This project consists of providing World-Wide-Web-based course materials, tools, methods, and support to student teams working on computer information systems analysis, design, and development projects within a computer science and information systems (CSIS) curriculum. Computer professionals, in spite of excellent technical skills, often lack teamwork skills. Because of this problem, CSIS curricula increasingly require team projects, often in system development courses, that reflect the realities of large systems development situations. This approach is consistent with current theories in education that emphasize active, experiential, problem-based, collaborative approaches to learning and draws inspiration from the emerging field of computer-supported collaborative learning. For student teams, scheduling meeting times and exchanging, reviewing, and discussing formatted and graphical information is often difficult, particularly for nontraditional and commuting students who may have other demands on their time such as work and family. The objectives of the project are to provide remote, convenient, and state-of-the-art multimedia support for student teams working on authentic systems development projects; to facilitate cooperative learning; to provide faculty with easy-to-use development tools; and to increase students' technical skills through experience with widely-used information technologies such as the World Wide Web. The Web serves as a widely accessible and relatively inexpensive platform for teaching and learning, and also as an outlet for the dissemination of results and the potential campus wide, state wide, and world wide interaction with students and educators.
