The WebCT web-based courseware development tool was first introduced in the University in 1997 and has now collected over 400 electronic courses in development or being used in HKU. The WebCT software is a very popular tool for e-courses that is used by many educational institutions in the world as well as most universities in Hong Kong. There is continuing software development and recently several useful web-site resources have emerged on the Internet for facilitating WebCT course developers to share their practices and experiences, to gain access to certain special resources and to build web-based e-courses collaboratively via the Internet.
The followings are some selected web-site resources which could be of interest to our WebCT course developers:
(I) e-Learning Communities
At present, there are about 15 "e-Learning communities" at the website http://www.webct.com/communities. Another 40 or more "e-Learning communities" will soon be available. These "e-Learning communities" offer help on the homework and research resources for the specific subject areas which range from Astronomy to Zoology.
In each learning community, visitors will find:
"Ask Dr. C" is an online community service to let users ask any questions related to WebCT. "Ask Dr. C" is moderated by an international group of experts whose real-world WebCT experiences encompass campus implementation, server administration, course design, tool usage, student experience, and integration of third party applications in WebCT. In this community, visitors can find FAQ's, searchable knowledge base, and even post a question to a WebCT expert. Although "Ask Dr. C" operates in a bulletin board mode, a user will receive an email reply to the question he posted so that he does not have to visit the web site regularly to check for responses to his question. The URL for "Ask Dr. C" is http://www.webct.com/ask_drc.
(III) e-Learning Resource Packs (e-Packs)
An e-Learning Resource Pack, or e-Pack, is a set of fully customizable online course material developed by WebCT's Content Provider Partners for instructors to use in their WebCT courses. If a teacher is interested in any item listed in the e-Pack list, he can 'adopt' the corresponding e-Pack into his own WebCT course. This e-Pack contains information such as text, multimedia contents, quizzes, etc. in a WebCT-ready format. Once the e-Pack is adopted, the teacher can use his WebCT designer account to modify the course in anyway he likes. Although designers can make use of the e-Packs free of charge, the students do need to purchase an 'access code' in order to view the course contents. Some publishers bundle the access codes with their text books while others require students to purchase access codes separately online. Therefore, teachers are advised to check for the details attached to e-Packs that they wish to use. For a showcase and demo of the e-Packs, please visit http://cshowcase.webct.com/search/. For more information on e-Packs, please visit WebCT's FAQs for e-Packs.
If you have further questions, please contact the undersigned.
Fanny Chau
Tel: 2964 5737
Email: hcxccyh@hku.hk