This article explores a CD-based courseware package for the teaching and consolidating of geological field skills used for the interpretation of folding sequences in deformed rocks, focussing on examples from Anglesey in North Wales. The article briefly considers the advantages and disadvantages of virtual fieldwork and then discusses the rationale, structure, development and production of the CD courseware package.

No abstract

The TRIADS engine is a powerful set of Authorware ProfessionalTM routines, which allow rapid and easy production of multimedia computer-delivered assessments through the use of question templates and proformas. TRIADS is currently being evaluated at 25 UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in 18 disciplines. Its potential use in electrical engineering is discussed. Introduction to the TRIADS projectUniversity teaching has changed over the past years: because of increased student numbers, an emphasis on quality provision, and to take advantage of new methods, for example courseware delivered by computer. Assessment, and its role in the learning-teaching process, has been similarly scrutinised so that assessment strategies and methods have also evolved. Computer-based assessment is a natural outcome of a need to process more assignments and provide more feedback to more students, while maintaining better records of student progress and outcomes.The TRIADS project evolved from an initial Teaching and Learning Technology Programme (TLTP)1 courseware collaboration, into a Fund for the Development of Teaching and Learning (FDTL)2-funded project to develop further and disseminate a computer-based assessment system already in use at the University of Derby. The principal partners in the collaboration are the University of Liverpool ( lead site), the University of Derby and the Open University. TRIADS is more than just the assessment software that forms the core of the system. The Open University had been using paper-based, machineread testing for 25 years and has considerable expertise in the curriculum context, design and analysis of objective tests. The TRIADS team has put emphasis on making explicit the academic decisions that have led to the incorporation of computer-based testing within a learning, teaching and assessment strategy. Further, the scheme encourages a careful specification of cover-

C & IT is used at Derby in a variety of modes including pre-fieldwork training, post-fieldwork assessment and field-related courseware development as part of student project work. With respect to pre-fieldwork training, all students are required to undertake the UK Earth Science Courseware Consortium (UKESCC) 'Field Safety Tutorial' and to register their medical conditions on line using a Field Course Registration package. For field mapping, both the Field Safety Tutorial and the UKESCC 'Using the Compass-clinometer' courseware module are integrated into a programme of pre-course preparation sessions, involving the use of 'in-house' courseware, that must be completed by all students. Computer-based assessment of recent field experience is used on a number of modules to substitute for, or to supplement data obtained from, field assessments, and students are now able to submit field-related courseware modules as final-year projects. Future developments include integrated computer-based assessment of field, laboratory and theoretical work and the automated linking of records of progression through the UKESCC Field Safety Tutorial with a Field Course Registration program. These developments are planned in the context of rapidly changing course structures and the likely 'shelf life' of the software will be fully evaluated before committing resources to their production.

No abstract