Astronomy also has a regular flow of discoveries and amazing new images which are rapidly provided to the general public via the web. In many ways astronomers have been among the leaders in scientific use of the web. In preparation for the course we surveyed web offerings of Astronomy courses elsewhere in the world. Most of these occur in the USA where Astronomy courses for non-science majors are popular, although a number of Australian universities now also offer Astronomy as part of a science degree. In general, the results from searching the web were disappointing.
Many courses offer basic information, while some provide features like assignments on-line.
Few use the web to offer anything very innovative, although it is worth noting that Swinburne University will be offering Astronomy Online from 1999. The Sydney Astronomy course was designed to serve a broad group of students ranging from those taking Advanced Junior Physics to Arts and Education students with no Physics background. Of about 135 students, only about half had any university Physics background. We also decided to trial some new features - some of them computer based and some new to the School of Physics. Several of the computer related aspects of the course are described below.