EXPERIENCE WITH DEVELOPING MULTIMEDIA COURSEWARE FOR THE WORLD-WIDE-WEB - THE NEED FOR BETTER TOOLS AND CLEAR PEDAGOGY

The phenomenal growth of the Internet over the last few years, coupled with the development of various multimedia applications which exploit the Internet presents exciting opportunities for educators. In the co ntext of distance education, the World Wide Web provides a unique chal lenge as a new delivery mechanism for course material allowing student s to take a course (potentially) from anywhere in the world. In this p aper, we describe our approach to the development of an Internet-based course designed for distance education. Using this experience, we pro vide general observations on the opportunities and constraints which t he web provides and on the pedagogic issues which arise when using thi s delivery mechanism. We have found that the process of developing web -based courses is one area which requires careful consideration as tec hnologies and tools for both the authoring and the delivery of courses are evolving so rapidly. We have also found that current tools are se verely lacking in a number of important respects-particularly with res pect to the design of pedagogically sound courseware. (C) 1997 Academi c Press Limited.