College students (N=151) completed surveys assessing the relationship between e-mail use and extraversion. The variables studied included time spent on e-mail; the frequency of e-mail usage; and the purposes e-mail served for each student. The results suggest that extraverts use e-mail as a form of procrastination more than introverts, and that…

As a followup to a survey of distance education faculty, the National Education Association conducted two 3-hour focus groups with 12 higher education faculty members in June 2000. The purpose of the groups was to gain more understanding of the complexity of feelings and opinions expressed in a telephone survey conducted in March 2000. The…

The purpose of this paper is threefold: (1) to discuss issues related to the design of interaction on the World Wide Web using models of interaction developed for distance education; (2) to examine several techniques for the analysis of interactions and the quality of the learning experience in a computer-mediated group conference; and (3) to…

This paper summarizes what the author has seen go wrong in six years of participation in online discussions and recommends some remedies. The emphasis is on helping discussion leaders to structure and guide online discussions for maximum effectiveness. The paper has a focus on learning environments, which are central to both formal academic…

Noting that electronic communication places new demands on language that leads to interesting variations in written language use, this Digest summarizes insights gained from research on writing behavior and performance in the electronic age. It concludes that both the process and the content of writing are evolving in response to the increased use…

The intention of those in the helping professions is to support and heal those who seek out their professional assistance. Ethics are based on the ongoing collective development of professional experience, the natural outflow of desire to care effectively for the needs of fellow human beings. Ethics help define what is and what is not an effective…

Recent growth in national attention directed toward online courses and virtual schools underscores the importance of e-learning policy and online learning practices. In response to these needs, this edition of "Policy Issues" aims to: summarize the critical e-learning issues related to education policy; provide an overview of what works,…

This paper describes the state of the "WWW & Over" project to design techniques for the remote control of hypermedia teaching materials. It reviews the main features of the new version of the prototype for distance teaching, where teacher and students interact at a distance in real time on teaching materials created by the teacher. Also described…

In this paper, a model is presented that uses educational dialogues to support the design process for learning support systems. The model is argued to provide a structure that links pedagogically motivated empirical studies of student-tutor-system interactions to problem specification and system design, and to result in the creation of learning…

Current workflow systems largely assume a closed network where all the software is available on a homogenous platform and all participants are locally linked together at the same time. The field of Electronic Distance Education (EDE) on the other hand, requires the next-generation workflow that will integrate workflows from a distributed…

A typical Web-based training development team consists of a project manager, an instructional designer, a subject-matter expert, a graphic artist, and a Web programmer. The typical scenario involves team members working together in the same setting during the entire design and development process. What happens when the team is distributed, that is…

This paper reports on a course format where a group of in-service teachers works together with a group of computer science and mathematics majors via a computer conferencing system. Most of the time, participants studied using the Internet, but at the end they produced and presented a seminar paper together in pairs. This type of course has now…

Web-based learning environments are strongly driven by the information revolution and the Internet, but they have a number of common deficiencies, such as slow access, no adaptivity to the individual student, limitation by bandwidth, and more. This paper outlines the benefits of mobile agents technology, and describes its application in Web-based…

The mission of the NetPro European project is to develop project-based learning through the Internet. The NetPro project is creating tools and services to facilitate communication and collaboration between distant students, and to manage access and control of project deliverables. NetPro project teams form cross-institutional learning communities.…

In times of financial restrictions, the demand for more efficiency and effectiveness in the higher education system is often connected to the potential of tele-supported university teaching. At the Institute of Law and Computer Sciences of the Saarland University, international online courses have been offered regularly since 1996. The didactic…