Using the Web: a discussion of some of the non-technical factors to be taken into account when designing web sites intended to support courses taught primarily in face-to-face mode

Abstract

The face of higher education is changing with a strong (and growing) pressure on academics to incorporate web technologies into their teaching. Based on our experience with, and the student evaluation of, a web site designed to complement a traditionally delivered course, this paper offers some practical tips to academics contemplating posting teaching material onto the Web for the first time. The paper discusses some of the factors to be taken into account when determining how much material to post on the Web, includes some hints to reduce the time course coordinators may otherwise have to spend dealing with students inexperienced in web use, discusses some of the factors influencing students’ willingness to actively contribute to newsgroups and briefly identifies some of the issues requiring careful consideration in relation to pedagogy and copyright.