Gateway courses in English challenge students to strengthen skills in critical thinking, reading, grammar, and writing structure and strategies -- skills that also help build competency in comprehension and composition. They can also prove to be a particular challenge to many community college students. This case study examines the efforts at…

Success in open educational resources (OER) has been reported by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA and the Open University in the UK, among others. It is unclear, however, how valuable OER are in learning and teaching. Approaches to OER policy and sustainability are just two other key aspects that remain unresolved across the…

Colleges and universities have increasingly invested in specialized software and hardware designed to enhance and facilitate the instructional process for faculty and students. One type of technological assistance is commonly known as course management software (CMS). Once learned, these CMS packages can greatly enhance and enrich the classroom…

Professors and computer-industry representatives working to establish a peer-review process for academic software have had to pause to consider how software should be reviewed. They are turning away from the familiar book-review format in favor of a more scholarly, comparative approach focusing on classroom use of the materials. (MSE)

The use of MERLIN, a computer assisted tutorial system, was evaluated in both a supervised and an unsupervised mode in 1980. MERLIN was used only in an Open University second level course entitled "Images and Information," which dealt with modern imaging systems. The tutorials covered the first 10 of 16 study units and were taken via the…

The College of the Desert (California) has created a multi-station technology training and development facility for faculty. HyperStudio has been adopted as the introductory tool for multimedia/hypermedia authoring for the following reasons: (1) the card/stack metaphor used by HyperStudio is easy for novices to understand and familiar to users of…

Describes the development and use of computer-based teaching (CBT) at the University of Liverpool based on interviews with faculty members. Topics discussed include why CBT is used, including cost effectiveness and remedial instruction; how courseware should be developed; and case studies in a variety of subject areas. (Contains 20 references.)…

This special theme issue is dedicated to topics related to courseware in higher education. Aspects addressed include faculty development of software; new technologies and their effects on knowledge; microcomputer-based software; courseware publishing; information sharing and software distribution; and future teaching and research projects. (LRW)

Faculty members who write computer software for teaching often find that their chances of getting credit for it during promotion-and-tenure reviews are slim. Software development needs to be considered scholarship just like research. (MLW)

The use of personal computers by juniors and faculty at Clarkson University, an engineering college, was investigated in December 1985 as a followup to a 1984 study. Starting in August 1983, the university required entering freshmen to purchase their own personal computer, the Zenith Data System Z-100. Randomly selected, a total of 15 faculty…

In 1980, Wichita State University received a grant to introduce microcomputers as interactive teaching tools in large science classrooms. Through this grant, 18 faculty in 11 departments developed software modules illustrating concepts that are often difficult to teach by usual lecture methods. To determine whether the use of microcomputers in…

The development of quality learning materials using new technology requires the use of a wide range of skills beyond those possessed by many academic staff. Obtaining quality online learning experiences may require academics to work in teams with others who provide educational design support and technical expertise. The effective management of a…

The Virtual University is an Internet-based learning environment developed at the University of Hagen (Germany). Complex teaching activities based on new concepts integrating net-based communication and cooperation facilities take place in the Virtual University. Experiences show that there is a threshold, especially for tutors in non-computer…