Finding pre-prepared products

Where can you find out about off-the-shelf products?

• Within your department
• From similar disciplines
• Through networking at conferences and seminars
• From email lists for higher education teachers

At Conferences

The annual conference of the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia (HERDSA) - packages relevant to specific disciplines and across disciplines, developed by academics, are often demonstrated at these conferences.

The Teaching and Learning Forum (WA) - held annually in February, general includes demonstrations of packages developed locally (and nationally) by higher education teachers. May be discipline specific or generic.

The Australian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ASCILITE) has conference papers on ideas and material that can be accessed at http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences.html

From Websites

Uniserve Australia (http://uniserve.edu.au/uniserve/Welcome.html) - maintains and publishes a list of teaching materials and has five subject-specific clearing houses: engineering, health, humanities and social sciences, law and science.

The Committee for University Teaching and Staff Development (CUTSD) Collection: (http://www.detya.gov.au/cutsd/announce/collection.html) provides a list of printed materials, CD-ROMs, video and audio-tapes available on inter-library loan.

Problem-Based Learning at the University of Delaware: (http://www.udel.edu/pbl/problems/) provides sample problems in a range of subject areas.

Icebreakers - Cornell University Trainer Network: (http://www.cornell.edu/OHR/TNET/Icebreakers/Icebreakers.html) provides a range of processes for establishing and maintaining groups which can be adapted for higher education teaching.

The International Centre for Distance Learning (ICDL):(http://www-icdl.open.ac.uk/) has databases that contain information on over 31,000 distance learning programmes and courses mostly in the Commonwealth countries.

The Knowledge Media Institute (KMi):(http://kmi.open.ac.uk/home-f.html) provide a world-class R&D centre in knowledge media and a ‘conduit’ for technology transfer within the OU, to the community at large and to external organizations.

An online workshop What a Site! Finding, Evaluating, Sharing, and Taking ‘em Home: (http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/show/what/) is geared towards instructors who would like to find and use web resources in their specific subject area.

Building Your Own Web Course: The Case for Off-the-Shelf Component Software by Howard Kaplan (http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/html/cem9849.html) discusses choices concerning software for developing Web courses.