Resumen de To Develop Or Not To Develop Vew Courseware For University-Level.
Srisakdi Charmonman, Natanicha Chorpothong
Sloan Consortium released an important report at the end of 2005 defining online education or eLearning as the learning in which 80-100% of the contents are delivered through the Internet. Sloan stated that at least 63% of universities in the US are offering eLearning. The popularity of eLearning is confirmed by the fact that every country in the world has embarked on or is in the process of offering eLearning. One of the most important questions is whether to develop or not to develop new courseware for university-level eLearning. An alternative is to use the commercially available textbooks printed on paper and use the Internet to communicate with students. Many publishers are turning their textbooks into eBooks which may be another alternative to use instead of developing new courseware. Many universities have spent large sum of money in developing new courseware. For example, the College of Internet Distance Education of Assumption University spent several million baht to develop new courseware. If there are enough students then the effort would be profitable. However, many universities could not get enough students and had to go out of the eLearning business. Examples of failure are UKeU, New York Online, and Columbia Farthom.com. Highly successful virtual universities such as Jones International University and University of Phoenix do not develop new courseware but use traditional textbooks in many courses. The College of Internet Distance Education of Assumption University has developed new courseware for the M.Sc. in Management program which is profitable but decided to use textbooks in the M.Sc. in eLearning Methodology program. This paper will discuss development of new courseware for university-level eLearning, starting from the terminology, interesting results from the Sloan survey, courseware development, textbook and eBooks in university-level eLearning, and concluding remarks.
