COST€R USER MANUAL
Contents
1. COSTER Tool manual J lolx File Project Activity Help bs SEE 8 x i Tat ae U New Open E save Program Settings Le ontracts and partner agr ent ion and bude E Intake tern Amount Item Name UnitAmount Unit _Unit Price CI Concept definition and specif 0 Application designer 1 day 450 00 C Development 2 Secretarial staff 5 day 250 00 I Support Other staff Fixed Rate 0 00 Ef Distribution and implementat i Travel J Fixed Rate ooo Outtake and acceptance a eee F Fer T T u CJ Maintenance 0 Subsistence per die 1day 150 00 CI CONSUMABLES Documentation Fixed Rate J 50 007 Consumables Fred Rate non Other Fixed Rate 0 00 1 Rental meeting room T 2 Days 125 00 COSTER Support The version of COST R you are using is the first public release We are aware of the fact that there still may be a number of bugs or problems Please send us your feedback If you have a problem you can contact us on coster atit be For additional costing information please visit www coster ws Thanks COSTER Tool Manual Version 2 6 152. Concept definition and specif CJ Development 4 Support EI Distribution and implementat EI outtake and acceptance EI Mahtenance 0 Subsistence per die 1 day 150 00 0 00 2 C4 cons uMABLES Documentation Fixed Rate 50 00 50 00 2 Consumables Fixed Rate 0 00 0 00 Other Fixed Rate 0 00 0 00 1 Rental meeting room _2 Days 125 00 The output screen looks as follows COSTER Tool manual 3 lo x File Project Activity Help DAA ESEE EB De OM 2000 00 EURO Numbering ltem Name item Amount Unit Amount Unit Unit Price Cost 1 SOFTWARE 2800 00 Lt Project manage 2800 00 144 Coordination 2800 00 1444 Secretarial staff 2 0 5 0 day 250 00 2600 00 Palate Documentation if Fixed Rate ji 50 00 50 00 1113 Rental meeting r 10 2 0 Days 125 00 250 00 SUB TOTAL 2800 00 OVERHEAD 0 0 0 00 CONTINGENCY 0 0 0 00 INSURANCE 0 0 0 00 TOTALCOST iT _ 2800 00 The results can be copied to a clipboard by clicking on the Copy to clipboard icon This is particularly useful if you want to insert the results into other file types such as excel or word files for further processing COSTER Tool Manual Version 2 6 12 Additional features Programme settings This enables you to change or set the default programme settings You can set COSTER to a fixed dataset language and o
3. Consumables Fixed Rate 0 00 0 00 w You can see Software Project management Coordination in the left window The tree structure is indicated and navigating through it is simple Each time you select an activity or a part thereof the upper right window will provide you with an explanation or short description of the topic On the lower right side COSTER provides you with an overview of all relevant cost issues related to Coordination the selected part of the activity This budget sheet can be used to select cost topics or for adding prices and topics It is the input for your project budgeting COSTER Tool Manual Version 2 6 9 The budget sheet input The budgeting window provides you with an overview of all the relevant cost issues regarding the selected parts of the chosen activity It has six columns Item amount Item name Unit amount Unit Unit price and Cost e Item amount here you have to indicate how many of the selected items you need If for example you need two Secretarial staff you simply click on that field and fill in 2 e Item name here you can see a list of all relevant cost items If you click on an item the definition or an explanation of the term used will appear in the definition window e Unit amount here you have to indicate how many of the chosen unit you need For example Secretarial staff is ca
4. TELECONFERENCING VIDEOPROGRAMME WEBSITE CONSUMABLE you This is their home page From the home page you all th son After you have selected one ore more activities it is possible to delete them again This is done simply by selecting Activity on the menu and then selecting Delete activity COSTER Tool Manual Version 2 6 8 Duplication of a chosen activity is done by clicking on Duplicate activity in the activity menu Another feature of the COSTER tool is the Edit activity function By clicking on Edit activity in the activity menu you will be able to rename the activity according to your own preferences Add activity Delete activity Edit activity and Duplicate activity can also be performed by clicking on the corresponding icon in the toolbar NOTE At the bottom of the list of activities you will also find Consumables This is not really a multimedia activity but along list with the prices of a large number of consumables ranging from office computer and media consumables such as videotapes blank CD ROM s etc It is useful to select and add this activity in any case to your project when you foresee the use of consumables of any kind Start budgeting Once one or more activities are chosen the budgeting task can begin Within an activity you will normally find logical subtasks or phases in which the activity is divided The tree st
5. meet your own requirements COSTER Tool manual E lol x File Project Activity Help 086 eeu BE Agb 2800 00 EURO EI SOFTWARE EI Project management C Coordination E3 Planning 3 C Cost estimation and bude CJ Contracts and partner agr ES Intake Item Amount item Name Unit Amount Unit Unit Price Cost 0 Application designer 1 day 450 00 0 00 lt CJ Concept definition and specif CJ Development EI Support EI Distribution and implementat CJ Outtake and acceptance CJ Maintenance CJ CONSUMABLES 2 Secretarial staff 5 day 250 00 2500 00 Other staff Fixed Rate 0 00 0 0077 Travel Fixed Rate 0 00 0 00 0 Subsistence per die 1 day 150 00 o oo Documentation FixedRate sooo 50 0007 Consumables Fixed Rate 0 00 0 00 A Other Fixed Rate 0 00 0 00 1 Rental meeting room 2 Days 125 00 250 00 F Es nl cra leeden 3 For example the picture above shows an added item called Rental meeting room that costs 125 per day and the production needs it for 2 days The inserted cost will be added to the total sum The extra item will of course be shown in the output window If you want to delete an additional item note only added items can be deleted simply click on the Delete item icon in the toolbar or select Delete item via Activity in the menu Note that each time you enter a cost on a certain item the item will
6. output window gives you the results of your cost inquiry It looks like the following File Project Activity Help Bea BS Be Mm 8400 00 EUR Numbering Item Name Duplicate Activity aru Unit Amount Unit UnitPrice Cost 1 VIDEOPROGRA 8400 00 E Presroducton j 00 1 1 Content definitio 8400 00 1114 Director I 1 0 10 0 unit_day 350 00 3500 00 1112 Production desig 1 0 1 0 unit_day 350 00 350 00 111 3 IContentexpet 1 0 5 0 unit_day 450 00 2250 00 11 1 4 Researcher 1 0 1 0 unit_day 350 00 350 00 114 5 Research assist I 1 0 1 0 unit_day 250 00 250 00 11 16 Secretarial staff 1 0 4 0 unit_day 250 00 1000 00 1114 7 jInstructionaldes 10 2Ounit day bi 350 00 700 00 SUB TOTAL a T 8400 00 OVERHEAD i 0 0 0 00 CONTINGENCY 0 01 0 00 INSURANCE i 0 0 0 00 TOTALCOST 8400 00 Now that you are familiar with the general COSTER environment and its components we will start working with COSTER COSTER Tool Manual Version 2 6 6 Working with COSTER Creating new projects COSTER is a programme for budgeting multimedia projects The first thing you have to do to start working with COSTER is to create a project or open a saved project To create a new project choose directly for a new project by clicking New in the toolbar or choose File and then New in the menu CE lolx File Project Activity Help Mes su
7. segment is the budgeting sheet and it will provide a selection of all relevant cost topics for a selected activity You will see later that this window is essential for the input of your costing elements It is in this window that costs for all sorts of topics will be inserted While working with COSTER it might look like this coster attest alalxs File Project Activity Help Daa B 3 sh M KO 3400 00 EUR EOPROGRAMME Production management Production Intake Programme idea or synopsis ronced Pre production J Instructional design i CI Content definition or final scenari An educational p roduction often needs a pedagogical expert to advise the project or production ifte am and to assistthe instructional designer The APAT cal expe ON REINE production friable key pedagogical standards for its purpo item Amount Item Name Unit Amount Unit UnitPrice Cost C Production design 1 rcher 1 day 350 00 Bee R 1 day 250 00 Post production editing 2 1 4lday j gt 50 Dol CJ Offline editing j 3 11 Ir 4 On line editing ndon m a 350 a Packi Wi A 5 0day W GAAN distribution 0 e Sy 100 00 iat and acceptance 0 350 00 Maintenance 0 0 COST R Tool Manual Version 2 6 5 A fourth interesting part of the input window is the total cost indicator in the upper right corner This indicator permanently shows the sum of all inserted costs The
8. COSTER USER MANUAL www coster ws Version 2 6 30 March 2004 COSTER Tool Manual Version 2 6 1 Contents Introduction ueseseesensesennesennnennnnnnennnnnnnnennnnennnennnennnnnnennnnennnennnennnennnensnnnnnnnn 3 Getting STATE ee era ee ee ee 4 System requirements uesesssnenennnnenennnnenennnnenennnnenennnnenennnnenennnnenenennenenennenenennenen 4 Installing COSTER una 4 Opening the COSTER tool ccccceceececeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeseeaeaeseteeaeanteeags 4 The COSTER SOM ae a ta ton aaa ese at Da aa an Dual Da 5 Working WIN COSTER nennen 7 Creating new DIOJECK enter 7 Aga aclete SC ee 8 Start DUOGEUNG une are rasen 9 TNE DUGGEE sheet INDUL erinnern a era 10 The budget sheet output ueresesneresnnnenennnnnnnnnnnenennnnnennnnenennnnenennsnnennnnene nennen 12 Additional features ussessesennenennenennennnnennnnennnnennnnennenennnennenennnnnnennnnennnnennne nenn 13 Programme settings cececcececeeceeeee eset eee eset eee esse eee eset sees ete ea este SANS EEE SE EE SEES E EEEE 13 PFOIECE SOUS erst ee E ee Eee nei EEE ee 13 Saving your project and opening an existing project ssssssserererrrrsrerrrrerrrrersrne 13 Ending a COSTER session zuesesennenesnnnenennnnennnnnnnnennnnnennnnenennnnnennnnnennnnnennnnnn 14 COSE R SUDDO ea nr En EEE EEE RE 15 COSTER is produced by BEN o U 0 C na www uoc edu Universite Nancy 2 ATIT Audiovisual Services K U Leuven Universitat Obert
9. a de Catalunya Vid oscop Universit Nancy 2 Belgium Belgium Spain France with the support of 28 Education and Culture Socrates Minerva The European Commission Directorate General Education and Culture COSTER Tool Manual Version 2 6 2 Introduction The COSTER tool is a multilingual resource based decision making application that will help you to easily and quickly estimate and calculate the production costs of educational multimedia applications We suggest that although COSTER is easy to learn and the tool is quite intuitive you should read this short manual just to get started COSTER provides you with e an overview of most if not all of the cost categories a multimedia production or project can include e an estimate of the total cost of a well defined and elaborated production based on the average industry prices collected within a particular country e an explanation of the multimedia terms used e a comparison of average industry costs in France Belgium and Spain e the possibility to enter your own prices and override the default values given in the tool NOTE Barein mind that the purpose of COSTER is not to provide you with pedagogical selection criteria to usein your choice of a particular type of media for education It is a costing tool that presumes an appropriate media choice has already been made by you This manual starts with installation information and a short description
10. al E e lo x File Project Activity Help DSSA OTE ash 2550 00 EURO EI SOFTWARE 4 Cons m ods that are to a certain extent necessary during the work but that are Q Ea Project management used up Consumables unlike equipment are not considered durable and C Coordination therefore can normal be used only once You can add here an estimate or lump sum for the C Planning consumables that you foresee You can also use the Consumables activity tab to get an overview of foreseeable consumables and to add the ones that you think you may need CJ Cost estimation and bude CJ Contracts and partner agr EI Intake T Concept definition and specii CJ Development 4 Support Distribution and implementat EI Outtake and acceptance CJ Maintenance CJ CONSUMABLES ham Amauri Item Name MnitAmount Unit Unit Price Cost 0 Project manager day 450 00 0 00 0 Project managemen 1 day 250 00 0 00 A 0 Application designer 1 day 450 00 0 00 2 Secretarial staff 5 day 250 00 2500 00 Other staff Fixed Rate 0 00 0 00 Travel Fixed Rate 0 00 0 00 ol Subsistence gt per di die 1 day 150 00 0 00 Documentation Fixed Rate 50 00 50 00 Consumables Fixed Rate 0 00 0 002 After you have clicked on the Add item button COST R creates an additional row in the budgeting sheet This row can be filled in to
11. be highlighted in blue on the budgeting sheet In the tree structure you can also easily see where in activities or subtasks within activities costs have already been entered The name of the activity will be highlighted in blue when a cost is indicated This function allows you to quickly see which parts have costs or which parts have not yet been dealt with COSTER Tool Manual Version 2 6 11 The budget sheet output Once you have entered all costs in the budget sheet COST R can show you a schematic overview of the result note that even in the input window you can see the total sum of all indicated costs in the upper right corner the cost indicator You can obtain the output by simply clicking on the Calculate button in the toolbar or by selecting Calculate via Project in the menu You can also enter the output screen at any time by clicking the Output tab in the bottom left hand corner Return to the input screen by clicking the input tab lolx COSTER Tool manual File Project Activity Help culate Costs A Pietra sto A 5a amp Daa E 2800 00 EURO C Planning 4 Cost estimation and bude CJ Contracts and partner agr i 7 tern Amount Item Name UnitAmount Unit Unit Price Cost 0 Application designer 1 day 450 00 0 00 2 Secretarialstat 5 day 250 00 2500 00 Other staff Fixed Rate 0 00 0 00 Travel Fixed Rate 0 00 0 00 A EJ Intake
12. er item or if it has a fixed rate This is important for the cost calculation If a cost item has a price per day then COSTER will calculate the price depending on the number of days you enter Personnel costs are a typical example two Secretarial Staff work for 5 days each With a fixed rate the cost will be counted only once Documentation for example cannot be measured by the unit in such case you can add a single cost To change the unit or to see all the possibilities double click on the Unit field of an item and a drop down menu will appear Click on a unit to select it e Unit price here you can see what the item costs per unit These prices are an indication If you have your own prices you can use them by simply typing your own price in the given field In our example above we added 50 Euros to the cost item Documentation e Cost this column provides you with the price of the item based on your input item amount unit amount and price An important feature of COSTER is the Add item function This enables you to add cost topics yourself in the activity In this way you can adapt COSTER to your own preferences costs and prices This will be particularly useful if your production makes COSTER Tool Manual Version 2 6 10 use of very specific personnel or material that are not listed in the dataset Select Add item in the toolbar or via Activity in the menu COSTER Tool manu
13. estination folder OS X Before installing COST R make sure that previous versions of COST R have been removed To do so move the old COST R folder to your Trash Can After downloading the COSTER file on your hard disk follow the guidelines of the Package Installer to install COSTER Opening the COSTER tool Windows To start the tool open the Start Menu locate the COSTER Tool folder and select COSTER Tool or click on the COST R Tool icon on your desktop OS X By default COST R Is installed in the COSTER Tool folder To start the tool click on the COSTER icon located in this folder COST R Tool Manual Version 2 6 4 The COSTER environment After opening COSTER this is what you will see E coster roor 1 File Project Activity Help USA ansen EB DDR Welcome to COSTER This is the input window which consists of three parts The left column the activity window contains the activities and the structure of your project calculation It will show selected activities and the various elements of these activities by clicking on these activities you can find all the relevant cost topics within that activity The definition window in the upper right segment will show a definition of the selected activity or cost topic Each time you click on a topic in the tree structure or in the budgeting sheet an explanation or definition will be available in this window The window in the lower right
14. lculated per day and you need those two selected for thirty days Then you fill in 30 COSTER Tool manual i lolx File Project Activity Help zP i y P oa Beet B zh A 2550 00 EURO EI SOFTWARE 3 Consumables are all goods that are to a certain extent necessary during the work but that are Q EI Project management i used up in the process Consumables unlike equipment are not considered durable and C Coordination therefore can normally used only once You can add here an estimate or lump sum for the el Planning consumables that you foresee You can also use the Consumables activity tab to get an verview of foreseeable consumables and to add the ones that you think you may need Cost estimation and bude CJ Contracts and partner agr laos C Intake Item Amount Item Name UnitAmount Unit UnitPrice Cost CJ Concept definition and specif 0 Project manager 1 day 450 00 0 00 C Development 0 Project managemen 1 day 250 00 0 00 A CI Support j 0 Application designer 1 day 450 00 0 00 I Distribution and implementat 2 Secretarial staff 5 day 250 00 2500 00 EI Outtake and acceptance Other staff Fixed Rate 0 00 0 00 CJ Maintenance Zi CI CONSUMABLES Travel Fixed Rate 0 00 0 00 2 0 Subsistence per die 1 day 150 00 0 00 Documentation Fixed Rate N 50 00 50 00 Consumables Fixed Rate 0 00 0 00 e Unit here you can choose whether the item is paid per day or p
15. of the COST R environment After the description of this environment it gives detailed information on how to get started and how to work with COST R Every step is illustrated so that working with COSTER is easy to learn Enjoy your costing experience In this version average cost and price data are available for Belgium France and Spain In future release versions data will become available for other countries such as Germany the Netherlands and UK 2 i In a future version a customised cost input tool will allow users to create personal and customised datasets COSTER Tool Manual Version 2 6 3 Getting started System requirements Your computer needs to meet the following minimal requirements e 64 MB of RAM e 20 MB of available hard disk space e Operating systems supported o Windows 98 Windows ME o Windows NT 4 0 Windows 2000 Windows XP or o Mac OS X with Java 1 4 installed Installing COSTER Windows Before installing COST R make sure that previous versions of COST R have been removed To do so go to Add Remove Programs in your Settings Control Panel and click on COSTER or delete the folder with the previous COST R versions from the Programme Files folder on the hard disk of your computer After downloading the COSTER file on your hard disk open it to extract the COSTER tool to a location on your hard disk The default location is the Programme Files folder but you can always select another d
16. r currency The programme will then always use these settings when creating projects until you change them Default Program Settings x Language English v Dataset be 2004 04 v Currency Rate 1 Currency Symbol EURO sve Cancel Help Project settings For each project you can adapt its specific settings by clicking on Project in the menu and then choose Project settings You can also do this directly by clicking on the Project settings icon Project Settings xj Project Name manual Overhead 0 0 Contingency 0 0 Insurance 0 0 VAT 0 0 Dataset Currency Rate Currency Symbol con Cancel Help In this window you can set your project name and you can set overhead contingency and insurance rates When set activate your choice by confirming Saving your project and opening an existing project Make sure you save your work after using COSTER This is done by clicking on the Save icon in the toolbar or by selecting Save via File in the menu COSTER will always ask you to save a project when quitting COSTER COSTER then shows the Save window COSTER Tool Manual Version 2 6 13 save 6 lR Save in C My Documents x El Al el Ez CI Adobe CI ScheduleOcr Input EI Colligo Chat Transcripts C ScheduleOCR Output EI Colligo Received File
17. ructure gives you a good overview of all the phases a production goes through For an effective cost calculation it is a good idea to look at all levels and cost topics of one activity For example clicking on the activity Software in the left window will show you that Software is divided in several phases project management intake and so on In addition each part can be further divided in different subparts A look at COST R will clarify this COSTER Tool manual i lol x File Project Activity Help l 2 z 2 x iz Deen aaen BE Beh R 0 00 EURO EI SOFTWARE A central part of the production management is planning and coordination organising and EI Project management contracting people and facilities setting deadlines verifying availability of resources keeping CI Coordination track of progress and feasibility of tasks E Plannin 3 Cost estimation and bude EI Contracts and partner agr 5 C Intake Item Amount Item Name Unit Amount Unit UnitPrice Cost EI Concept definition and specif 0 Project man 1 day 450 00 0 00 3 Development 0 Project man 1 day 250 00 0 00 EI Support i 0 Application d 1 day 450 00 0 00 ee Diempuilony ater ae mentat y 0 Secretarial s 1 day 250 00 0 00 co le Other staf Fixed Rate 0 00 0 00 CJ CONSUMABLES Travel Fixed Rate 0 00 0 00 A 0 Subsistence 1 day 150 00 0 00 Documentati Fixed Rate 0 00 0 00 4
18. s C Snagit Catalog J My eBooks My Music EI My Pictures Ci Publish File name Imanual Files of type COSTER Files coster vw Save selected file Save your calculations on your computer in the appropriate location COSTER files use the coster extension All saved COST R projects can be re opened again for further processing or to make adaptations Opening a saved COST R project works like this Click the Open file button on the toolbar or choose Open file via the File menu The Open file window will appear Ce 1 Look in C My Documents z A l el El EI Adobe C ScheduleOcr Input m Colligo Chat Transcripts EI ScheduleocR Output c Colligo Received Files amp Snagit Catalog Eal My eBooks ip oaan CI My Music C My Pictures Cf Publish File name Imanual Files of type COSTER Files coster Sut open Cancel Select your saved COSTER project and click on Open You can now continue working on a previously saved costing project Ending a COSTER session To end a COSTER session and to quit the programme you can either click the Exit button on the toolbar or you can choose Exit via the File menu Before effectively quitting the programme COSTER will always ask you whether it should save changes to the active project COSTER Tool Manual Version 2 6 14
19. se EREIN File Project Activity Help De Hee Bd Mm Welcome to COSTER Program Settings HER After you have done this the following window will appear x Project Name Dataset be 2004 04 v Currency Rate 1 Currency Symbol EURO Cancel Heip In this window you enter the name of your project and select the required dataset Click the Save button to confirm your choice NOTE In the Programme Settings you can select the dataset that you want to apply these datasets are identified normally by the international ISO 2 letter country code and a date For example be 2004 04 stands for Belgium April 2004 French and Spanish datasets are available at the time of publication other localised datasets will become available in the future NOTE 2 In COSTER you can always manually enter and use your own data and override the default national prices that are provided COSTER Tool Manual Version 2 6 7 Not only can you choose the dataset but you can also instantly calculate the costs in a different currency To do this you have to set the currency rate in relation to the euro After you have done this you can set your currency An example will make this clear 1 today equals 0 70 British Pounds If you want to know the prices in British Pound Sterling you have to set the currency rate to 0 70 and change the currency symbol to GBP Add delete ac
20. tivities After you have chosen a project name and a dataset we can really start working on a project The first thing you have to do Is to select an activity Do so by clicking on Activity in the menu and then select Add activity This is also possible by clicking on the Add activity button in the toolbar E e H E 0 00 EURO Add Activity ar EB oupnca Bes eal A selection of activities will appear You will find a definition or explanation of each activity by clicking on one For effectively adding the activity to your project you must select it and then click on Add Multiple selections are allowed For example if you want to budget a software application click on Software application and then on the Add button If this software application goes together with the building of a web site then select Add activity again on the menu and then Web site confirm by clicking on the Add button After you have selected an activity you will find that activity displayed in the activity window which is the left window of the input screen x AUDIOPROGRAMME A Web site is a collection of Web files CD ROM and DVD ROM on a particular subject that includes a g called a home page For e LIVE PROGRAMME starting file PRINT MATERIAL example most companies SIMULATION pegan LANE O LVA na Dang Web s have a single address that SOFTWARE they
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