respond to questions as time permits.
  • There is also a developer's list. This list will be used for discussing development of MOSST. Please check the archives before posting.
• "To Do" and bug list
• Change log

Presentations, articles, etc.

SFU Library staff have given the following presentations about MOSST:

• June 2000: CLA (Canadian Library Association) 2000 Conference, Edmonton, Alberta [HTML, PowerPoint]
• May 2000: Symposium on Innovative Teaching, Simon Fraser University [HTML, PowerPoint]
• May 2000: WILU 2000 (Workshop in Library Use), London, Ontario [HTML, PowerPoint]
• May 1999: Instructional Development Group, Simon Fraser University [HTML]
• April 1999: British Columbia Libraries Conference, Richmond, British Columbia [HTML]

The following articles about MOSST are also available:

• Feliciter (Volume 45 Number 6 (1999))
• [Simon Fraser University] FOCUS: Computing News from Academic Computing Services (Summer 1999)
• Frank Cervone mentions MOSST in The Open Source Option, Library Journal, 7/15/2003.

Last modified August 20/2003 by Mark Jordan, mjordan@sfu.ca

Attachment	Size
README.txt	18.36 KB
MOSST.ppt	77 KB