Introduction

The World Wide Web has been used by the Journalism Department to deliver material in a number of courses this year. Principally, the Web has been embraced as a modern, convenient and dynamic means of communicating with our external postgraduates. And with enrolments as far afield as Tasmania, the Kimberley, Malaysia and Israel it's easy to see advantages over the traditional use of "snail mail". What I will be focusing on today, however, is our experience with the Web in delivering core content in a large internal class of 190 second-year undergraduates.

The subject Journalism Law (JR213) was considered an appropriate choice as the lectures cover a range of technical concepts which might be perceived by journalism students as dry, difficult or factually "heavy". They also challenge students, many of whom have never before set foot in a courtroom, to come to terms with an unfamiliar discipline and jargon. These factors, combined with a lack of relevant text books, have made it difficult for students to engage in active listening in lectures in the past and they have tended to treat the lectures as dictation sessions.

Our objective was to create a resource which would prepare students for deeper learning opportunities and also to take advantage of the new technologies to improve delivery of the core course material.

In first semester this year a three-tiered approach was adopted: Web lectures, a reduced number of face-to-face lectures and weekly tutorials.

Course Structure

The Web lectures were mainly text-based but included some graphics and links to relevant sites, such as legislation online and the High Court home page. They were comprehensive statements of both the "need to know" (core) and the "nice to know" (enrichment), written in a conversational style.

With the Web lectures covering the basic content the face-to-face lectures no longer sought to cover the field, but rather used cases and examples to illustrate selected points from the Web lectures. Students were expected to have read the Web lectures prior to attending the face-to-face lectures.

The third tier -- tutorials -- focused on student-centred activities such as role plays, discussion problems and visits to court.

Electronic delivery of the course was also supplemented by group email and a Web-based discussion forum, or Netforum, through which students were encouraged to debate course topics.

Student Preparedness for the 'Net'

How well were the students equipped to cope with this revolution in technology?

An informal survey at the start of the course appeared to indicate that the students' existing electronic skills, combined with the detailed instructions in the course outline, were sufficient for most to tackle the course without the need for a special tutorial.

Every student who responded to the entry survey (n=70) was familiar with using a mouse to point and click. Some 77% said they had accessed the World Wide Web previously, 50% said they surfed the Net for pleasure and 46% said they had access to the Web at home.

Interestingly, 79% said they had an email account but only 61% had ever used email. In the main, students who had opened a free UQ student account but then never learned how to use it accounted for the difference.

My feeling is that this survey may have given us a picture of the students' electronic literacy which is a little high. Unfortunately the response rate for the entry survey was low, due mainly to non-attendance at the first lecture, when the survey was administered, and perhaps also to some non-compliance.

Another indicator of computer skills was the number of students who gave me their email addresses for the purpose of being on a list to receive updates and information about the course. Despite constant reminders in class I was only able to get 100 of the 190 students on the list.

Student Response to the 'Net'

A further survey administered in the final week of the course appeared to justify the decision to put a content-heavy subject like "Journalism Law" on the Web.

Some 82% of respondents (n=112) said they thought having the lectures on the Web helped them to understand the course material better and 63% said they thought they would have had difficulty taking adequate notes without the Web. Many students commented that they were pleased to have access to a "comprehensive" and "reliable" set of notes which was "available equally to all". However some students, more used to norm-referenced than criterion-referenced assessment, felt that the advantages they'd had in the past by ensuring they took good notes had now been diluted.

Generally, students were happy with all three components of the course, with 82% wanting the Web lectures retained, 74% wanting the face-to-face lectures retained and 84% wanting the tutorials retained.

Only 26% thought there was too much reinforcement or repetition within the three-tier structure, although several of those conceded that the repetition helped them to remember things.

A welcome outcome of the strategy in putting the lectures on the Web was that it gave students the impetus to learn new Internet and email skills. Some 63% said they learned new skills and 61% said it was worthwhile persevering with technical difficulties to acquire these skills.

Other advantages recognised by students in their open-ended comments were:

* students could work at their own pace and in their own time
* students could revise/reread the lecture as often as necessary
* the lectures were convenient for shift workers and people with families
* the lectures assisted concentration in the face-to-face lectures
* the lectures improved comprehension of the face-to-face lectures
* the lectures helped with understanding jargon
* students of non-English speaking backgrounds were able to overcome the disadvantages of oral delivery
* having a comprehensive, reliable set of notes reduced exam panic

Problems and Remedies

A major criticism of the Web lectures was access. Students resented the waste of time caused by technical difficulties such as password failures, Netscape errors and systems being down. They were also frustrated when access problems occurred at times they had set aside for the purpose of studying on the Web. They didn't like having to queue at the multimedia library for access to a terminal and generally found access difficult between 9am and 5pm. A number of students pointed out that there were "inequalities of access" and felt that students who could log on to the Net at home were greatly advantaged. Despite this 76% said they came to terms with the technical aspects of finding and reading the Web lectures early in the semester and 71% said it was worthwhile persevering with technical difficulties to acquire information in this way. In the near future departments offering courses with a major focus on the Web will need to resolve this dissatisfaction by providing greater access and support in-house. In the longer term it is be hoped that general advances in technology and access will eliminate this as a major concern.

An unanticipated problem for the department was the number of students printing out their lectures on a laser printer in the department's computer lab. Rather than reading on line and following links to other sites it appeared students were more comfortable with reading and studying from hard copies. While this might be partly due to traditional preferences it also seems clear that it is linked to technical difficulties, to discomfort with staring at computer screens for long periods of time, and to problems with "attention span online". Only 30% of students said they mainly read online and 24% said they mainly downloaded to disk, while 62% said they mainly printed out the lectures. Students who printed out in the multimedia library or elsewhere cited the cost as a major deterrent, while students who printed out at the journalism department were responsible for incurring major paper, toner and printer costs for the department. Some 81% of students said they would have liked the lectures to be available for photocopying in the library. It therefore seems likely that a hard copy set of Web lectures will be made available to students as part of their course materials from next year.

A further problem noted was the failure of students to embrace the opportunities for discussion in the online forum. Only 40% of students ever read the discussions and only a handful participated in them. This was despite hotlinks in the Web lectures pointing students to the forum for continued discussion of issues raised. Some reasons why they might not have taken to the Netforum include Web fatigue, Web shyness and the fact that many students were working from hard copies. Participation in the forum also was not linked to the assessment program.

One criticism raised in the surveys was the additional time required to access, read and download the lectures. Some suggested that the Web created more, rather than less, work for students. Others said that reading online and following the links could easily swallow up their allotted five hours' dial-in time per week. In reviewing the course for next year it may be necessary to cut back on reading assignments or further decrease the number of face-to-face lectures to compensate.

A final problem is that it appears that the Web tended to encourage some students to skip classes and fall behind. Some saw it as an opportunity for easy rote learning at the end of semester and missed out on opportunities for deeper learning and reinforcement. They were also less able to determine the priorities of the course. In the future more will need to be done to guide student use of the Web lectures. It will also be necessary to give students a clearer indication of how the Web fits within a flexible delivery system. Do students really have the option not to attend class? And if so, what are the likely consequences of that choice?

Future Directions

Turning now to future directions, I think we can say that overall, students recognised a wide range of educational benefits in having the lectures available on the Web. But there was also strong support for retaining face-to-face lectures which, as one student put it, "imprint better".

A key issue is whether to treat the Web as a primary component, a support mechanism, an alternative, or all of the above:

a)	As a primary component, the Web can be used to deliver the full content of the course. The aim, as it was this year, is to reduce notetaking and enhance listening and discussion;
or
b)	As a support mechanism, the Web could provide a skeleton content for students who miss a class, or those who wish to read ahead, revise or check their notes;
or
c)	As an alternative, the Web could offer a replica of all learning opportunities provided in face-to-face encounters, including full text of lectures, discussion exercises and handouts. The aim would be to give independent learners the full freedom to choose when and how often they participate in class activity;
or
d)	It may be necessary to work towards creating a truly integrated Web SuperSite capable of fulfilling all of these functions. This may require full content, a summary of the priorities of the course, additional exercises and problem-based learning activities, as well as opportunities for online and extra-curricular discussion

In the future we may need more graphics, more multimedia, and more interactivity to make it worthwhile for students to relinquish their hard copies.

And yet I believe there is a place for the kind of lectures offered this year -- text-based ones with links to legal resources online and an online discussion forum. One problem specific to this subject is that there is no textbook which fulfils all our requirements -- written for journalists rather than lawyers, pitched at students, specific to Queensland, and kept up-to-date year by year. Arguably the Web enables us to create a "living" text book which can be updated even as the semester progresses if changes in the law require it.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I wish to make two points.

I believe the World Wide Web has a useful role to play in a flexible delivery system. However its role needs to be clearly defined to students so that they can make meaningful decisions about their use of the various components within that system. Students need to know what the consequences will be for choosing one part of a package over another. And they need clear guidance in how to get the most out of the parts of the package which they do choose to follow.

Secondly, while it is clear that many of our students are computer literate and ready for the adventures in learning which technology can provide, it is equally clear that many feel they are at a disadvantage in this area. We should encourage our students to learn new skills, but we must at all times ensure that the essential course content remains accessible to all.