Some of the the courses that you use will need some extra software on your PC or Mac; these are often referred to as plugins or 'players'. You can also use these players to view other websites on the Internet - particularly those with audio or video content.

In most cases, you can download the players for free from their websites. The links below will take you to the website where you can download each player. Most of these websites will also have a page where you can test the players to see if they have installed correctly. There will be different links to Mac and PC versions of the players.

• Macromedia Flash Player - allows you to view content created with Macromedia Flash.

• Real Player (Real Player Basic) - allows you to play streaming media on your computer, such as movies and animations.

• Macromedia Shockwave - lets you view interactive Web content.

• Authorware Web Player - some courses use Authorware to deliver interactive content.

• Acrobat Reader - allows you to view and print Portable Document Format (PDF) files. These files look the same on screen and in print, regardless of what kind of computer someone is using or the software that was used to create it.

• QuickTime - allows you to view video and sound.

• Sun Java Plugin - if your course uses Java (a programming language), you may need to get the Java plugin for your browser.

Online Course Materials

Some of our online materials use audio to help you to learn; for these courses, your computer will also need to have a soundcard.

A few of our older courses may not be supported against the specification below. This mainly applies to compatibility with Windows XP and Internet Explorer Version 6. The technical information for each course will let you know if the course is compatible with the computer that you are using.

The full specifications currently needed to run our courses are:

• CPU: Pentium 500MHz
• RAM: 128 Mbytes (256MB recommended)
• Hard Drive with 650 Mbytes of free space
• CD drive: 24x speed
• Sound card (16 bit) Speakers or Headphones
• SVGA Graphics card
• 16 bit colour
• Keyboard
• Mouse (Microsoft compatible)
• Operating system: Windows 98, 2000, XP
• Web-enabled using either Internet Explorer (IE6) or Netscape Navigator (v6.2)
• Web connectivity via a 56 kbps modem or a network