Volume 3, Number 1, April 2002

EN:

Corporate managers are constantly looking for more cost-effective ways to deliver training to their employees. E-learning is less expensive than traditional classroom instruction. In addition, many expenses - booking training facilities, travel costs for employees or trainers, plus employee time away from the job - are greatly reduced. However, some firms that have spent large amounts of money on new e-learning efforts have not received the desired economic advantages.

EN:

The idea that Internet-based distance education offers the potential to globalize higher education has not been matched by significant interest in the pedagogical and methodological issues at stake. This essay discusses a two-year experimental course conducted between two college classes in Karlskrona, Sweden and Ohio, in the United States. The goal of this course was to use online debate to augment intercultural understanding. This experiment involved both synchronous and asynchronous computer mediated conferencing (CMC) as well as various types of assignments intended to emphasize the discursive strengths of each CMC form. We discovered, however, that our assumptions about CMC discourse were challenged by the way it developed in our international contexts. Ultimately, we developed and propose a methodology that delimits and makes productive the playful agnostics of synchronous debate by employing asynchronous conferencing for the pre-debate development of common ground and the post-debate development of formal arguments.

EN:

This article introduces the work of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and describes its interest in the application of distance learning strategies pertinent to the challenges of food security and rural development around the world. The article briefly reviews pertinent examples of distance learning, both from the experience of FAO and elsewhere, and summarises a complex debate about the potential of distance learning in developing countries. The paper elaborates five practical suggestions for applying distance learning strategies to the challenges of food security and rural development. The purpose of publishing this article is both to disseminate our ideas about distance learning to interested professional and scholarly audiences around the world, and to seek feedback from those audiences.

EN:

As the educational use of computer mediated communication (CMC) increases there is growing interest among researchers as to social processes evolving within the varied models of group work using Internet, e.g., special interest groups, topical discussion groups, discussion forums attached to virtual courses, and learning communities. In this paper we present a synthetic summary of five studies that explored social climate issues in synchronous and asynchronous online activities in academic courses, focusing on the following questions: Does a social atmosphere develop in online learning discussion groups? What are the different modes of social interaction are manifest in online learning discussion groups? What is the role of the virtual teacher with regards to the social climate in online learning discussion groups? Discussed are the implications of these five studies' on the design of virtual-learning-discussion-groups, and the results for the characterization of teacher moderation functions.

EN:

This article challenges the belief that strong sense of community is limited to the traditional classroom and proposes that the virtual classroom has the potential of building and sustaining sense of community at levels that are comparable to the traditional classroom. Drawing on research literature, the concept of learning community is applied to the virtual classroom by taking on the issue of how best to design and conduct an online course that fosters community among learners who are physically separated from each other. Course design principles are described that facilitate dialogue and decrease psychological distance, thereby increasing a sense of community among learners.

EN:

As in other developing nations, important concerns surrounding education in Indonesia involve two issues: quantity versus quality. Quality concerns have now been somewhat addressed by the establishment of the Indonesian Open Learning University (Universitas Terbuka) in 1984. The concern for quality, however, has not yet been completely resolved. Learning support, believed to be key for achieving good quality distance education, has been limited. This paper presents the results of two pilot projects that examined tutorials provided via Internet and Fax-Internet technologies. It is a report that also shows that the Universitas Terbuka is faced with both visible and invisible challenges. Visible challenges include limitations in the availability of technology infrastructure and issues of inadequate access, while invisible challenges include the readiness of Indonesian people to adopt and take advantage of new technology for educational purposes. Despite the results of the pilot project, it is suggested that Universitas Terbuka should continue to utilize Internet and Fax-Internet as two of its communication channels with students.

EN:

Text-based conferencing can be both asynchronous (i.e., participants log into the conference at separate times), and synchronous (i.e., interaction takes place in real time). It is thus subject to the same wide variation as the online audio- and video-conferencing methods (see the earlier Reports in this series). Synchronous text-based approaches (e.g., online chat groups and instant messaging systems) are highly popular among online users generally owing to their ability to bring together special-interest groups from around the world without cost. In distance education (DE), however, synchronous chat methods are less widely used, owing in part to the problems of arranging for working adults in different time zones to join a discussion group simultaneously. Instant text messaging is more popular among DE users in view of the choice it provides between responding to a message immediately (synchronous communication) or after a delay (asynchronous). The different synchronous and asynchronous approaches are likely to become more widely used in parallel with one another, as they are integrated in individual product packages.

The following comparison stresses the chat and instant messaging features of six integrated conferencing products.

EN:

This report discusses issues of software selection and terminology, highlighting terms that are useful in evaluation studies. A framework for the evaluation of educational software is presented. Links are cited at the end of this article to the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD), and CNET Network’s glossaries of terminology relating to online collaborative methods.

EN:

With students in an “Educational Conferencing” graduate course, a comparison was conducted between the merits of an online collaborative package containing a wide range of features and alternative conferencing software containing only a threaded discussion and search feature only. The responses of fourteen students taking part in the study revealed a clear preference for the simpler approach. The study has implications for the selection of software tools in the design of online course environments and for the re-design of the product ratings system used in the current series of evaluation studies.

EN:

Most of the other reports in this series have featured collaborative tools that were designed for use on PC-compatible platforms, and tested by our evaluation team on these platforms exclusively. This report reviews four integrated software products ensuring “interoperability” between the two major computing systems, PC-compatible and Macintosh. The products are compared in terms of their different levels of interoperability and complexity, as defined by the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD).

EN:

Distance educators are not normally equipped by their training or experience for the complex task of evaluating technologies. One of the areas of potential disadvantage is in interpreting information provided by vendors themselves, and in relating effectively with sales, marketing and technical representatives. An objective and thorough product evaluation requires that information be selected, and sometimes generated, to aid the process. Vendors may agree to provide additional information, including direct experience with their products, if evaluators know what to ask for and what to expect from vendors.