The Development Process for Courseware Material: A Computing Methodology Approach

At a university level, the conceptual stage of computerfacilitated learning (CFL) tends to be a faculty wide forum with ideas and inputs coming from many sources (e.g. academics, support staff, students). At the department level however, it is often a single academic who develops these ideas and attempts to satisfy the requirements. These requirements necessitate a full pedagogic understanding. Whilst it is suggested that it is the norm to utilise teams to develop programs and on line subjects, experience in the computing faculty shows that individuals often take, or are given responsibility for the development of their own subjects. It has been observed that computing faculty staff are very familiar with the technology and tend to adopt computing methodologies to develop these programs with pedagogical theory being added to the program as "user requirements". This paper investigates various methodologies currently employed for computing and some of their associated restrictions and how they differ with similar educational methodologies. It investigates ways in which a methodology could allow developers without a vast educational background to create pedagogically sound programs.