Evaluation of Microsoft Producer for Streaming Dynamic Content in Courses in Technical Communication and in Corporate Training Development

Technical communicators sometimes require dynamic, rich media presentation capability for informational and instructional needs in the workplace, and in technical communication courses originating on the college campus and delivered partially or totally online. Microsoft Producer is a robust, cost-effective, readily mastered and widely available multimedia development tool for delivering dynamic informational presentations and instructional content in online courses. It has fulfilled important roles in informational-instructional delivery in both higher education and the corporate arena. MS Producer provides high fidelity narration and music, graphics, screen capture animations, text, and full motion video, and delivers this using streaming Internet technology. It is especially useful for archiving PowerPoint-based, narrated lectures and for building short, on-demand audiovisual archives of important content elements. MS Producer presentations are SCORM compatible, readily modified and well received by learners. Limitations include severely restricted browser compatibility, streaming media server requirement, and comparatively long download time. Although in wide use, MS Producer appears to have been dropped from further development and is no longer compatible with the current Microsoft Office (2007) suite.