Use of the Web in undergraduate teaching

The use of the World Wide Web in higher education is increasing at an exponential rate. However, little research has been done on the quality and nature of students' learning in a Web based system. This paper discusses the views of students on an experiment at Aberdeen University in which the Web was used to replace face to face lectures. The results suggest that students exercised greater choice of when to study and experienced few problems of lack of access to computers or of technical failures. The experiment appears to have saved students time and not to have involved them in much financial expenditure. The findings as to how the students actually used the Web materials were less encouraging. Most students appear to have printed a paper copy of the Web documents at the earliest opportunity, while only a minority of students went in search of other relevant Internet sites. The experiment suggests that the transition from a traditional to a computer based system will involve considerable investment of time by lecturers new to the Web, in the acquisition of new skills and the preparation of Web materials. The Web has great potential to benefit students' learning but there are few shortcuts to the realisation of this potential. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.