Important points for the lessons
Comparing a lesson as described above with a chapter or section of the printed course may lead to think that they are one and the same thing. It is not the case! As table 1 shows, there are several differences, which make the preparation of a lesson a significantly different process than preparing a printed course.
Table 1: Differences between printed and Internet course material
| Difference | Cause | Solution |
| The student tends to browse through the material without studying it. | Facility of browsing is a basic feature of the Internet! | In general, slow down the browsing, without interfering with the habits of the student: ask questions, proposes small activities at closely spaced intervals. |
| The student is overwhelmed by the quantity of material. | The Internet format makes it easy to authors to make available a lot of additional material. | Strictly limit the amount of material available ! The material of each lesson needs to be structured in a manner that makes the student aware of the level and significance of the material he is reading. |
In order to strictly limit the amount of material that the student needs to study for each lesson, the following rules have been established for the project.
- Each lesson should comprise no more than 5 to 7 pages of main material (level 1) (not including exercises and self-evaluation)
- It is the intent that the material of the level one account for about 4 points out of total grade of 6. The remaining two grade points can be acquired through exercises and study of the additional material,
- Additional material (level 2) should be made available in the form of links from the main text, but not for more than about 10 to 15 pages.
- Additional references can be made to the printed text or its electronic version (level 3).
It is highly desirable that the student be conducted to study more material than strictly required to pass the course, but this should not be made mandatory, which would be detrimental to students less motivated by the subject matter of the course.