EVALUATION OF COURSE KERNEL

Memo: Evaluation of web-based computer conferencing systems for NKI distance education.To: MMWWWKFrom: Morten Flate PaulsenDate: June 30, 1997

In this article, web-based computer conferencing is defined as computer-mediated group communication that allows messages to be shared by all members of a conference via the web. Web-based computer conferencing could be audio, video and text-based. In addition, they could accommodate synchronous or asynchronous communication. NKI distance education needs a text-based, asynchronous system. Hence, this article will focus on web-based, asynchronous, text-based computer conferencing systems.

CATEGORIES OF WEB-BASED CONFERENCING SYSTEMS

This article reviews three main categories of web-based conferencing systems: e-mail distribution lists, News, and WWW-systems. E-mail distribution lists and News are not implemented in WWW, but they can be accessed via a web-interface.

E-mail distribution lists, such as Listserv , Listproc, and Major Domo facilitate distribution, archiving, and command interpretation via e-mail. Archives and user management can be accessed via web-interfaces in recent versions.

News is a standard and widely used Internet service that is based on the Internet protocol NNTP. Netscape has introduced Collabra as the next generation News system.

WWW-systems such as Alta Vista Forum
(http://altavista.software.digital.com/_bridge/frm.htm), Top Class
(http://www.wbtsystems.com/), and
Hypernews(http://union.ncsa.uiuc.edu/HyperNews/get/hypernews.html) are relatively new, but fully web-based systems.

EVALUATION CRITERIA

The three categories of systems are here evaluated for NKI Distance Education with regard to availability, push or pull technology, structured archive threads, flexible access management, member directory, and efficient administration.

AVAILABILITY

NKI needs a system that is available to as many users as possible with as few obstacles as possible.

· Listserv: good - available via e-mail, the most available Internet service
· News: poor - available via a news reader, an Internet service with fewer users than e-mail and WWW.
· WWW: medium - available via WWW, a service which is available to almost as many users as e-mail. It is necessary to learn a system-specific interface (buttons)

PUSH OR PULL TECHNOLOGY

In a push system, the sender is in control of the distribution process. In a pull system, the receivers need to find and retrieve the information. These are systems with different features. Both have their benefits and they may have different uses.

· Listserv: push
· News: pull
· WWW: pull

STRUCTURED ARCHIVE THREADS

The system should have a well designed way of listing and searching archived messages so that it is easy to find individual notes of interest and to follow discussion threads.

· Listserv: medium (with the new web-interface)
· News: good
· WWW: medium (the systems may vary and some may be good)

FLEXIBLE ACCESS MANAGEMENT

To provide web-based distance education to a large number of students, we need an efficient access management system. The main idea behind such a system is to restrict access to certain conferences just to paying students.

· Listserv: good - based on e-mail addresses that must be registered by the listowner, no need for password
· News: medium - based on passwords
· WWW: medium - based on passwords
MEMBER DIRECTORY

The system should be able to list the members of each of the conferences so that the students could have some information on their "class peers".

· Listserv: medium - a primitive directory is included in the system (See example below)
· News: poor - must be implemented in another system
· WWW: medium - could be included in the system

LDAP Lightweight Directory Access Protocol seems to be an emerging standard.

Member directory in Listserv

Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 14:40:58 +0200
From: listserv@nki.no
To: morten@nki.no
Subject: REVIEW PAS

Here is the current list of non-concealed subscribers:

morten@nki.no Morten Flate Paulsen
BJOERN@nki.no Bjoern Helgeby (laerer)
aasken@nki.no Kenneth Aasheim
kronborg@bellatlantic.net Astrid Kronborg
klippen@c-map.no John Kaare Klippen
dalemark@online.no Richard Dalemark
dalemar@online.no Richard Dalemark
Total number of subscribers: 8 (7 shown here)

EFFICIENT ADMINISTRATION

A system for many courses and hundreds of students each semester should feature efficient administration.

· Listserv: medium, e-mail addresses and names is registered and maintained via a www-form. No need for password and no LDAP compatibility.
· News: medium: password management is a problem. Could be handled via LDAP
· WWW: medium: password management is a problem. Could be handled via LDAP

SUMMARY

Criteria Listserv News WWWavailability good poor medium
push/pull technology push pull pull
structured archive threads medium good medium
access management good medium medium
member directory medium poor medium
efficient administration medium medium medium

CONCLUSION

All three categories have obvious shortcomings. For the time being NKI has decided to install and use both Listserv and News. The systems supplement each other and they both have features that NKI needs to explore. NKI will continue to evaluate www-systems as we regard these systems as relatively new systems with an important future potential.