Net-based Continuing Education: What It Takes
By Karen G. Schneider
American Libraries Columnist
Author of A Practical Guide to Internet Filters (Neal-Schuman, 1997)
Column for March 1998
Do you meet as a group, or do you use e-mail to communicate one-on-one? These two prevailing types of Net-based continuing education (CE)—also called synchronous and asynchronous—speak to different circumstances and preferences for schools and students alike. Both synchronous and asynchronous CE also have intriguing challenges whose solutions may help push our profession forward.
Anytime, anyplace
Asynchronous courses have their fans. These courses—usually e-mail-based, often with supporting material provided over the Web—are relatively less demanding of technology, and therefore less expensive all around, than their Web-based counterparts. Typically, students are sent coursework by e-mail and communicate with their class through e-mail discussion lists, participating in discussions and completing assignments on their own schedules.
Some students find e-mail-based instruction fits their needs. Not all students own equipment capable of supporting Web-based instruction; this is particularly true overseas, and would be the case for anyone on a very limited budget. Additionally, CE students may have jobs or family lives that make attending a class in realtime (even over the Web) unrealistic.
Darlene Peckham, a consultant with Library Management Systems who used asynchronous CE to redirect her career path, says, "Online education was much easier. . . . Since I was traveling a lot, I could log in from a hotel data port and feel like I was connected to my class." Ann S. Owens, an information services librarian at Sacramento Public Library, who finished a similar course to refresh her skills, said, "E-mail worked for me because I could work on the lessons at my own speed, and when time allowed."
April Bohannan, an assistant professor at the School of Library and Information Studies at Texas Woman's University, pointed out the accessibility of asynchronous classes for geographically remote students. "Texas is a big state," she said, "and many of our students live hundreds of miles away. We have one in Germany and one in Istanbul this semester as well."
Together as one
More recently, however, some library and information science programs, including the University of Illinois, Syracuse University, and University of Wisconsin/Madison, are emphasizing synchronous instruction, using a variety of Net-based tools to create courses where students meet--sometimes in person at the beginning of a semester, sometimes electronically in digital classrooms, and sometimes through both means.
The fiscal and technical stakes are much higher for synchronous instruction. Karen Melville of the Faculty of Information Studies at the University of Toronto pointed out that Web-based courses "call for strong systems support, which CE coordinators may not have."
Web-based instruction also takes more preliminary work, according to a number of instructors. Jane Pearlmutter, outreach program manager at the University of Wisconsin/Madison, who is developing two courses for the spring semester, said that "from the instructor's point of view, I can already tell you that course development time is greatly increased in the new format."
According to Melville, this means "you have to have confidence that the course will earn enough to repay your capital investment in it." This could potentially have a dampening effect on course development by pushing schools to only offer "sure bets" for their distance-learning courses.
Still, for many instructors and students, it isn't class unless you meet as a group for regularly scheduled lecture and discussion--whether you do this in person or electronically. The LEEP3 students I profiled last month made this quite clear, and messages I received after the column was published underscored this. Camille DelVecchio of the Penfield (N.Y.) Public Library, who praised the program at Syracuse University, emphasized that "the school requires an on-campus stay three times a year, which added a lot to the experience." Isabel Danforth, reference librarian at Wethersfield (Ct.) Public Library and coordinator of LOST (the Librarians' Online Support Team), hosts realtime, MOO-based discussion groups and courses for librarians that provide a sense of connection and place, essential for LOST's participants (MOO is a type of interactive chat).
Students who were dissatisfied with asynchronous instruction added their own compelling reasons for recreating a more traditional classroom in a digital context. Norma Walters, an interlibrary loan assistant at Mount Hood Community College Library in Gresham, Oregon, said she didn't "get the satisfaction or energy from [e-mail-based instruction] the way I do when learning in a room with other people."
Janet Crum, a bibliographic and database services librarian at Oregon Health Sciences University, pointed out the limits of a class that does not carve out time specifically for study and classroom experience. Janet started an e-mail-based asynchronous class with the "best of intentions"; but "because there were no actual class meetings...the daily demands of my job slowly pushed out the work for the workshop." After all, the reason many of us return to school periodically is to give ourselves clear-cut time to study and interact with students.
Leveling the playing field
However it is delivered, Net-based instruction introduces one particular problem now being mulled over by the leaders in the arena of digital distance education: unequal access to the supplemental resources essential for a quality educational experience. As Camille DelVecchio remarked, "I'd say the biggest weakness for the distance learner is access to libraries." Bernie Sloan, senior library information systems consultant at the University of Illinois Office for Planning and Budgeting, put it as a question: "If you offer an electronic course for on-campus students, they theoretically have access to more resources than those who take electronic courses at a distance. How do you try to achieve some sort of parity there?" Expect a column on this topic in a month or two.
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