I Seminário sobre Utilização das Tecnologias da Informação e Comunicação em Geologia
Universidade do Minho, Braga, 3-4 de Fevereiro de 2000
Ciências da Terra, 2000, volume especial IV

ABSTRACT
The last of 21 computer aided learning courseware modules for earth science teaching and learning has recently been completed by the UK Earth Science Courseware Consortium. This eight year project, which involving many UK universities, has been an interesting experience for those concerned and has provided useful lessons in cooperation working in higher education. This paper outlines some of the pitfalls and mistakes made in the course of the project as well as decisions made which have proved to have been well founded. Information is provided on the way the courseware has been changed in response to user's feedback and the purpose of recent upgrades.

The courseware has been produced, is now widely used in UK schools, colleges and universities, and it is distributed world-wide. This paper describes some of the decisions that had to be made during the development phase, changes made as usage revealed shortcomings, and the way it has evolved as to keep pace with changes in technology.

OUTLINE DESCRIPTION OF THE COURSEWARE
The 21 UKESCC courseware modules have been designed to be largely stand-along computer applications, each covering a different aspect of Earth Science studied at degree level. Individual modules consists of between 4-12 subsections and each subsection comprises between 5-40 pages. Main menus provides access to the sub-sections and sub-menus access to individual pages. Sub-sections are analogous to chapters of a book and present material on individual topics in a logical sequence, often starting with an introduction and ending with a summary.

Users can work through the material at their own pace using navigation controls to move through and between pages. Extensive use is made of interactions requiring the user to do things like click on specific areas or the screen, select responses from options presented, or type text or numerical answers to questions.

Who is the courseware designed for?
There are two main groups of users: teachers and learners. The courseware was developed to help teachers cope with increased numbers of students and with students from a diverse range of backgrounds. In order to do this it had to cover material studied in existing courses and presented in a format that could be incorporated into existing courses. For learners, the courseware had to be engaging, interesting, and again relevant to the courses being undertaken.

Courseware Development
At the start of the project two ways in which the suite of courseware modules might have be produced were considered. One method was to establish a single development centre and employ specialist staff covering the range of skills required, e.g. graphic design, programming, educational methods. The main advantages of this method were seen as efficiency of production, ability to use a single house style, and control over day-to-day developments. The main disadvantages of this method were seen as obtaining good educational content and ensuring the development team produced courseware that suited the target users. There was also the point that at the start of the project the capabilities of the authoring software available were largely unknown to the UK Earth Science community and it would have been very difficult to establish a good house style.

The second method considered for producing the courseware was to have a small central unit with a largely administrative role, and contract out the production of individual modules to academics at different universities. Part of the rational of this approach was to engage as many Earth Science departments as possible so that they had a vested interest in the courseware. Also, it would allow the knowledge, expertise and experience of respected teachers to be captured and embodied in the courseware they produced. In setting up the consortium a band of CAL enthusiasts among the Earth Science academic community had been identified and many of these were keen to undertake development of individual modules. This second method for developing the courseware was subsequently adopted.

With hindsight it is considered that the approach finally adopted was the better of the two for the situation that existed at the time. This is because there is great value in having constant close interaction between the content provider and the developer. If faced with the same task again would the same method be used for development? Probably not, for several reasons. First, we now know how to produce courseware efficiently and would have little difficulty in establishing a house style. Second, potential developers among the UK Earth Science teaching community now have a much heavier workload than in 1992 and greater pressure to produce research publications. These factors would make it more difficulty to recruit academic staff initially, and more difficult for them to complete the development work on time. Indeed, the last few modules developed were delivered very late partly because the academics involved had many other calls on their time.

Authorware, produced by Macromedia, was chosen as the authoring tool. Authorware was chosen partly because it operates on both PC (Windows) and Macintosh computers and because Macromedia was seen as a large organisation with a vested interest in its survival. The question of producing upgrades after the initial development was also an important consideration. It is our experience that developers without experience in high-level programming who choose to use some of the high-level programming features present in Authorware, like variables, often did so in an inconsistent manner and hence produced courseware which is difficult for someone else to upgrade.

Shortcoming revealed by usage
The initial design of the courseware was devised by members of the UKESCC who met at bi-monthly intervals throughout the first two years of the project. At the start of the project there was little comparable CAL software in use and so little information available on the features that for students that worked well and those which did not. The UKESCC representatives therefore had to base the courseware design and way it operated on their previous experience, which was mostly using conventional teaching methods. The courseware was developed in phases spread over several years, individual modules taking about 6-months to complete. Some aspects of the design in the initial releases did not work well and so were changed, and the lessons learnt incorporated into initial releases of some of the later initial releases.

In drawing up the initial design it was imagined that users would get lost if too many options to jump to different parts of a module were provided, and that all users would need to work through and understand introductory material before moving onto more advanced material. Indeed, in the first modules produced users were forced to start at the beginning and work through all the material on one page before allowed to move to the next page; the only way to get to the last page was to work through all the preceding pages. Part of the rational for this procedure was to try and prevent users jumping in and out of sections in the belief they would not learn much in the process, but to force them to work systematically through the material from start to finish, answering correctly all the questions en-route.

These rigid constraints were removed following complains from users, particular teaching staff. The latter were generally not interesting in working through all the material in the same way as students who were learning, but just wanted to get an overview of the contents so they could recommend particular sections to students at different times during a course.

Complaints continued even when the navigation constraints were removed. These complaints centred on the fact that with the hierarchical system of menus, up to three levels in some modules, it was sometimes difficult to find (or remember) where a particular topic was covered. Sometimes users navigated through to the third level only to find they were at the wrong place for the topic being sought. To remedy this situation the menus were changed to allow all the topics to be accessible from a single main menu.

Authorware has extensive facilities for tracking and storing user performance. Little use was been made of these facilities during development, partly because it was imagined that students using the courseware primarily to learn would do so differently if they knew their performance was continually being assessed and recorded. This fear proved largely unfounded; feedback from students shows they are keen to know how well they are performing and would prefer more information on their performance that currently provided.

Feedback from students shows that overall most would welcome more formative assessment tests to provide information on how well they had understood the material they have worked through. In about half the UKESCC courseware modules there is assessment material in the form of short assessment tests that users can work through. In one module there are two tests in each section; one to complete before working through the material, and another after working through.

Feedback from users
During the early stages of the project there was a good level of feedback from Consortium members (mostly teaching staff) on errors, ambiguities and things like poor navigation controls. This feedback was essential and greatly helped improve the quality of the courseware as it was being developed. As the project progressed this type of voluntary feedback decreased significantly and is now mostly provided by a small number of dedicated individuals. It is not that users did not continue to find minor errors, but they do not consider reporting them high priority. With hindsight, we should have implemented a system that enabled users to provide feedback easily, for example, via a button that semi-automatically generating an email message to UKESCC giving details like page and section numbers where the error was encountered.

Keeping up with changes in technology
There are many examples where CAL software that has been developed using the latest technology, but not upgraded to keep up with changes in technology, and so has vanished without trace. This situation was perhaps inevitable when CAL was in its infancy and much of the effort was directed towards presentation and the delivery and less towards content.

A great deal of thought, time and effort has gone into producing the UKESCC Earth Science courseware, particularly the educational content. It therefore represents an extremely valuable educational resource which we would not wish to become lost because of changes in technology.

One reason for failure to adapt in the past revolves around funding. In many cases funding to develop software had been provided to academics for periods of two years or less, and no support for subsequent maintenance. The UKESCC has successfully managed to provide continued support for its courseware after its initial development, mainly by selling the courseware world-wide and generating income. Sales world-wide have been possible because the topics the courseware cover are common to Earth Science degree courses world-wide. The potential for its use world-wide was recognised early in the life of the project and this influenced some of the decisions made at the time.

The main change in technology that has occurred during the life of the UKESCC has been the use of the World Wide Web (WWW) for distribution and presentation of information. The UKESCC courseware was designed originally to run as stand-alone executable software, independent of other applications like the web browsers. The UKESCC courseware can now be run on the WWW, after conversion from its original stand-alone form. This requires two pieces of software developed Macromedia. One piece converts the original Authorware code into a form that be readily transmitted over the WWW, and the second is a plug-in used by web browsers. It should be noted that this conversion does not involve changing the source material into HTML or other native code. This would not be feasible because the stand-alone courseware uses multimedia presentation techniques not yet available with HTML.

It is possible that a smaller organisation than Macromedia might not have had the incentive or facilities to provide conversion facilities. It is therefore considered that this justifies our decision at the start of the project to use the products of an established large international organisation, even though the financial cost at the time was greater than alternatives.

Recent Developments
The most important new additions to the UKESCC courseware (January 2000) have been inclusion a single front-page and indexes. These additions are designed primarily for use when all 21 modules are available to users. They have been introduced to allow easier access to specific pages of the modules, and to specific terms and topics.

Previously, modules were released one at a time as they were completed, and used in stand-along mode with no links between them. The purpose of the front page is allow users to see the full range of modules available from a single screen, and provide easy access to them, while maintaining their stand-alone status.

Two types of index have been introduced. Subject indexes for individual modules and a global index to all the modules. Both are accessible from all areas of the modules. The subject indexes were compiled from menu entries, page titles and by manually scanning all the material for terms, and topics not covered by the former. The global index was produced by merging subject index entries for all the modules, sorting them alphabetically, then storing them under separate letters of the alphabet.

The global index makes only minor reference to individual courseware modules and allows the courseware content to be accessed and used in a completely different way to that originally envisaged. Originally, it was anticipated that students would only wish to work steadily through the material in individual modules. While they can still do this, the global index provides the means to quickly find, then jump to, very specific terms and topics, often buried deep within individual modules. In this respect it enables the complete suite of modules to be used like a geological encyclopaedia.

Not all aspects Earth Science are covered by the current 21 courseware modules and there have been many requests for additional modules. The existing modules include material that falls into subject areas other than existing module themes and that using subject indexes it is possible to compile content for topics not already covered specifically. For example, none of the 21 modules cover plate tectonics specifically but several include some information on the subject. Indexes are stored in plain text files and so using a word processor it is possible for anyone to compile an index for a subject like plate tectonics copying entries from the 21 module indexes provided. Similarly, tutors wanting students to work through specific topics as part of a course can compile their own course index, with the option of changing individual entry topics, for example to Week 1, Week 2, etc. or to named students.

CONCLUSIONS
A suite of 21 courseware modules for use in Earth Science teaching and learning have recently been completed as part of a co-operative project between higher education teachers. The modules are widely used in the UK and are in use in over 30 other countries. Although originally designed for use in universities, about one third of the modules are used in UK schools and colleges of further education, and some are used in industrial training.

The first modules that were developed have been upgraded several times, in order to correct errors, to incorporate changes suggested by users and in computer technology, and for the addition of new features. Requests for a greater degree of feedback to users on their performance have been received and may be included in future upgrades.

Although the WWW has in recent years become the main delivery method for teaching materials in education, the stand-alone nature of the courseware modules has not proved to be a short-coming, and institutions are able to make them readily available to students over computer networks. While there is still scope for getting teachers to incorporate the courseware more into their teaching schedules, perhaps the most important point is that most students like using the material, find them easy to use, and use them widely to learn about many aspects of Earth Science.

References
Sowerbutts, W. T. C and Byron, D. N. 1996. Courseware for Earth Science teaching and learning. Episodes, 19, 7-10.