- If you are looking for a tutorial about editing Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Tutorial.
A tutorial may simply refer to a list of instructions or tips for how to do any of a wide variety of tasks. One example of this would be the Wikipedia:Tutorial mentioned above.
In British academic parlance, a tutorial is a small class of one, or only a few, students, in which the tutor (a professor or other academic staff member) gives individual attention to the students. The tutorial system at Oxford and Cambridge is fundamental to methods of teaching at those universities, but it is by no means peculiar to them (although it is rare for newer universities in the UK to have the resources to offer individual tuition). At Cambridge, a tutorial is known as a supervision.
In some Canadian universities, such as York University or the University of Toronto, a tutorial refers to something more like an American discussion section, that is, a class of between 12-18 students that is supplemental to a large lecture course, which gives the students the opportunity to discuss the lectures and/or additional readings in smaller groups. These tutorials are often led by graduate students, normally known as a "Teaching Assistant" or "TA", though it is not unknown for the primary instructor of a course, even if a full professor, to take a tutorial.
In computing, a tutorial is a computer program whose purpose it is to assist users in learning how to use (parts of) a software product such as an office suite or any other application, operating system interface, programming tool, or game. There are two kinds of software tutorials: movie tutorials that you watch, and interactive tutorials where you follow on-screen instructions (and in some cases watch short instruction movies), whereupon you do the tutorial exercises and get feedback depending on your actions.
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Last updated: 05-18-2005 12:48:40
