Cost of Migrating Large-Scale Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) Software to Web Delivery

This paper presents an initial analysis of the duration and effort data collected during the migration of WinEcon, a large-scale CAL package to WWW-based delivery. The paper reviews the data collected during the initial development of WinEcon before presenting the preliminary data collected during the recent migration. The data presented represents a snapshot of the data collection process towards the end of the migration project including an overview of the raw project data in terms of cost, duration and effort. Initial lessons learned from the project will be presented along with the potentially controversial view that conversion of large-scale projects, while feasible, may not represent the most efficient use of resources. The authors will argue that in many cases it may be more efficient to start again rather than migrate and reuse exiting tools and technology.