OID: SIANME Forum Summary -- February 6, 1998

Betty Luceigh, moderator, noted that the seminar would be devoted the questions of web usage, time expended on creating, using, and maintaining web sites, and the overall value of using the web in instruction.

Benjamin Elman, the first panelist to speak, has used the web as both an historical archive and bibliography for classical Chinese Studies, an archive for essays on various subjects, for the publication online of documents in his field, and as an integral part of his courses. He felt the web was particularly useful as a vehicle for training, as a way to cut down on the expense and labor of reproducing scholarly or reference, and as a method of reducing workloads for his TA's through the judicious use of bulletin boards. Having TA's research and revise the bibliographical site, he felt, was a useful method of preparing TA's for the scholarly environment of the future. He was concerned, however, about the amount of time required for TA's to use technology and perform their normal research activities.

David Cordes addressed many of the issue of time management in his presentation. He stressed the importance of communication between Professor and TA's in order to maintain viable web sites. Instructors HAD to monitor their sites and provide leadership and direction to TA's. In addition, he stressed the importance of being honest with students re: response time to e-mailed inquiries. If an instructor typically responds once a week to e-mail, then students should be forewarned in order to reduce unrealistic expectations. Instructor should also specify exactly what sort of inquiry they will respond to. Cordes suggested circulating handout to students on first day of class stipulating methods for communicating on line.

Cordes also stressed that web pages should eschew design complexity for informational richness. Better a web page filled with plain text providing answers to many questions than a beautifully designed page with a paucity of information. In his experience, students responded strongly to this approach. Cordes suggested further that students be involved in the creation of pages by using their responses to questions as part of a compiled Frequently-Answered-Question page, noting that securing permission from students to post their work was a must. He also remarked that posting copious information on line increased, rather than decreased, classroom attendance. It seemed to pique interest, not dampen it.

Luceigh noted that one of her colleagues was getting 30-40 inquiries per week on her bulletin board. Cordes suggested setting strict limits to the nature of questions asked, and of cutting and pasting inquiries and responses into a Frequently-Asked-Questions page to cut down on student inquiries and TA response effort. Luceigh suggested e-mail should be for personal inquiries; all other questions had to be posted on line (cutting down, one hoped, on trivial or repetitive questions).

Chris Mott spoke of the English Department's efforts to mount a department-wide effort to use the web, in particular by making resources available to TA's. Examples: an electronic version of the Department's traditional "White File Cabinet", where past syllabi were stored. These have now been put on line. In addition, past assignments, and a storehouse of relevant links have gathered which TA's can link to from their own web pages for use by their students. For his own class, using WebCT, Mott offered his students the option of participating in an honors section of his class. Those that signed up were required to post responses to special assignments on the bulletin board. These postings were then used as examples for the rest of the class. An advantage of this public approach was to cut down on plagiarism, since the ideas were publically accessible to all, they were in effect available to none. When asked how he dealt with the wealth of second-rate material available on the Web, both Mott and Elman noted that they frequently made this critical assessment task an exercise for their students, sending them out to analyze and evaluate material. Mott added that he also offered his students the option of compiling a web page of relevant information as a final project, and that this option proved highly successful.

Edward Wright has maintained a publicly accessible web site built up of pages created for his classes and a conference. Wright noted the difficulty of posting to the Web material requiring mathematical symbols. Students and scholars around the world have used his web site. In general, he found the web most useful for posting problem sets prior to the class. It increased participation and interaction in the class itself. He also suggested posting tests on the web with specific feedback and responses built in, not to use for actual grading, but to enable the students to master the information, taking the tests until they got it right. As many of the panelists did before him, Wright stressed the importance of using the web as an archival center.