Supporting Higher Education with the World Wide Web

Abstract

Web-based education is becoming part of the national debate as the President of the United States, in his 1996 State of the Union address, stated that “every classroom in America must be connected to the information superhighway.” However, there is little evidence to support claims that the Web improves education and few guidelines exist for its use in the classroom. Understanding how to reap the benefits of Web technology for the purpose of improving higher education is a topic of interest to today's educators. This paper presents a system designed to support a large undergraduate introductory information systems class. A description of the system is included as well as the results from a survey administered to measure its effectiveness. While the system failed to improve test scores and performance satisfaction, students widely endorsed the system claiming it increased access to both the instructor and course materials.