Assessing Supplemental Courseware in an IT Fluency Course

Information technology is affecting every aspect of life and work – and incorporating IT education effectively across the curriculum is common goal in undergraduate education. The University of Massachusetts Amherst launched a new interdisciplinary, campus-wide undergraduate IT minor that has influenced information technology programs across the state and the nation. The Research in Presentation Production for Learning Electronically (RIPPLES) Group adapted its widely used open-source, cross-platform multimedia course delivery system, MANIC, to provide materials for an IT prerequisite course. Qualitative and quantitative data collected during the first offering of this course suggest that this supplemental use of technology outside of the classroom significantly enhanced student understanding of the material. This paper analyzes the data collected from this instance of the course and explores which aspects of this use of technology worked best, which areas can be improved upon, and the implications and opportunities for other technical and applied courses.