Background music is Copyright © 1996, 1997 by Michael D. Walthius. All Rights Reserved.
ourseWorks 3.2 installed easily from its CD-ROM and consumed
approximately 100 MB of hard drive space. The Computer Based Training
(CBT) application is available from Iprax
Training Solutions. They have a variety of pricing structures
depending on what you want so check their page. It runs on Windows
3.1, 95 and NT. A manual of approximately 280 pages accompanied the
software as does a 3rd party courseware catalog. A quick examination
of the courseware catalog indicates courses are available from
several sources on a very wide range of topics. A sampling includes
fire fighting, sexual harassment, multimeters, date rape, industrial
hygiene, forklift safety, handling hazardous materials, safety and
health training, plastic injection molding, statistical process
control, etc.
he
manual is divided into several different sections that describe the
procedures for performing various functions. The first part of the
manual describes the installation of CourseWorks for the 3 Windows
platforms that it runs on and discusses network installations. The
next section covers the creation of the training environment. The
overview of tasks covers the 4 major areas of concern: registering
and enrolling students, setting up and playing courses, organizing
courses and setting up passwords for CourseWorks. I kept looking at
the sub areas of these 4 major headings and suddenly it occurred to
me that course creation was omitted. As an instructor for under
graduate and graduate students I realize this is where I spend at
least half or more of my time.
he
first work the manual requires the user to do is to set up the
student database. The track icon is clicked and the password window
opens. CourseWorks comes with a password right out of the box. It is
listed on page one of the manual. After the password is entered the
track dialog box is launched. Note that a student's name has already
been entered. Next the database tab is clicked. 
Then the database setup button is clicked. This takes the user to the
area where fields may be added or deleted from the database.
Several preset fields are already available for immediate insertion
into the database and custom fields may also be added. 
Unfortunately
no more than 11 fields may be present in the database. An additional
aggravation is that the existing preset fields in the database can
not be removed to make way for fields the user may find more
appropriate. Frequently students do not have a job title and are not
associated with a department. Nevertheless the user is stuck with
what the software manufacturer has decided they need. So the user
will be unable to add more than 5 new fields since the 6 fields
already taken can not be removed. Custom fields may be added. The
custom field area on the left is selected and the select button is
clicked. This launches the field dialog box where the field name and
a description may be entered. The field length is constrained to 30
characters. 
For
most database purposes this is adequate however since this database
is limited to 11 fields addresses such as Ponte Vedra Beach, FL 33333-3333
will be too long by 2 characters to fit in one field. Fields that
have been added can be easily removed by selecting them on the right
side of the box then clicking the delete button. As previously stated
however, default fields can not be deleted. Students can be added to
the database by clicking on the student tab then clicking on the add
button. 
Here
I encountered another situation that I thought might be of concern.
The database requires the user to enter an id number. The number can
be up to 15 characters in length. I know from experience working with
many, many databases over the years that this method can be fraught
with the disaster of duplicate id's. Fortunately CourseWorks'
database automatically checks for duplicate id numbers and will not
allow them to be entered. Student information can be edited by
selecting the student's name and clicking on the update button. Next
the user can enroll students in courses or groups of courses by
clicking the enroll button. The enrollment dialog box pops open to
allow this selection. This is where things get a little strange
because no courses have been created yet. Fortunately CourseWorks
comes with a default group so the user can use that to become
familiar with CourseWorks' operation. 
Unfortunately it isn't mentioned in the manual. I came across it by accident. After the students have been enrolled, a click on the enroll tab will show who is enrolled in what. This dialog box is also used to remove students from courses they are enrolled in.
ext
the manual describes the steps necessary to configure a student's
computer for course delivery. The A/V set up icon is clicked which
launches the Audio/Video setup dialog box. 
Video
(digital and analog) drivers and audio drivers must both be
specified if video and sound is to be used in the course. By the way,
digital video is video such as an .avi file, MPEG, etc. Analog video
deals with video laser discs which are widely available in the
educational sector. I didn't see any support for QuickTime, .fli,
.flc or midi. Transition speed and touch screen usage is also
selected in this dialog box. This dialog box crashed every time I
tried to use it even when I hit the cancel button. I decided at this
point that I had to have some lessons with a variety of test
questions. This would allow me to enroll students, take tests,
measure the outcomes, etc.
All pages copyright © Roger A. Moncrief, Indepth Reviews, 1997
Thanks to Judy Gefter, !LuM! and Charles Blaquiere for their advice and counsel, some I heeded and some I didn't.