Evaluation of Online Course Websites: Is Teaching Online a Tug-of-War?

The need for an evaluation instrument for web-based, mainly asynchronous, course websites is necessary. An instrument was developed and tested to assess whether there was an appropriate checklist of items that were expected of an online course website by both students and faculty. The instrument was developed from surveying the current literature in online learning. Faculty and student surveys showed that there was strong support for the instrument overall, but lack of agreement for some individual items. Categories that showed the most differences between faculty and students were instructor information, computer-mediated communication, navigation, and use of the site. Frustration, expressed in comments over differences in expectations, may be mitigated by faculty anticipating problems with the described items and stating requirements prior to the start of the course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Educational Computing Research is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)