Introduction
Education over the Internet is going to be so big it is going to make e-mail usage look like a rounding error.
John Chambers, Cisco Systems, New York Times, November 17, 1990
Web-based courses (Mesher, 1999) are defined as those where the entire course is taken on the Internet. In some courses, there may be an initial meeting for orientation. Proctored exams may also be given, either from the source of the Web-based course or off-site at a testing facility. The Internet-based course becomes a virtual classroom with a syllabus, course materials, chat space, discussion list, and e-mail services (Resmer, 1999). Navarro (2000) provides a further definition: a fully interactive, multimedia approach. Current figures indicate that 12% of Internet users in the United States use the Internet to take an online course for credit toward a degree of some kind (Horrigan, 2006). That number is indicative of the rapid proliferation of online courses over the past several years.
The Web-enhanced course is a blend with the components of the traditional class while making some course materials available on a Web site, such as course syllabi, assignments, data files, and test reviews. Additional elements of a Web-enhanced course can include online testing, a course listserver, instructor-student e-mail, collaborative activities using RSS feeds and related technologies, and other activities on the Internet.
One of the biggest concerns about Web-based courses is that users will become socially isolated. The Pew Internet and America Life Project found that online communities provide a vibrant social community (Horrigan, Rainie, & Fox, 2001). Clearly, students are not concerned or feel that other benefits outweigh the potential drawbacks. According to government research (Waits and Lewis, 2003), during the 2000-2001 academic year alone, an estimated 118,100 different credit courses were offered via distance education (with the bulk of that using Internet-based methods) by 2-and 4-year institutions in the United States. Over 3 million students were registered in these courses.
Navarro (2000) suggests that faculty members are far more likely to start by incorporating Internet components into a traditional course rather than directly offering Web-based courses. These Web-enhanced courses might be considered the transition phase to the new paradigm of Internet-based courses. Rich learning environments are being created, with a shift from single tools to the use of multiple online tools, both to enhance traditional courses and to better facilitate online courses (Teles, 2002).
background
A 1999 research study showed that 27.3% of the faculty members thought they used the Internet for the delivery of course materials, but only 15.6% actually did so. Of this group, the major use was simply the substitution of a Web page for the printed page. Most faculty members (73.8%) updated their sites so infrequently that the sites only served to replicate printed handouts. In a follow-up study at the same university, the number of faculty who used Web pages to enhance their courses showed a decrease from the previous year (Garrett, Lundgren, & Nantz, 2000). In the same study, 22% of the faculty were never planning to use a Web site for delivery of any portion of their courses. Less than 5% were truly incorporating Web technology into their courses in a meaningful way. Lee Raines, Director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project notes that the role of experts, such as teachers, has changed. The Internet has empowered amateurs. New teaching models and methods have developed as educators try to adjust to changing student attitudes (Rainie, 2006). The new educational model becomes “the net-savvy, well-connected, teacher-independent end-user” (Castells, p. 20).
Overall, Internet penetration for U.S. adults is up to 73% as of April 2006, up 9% in just one year. In addition, “… the 40% in home broadband adoption from March 2005 to March 2006 is double the 20% rate of increase that occurred from March 2004 to March 2005″ (Horrigan, 2006). For college age degreed adults, 91% go online regularly (Rainie, 2006). Researchers at Ball State University found that 30% of a waking day is spent with media as the sole activity with an additional 39% spent with media combined with some other activity (“Average.”, 2005). Fully one third of all Internet users in the U.S. say that the Internet has greatly improved the way they pursue hobbies and interests (Madden, 2006) and each day 44% of all Americans are online at some point, up from 36% in 2002 (Horrigan & Rainie, 2006).
Part of the expectation of the current college population is that two-way technologies are the norm (instant messaging, Weblogs, and online journaling, for example) and that online communities provide a rich environment for information sharing. According to Pew data, almost half of Internet users access listservs, RSS feeds, and bulletin boards to stay engaged. This shift to more collaborative tools provides new opportunities but creates numerous challenges. Learning management systems (LMS) are adding collaborative tools to reflect the changing habits of Internet users. All of the popular LMS tools, such as WebCT, Blackboard, and Moodle provide for online discussions, information posting, group assignments, synchronous chats, interactive quizzes, and a closed e-mail system. Students perceive collaborative activities, both synchronous and asynchronous, as cutting edge. Castell and Wellman refer to this synchronous and asynchronous environment as “networked individualism” (Castells, p. 20). In Figure 1, Garrett (2006) presents a breakdown of the myriad tools available in various combinations of synchronous/asynchronous and interactive/non-interactive. With these tools available in an almost endless variety of combinations, classroom experiences can be tailored to suit the content as well as the student learning styles (see Baggaley, 2003, for some examples).
Clearly, there are many compelling reasons to use Web-based resources in a course including greater efficiency in the delivery of materials, providing up-to-the-minute content, enhanced status for the course and faculty, fostering student-to-student collaboration, and the use of technologies with which the students are increasingly familiar and comfortable.
Despite the quantum leap in Internet technology adoption, some of the familiar problems still exist. Faculty still must adapt to a looser teaching environment. No longer are lectures delivered from a raised lectern, enough. The expectation by students is that the classroom paradigm has shifted, and faculty must adapt to a looser, more flexible teaching environment. Some of the issues inhibiting the use of Web-based resources include: lack of faculty knowledge of Web page design, html, server sites, and file transfer protocols (Nantz & Lundgren, 1998); perceived need for Web glitz to provide entertainment along with content such as highly interactivity, animation, audio, and video streaming; lack of accessibility to Web resources for both faculty and students (Rao & Rao, 1999); sufficient training for faculty (Rups, 1999); and compensation for cyberprofs who typically spend twice as much time developing and teaching Web-based courses for no extra pay (Navarro, 2000).
Carr notes that the high drop rates in online courses may result from faculty inexperience with the new classroom paradigm (Carr, 2000). Also, the need to continually retool to stay even with the student use of technology is daunting.
Illinois State University identified five major issues driving Web-delivered courses:
• Technology needs to be driven by sound pedagogical goals.
• Technology tools need to address a specific pedagogical task with technical expertise available.
• Faculty want and need to interact with peers who are doing similar tasks.
• Hardware must support teaching without frustrating students and faculty.
• Faculty need recognition for technology adoption (“Average.”. 2005).
A Course Web Site Classification
Courses using Web-based resources can be classified in six different levels. At the top levels are the Internet-based classes (i.e., the course was created and organized to be Web delivered). The middle levels involve a Web class that uses the Internet for delivery of content and communication among the course registrants, but also uses face-to-face meetings for some classes, orientation, and testing. At the lowest level, some course materials are simply presented in a hypertext format that replace traditional printed handouts. Table 1 shows the classification levels of academic Web pages by typical content and maintenance levels.
Figure 1. Instructional Communication
| Non-interactive | Interactive | |
| Discussion | ||
| Lecture | Managed Meetings | |
| Synchronous | Web casts | IRC Chat |
| Videos | Internet Messaging (IM) | |
| Webinars | ||
| Discussion Boards | ||
| Podcasts / Vodcasts | Weblogs | |
| Asynchronous | Webcasts | RSS Feeds / Syndication |
| Wikis | Cellular Text Messaging (SMS) |
Table 1. Classification of academic Web pages
| Level | Description | Typical Content | Maintenance Level Required |
| 1 | Traditional course presentation, basic-level course materials on Web—internal links | Instructor data (name, phone, office hours, e-mail address)
course materials (syllabus, generic schedule, assignments); non-interactive |
Low—static pages after initial upload.
Low-volume e-mail correspondence. |
| 2 | Traditional course presentation—intermediate-level course materials on Web—external links | All Level 1
Some external links, such as textbook and reference sites; non-interactive. |
Low—mostly static pages with occasional updates and checking of external links. Low-volume e-mail correspondence. |
| 3 | Traditional enhanced course presentation—intermediate-level course materials on Web and Web content delivery | All Level 2
All traditional course materials posted. Web access in class used for delivery of some course content. Some assignments/requirements involve interaction, e.g., e-mail submissions, listserv postings. |
Weekly updates to schedule, FAQ, course materials, notes to students. Medium-volume e-mail correspondence. |
| 4 | Traditional enhanced course presentation—complete Web content and materials | All Level 3
Course Presentations and lectures dynamically available on Web. Data files, links, programs on Web for students. Forms for student “reply” assignments, course evaluations, etc. Link to course grades. |
2-3 times per week. Regular updating of grades. Medium-volume e-mail correspondence. |
| 5 | Web-delivered course with orientation and testing meetings | All Level 4 plus any additional materials to allow for full Web delivery of course including audio and video augmentation; multimedia CD’s. Few or no regular classes—orientation meeting may be necessary.
Testing may be proctored off-site or unproctored on the Web. |
Daily maintenance and access by instructor.
High-level of e-mail correspondence. Regular updating of grades and course materials. |
| 6 | Virtual class | All Level 5 plus online testing and orientation. Discussion, chat groups, list serve, e-mail, and other interactive tools;. Teleconferencing. No class meetings. | Substantial daily maintenance (average 1-3 hours) by instructor including all course aspects. High-level of e-mail correspondence. |
The six levels previously presented indicate progression from the most basic Web-enhanced course to a course delivered fully on the Internet. Faculty would likely proceed through the levels to reach level 4 for traditional classes unless limited by resources, expertise, and administrative factors. Levels 5 and 6 require significant changes in the academic structure and considerable support of the academic computing environment. The following table summarizes the resources that would be involved in the process of moving courses to the Web.
Although Table 2 shows a summary of the typical resources faculty need to develop Web course materials at varying levels, there are other elements that will be just as important in achieving a specific level of Web course expertise. The following list illustrates some of the issues involved. For a more comprehensive discussion, see Nantz and Lundgren (2003).
Issues Inhibiting web-Enhanced courses and Recommendations
• Be realistic about your own level of expertise and the instructional support you have available. Convert print-based materials to html using Word or some other familiar software. Once a comfort level is achieved, incorporate other html code using simple programs like Netscape Composer. Cut and paste code from sample Web pages. Extend knowledge to knowledge of common gateway interface (CGI) scripts, Java, or XML (Extensible Markup Language). Use university’s instructional support personnel to help you set up simple Web pages that are at your comfort level for maintenance.
Table 2. Resources involved in moving to the Web
| Level | Description | Resources Needed |
| 1 | Traditional course presentation, basic-level course materials on Web—internal links | Basic computer literacy, Web browsing experience. Course site can be created by the faculty member, professional designers, by use of Web course applications such as BlackBoard, WebCT, or the open-source Moodle. |
| 2 | Traditional course presentation—intermediate-level course materials on Web—external links | Experience with preceding level. Web application packages can be extended or with additional training, a general Web development package like MS FrontPage or DreamWeaver can be used. |
| 3 | Traditional enhanced course presentation—intermediate-level course materials on Web and Web content delivery | Experience with preceding level. Commitment to regular maintenance. Knowledge of e-mail attachments, listserv maintenance, or other interactive Web applications. Both Web application and general Web development packages can be extended for this level. |
| 4 | Traditional enhanced course presentation—complete Web content and materials | Experience with preceding level. Professional Web applications may not be able to accommodate this level without considerable difficulty. Usually requires considerable expertise with general Web development packages and some knowledge of HTML and programming concepts include Javascript, ASP, and XML. In addition, a working knowledge of social networking tools such as blogs and wikis, RSS feeds, and XML might be helpful. |
| 5 | Web-delivered course with
orientation and testing meetings |
All of the above. No additional faculty resources required; academic structural change to allow for registration and other student activities online. |
| 6 | Virtual class | Use of a sophisticated commercial Web course package that allows for secure online testing; considerable administrative support and faculty expertise in the selected package. |
• Be realistic about the cost in time and money to maintain course Web sites. The development of a full Web-delivered course may be as high as $115,000 (Navarro, 2000). Marchese (1998) suggests a range of $12,000 to $90,000 per credit hour. Any Web platform provider will charge a licensing fee, which may be based on the number of students. The equivalent of a 1-hour lecture may require 24 hours for writing, recording, and editing and up to 162 hours for full multi-media support.
• Be realistic about your access and the students’ access to technology. Any administration who wants Web-delivered coursework must provide adequate technology to support it, either through on-campus servers or an off-campus Web host. Do not assume that all students have broadband connections at home, or their own computers on which to install specialized software.
• Be realistic about converting paper-based content to Web content. A direct conversion usually doesn’t work well. The visual indicators on printed materials (headers, footers, page numbering) don’t convert well to html. Content and access must be re-evaluated. Powerpoint slides can be posted, but good slide design means key points only. Substantial notes must be provided to expand on the slides. Some students see the notes as ancillary and don’t get the depth of content. Text-based sites are seen as boring. An academic course site that simply creates text on a Web page defeats the purpose of using Web pages—of having the ability to create links to interesting sites, to provide graphics, to provide sound and video. Providing hundreds of pages of text is the death knell for a Web class.
• Be realistic about the use of Web-based multimedia materials. Unless these are professionally developed by staff that are familiar with the software, they are often viewed by students as low-quality even through they can be extremely time-consuming to produce. Overuse of multimedia can be counterproductive and can also become a storage and transmission burden, as multimedia can consume large amounts of storage and bandwidth. A good balance of quality multimedia with other materials can significantly enhance learning in a class, but great care must be taken in the selection and application of the media.
• Be realistic about your expectations of a Web-enhanced course. Our research shows that when course content is placed on the Web, student attendance will drop by as much as 50%. Students see printing Web pages as a substitute for class attendance (Lundgren & Lundgren, 1996).
• Keep in mind that students may be more familiar with the technologies than you are. Many of them have grown up with technology and are more used to it than their older instructors. Recent statistics (Hitlin & Rainie, 2005) show that 87% of people in the U.S. aged 12 to 17 use the Internet and 78% of those have used it at school. Students, for example, are used to social networking and peer-to-peer collaboration, and studies show that they prefer synchronous interaction (such as instant messaging) to asynchronous interaction, such as e-mail (Lenhart, Madden, & Hitlin, 2005). You can use that to your advantage in a course if you use such tools as blogs, wikis, and RSS feeds (Harrsch, 2003), which are highly collaborative tools. These allow a higher degree of asynchronous collaboration than was previously possible and the technologies can be implemented at low cost. Similarly, instant messaging and chats provide the ability for synchronous interaction that is very much a part of the lives of many college students. This familiarity can be leveraged for classroom use with appropriate, and often free and readily available, software tools.
• Be realistic about the stability of the technology. Over 90% of instructors report frequent problems (Navarro, 2000). You can’t expect to use transparencies as a backup to an interactive lecture with dynamic linking. Especially with the vulnerability of the Internet and servers to virus and worm threats, there will be times when the Internet is down or so slow that interactivity isn’t possible. Plan for technical problems and have a contingency plan that is communicated to students.
• Be realistic about the reward system for incorporating technology. If you are at an institution where research is valued more than teaching, then you may need to forego creating Web content. Navarro (2000) also notes that “cyberprofs” are reporting strong negative reactions from their colleagues. If you are sitting in your office answering student e-mail or creating course content, you don’t appear to be teaching.
• Make sure intellectual property and royalty procedures are clearly spelled out. Many faculty do not consider the issue of copyright and intellectual property when course materials are developed (Rueter, 2001). Most faculty believe they own their own course materials. This is often not the case. The issue becomes even muddier when entire courses are delivered on the Web (levels 5 and 6). A course that you developed could be offered by the university with someone else teaching it, without your consent or knowledge. Earnings from distance learning are viewed quite differently by faculty and administration (Guernsey & Young, 2001). • Make sure you and your administration agree what ” quality” teaching is. Age-old tenets of quality teaching include meaningful discussion, question and answer discourse, and significant teacher-student interaction. If faculty develop a Web-enhanced course following the myth of preserving student interaction, they will be quickly mired in Web activities that consume the majority of their time with no observable educational payoff. The less subtle problems that stem from a lack of administrative understanding include difficulties in obtaining resources, especially released time for the initial development of a Web class, lack of understanding about how many hours are needed to run the course when you aren’t standing in front of a classroom, e-mail overhead, managing list serves, problems in obtaining reasonable hardware and software to develop and maintain a Web course, and the number of students that should be placed in the section.
future trends
As younger, more computer-literate faculty emerges, there will be a slow and steady move toward the incorporation of Internet components into university courses. Many educational pundits believe that we are moving into a new learning paradigm with the integration of technology into our schools (Von Holzen, 2000). This new educational model envisions a complete shift in course delivery from the traditional lecture classroom to on-demand, flexible learning through the use of telecommunications technology or “just-in-time” learning. In this paradigm, the faculty will become the designers of interactive course materials.
conclusion
With this new paradigm, many of the issues discussed in this chapter may take care of themselves. In the meantime, faculty who are considering Web-enhanced or Web-delivered courses need to be aware of the issues. But, most of all, we believe that learning is more than just content delivery; we need to create learning environments whether they are in the classroom or in cyberspace.*
*This article is based on work originally published by the authors and Terry D. Lundgren.
KEY TERMS
HTML (Hypertext Markup Language): This is the foundation protocol for the world wide Web (WWW) that allows text, images, links, and other materials to be combined together into a single presentation.
LMS (Learning Management Systems): Also known as content management systems, these systems combine a variety of collaborative features into a single user interface, making it easier to administer and design content (faculty) and access and use (students). There are a number of commercial and open-source systems available with the most well known being WebCT and Blackboard (commercial), and Moodle (open-source).
RSS (Really Simple Syndication or, alternatively, Rich Site Summary (the former is the preferred term and is in wider use): This technology is based upon XML and is designed to facilitate the syndication, aggregation, and consumption of Web-based content.
Web-Based Course: A course, which is delivered entirely by electronic methods such as the Internet.
Web-Enhanced Course: A traditional course with some electronic enhancements, such as Web pages for course syllabi, data files, and test reviews.
XML (Extensible Markup Language): This markup language, which is much more robust than html, is used for numerous different applications but is primarily known as a container for networked database information and the foundation of RSS.
