ERIC Number: EJ1068779
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2005
Pages: 10
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0973-0559
EISSN: N/A
Components of a Faculty Web Site: [Personalizing the Distance Learning Relationship: Perceptions of the Relative Importance of Faculty Web Site Components]
Mandernach, B. Jean; Dailey, Amber; Donnelli, Emily
Journal of Educational Technology, v2 n3 p50-59 Oct-Dec 2005
Instructors teaching in the online classroom are faced with the unique challenge of creating a personalized relationship in a virtual environment that lacks the traditional outlets for establishing an informal connection with students. While there are various means of facilitating the online student-teacher relationship, faculty Web pages are often used as a simple, low-cost means of sharing information about an instructor's personal life (including interests, hobbies, family, etc). The purpose of the current study was to examine students' perception of the relative importance of various types of information placed on a faculty Web page. It was hypothesized that online students would desire more personalized content on an instructor's Web page as these students would lack the face-to-face, informal interactions that typically reveal this type of information. Contrasting the hypothesis, this study found online students and face-to-face students placed little importance on the personalized components of a faculty Web site. Rather, regardless of educational delivery format, students placed high importance on basic contact and course-specific information, with very little importance on an instructor's personal information.
Descriptors: College Faculty, Web Sites, Blended Learning, Distance Education, Web Based Instruction, Student Attitudes, Teacher Student Relationship, Electronic Learning, Self Disclosure (Individuals), Hypothesis Testing, Access to Information, Comparative Analysis, Conventional Instruction, Online Surveys
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A