David Sutton, School of Information Systems, University of South Australia, City West Campus, North Terrace, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia. Phone +61 8 83020457 Fax: +61 8 83020992 david.sutton@unisa.edu.au Home Page [HREF1]
World Wide Web, WWW based conference, Electronic Commerce, e-mail, project based delivery, student-centred learning
This article describes experiences with delivering a subject on the Internet by using the WWW, e-mail and a WWW based conference system. The approach not only enabled a subject to be delivered without the use of paper but also enabled communication and discussion to take place without the need to hold traditional classes.
The use of the Internet and the World Wide Web in particular are being increasingly used to deliver tertiary subjects in a more flexible delivery mode. The potential for the use of the Internet to supplement or replace traditional methods of delivery for distance education is being recognised. One problem associated with such delivery is the reduced opportunities for students to interact with each other and the lecturer. The use of Internet technologies such as e-mail, interactive web pages and WWW based conference facilities allow communication and interaction for both distance education or flexibly delivered on campus education. The subject Electronic Commerce was delivered using these methods enabling a subject to be run without the distribution of information in traditional paper form, with minimal formal contact with students and still allowed significant student interaction and discussion.
The subject Electronic Commerce was first presented in semester 2 1996 and subsequently in Semester 1 1997. It is offered as an elective by the, School of Information Systems [HREF2], a school in the Faculty of Business and Management [HREF3], University of South Australia [HREF4]. It is primarily taken by students in the Bachelor of Business(MIS) [HREF5] but is also taken by a significant number of students in other awards [HREF6] offered by the Faculty. The only assumed knowledge is the subject Business Information Systems an introductory Information Systems subject taken by all students in the Faculty of Business and Management.
This subject aims to:
For the delivery of the subject the aims were:
The subject aims and the delivery aims were met by:
The web pages were developed using MS FrontPage. This enabled a site to be developed quickly and efficiently. The FrontPage Explorer enabled the site to be managed effectively and was particularly effective in identifying broken links on the site. On-line forms were also developed quickly and easily. These forms included:
This web site was the prime source of information for students replacing the traditional information booklets, printed notes etc. It also contained links to relevant University policies (assessment, plagiarism etc). Any clarification or discussion on the content of the subject was either the WWW based conference (see below), by e-mail to the lecturer or the occasional personal contact by telephone or personal appointment.
All student projects were submitted as HTML documents and were made available on the web site
From the server logs the subject homepage was visited 2,998 (Table 4) during the semester or an approximate average of 80 visits per student assuming all visits were by members of the class.
To enable discussion between students WWW conference software was used. The software used was WebBoard HREF7 from O'Reilly and Associates HREF8. This software enable "conferences" or discussion groups to be created. These conferences are similar in nature to on-line bulletin boards or newsgroups, it allowed the posting of messages, posting of replies or follow-ups to messages, tracking of unread messages etc. Users must register to get a username before they can participate in a conference. If a conference is closed the moderator of the conference must allow the user access to the conference. It also allowed users to create personal profiles and keeps some statistics on user usage etc.
For this subject a number of conferences were created. These allowed discussion on
The conference software was accessed 4,689 times (Table 4) by students and lecturer during the semester. There were 496 messages posted (Table 3) and activity in the conference can measured by the large number of "connects" (Table 3) to the software ie the reading of messages etc in addition to the posting of messages.
E-mail was used as an important means of communication. While there are no figures on the use for student to student e-mail, the lecturer received 598 messages from students (Table 2) during the semester. This e-mail consisted of enquiries, questions, etc from students as well as the submission of assignments.
Students submitted their assignments by attaching their HTML documents to an e-mail message that was then sent to the lecturer.
As this subject was not offered in any other mode it was not possible to compare the relatively high level of communication, by both e-mail and the conference facility, with a "more traditional" mode of delivery. This would be an interesting area for further research.
The subject was project based requiring students to complete four projects.
The first two projects were individual projects; the last two were group projects. Projects were submitted as e-mail attachments and made available on the subject web pages. Students were encouraged to discuss and provide feedback on all projects using the WWW based conference facility.
Access to the Internet is a mandatory requirement for students. The University provides access to internal WWW servers from the computer pools to all students. "Extended" access ie access to WWW servers outside of the University is provided to students if schools pay a fee per student. Of the 38 students in the subject 29 relied on the computer pools while the remainder had private access or arranged private access for this subject (Table 1).
The demand on computer pools of course increases for this mode of delivery while at the same time reducing demand on other infrastructure (lecture rooms etc). This increased demand is of concern as the resources are limited and can only be reduced if students arrange private access to the Internet.
As the ability to create HTML documents is an essential requirement of the subject suitable HTML authoring tools were necessary. It was also a requirement to be able to create these documents with no or minimal knowledge of HTML markup. Microsoft Internet assistant for Word was used on campus, this proved an effective way for students to create HTML documents as it is integrated with MS Word and requires little knowledge of HTML markup. Students who had computers at home also used MS Internet Assistant or other editors such as Netscape Navigator Gold.
Students with minimal tuition were able to very quickly create HTML documents with such tools.
As the mode of delivery of the subject was aimed at reducing the need for formal contact some classes were still held:
The sessions in the computer pools enabled students to quickly gain confidence with the use of WWW browsers and HTML tools. Thus the initial confusion and problems often encountered when introducing new software to students were able to be resolved quickly.
On the completion of the subject students were asked to complete an evaluation questionnaire presented as a web form. Twelve students completed the questionnaire with them all being enthusiastic about the subject and its method of delivery. Students enjoyed the flexibility provided by the approached used in the subject, enjoyed the WWW based conference facility and those with Internet access from home appreciated being able to undertake the subject and participate in discussion from home. Students also felt the level and form of assessment on the subject was appropriate.
The use of the Internet and the World Wide Web in particular, together with the use of a WWW based conference system and e-mail allowed a subject to be delivered in a very flexible manner and enable student communication and feedback. However the limited availability of on campus resources is a limiting factor in on campus delivery. While student feedback on the approach was positive, it was not possible to directly compare the approach with a more "traditional" mode of delivery for this subject.
Total |
Work |
ISP |
Uni Pools |
38 |
1 |
8 |
29 |
Table 1:Student Access to the Internet
| Home | 434 |
| Office | 164 |
| Total | 598 |
Table 2: E-mail Messages Sent by Students to Lecturer
Msgs Posted |
Avg Msgs Posted per student |
Min Msgs Posted per student |
Max Msgs Posted per student |
Total Connects |
Avg Connects per student |
Min Connects per student |
Max Connects per student |
496 |
13 |
0 |
37 |
39859 |
1049 |
89 |
3502 |
Table 3: Student Usage of the Conference (from conference database)
Page |
Requests |
| Subject Home Page | 2,998 |
| Conference | 4,689 |
Table 4: Visits (sourced from web server logs)
Sutton D, Christie A and Marriot P, "Creating a Networked Interactive Learning Environment" Asia Pacific World Wide Web Conference September 1995
Sutton, D and Dano, M. "Disseminating Research through the World Wide Web".AusWeb96 - Second Australian World Wide Web Conference, July 7-9, 1996
David Sutton ©, 1997. The author assigns to Southern Cross University and other educational and non-profit institutions a non-exclusive licence to use this document for personal use and in courses of instruction provided that the article is used in full and this copyright statement is reproduced. The authors also grants a non-exclusive licence to Southern Cross University to publish this document in full on the World Wide Web and on CD-ROM and in printed form with the conference papers, and for the document to be published on mirrors on the World Wide Web. Any other usage is prohibited without the express permission of the authors.