Web courses fail the test, say researchers

Most on-line education courses get failing grades according to
a survey by University of British Columbia researchers.

The Web has enormous potential for education, but most of what
is now available is little short of a travesty, says Roger Boshier,
a professor in the Dept. of Educational Studies.

“Some Web courses are an unmitigated bore and represent little
more than lecture notes posted on the Web. At the other extreme
are those laced with links, animation and more than enough glitter
and glam to make Liberace wince,” he says.

Boshier and graduate students in the Adult Education Research Centre
surveyed 127 Web courses to see how they measured up.

Their study resulted in an academic paper, but also tongue-in-cheek
presentations of a Madonna award for the best dressed site and a
Drab and Nameless award for the worst dressed.

Ideally, Boshier says, “The Web can function less like a traditional
classroom and more like a library where a person can browse, talk
with people involved with the program and others not in the course
but with similar interests.”

Most of the courses they surveyed were based at universities and
colleges, mainly in the United States, but also in Canada, Australia
and the United Kingdom. Topics ran the gamut of science, business,
computers, social sciences and education.

The researchers found that disappointingly few courses used much
of the Web’s interactive capability. Many merely try to replicate
a face-to-face course, filling their Web site with lecture notes
and other text. Some were difficult to navigate or even read. Others
had muddled concepts and lacked links to other sites or potential
for students to provide feedback.

The best courses, on the other hand, were easy to navigate, involved
high levels of interaction, rewarded creativity and made use of
the enormous resources of the Web. Some of their features included
graphics, animation, video, audio, threaded discussions, student
chat rooms, e-mail, space to post student work and hotlinks to other
relevant sites.

“More creative courses had learners leave the home site to do research
on relevant sites, then post their findings for all learners to
use,” Boshier said.

For example, a University of Texas geology course has students
use the Web to locate an earthquake that has occurred in the previous
24 hours. Working in groups, they answer a series of questions about
it and then post the results for all to see.

Boshier and his colleagues gave the Madonna award to a history
course at the University of Wisconsin. The worst site was judged
to be a Illinois State University education course.

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