The most compelling advantages of CourseWare are in logistics. Serving lessons over the Web from a central server, the academic departments escape the business of equipping and staffing computer classrooms, and supporting and distributing software. The basic idea is to provide software that requires no learning curve, nor any specific platform, nor software installation or user-side maintenance. This frees the programmers to program rather than support computer classrooms, the instructors to write prose lessons rather than software, and the teaching assistants and students to focus on science rather than the tools. This clean alignment of effort, motivation, talent, and expense can change computer-based instruction from an expensive ordeal to an inexpensive pleasure for all parties.
Ecosystems involve complex feedback interactions between the environment and numerous species.
However, the math to handle complexity is beyond the target undergraduates. The faculty has determined to use computer-based instruction to bridge the gap. The challenges in this aren't specific to ecology. Professors and teaching assistants can't provide expert support, and technical backup is hard to arrange. Each piece of software, no matter how excellent, is unique - another learning curve for all parties.