OPENING UP HORIZONS - PROVIDING ONLINE COURSE MATERIAL IN CYBERSPACE

Distance learning course providers world-wide are looking to new techn ology to enhance the presentation of their courses. Projects investiga ting how tutors teach and students learn when courses adopt new techno logy methods are of paramount importance. M205-STILE (Students' and Te achers' Integrated Learning Environment) is one such project which pil oted the use of conferencing and World Wide Web (WWW) with nine tutors and 110 distance learning computer science students in the United Kin gdom and Europe. The main aim of the project was to improve the presen tation of the course by providing structured access to on line facilit ies. This paper describes the students and tutors preferred form of pr esentation of course material, either conferencing or WWW. It also rep orts which software was easier to install and how the materials were a ctually used and makes recommendations about how future on-line course s can benefit from the findings of this study. (C) 1997 Elsevier Scien ce B.V.