WBT: doing it for yourself

When CBT met the web Battle of the BTs - CBT and WBT go head to head Twin paths - routes to WBT development Going native - developing WBT the web way Where to from here?

Battle of the BTs - CBT and WBT go head to head

Fig 1: A simple multiple choice question built in standard HTML and using
frames to allow the question and feedback to be seen alongside eachother

But most CBT in the past ten years has been off-line, typically using CD-ROMs but, before that, laserdisc or even floppies.

Web-based training is distributed online over an intranet or the World Wide Web. That is its primary characteristic. Having said that, the situation is not clear cut. CBT can be, and has been distributed over local area networks without an intranet and WBT courses can be put on to a CD-ROM if required.

What difference does it make whether the training is offline or online? The answer, a lot.

Offline courses do not suffer from bandwidth limitations. They can employ the full multimedia repertoire, including animation, sound and video. On the World Wide Web, multimedia is still a big disappointment, even using the latest streaming technology.

Online courses, on the other hand, can be delivered anywhere in the world where the Internet is available and to any computer on an organisation’s intranet. As soon as it’s finished, the course is available. Updates are instant and inexpensive. Not so with CD-ROMs, as we all know. And whereas CBT tends to be stand-alone, WBT can incorporate interaction with other humans – tutors, subject matter experts and fellow learners. This is where Internet tools like email, discussion forums and chat rooms can prove really handy.

Delivery
CBT courses are delivered using runtime software peculiar to the authoring system or programming language used to create it. Sometimes license fees have to be paid for this software. Sometimes it is cross-platform – typically for the PC and Macintosh – but often it is platform-specific.

WBT courses are delivered using a browser. Browsers are free and are supposed to be broadly compatible. In fact there are plenty of niggling differences between brands and versions. On the whole, though, WBT courses will run on practically any computer without cost.

Browsers are multi-purpose, familiar and easy-to-use. They also have a great deal of built-in navigational functionality – functionality that has to be hand-built in a proprietary runtime program.

WBT courses can be constructed using the massive array of web development tools on the market, although few of these tools were designed with training in mind (Macromedia's new Dreamweaver Attain being an interesting exception).

Fig 2: Comparing CBT and WBT

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