This volume centers broadly on information support services for distance education. The articles in this book can be categorized into two areas: access to information resources for distance learners, and studies of distance learning programs. Contents include: "The Challenges and Benefits of Asynchronous Learning Networks" (Daphne…

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…

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…

Digital reference services at university libraries in Australia and New Zealand are a recent phenomena dating back to the late 1990s--following the developments in Web-based online library services. This paper examines the move towards the provision of e-mail reference services based on the study of 16 randomly chosen university libraries in…

The Tucson Unified School District made a goal for 2000-2001 for all counselors to have their own computer at school. This article looks at how these computers are used to enhance the counselors' jobs. At the district level, the staff communicates with counselors through e-mail. Meeting reminders, general information, and upcoming events are…

This article describes how one high school addressed the time-consuming problem of registration by looking at an electronic solution. Typically counselors were spending 50-60% of their time with registration and schedule change. This school worked with a software company to produce an Internet/telephone registration system. The system took into…

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…

The paper reports action research on Web-based courses conducted from 1999 to 2001. The expression "hybrid courses" is used in this paper to refer to the courses in which an instructor and students meet half or less than half of the regular scheduled meeting time, and such courses are the courses involved in this research. Participants of the…

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…

Over the next decade, distance learning will provide counselor preparation programs with a host of both opportunities and challenges. This user-friendly handbook helps counselor educators develop skills to teach students who are participating in distance learning classes. The purpose of this book is to help counselor educators and other faculty…

The critical career development strategy of networking is being transformed by the Internet into virtual or e-networking. Virtual networking provides these advantages: it eliminates the fear of making initial contact and the stress of first impressions; it overcomes restrictions of location, time, or money; it makes responses faster and easier;…