2008 PROCEEDINGS - Public Relations Society of America

7. What facilities or capabilities are available to assist in the preparation and delivery of
course materials?
8. What methods will be used to deliver class content?
9. How will student progress be assessed?
10. Do your students have the skills necessary to use the Web and participate in the class?
11. What course delivery platform will you use?
12. Where will the class materials be maintained?
Benefits of Online Course Delivery
A review of literature has documented that online delivery offers students the flexibility
of integrating education with the demands of work and family. Students also have greater access
to courses and learning resources. As more schools offer online courses, more people are
choosing to expand their education while they work (Romano, 2006). Plus, Royal (2005)
acknowledged that while challenges result from online teaching, online course delivery provides
“vast opportunities for both students and educators.”
McAlister, Rivera, and Hallahan (2001) concluded that online courses are a “wonderful
opportunity to extend the reach of an institution’s programs by better serving current students or
by exploring new markets.” They also pointed out that online courses allow an institution to
connect with people who might not otherwise have an opportunity to further their education.
Clay (1999) found that, at The State University of West Georgia, faculty respondents who
previously taught distance courses ranked the “ability to reach new audiences that cannot attend
class on campus” as the top motivating factor that drives their participation in facilitating
distance learning.
The online environment can be a useful place for students to communicate with their
instructor. For example, professors can use WebCT to hold online office hours through a realtime
chat (Grant MacEwan College WebCT Learner Guide).
An Online Discussion of Learners
Online learning can sometimes do a better job of fostering class discussion than a
traditional learning environment. Online discussions allow students to “reflect before they
speak” and give an opportunity to those who would not speak in a traditional classroom setting to
have their voices heard (Mims, 1999).
It is essential for the discussion to be linked to course goals and students should receive
“explicit orientation” to the discussion before it begins (Chism). Furthermore, the instructor
should be committed to being a “good facilitator.” It can be useful for instructors to limit the
number of messages posted, so that students don’t feel overwhelmed by the number of messages.
That may mean breaking large classes into separate discussion lists (Chism).
Unfortunately, e-mail, newsgroups, Web conferences and other online communication
technologies are “extremely impoverished forms of communication when compared to face-toface
communication” (Hughes and Hewson, 2001). Thankfully, other elements can be used to
structure communication in online education. Such elements include stylistic elements such as
page layout and character styling; color; graphics; identity and anonymity; time frames and
sequencing; access privileges; and “conditional concealment and revelation of information”
(Hughes and Hewson, 2001). In this way, traditional classroom micro-genres such as informal
debates and brainstorming sessions can be better translated to the Web.
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