Compare it, for example, with the breadth of courses coming under the banner of CTI Engineering. This focused community made it easier to make an impact, yet focused can also mean small. A small discipline with a particularly strong emphasis on scholarship is a daunting prospect for an initiative that is fundamentally about improving the quality of teaching. Far from a backwater in computer-based teaching innovation, economics has been at the forefront. There are some excellent recent examples of innovative approaches such as John Taylor's Elementary Economics course videos or Manfred Gartner's companion site for the Primer in European Macroeconomics textbook.
Good teachers lie at the heart of good computer-based learning.
The economics discipline has also led the way in demonstrating that effective computer-based materials need not be designed with bespoke tools. Excel can become a teaching tool more readily, and in many cases as effectively, than ToolBook. Whiz bang features and graphics might catch the eye, but even Nintendo generation students quickly tire of empty animation. A whiz bang software package can be trumpeted as a multimedia teaching solution and offer more animation than Disney but still fail. Once the novelty wears off it is the content that determines its efficacy.