The design and development of hypertext courseware for CAL in diagnostic radiography

Educational software has been designed and developed for training within the field of diagnostic radiography and is particularly concerned with the science and technology of diagnostic X-rays. The material has been structured into hypertext networks and as such allows interactive exploration of the available information. The courseware development platform was Microsoft Windows and authoring was accomplished using the constructional tool kit ToolBook. The resulting CAL package is highly graphical in nature with a user interface designed to meet the 'friendliness' demands of the end user group. Mechanisms for navigation through, and orientation within, the hypertext have also been established which support two levels of user activities. By changing the level of user freedom, students using the system as a learning tool are restricted to more structured routes than experienced staff using the courseware as an information resource. An aim of this work has been to provide interactive educational activities to support the main courseware, and consequently a novel application has been developed using dynamic data exchange (DDE) and the spreadsheet software Excel. Through a ToolBook front end students can interactively alter an X-ray spectrum by changing the operating conditions of a simulated X-ray tube.