E-Learning Methods as a Driver for the Internationalisation of Web Development Courses

Over the past decade, as software development has moved from a platform specific, desktop based software approach to a web focused environment, the ability to develop courses for wider delivery has increased. At the same time university courses have undergone major changes in teaching mode, with an expectation that online versions of teaching materials should be delivered as readily and to the same quality as in-class materials. This paper examines how the re-development of course materials to support online (off-campus) students as well as on campus students provides an opportunity to deliver those same materials to overseas partners. This is brought about by the need to select programming environments that are readily available to online students, along with detailed learning materials that allow online students to work at the same level of detail as on campus students. The integration of freely available and easily configurable development environments and teaching/assessment items based on those environments provide the opportunity for international teaching partners to support both their staff and students. This support comes from not having to rely on expensive, difficult to configure software systems, and by providing learning materials that are written specifically for those environments, so that bot