McGraw-Hill

Forming a tight team of
programmers and designers

Client

Gerald Nelson, entrepreneur and professor of economics, is author of the DiscoverEconomics textbook supplements published by McGraw-Hill.

Challenge

In 1999, Gerald Nelson asked OJC to port the existing DiscoverEcon software to the web. At that time the software was a Windows application written in Toolbook. McGraw-Hill only distributed editions of DiscoverEcon with two textbooks because of the cost and time required to create a new edition for each textbook.

Solution

OJC built a framework for efficiently publishing new DiscoverEcon editions on the web and on CD-ROM. The framework lets artists and programmers collaborate to rapidly create and combine images, slideshows, quizzes, glossary terms, and pages into each new textbook supplement. Because the framework streamlined the development process, McGraw-Hill published six new editions in less than two years.

Technology

XML, Python, Java applets, JSP, HTML, Javascript, CSS, Design, Photoshop