The Course Resource Appraisal Modeller enables you to analyse a course plan in terms of the costs of teacher time and the benefits to students. The modeller starts from the teaching-learning activities you plan, and asks you to describe the kind of learning experience each activity provides, in terms of:

• The relative proportion of six types of learning it supports
• The size of the student group
• The type of teacher-student interaction
• The source of any feedback
• The hours students spend on that activity

To calculate the teacher time the modeller asks you to estimate, for each activity:

• The amount of time it takes to prepare that activity
• The time it takes to support it (presenting, guiding, marking, etc.)
• The number of students in the group
• The number of students in the cohort

You do this for each of 3 runs of the course. This is because preparation time is usually higher for the first run, than for subsequent runs.

The modeller produces a report to represent the nature of the learning experience, and the total teaching cost for the course plan as defined. Then you can change the data to create a different outcome, and compare different models, until you are satisfied you have the best way of using teacher and student time.

The modeller was originally developed as part of the Learning Design Support Environment project (RES-139-25-0406 Technology Enhanced Learning) funded by ESRC/EPSRC. The current development as a stand–alone tool is funded through the Higher Education Innovation Fund at the Institute of Education.