A Course Website a Year Later: Lessons Learned

Abstract

This paper is a report of the findings of a study that describes the development, evaluation, and revision process for an on-campus graduate level Statistics course website. Focus groups, interviews, and document analysis were examined to determine patterns and amount of student use during the website's initial semester of use. Findings indicate a lack of integration into course activities contributed to minimal student use of the website throughout the semester. Student expectations about the currency of information on a course website suggest that regular review and updating of on-line materials should be planned for and accomplished. If on-line conferencing is to be part of a course website, it needs to be both required and structured by the instructor to be successful. Finally, a comprehensive review of printed course materials should be performed in order to ensure that website contents are not simply a redundant collection of course materials.