A practical model for the development of Web based interactive courses

Web based courses are very important for distance education, the core business of the authors' university. Hence, they developed a model for the design of attractive and motivating web courses, which is easy to use and learn, and independent of browser and composing tool. The model presents learning atoms in consecutive steps on the screen, using interaction, images, audio, exercises and feedback, but little text per step. The learning material itself is entered in separate documents, following strict guidelines on grouping and naming. After uploading to the web, accompanying software shows the documents in the mainframe of a three frames structure. Another frame contains an automatically generated tree menu for navigation. Problem solutions and a glossary appear in the third frame. The model supports seamless integration of Web and CD-ROM, personal student notes, feedback forms, external links and multimedia. The model is currently used for the development of new courses and the experiences are encouraging.