The CUPLE Consortium has produced a prototype of new instructional resource for college and university physics courses. CUPLE is comprehensive because it draws on innovative developments in classroom, laboratory, lecture demonstration, computational physics, videodiscs, and computer-based materials that have been developed by outstanding physics educators from all over the country. It is unified because it combines these materials in a delivery system that is based on a hypertext multimedia environment that presents a consistent user interface to the students and faculty, eliminating the need for the user to learn the idiosyncrasies of many different systems. The prototype system includes all of the tools necessary for the complete system, including data acquisition for microcomputer-based laboratories (MBL), student problem-solving through program construction (M.U.P.P.E.T. and WinPhys), integration of video into computer displays (including the ability to make measurements on screen), spreadsheet physics materials, and a hypermedia authoring system that pulls all of these tools together in an environment that allows faculty (or students) to develop new materials using these tools without the need to resort to sophisticated programming. This project is extending that system to additional content areas, is enlarging class testing of the system at cooperating universities, is using the results of class testing and the ongoing technical beta testing to further refine the materials and tools. The project is also developing the browser and class design tools necessary to allow faculty to design custom courses.
