SYSTEMS FOR REUSING HYPERMEDIA COURSEWARE

Three systems of differing complexity have been built which support th e development of courseware libraries for reuse at three differing org anizations. One system was developed for a handful of authors at a sma ll company, one for a university team of about twenty-five people, and one for a company with about one hundred authors. The small company h as not found the cost-benefit balances attractive enough to continue i nvestment. The university team has published several products with its collaborative hypermedia system. The system for the large company inc ludes extremely sophisticated library structures and coordination mech anisms but is a challenge for the new user to fully understand. As is often the case with reuse, the institutional commitment to courseware reuse and the ease of use of the tools are critical factors in success . Based on the experiences with the first three courseware reuse syste ms and the increased popularity of the World Wide Web, a new coursewar e reuse methodology has been implemented on the World Wide Web.