A series of tools have been developed to improve the experience of students who receive course materials by CD-ROM.  In the past, many students had difficulty knowing whether their computers had the necessary software installed to use the CD-ROM resources.

The CD-ROM tools run a series of automatic diagnostics on student computers, to detect that all required software has been installed.  If missing, a report is displayed to the user, giving quick and easy links to the software (which is included on the CD-ROM).

In 2003/04, additional diagnostics and installation programs to the CD-ROM tool kit.  We also added some diagnostics and tools that facilitate the creation of "hybrid" course sites: Web sites that deliver Web pages from the Internet, but which deliver video and other multimedia elements from a local CD-ROM.  Hybrid sites make it feasible to deliver very rich Web experiences to users with very low-speed Internet connections.