Collaborative networked hypermedia education: Lessons from the Nero project

Abstract

This paper describes the genesis, development and delivery of a course in software engineering for hypermedia. The course was developed collaboratively at four geographically separated universities for delivery via high-speed networked hypermedia. The authors and their collaborators at Portland State University and Oregon State University built the course as a set of distributed modules. This enabled (1) exploration of a variety of styles of educational hypermedia, including text, forms and audio modalities, and (2) rapid reuse. Novel course materials included forms-based prototypes, forms-based exercises, audio-annotated notes, and a simple audiovisual 'slide show' utility for delivery of protocol data for use by students. As a result of this project, we learned that distributed collaborative delivery of a course is significantly easier than similarly situated development of the course. The preparation of a hypermedia course involves significantly extra effort-comparable to writing a textbook-but produces teaching materials that are much more flexibly deliverable than traditional CAI materials. © 1995.