Support Systems for Web-based Education: Different Approaches

David Jones and panelists
Central Queensland University

ABSTRACT

Creating and maintaining a Web-based classroom is a difficult and time consuming task requiring a combination of technical, educational and other skills. The difficulty involved has led to the development of a number of software systems which are designed to help educators use the Web in education. These systems include

* free systems
Systems such as Nicenet (http://www.nicenet.org) and Webfuse (http://webfuse.cqu.edu.au) being produced by non-profit organisations and University research teams are free for use by educators.

* commercial systems
University groups have produced systems such as Virtual-U (http://virtual-u.cs.sfu.ca/vuweb/) and WebCT (http://homebrew.cs.ubc.ca/webct/). Commercial companies offer systems such as Topclass (http://www.wbtsystems.com/) and Learning Space (http://www2.lotus.com/education.nsf/).

Educators are now facing the problem of deciding which system is the best for them.

This panel will draw together the designers and producers of a number of these systems and provide a forum in which some of the following questions can be addressed:

David Jones
Department of Mathematics and Computing
Central Queensland University
Rockhampton, 4702
Australia
Email: d.jones@cqu.edu.au
WWW: http://cq-pan.cqu.edu.au/david-jones/

©,1997. The author, David Jones, assigns to the University of New Brunswick and other educational and non-profit institutions a non-exclusive license to use this document for personal use and in courses of instruction provided that the article is used in full and this copyright statement is reproduced. The author also grants a non-exclusive license to the University of New Brunswick to publish this document in full on the World Wide Web and on CD-ROM and in printed form with the conference papers, and for the document to be published on mirrors on the World Wide Web. Any other usage is prohibited without the express permission of the author.