This paper presents a study of trust development in online courses. It reviews the concept of swift trust and examines changes in faculty roles as professors go online. An exploratory content analysis looks at indicators of the development of swift trust in the highest rated of a large number of online courses studied over a three year period, and contrasts these results with one of the poorest rated online courses. Establishing swift trust at the beginning of an online course appears to be related to subsequent course success. Strategies for trust formation are also suggested.

A three-year field study of 17 courses, part of an undergraduate degree in information systems, compared the process and outcomes of three modes of delivery: totally online via asynchronous learning networks, traditional face-to-face courses, and sections using a mix of traditional and online activities. There were no significant differences in perceived learning by students associated with mode of delivery. Group collaboration and access to professors was perceived to be highest in mixed-mode sections, while convenience was rated highest in the distance sections. For online courses, there was generally a significant relationship between the hypothesized mediators (active participation, motivation, collaboration, access to the professor, and convenience) and perceived learning. Overall, the results of this study show that outcomes of online courses improved when professors structured them to support the growth of a learning community, by being available online to interact with students, and by using collaborative learning strategies.

This article describes the development and implementation of an online writing course for advanced ESL students.

Notes that asynchronous online discussion forums can enhance community college students’ education. Focuses on how online discussion forums uniquely contribute to the teaching and learning of community college students. Discusses benefits of the online discussion forum. Concludes that educators must continue identifying who students are, how they learn, and how they want and need to be educated, and then look for ways that technology can help.

E-mail peer response teaches students about audience and text more effectively than synchronous peer response.

To overcome initial fears of technology, it is important to survey teachers, determine their concerns, and then provide training opportunities, including online courses, that illuminate the benefits and outcomes of online learning.

This article explores the possibilities of the paperless classroom achieved through e-mail strategies and the use of Blackboard, an e-learning software platform.

With the help of recent research on teaching with digital technologies, this article critically reflects upon the changes in instruction and identity that occur in computer classrooms, online course supplements, and Internet classes.

Abstract Technical communicators of the new millennium will need to develop certain skills to succeed in international online interactions (IOls), and computer classrooms with online access can help students to develop these skills through direct interaction with materials and individuals from other cultures. This article presents exercises instructors can use to help students develop these particular skills.

Often, new technologies are seen as artifacts whose use is obvious. This study, which builds on Weick's notion that all technologies are equivocal, challenges that assumption. Using a case approach, this research examines how various groups at Far West, a professional school, interpret the implementation of a two-way video and audio videoteleducation (VTE) distance learning system and analyzes why different groups interpreted the technology in fundamentally different ways. From this case data, a model is created that examines the effects that dominant organizational groups’ interpretation and thus conceptualization of VTE have on its system design, support, training, and rewards; measures of effectiveness; and rule generation.

Offers reflections and descriptions of three teaching associates on their experiences in the pilot year of the Guilford Technical Community College Faculty-in-Training Program. Discusses beginning the program, the varied student populations, faculty involvement, and program components (including the observation process, writing center, distance learning, conferences, weekly seminars, and camaraderie).

My aim here is to write out of the experience of “doing philosophy” with graduate students online through an educational web site template called WebCt. WebCt provides me with the ability to custom design a learning environment in which we can read, think, write and share our experiences, sometimes at great physical distance. Writing is the me-dium of communication for every aspect of my online courses. The specific online course I will describe in this paper is ED 501: Philosophy, Education and Ethics. ED 501 is a core requirement in the Graduate Studies Program in Education at Plymouth State College. At the time of this writing, I am teaching two online sections of this course, each with twenty-five students. I have students in Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Honduras and in various areas of the U.S. In the online environment that I’ve designed, “doing philosophy ” is a kind of conduct and that conduct is expressed as writing that we share in various ways. John Dewey wrote in Democracy and Education, “To be the recipient of a communication is to have an enlarged and changed ex-perience. ” Dewey claims that “social life is identical with communica-tion ” and that “all communication is educative ” (1985, p. 8). Although he certainly had in mind face-to-face communication, we accomplish this fact of social life in ED 501 through writing within the online environ-ment. Writing as communication is a form of educative conduct. In a typical semester, ED 501 includes the following writing com-ponents: • personal biographical statements which are made public to the class through posting on the website bulletin board • an e-mail dialog with the instructor which is essentially private, but may be shared with the class as a final project • responses posted on the website bulletin board to core questions and topics about a specific reading

Examines how a shift to an online writing course affected underprepared students. Finds the guided writing environment enhanced instruction and improved student retention and pass rates.

This study evaluates the effectiveness of presenting Web‐based assignments within the technical communication service course. Current research on using the World Wide Web (Web) and Internet as a teaching resource investigates online writing courses, Distance Education (DE), and hypertext authoring. The literature indicates good reasons for moving instruction to the Web, but there is little description of why this migration is needed in terms of the kinds of learning achieved through Web‐based writing, nor is there much specific discussion of what type of useful instructional space can be built with the Web. This study is intended to provide support for centering more instruction within the environment of the Web. This article describes a study using a Web site designed for technical communication instruction. It defines the types of learning students experienced when using the site and presents samples of student work representing a wide range of skill development, both traditional and digital, that support moving instruction to the Web in immediately useful ways.

Argues that a carefully designed and skillfully moderated asynchronous Internet classroom environment can help minimize problems related to gender in traditional classrooms. Discusses class “climate” and class discussion in the traditional classroom and in the online classroom. Notes research related to gender and the online classroom. Outlines course design and teaching strategies. Offers a policy for online class conduct.

Distance education, broadly defined as instruction that is not bound by time or place, is bringing about fundamental changes in higher education. Writing in a recent online newsletter from the American Association for Higher Education, Ted Marchese describes the many "not-so-distant" distance competitors to traditional colleges and universities: the University of Phoenix, the for-profit university with some 50,000 students in 12 states; the Western Governors University, the competency-based consortium that was founded by 17 governors and is supported by 14 business partners, including Sun, IBM, AT&T, and Microsoft; and Britain’s venerable OpenUniversity, which has allied with several universities in the United States and will begin offering courses here this year.

The number and variety of distance education courses have increased dramatically in recent years with the advent of new delivery technologies. Third‐generation distance delivery methods such as interactive, Web‐based instruction also have led to new levels of access for students. This article presents demographic information about students taking online courses at two institutions. In addition, it discusses some of the changes in learning environments that may accompany the move to the virtual classroom. Finally, it points out some potential problems in delivering courses with new technologies.

Teaching through the Web requires instructors to reconsider their previous assumptions about the nature of teaching, lecture, testing, and student/teacher interaction. Teaching technical writing online, however, raises additional issues. How can a technical writing instructor create an online workplace in which professional‐level collaboration can occur, while also allowing for purely academic instruction and discussion of theoretical issues? This article will address these issues in relation to the author's design and development of his Digital Rhetorics and the Modern Dialectic, specifically, how instructors must assume different roles as designers and then as teachers of online courses; how useful dialectical exchange on the Web that mimics (and sometimes surpasses) face‐to‐face, in‐classroom discussion can be created; and how technical writing instructors can foster productive online collaboration. This article will be a mixture of theory and practice—leaning a little more toward the practice, making it of immediate use to someone who has just been asked to teach a class online for the first time and is seeking help.

Abstract Initially, online courses were created by pioneers—self‐taught Web site writers comfortable with uncertainty. As Internet‐based instruction has become increasingly popular, others are less inclined to struggle with writing their own Web pages but are nonetheless interested in having an instructional Web site. A growing number of course‐construction programs are becoming available which could make Internet‐based instruction more accessible. Only by addressing both pedagogical and technical issues can evaluation of such course creation products provide information useful for thoughtful and appropriate use of that technology to support and extend traditional pedagogies. This article concludes that creating online instructional sites by hand with the help of an HTML editor is generally preferable to using course‐in‐a‐box software because instructors can select the components needed to support their pedagogy and construct successful learning experiences for their students. On the other hand, the dilemma of faculty intimidated by the technical expertise needed to produce even a basic Web site can be ameliorated by the use of course‐in‐a‐box software. However, that software should be seen only as a stepping stone. Instructional sites created by course‐in‐a‐box software certainly are worthwhile, but the course or site produced by this software remains constrained by its box, even if that box is often commodious.

This paper discusses Industrial and Digital Age educational paradigms, needs, and expectations of adult and traditional learners for Internet‐based education; knowledge management and its impact on technical communication; the Universal Campus Network and the nature of Web‐based education in the near future; elements for success for Web‐based distance education in technical communication; and future directions in electronic communication.

Describes two ways that teaching and responding to student writing are being pressured by rapidly developing technologies now being introduced into educational institutions. Discusses (1) the increasing replacement of face-to-face contact by “virtual” interaction via multimedia technology, e-mail communication systems, and the recently expanded capabilities of the World Wide Web; and (2) distance education.

This essay details the experience of designing, implementing, and evaluating an online course in audience analysis at the graduate level. Through a discussion of the culture of this online course, I describe how the educational culture of the Land Grant Mission flowed into our efforts to create a quality learning experience, and how the Web modules and asynchronous (listserv) and synchronous (MOO) conversations influenced communication and learning.

The paper discusses applying computer networks to cooperative distance learning for technical communication education. It first outlines applications of communication technologies employed in distance learning, and describes the design strategies of the applications. The paper's main focus is on the CORAL (Cooperative Remotely Accessible Learning) system for promoting cooperative distance learning currently under development in Taiwan. The CORAL system is a collective and collaborative project intended to integrate four major components in concept and construction: an interactive learning environment, educational foundations and implications, domain knowledge; and research efforts. One of CORAL system's goals is to aid science and engineering students in learning communication technology courseware. The CORAL development process, including its design approach, structure, courseware, and evaluation, is reported. Research issues are also addressed.

From both a technological and educational perspective, cyber education creates a multitude of challenges for students and instructors. Both novice and experienced computer users alike must master the use of Internet tools quickly, while also working to overcome conceptual misunderstandings about the technology and its root metaphors. The technology also makes commenting on student documents cumbersome but does have the benefit of creating a digitized record of students' writing processes, while also allowing for the online publication of students' work. Other benefits include more active learning and better interactive collaboration. Preliminary assessments further indicate that, despite critics' concerns about the rigor and quality of distance learning, for a variety of technical and social reasons, student work is equal to and sometimes better than that of on-campus students.

Advancing technology, demands for cost control, and world‐wide expansion in distance education programs challenge technical communication teachers to find ways of delivering quality technical writing courses by distance. One distance platform, described here, is working successfully at Texas A&M University. Examining, applying, and testing existing distance theory in developing distance versions of technical writing courses is an emerging research field in technical communication.

Part 1 Perspectives: education by engagement and construction - a strategic education initiative for a multimedia renewal of American education, Ben Shneiderman is there a class in this text? creating knowledge in the electronic classroom, John M. Slatin varieties of virtual - expanded metaphors for computer-mediated learning, Patricia Ann Carlson cognitive architecture in hypermedia instruction, Henrietta Nickels Shirk multimedia - informational alchemy or conceptual typography?, Evelyn Schlusselberg and V. Judson Harward dimensions, context, and freedom - the library in the social creation of knowledge, Gregory T. Anderson multimedia and the library and information studies curriculum, Kathleen Burnett the virtual museum and related epistemological concerns, Glen Hoptman an epistemic analysis of the interaction between knowledge, education, and technology, David Chen the many faces of multimedia - how new technologies might change the nature of the academic endeavour, Alison Hartman, et al. Part 2 . . . and practices: bootstrapping hypertext - student-created documents, intermedia, and the social construction of knowledge, George P. Landow the CUPLE project - a hyper- and multimedia approach to restructuring physics education, E.F. Redish, et al collaborative virtual communities - using Learning Constellations, a multimedia ethnographic research tool, Ricki Goldman-Segall the crisis management game of Three Mile Island - using multimedia simulation in management education, Thomas M. Fletcher restructuring space, time, story, and text in advanced multimedia learning environments, Janet H. Murray the virtual classroom - software for collaborative learning, Starr Roxanne Hiltz medical centre - a modular hypermedia approach to programme design, Nels Anderson prototyping multimedia - lessons from the visual computing group at project Athena Centre for educational computing initative, Ben Davis Engineering-Design Instructional Computer System (EDICS), David Gordon Wilson computers and design activities - their mediating role in engineering education, Shahaf Gal the need for negotiation in cooperative work, Beth Adelson and Troy Jordan teaching hypermedia concepts using hypermedia techniques, Peter A. Gloor computer integrated documentation, Guy Boy the Worcester State College Elder Connection - using multimedia and information technology to promote intergenerational education, Virginia Z. Ogozalek, et al paradoxical reactions and powerful ideas - educational computing in a Department of Physics, Sherry Turkle.

Although it was written over 30 years ago, the advice offered in this article is still valid today. Among the suggestions on how to speak before an audience are (1) speaking loudly enough to be heard anywhere in the room; (2) writing the speech in advance and then memorizing it; (3) rehearsing and timing the speech to ensure it can be delivered in the allotted time; (4) preparing the speech for the average person — not the foremost specialist. Specific problems to be wary of include depending too much on a blackboard or slides and using jargon inappropriately. The author suggests that all potential speakers broaden their reading base — novels, poetry, essays, and history — to enhance their speaking style.

Visual aids are carrier devices for presenting ideas. They should incorporate the essence of the speaker's thinking-at the planned rate of a single idea each. Principles of accomplishing visual communication are described with emphasis on techniques that involve the speaker: blackboard, flannelboard, easel pad, flip-chart, and transparency and slide projection. Guides for equipment placement and viewing distances are included.

SOMiE OF THE PRINCIPLES of Eric Bemrne's theory of Transactional Analysis proven extremely useful to me in teaching English 101. The approach, which I call going backward to move forward, concentrates on three phases: writing for oneself, writing for the live audience of one's colleagues in class, and ultimately, writing for the real world through publication. The course begins with my asking students to close their eyes and to recall all the things former English teachers asked them to remember or to do when writing. Then they are asked to jot down as many of these directives as they can. Next each person is asked to write several of these on the blackboard, which was recently filled with the following: big words, think before you write, each paragraph with your main idea, follow outline forms, dot your 'i's,' don't use overworked metaphors, don't use 'when' or 'how' to start a sentence, never start a sentence with 'and,' never use 'in conclusion,' never end a sentence with a preposition, never use a double negative, never use 'never,' have an interest grabbing first sentence, never start a sentence with because, don't use the verb 'to be,' be more specific,

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