Describes how novice software designers interpreted usability sessions and how the designers responded to users' reactions to their prototypes. Describes qualitative analysis of class projects, usability sessions, and interviews with graduate students and proposes recommendations on how to improve the training of educational software developers.…

Provides an example that illustrates the interrelationship of the factors that influence educational software portability. Nielsen's seven-level approach to human-computer interaction is used as the basis for a model for factors that influence portability, and five phases in the life cycle of a software product being adapted are considered. (10…

Discusses a three-year research project in which a virtual environment to teach radioactivity in secondary schools in the United Kingdom was developed and tested. Emphasizes the importance of involving teachers through the development process and confirms the importance of school-based evaluation studies in the development and evaluation of…

Discusses results of a survey of 15 educational software developers, which indicate that none of the companies perform any empirical evaluation of their products as part of the development process. Importance and advantages of validation of the effectiveness of a program are considered, and suggestions for encouraging such validation are offered.…

Discusses the interrelationships of the concepts of adaptability and portability of educational software. A conceptual framework for adaptable educational software is offered, a seven-stage model of adaptation is presented, and the research approach of the USE project in the Netherlands--which is concerned with the development and use of adaptable…

Presents results of CAMCE (Computer-Aided Multimedia Courseware Engineering) project research concerned with definition of a methodology to describe a systematic approach for multimedia courseware development. Discussion covers the CAMCE methodology, requirements of an advanced authoring environment, use of an object-based model in the CAMCE…

A research project identified and prototyped critical elements of an automated development system for interactive courseware (ICW) for job training. The prototype system incorporated a multimedia database that contained all completed, planned, and partially completed media elements. A web-based approach was taken to overcome the problems of…

Describes a study of graduate students that observed the interaction between users of a graphical statistical package and a human playing the role of a simulated intelligent advisory system to guide the design of advice-offering user-assistance software. The use of video to examine the users' role in the interaction is discussed. (Contains 37…

Describes four studies of high school students that examined the effectiveness of user-adaptive computer-aided instruction that explicitly models the cognitive processes of composing for developmental writers and is integrated with classroom composition instruction. Discusses the design and use of the writing software R-WISE (Reading and Writing…

Provides an account of the design of the Lesson Planning System, a hypermedia performance support system (PSS) predicated on task performance to support novice teacher-education students in lesson planning. Reports on an initial research study to investigate the effectiveness of the software and discusses the role of PSSs in teacher education.…

Presents results of experiments with the use of adaptable courseware. Discusses characteristics of educational software and influences on curricular implementation; adaptable educational software; applied adaptable courseware and related adaptation instruments; the research method; and experimental results. Concludes that adaptable courseware will…

Identifies key factors affecting conceptual gains from using a CAL (computer-assisted learning) package and their application to a college practical laboratory class. Considers students' biographical characteristics, design features of the CAL package, and the way that the CAL was integrated into the curriculum. (Author/LRW)

This paper describes a project which aims to create an authoring environment for simulation-based training in order to illustrate features necessary for: (1) an environment which can be used by teachers/trainers with minimum technical skills; (2) rapid prototyping by all courseware producers; (3) and tools for model building. The paper begins with…

Reports on the outcome of a seminar that addressed issues relating to the use of information technology (IT) in universities in the United Kingdom. Results of three surveys of faculty attitudes toward the use of computers in teaching are discussed, and directions for courseware development and for institutional support are suggested. (13…

This paper presents the use of an XML grammar for two complementary projects--CHAMELEON (Cooperative Hypermedia Adaptive MultimEdia Learning Objects) and EIT (Enabling Informal Teamwork). Areas of applications are modular courseware documents and the collaborative authoring process of didactical units. A number of requirements for a suitable…