Which method produces better learning outcomes? Does courseware that is additive to other learning materials improve student outcomes more than courseware that functions as a one-stop shop for instruction, practice and assessment? Or vice versa? Does one choice affect business development more than another? Is the choice truly an either/or?

The Next Generation Courseware Challenge (NGCC) grant required participants to build a “course complete” product; each had to cover the content scope and sequence of a standardized course and be fully implemented in that course. Grantees found that whole-course products are much harder to implement in face-to-face and blended learning environments, but reported that students showed significant increases in learning. Supplemental and lighter courseware is easier to adopt and scale, but such products offer shallower opportunities for student engagement.

Pursuing adoption of whole-course products in academic settings is quite an undertaking. Because the courseware is designed for online learning, participating instructors have to figure out how to integrate lectures, assignments and assessments into teaching plans normally structured around dynamic classroom interaction. During the grant, for example, instructors wondered what to do while students were watching courseware lectures in the classroom. Should teachers work on something else, or stop and start the lecture to provide context? Moreover, the implementation of some features that are useful in a fully online classroom, such as discussion boards, aren’t immediately intuitive to instructors who teach in in-person settings. Using courseware effectively in a face-to-face environment necessarily impacts the structure of the delivery. Courseware developers should consider engaging with instructors and students in the product design phases of these tools in order to unlock the potential for better learning experiences in and outside the classroom.

Any whole-course product must be personalized to address institutional criteria and instructors’ teaching objectives. For providers, integrating your platform with an entire academic course is a lengthy process that requires close partnership with learning materials committees and with instructors themselves. If instructors aren’t fully aware of the courseware’s features or haven’t had time to integrate them into their teaching plans, your product may be treated simply as supplemental material, or just another digitized textbook. Instructors might not realize how much more they could do with whole learning courseware.

Supplemental courseware doesn’t have as many integration barriers because instructors can simply assign it as additional learning. That said, institutions can’t require teachers to assign supplementary courseware because these products aren’t tethered to curriculum standards in the way that whole-course products have to be. Students may question the utility of the courseware if it doesn’t account for a large part of their grade. Usage rates of courseware are worse when teachers call it “optional,” which students often hear as “unnecessary to pass this class.” With fewer incentives for teachers and students to fully embrace or even try supplementary courseware, these products demonstrate less impact on student success. OpenStax saw this play out when it rolled out the lighter version of Tutor, called Concept Coach.