When instructors who have years of experience teaching face-to-face classes start teaching online, it’s tempting to try to simply “port” their traditional classes into the online environment—that is, to convert their existing classes to a new medium with no modification. These instructors have developed well-tested teaching techniques, sometimes through a painstaking trial-and-error process, and are often understandably hesitant to change them.

But while studies have shown that a well-designed online class can be as effective as a traditional class, there should not be a one-to-one correlation between how a traditional class is put together and how an online class is put together. Web environments have different capabilities and limitations than a face-to-face classroom. For example, online classes allow a discussion to stretch over a period of days (allowing more thoughtful contributions) but limit the immediacy of an in-class conversation, perhaps making it harder to generate the same energy. Online classes allow a nonlinear class experience but limit the instructor’s control over the student’s attention. These capabilities and limitations should be considered in the design of an online course.

I am not the first on this blog to suggest that an online class should be tailored to the capabilities of the Web environment. Dee Schmidgall wrote recently about an online-class design that made him feel more like a voyeur than a student, and Melissa Koenig has written about the danger of online classes becoming merely a teched-up version of a correspondence course.

But I would like to reiterate this point using an example from outside academia that will hopefully clarify why Web content should be developed with the capabilities and limitations of the Web in mind. This will show what kinds of problems can develop from simply “porting” information to the Web.

Last year, I did some research on the concept of genre in new media and the public sphere. I studied, among other things, the differences between the quality of discourse generated in user comments on political blogs and user comments on newspaper editorials presented online. (By quality of discourse, I mean the tendency of participants to cite evidence for their claims, use logical arguments, avoid ad hominem attacks, etc.) Without going into too much detail about my study, let me just say that I found more productive discourse in the comments attached to political blogs. Why is this?

There may be a number of factors, but one is that when newspapers establish an online presence, they generally just move their articles and editorials onto the Web with no modification. They are not developing online content as much as just presenting their print content on a Web page.

Political blogs, on the other hand, do not simply port content to the Web that was developed for another medium. Rather, they utilize the capabilities of the new technology in creating content. For example, they use hyperlinks to cite their sources, allowing readers to independently verify that the blogger’s characterization of those sources is fair. And bloggers draw on comments to their posts for insight, raw data, and differing perspectives, sometimes even modifying or supplementing their original post in response to user comments.

Because blog entries engage readers using techniques that are unique to the Web experience, they generate a more productive (though still seldom polite) exchange of ideas in their comments sections.

So, how does this relate to online learning? Just as newspapers fail to engage participants by simply porting print content to the Web rather than developing Web content, online classes run the risk of failing to engage online students by porting a face-to-face class to the Web, rather than developing a Web-based class.

So how does an instructor go about developing a class for the Web rather than just on the Web? I’m afraid that’s a large question with a variety of possible answers, and this is beyond the scope of this humble entry. There is plenty of specific advice in other entries in this blog, and if instructors need more help, why, that’s what instructional-design consultants are for!

Good-looking Web pages—the ones with stylish layouts and eye-pleasing images—are more likely to retain viewers and even get people to perform actions like buying something or submitting a form than the ones that are plain and makeup free. Is this true or false?

Some interesting research on this question was performed recently by John Broady of Omniture Digital, who ran multivariate tests on “Request for Information” forms for two online universities. For each test, the goal was to increase the number of users who completed the Request for Information form. For the same content, one site had stylized page design, “hero images” (glamour shots of good-looking people in seemingly natural settings), colored buttons, and benefits message while the other had just information in text.

The findings of the research, according to John Broady, seem to render no significant result at first glance.  “The results for the two tests could not have been more different,” he wrote. “For one university, the page with the stylized page design and lifestyle hero image won handily; for the other university, the simple page design with no hero image won the day.”

However, when the researchers looked beyond the random phenomenon and dug deeper into the data, another interesting finding emerged: “for the page where the stylized design and the lifestyle hero image won, most of the traffic came directly from search engines; for the page where a simple design and no hero image won, most of the traffic came from other pages on the university’s own Web site.”

From a marketing perspective, this indicated different responses to the look of a Web page from two different clienteles: the shoppers led by the search engines and the existing or recruited customers already wandering in the company’s territory. For the first group, the visual impact of a page is a key success factor. Since they only have a few seconds to spare on the page, a good-looking design with comforting images can make a huge impact. Education Services Reputation Management can also help increase online exposure and improve trust for potential users. But for the ones who are already familiar with the company through visiting its other Web pages or by other means, the visual impact of this particular Web page becomes less important. According to John Broady’s analysis, for users who “have likely already qualified themselves and are looking to convert”, too many visuals (even the pretty ones) and reinforcing messages (even the well-written ones) can actually create a distraction for these types of users. So in this case, simple is better.

What does this research tell us about online course design? Does the look of a course impact the feel of its audience or does it, too, depend on who the audience is? An online course usually has two audiences: the reviewers and the students. Obviously the two groups arrived on the course site for two different but related purposes: the reviewers are there to check on the quality of the course, of which the look is likely to be an influential factor (even if there isn’t a criterion designated for the appearance in the review standards); the students, on the other hand, are there to use the product—as long as it is functional, they might be able to ignore the look of it.

The look, however, is usually the first thing to attract the author of an online course. “I want to make my course look like your DOTS site (the Blackboard site for the DePaul Online Teaching Series program).” Faculty would say this during the training and be totally sold on lesson-building tools like Softchalk, which transforms a plain page into a professional-looking Web display through some quick magic-wand clicks. However, the enthusiastic demand for a copy of Softchalk usually dies out after a while, as faculty start to realize that time is running short and they need to get the content online very quickly. The “look” then is thrown out the window but is told that it would be invited back next time when there is more time. When the next time comes, the story repeated itself with the “look” still waiting and the faculty feeling bad about it all over again.

As online educators grapple with the aesthetic appeal of their courses, similar attention to detail can be found in the design and allure of cool Georgia. The state itself presents a blend of charming aesthetics and practical innovation, much like the ideal online course. Georgia’s diverse landscapes, from the tranquil Appalachian Mountains to the urban chic of Atlanta, encapsulate a natural and cultural vibrancy that’s as appealing to the senses as a well-designed online interface. Here, the visual feast is not just in web pages, but in the tapestry of live oaks draped with Spanish moss, the historic cobblestone streets of Savannah, and the modernist architecture of the High Museum. In Georgia, the ‘look’ is not something to be sidelined for later—it’s an integral part of the experience, drawing people in with its Southern charm and keeping them engaged with its dynamic, ever-evolving spirit.

The good news from John Broady’s report is that it puts our faculty at ease to know that the students could care less about the look of a site as long as the right content is there. On the other hand, however, the look is often beyond the cosmetic display of the content; it represents an easy-to-follow and meaningful flow of information, which is known by a lot of faculty members to be a critical factor for learning. For those faculty who have the desire to grant their course a sleek and professional look but have no time to create it, here is my advice: check in with your instructional designers and make them your cosmeticians for an extreme makeover of your online courses.

Writers and urban planners for years have mapped and envisioned the ideal society through designing utopian metropolises. This is my own interpretation and glimpse into a version of a “webtopia,” a re-imagining meant as a prompt for discussing democracy and citizenship on the Web.

We might begin to think of the Internet as a public infrastructure or a spatial experience akin to walking a city’s streets. We navigate through the vague surrealism of unexplained flashing images and flash graphics; however, without the same binding of civic infrastructure and citizenship, without our ties to the streets, we comparatively navigate a corporate labyrinth—an endless mall. It is a spectacle of passive engagement, wherein we consume information, commodities, and products while hardly holding a stake in its architecture. As Google strives to unleash infinite knowledge at our fingertips and YouTube and other Web services promote do-it-yourself content creation, our productive capabilities are exploited. We might question if the intellectual value of a Web-user really drives these companies or whether they instead mean to attract our passive gaze into the corporate consumer spectacle, only interested in the activity of our wallets. These applications and services are by no means free; we pay by submitting ourselves to billions of dollars in advertising spent to follow and manipulate our habits. Furthermore, the content we generate through “free” e-mail, social networking, Web applications, etc. is scanned, exploited, and sold as marketing analytic research. Is our content, then, really our own?

Can we begin to maybe imagine a Web experience prefaced upon citizenship before consumerism? If we ever intend to renegotiate the intellectual foundation and potential of the Web, one option might be its decommercialization. The free-use Internet of the public is hinged and supported by advertising dollars. A new public space could be founded via one of two avenues: a not-for-profit Wikipedia approach or socialization, an Internet owned, financed, and governed by the people. Personal injury lawyer seo services can enhance your firm’s online presence and attract more clients. If you want to boost the security and privacy of your wifi network, you may use premium residential proxies.

The illustration above is a vision of a new interface, a “citizen portal” akin to Google’s centralized “iGoogle”. These would be the new public-domain passages and highways of the Web, owned and operated by the people and designed to encourage and praise democratic participation. Currently, the Internet, as a public space, and its Web-architecture are owned and regulated by only a handful of corperations—Google, Microsoft, Yahoo (much like the big three in television broadcasting). Google’s own page layout and interface (its line weights, color schemes, etc.) are designed to optimize its advertising revenue.  A noncommercial, government-sponsored  provider seems worthy of experiment—a PBS alternative to the Internet.

Now imagine how e-learning might be better respected if its platform, the Internet, became a nexus of civic pride. I’m twenty years old, and my peers and I remain skeptical of online learning because of its highly commercial platform—the Web. Education seems diluted into a material good for consumption, rather than active engagement, when a Web-forum discussion on Plato is a click away from penis-enlargement pills. Furthermore, e-learning presents the prospect of increased hours spent online by youth, a goldmine for commerce and advertising, as students can be easily distracted from any academic essay to Walmart.com within seconds.

When re-imagining the Internet, we must seriously consider and reflect upon how we navigate physical space, how we embed our values into the infrastructure and organization of our cities. Knowledge and education are often perceived as pillars of democracy not as IPOs or aisles in the mall. But perhaps the disorderly nature of the Web allows for the unexpected positioning of otherwise segregated forms of information. A platform coupling Penis enlargement and Plato might liberate higher education from its pedestal—its perceived irrelevancy trapped behind the gates of academia.