Duncan has also been involved in the development of computer assisted learning and particularly computer based health education. His leadership in this field began at the State University of New York at Brockport, where he collaborated with Robert S. Gold in developing the first course on computers in health education offered at any college. In 1980, he and Gold published two papers that spurred interest in the use of computers in health education. One of these papers was the first publication to suggest that microprocessors, as personal computers were then known, could be preferable to mainframe terminals for use in computer assisted learning. A few years later, Duncan and Gold, then at Southern Illinois University, taught the nation's first college-level course on PC-based methods in education. Three years later, Duncan argued for the value of portable computers, which were just being introduced, for educational and data collection applications. He also pioneered the use of roleplaying games on the PC and internet for use in both health education and data collection.