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| Types of Internet-Based Courses | When considering the use of Internet-based technology for the development of educational/training materials and programs, the instructor must decide the type of course that best meets the prospective learners’ educational needs. Obviously, the choices here are also limited by the costs, the available supporting resources, and the technological expertise of the instructor/ course developer. The professional literature describes the various course options as follows:
Managing expectations is difficult, but considering the three major types of Web courses may help:
A WebCourse is available anywhere, anytime.
A WebCentric course shifts the focus from the physical classroom to the Web as classroom.
A WebEnhanced course looks a great deal like a campus course but is strengthened by use of the Web.
In addition to these three types of Web courses, WebPresence describes a course that includes Web activity. While not a Web course, WebPresence content is very similar to what is now included in the traditional printed course catalog.
WebCourse
A course that is truly and completely a WebCourse can be accessed anywhere, anytime via the Internet and a Web browser. The times and places for interaction and communication are flexible and generally asynchronous. There are few, if any, synchronous meetings. Any course today that is fully available on the Web generally makes use of one of the popular Web browsers, and the course experience begins and ends on the Web. All instructional strategies are planned and executed around the communication capabilities and content resources available on the Web.
The primary characteristic of a WebCourse, which it is fully available on the Web, means that the faculty member teaching the course and the students taking the course can participate from anywhere in the world. This also means, generally, that location-based activities such as class meetings or gatherings at physical seminars or conferences are not required.
Many distance learning programs make use of a slight variant of the WebCourse by focusing on students within a geographic area that would enable students to gather for a one- or two-day event in conjunction with a course. But the idea of a globally available WebCourse includes no requirement for students to gather physically anywhere.
Another feature of the complete WebCourse is that it makes significant use of Web technology and Web applications to support the teaching and learning that make up an educational experience. A WebCourse uses electronic mail, chat rooms, bulletin boards, and online conferences to support meaningful dialogue and social communication between and among participants, including faculty and students. The true WebCourse also uses Web applications to support the use of electronic resources such as databases, simulations, current news resources, course book sites, and digital libraries. These tools and resources help support discovery learning by individual students and among groups of students. The use of all these tools supports the creation of a learning community.
WebCourses can be cohort based, involving a group of students who stay together through a series of courses. WebCourses that are part of a series of courses are best if they are cohort based because the community and the relationships created during one course can continue and deepen during subsequent courses.
WebCentric course
As with WebCourses, the WebCentric course experience is likely to begin and end on the Web. The faculty member introduces the course on the Web and specifies what is to be done and learned, and with what resources, through Web communications. Testing and evaluation can be accomplished with examinations, projects, and reports. Like the WebCourse, the WebCentric course makes significant use of Web technology and Web applications to create an online community for teaching and learning.
With the WebCentric course, the center of instruction shifts from the classroom to the Web. However, a WebCentric course may have a series of scheduled synchronous meetings, possibly on campus or at a hotel or conference center. To meet the needs and convenience of working professionals, however, the length, frequency, and the content of the class sessions may be quite different from traditional on-campus courses.
Synchronous gathering activities for a WebCentric course generally take less than one third of the class time. Classes or meetings of a WebCentric course may total between 16 and 24 hours. This contrasts with the typical 45 hours of meetings, usually held in one- to three-hour weekly sessions over a 15-week semester. A WebCentric course may have one to three meetings, but each meeting may be five, six, or eight hours long. Class time is concentrated, reducing the number of times students must gather in a physical space.
WebCentric courses can also be cohort-based and can benefit from being so, but since they include more physical meetings, the cohort is not as critical a design factor.
WebCentric courses may seem to be available only within a fairly limited geographic area, but this is not necessarily the case. Working adults will often travel farther if a particular program is available in a format that requires less frequent travel. WebCentric courses may include use of other gathering events such as intensive location-based launching activities, weekend seminars, and celebratory events. Depending on the frequency and length of class meetings, WebCentric courses can look a great deal like regular campus residency courses with heavy reliance on Web technology and tools.
WebEnhanced course
A WebEnhanced course, sometimes called a Web-based course, uses the Web to support a traditional campus course. Faculty use Web technology to present the usual course administration components such as the syllabus, bibliography of resources, course and project requirements, and project consultation. The Web is used to support the faculty-to-student dialogue and communication, often supplementing office hours with e-mail communication and interaction. The Web also provides access to content and dynamic resources easily available online.
Designing, developing, and delivering WebEnhanced courses can be an evolutionary step for many faculty, removing the dependency on paper-based and phone-based materials and on synchronous meetings and communications. A WebEnhanced course can help faculty members migrate from a dependency on a lecture mode of content presentation toward more interactive and collaborative learning. It can be an evolutionary step away from the current classroom-centric model and toward a WebCentric course. This can be an effective change strategy for both faculty and administrators. Moving to a WebEnhanced course provides a transition step from traditional models of classroom learning to the newer models of information-age learning. If this transition is done over time and with good infrastructure support, it can make the paradigm shift less costly. This is a good strategy if time and planning are available to support it.
WebPresence
Developing a WebPresence for a course is much like creating a flyer or a brochure about a course or creating the description that might go into a college catalog. Some schools require that all course descriptions be available on the Web; such descriptions often include information about the course, instructor, requirements, and prerequisites for the course.
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