Effective CBL design for electronics education and student feedback

Oxford Brookes University are members of the Electronic Design Education Consortium, referred to as EDEC. The Consortium receives funding from the Higher Education Funding Council, England (HEFCE), through the Teaching and Learning Technology Programme (TLTP) to generate computer-based learning (CBL) courseware for undergraduate teaching of electronics. All modules authored by EDEC are available to HEFCE institutions at no charge. The authors form the Oxford Brookes CBL authoring team and they have been developing courseware in analog electronics and digital test and design for test since 1993. The experience gained in generating and using this material in live undergraduate courses has highlighted several important issues, in some cases confirming the expected and in others cases bringing to light less obvious issues. Examples of the CBL material authored by the Oxford Brookes EDEC team are described. Issues relating to the development time are discussed before we review our recent experiences of using our courseware in teaching final year electronics degree students