A "cognote" system was developed for coding electronic discussion groups and promoting critical thinking. Previous literature has provided an account of the strategy as applied to several academic settings. This paper addresses the research around establishing the inter-rater reliability of the cognote system. The findings suggest three indicators…

The goal of this report is to examine the progress of the Washington Learning Anytime Partnership (LAAP). In 1999, a 1.8 million dollar grant was given to Washington's community and technical colleges to increase and improve the courses offered through the Internet including the development of a "one-step system" to enable students to view and…

Many educational institutions have recently started to move some of their course materials online, and then used the terms "flexible delivery" or "flexible learning" both in their everyday discussions and in their promotional literature. However, the use of asynchronous learning technologies does not of itself make for true flexibility in…

The purpose of this study was to compare and evaluate three online pretest item calibration/scaling methods in terms of item parameter recovery when the item responses to the pretest items in the pool would be sparse. The three methods considered were the marginal maximum likelihood estimate with one EM cycle (OEM) method, the marginal maximum…

The findings in this report come from a survey conducted in March 2001 in which 1,501 people interviewed in March 2000 were re-interviewed. This longitudinal approach shows that over the course of a year people's use of the Internet gets more serious and functional. Internet users were much more likely in 2001 to use the Web at their jobs and go…

In 1999, the University of West Florida launched an online Instructional Technology master's program. Students enrolled in this online program can be divided into two groups: (1) "local" students who, for various reasons, prefer the online courses, and (2) students at a geographical distance. The purpose of this study was to identify…

This study continues the research into Web-based learning by examining a mid-level Web-based learning environment as a support for an informal learning experience. The informal learning situation was a group of undergraduate students that were Fellows in the Honors program and who served as the selection committee for the finalists of a global…

This paper explores cases of three classes that implemented online teaching and learning technologies as part of a university- wide faculty development grant program. Students' satisfaction with key components of the learning experiences was examined. Instruments included students' pre-assessments and post assessments; an instructors' post survey;…

Online collaborative documents can be used effectively for conducting collaborative research and for learning collaboratively via the Internet. Collaborative documents are dedicated online workspaces that allow individuals or groups to use the Internet to share their work with others, edit it, and finalize it. This paper identifies Basic Support…

Research shows that learning in groups improves students' achievement of learning objectives. Some indicate that a facilitator will smooth the process of collaboration (Johnson et al, 1987; Hooper, 1992; Moore and Kearsley, 1996; Brandon & Hollingshead, 1999; Bernard et al, 2000). Advocates for peer-controlled collaboration claim that learners…

In 1998, the Department of Education implemented "principles of effectiveness" requiring that all Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities (SDFSCP)-funded programs be research-based. To help schools identify and adopt research-based drug and violence prevention strategies, the 1999 Safe and Drug-Free School appropriation of $566 million included…

In the online learning environment, communication and collaboration occur from a distance. In the absence of non-verbal communication cues (such as facial expressions, gestures, and tone of voice), understanding, communication, and interaction rest largely on individual assumptions and interpretations. The magnitude of these communication…

This paper describes a constructivist and collaborative approach to transforming a traditional face-to-face on-campus course into an entirely Web-based course. The major objectives of this computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) course are for students to experience, learn and design online collaborative learning. This paper is based on…

In a previous study (1998), how to evaluate whether adaptive testing data used for online calibration sufficiently fit the item response model used by C. Glas was studied. Three approaches were suggested, based on a Lagrange multiplier (LM) statistic, a Wald statistic, and a cumulative sum (CUMSUM) statistic respectively. For all these methods,…

This paper explains the similarities and differences between electronic mail and computer conferencing, and identifies the features one should look for in a modern conferencing system. It also clarifies some related terminology. Advantages of computer conferencing are first outlined, including: time- and space- independence; text-based medium;…