The Chronicle of Higher Education
Date: August 16, 1996
Section: Information Technology
Page: A21
By Lisa Guernsey
The technology was new, but the dialogue was typical for the first day in any college class: enthusiastic hellos, information about readings, and questions of deadlines.
And then, of course, there was the discussion of grades.
"There will be no formal grades for this class," announced Paul C. St. Amand, the instructor, prompting smiles and applause. "If you complete the homework, show up for class meetings, and participate in the discussions, you will 'pass' this course."
In this course, though, "showing up" meant logging on, and the smiles and applause were created by people describing their emotions and actions in typed messages. For the next 12 weeks, half a dozen students from four countries exchanged messages across seven time zones and conducted in-depth discussions on biocomputing, a new field that combines computer science and genetics.
Attending the course took discipline. Each student was expected to make it to the on-line sessions -- or send Mr. St. Amand an e-mail excuse before the class started. Pairs of students were scheduled to give presentations in class. Everyone was expected to do homework each week and send it, by e-mail, to Mr. St. Amand.
The time-zone differences added pressures, too. Starting the 90-minute class at 3:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time meant that students such as Iddo Friedberg in Israel and Ulf Reimer in Germany were on line -- often attending class barefoot from their bedrooms -- until nearly midnight.
Somehow, though, the students mustered the motivation. Mr. Friedberg, in fact, was often the first to show up and the last to leave. Others connected within minutes. And soon enough the classes began to follow a familiar pace: The students would gather, wave hello, tease each other, send off a few bad jokes, groan, and wait for Mr. St. Amand, a researcher for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to post the day's agenda from his office at Kansas State University.
Fortunately, the students had no trouble mastering the technology. Their classes took place in BioMOO, an on-line meeting place for biologists administered by Gustavo Glusman, a researcher at the Weizmann Institute in Israel. BioMOO, like other MOOS, or Multi-user, Object-Oriented domains, enables people to type messages synchronously to each other. (To get to BioMOO, use the telnet function to connect to bioinformatics.weizmann.ac.il:8888 or go to its World-Wide Web site at http://bioinfo.weizmann.ac.il:8888/)
Because MOOs allow for live exchanges, instructors say they can truly broaden the possibilities for distance education. Courses based on MOO sessions are are still relatively rare, but the number is growing. Professors at several colleges, including the Universities of Pennsylvania and Texas at Austin, conduct classes in MOOs as supplements to their face-to-face courses. Other MOO courses, like those in BioMOO, exist apart from any physical university.
Mr. St. Amand's class is one of six biocomputing courses taught in BioMOO this summer. The courses are coordinated by a gregarious BioMOO dweller named Georg Fuellen, a doctoral student at the University of Bielefeld in Germany, who ran the first courses in the spring of 1995. He recruited a group of fellow BioMOOers -- including Mr. St. Amand -- to become volunteer instructors and then posted messages on Internet mailing lists inviting students to sign up. Tuition was -- and still is -- free.
One year later, the courses are extremely popular. The instructors, who are charged with screening prospective students, have turned away more than 30 this year. Nearly 200 prospects have subscribed to a mailing list for people who want to sign up for the courses.
People sign up even though most of them know they will not be able to get credit for the courses. Students who pass them receive a certificate in the mail, but most have not yet been able to persuade their home universities that the course should count as credit.
For Mr. St. Amand, the selectivity has "greatly improved the quality" of his students, who kept class discussions focused and relatively advanced. Every so often a student would type a self-description: "a wrinkled brow" or "a lost expression." But most kept up, typing furiously to contribute what they could.
For a few students, keeping up also meant writing quickly -- sometimes with a bit of trouble -- in a foreign language: English. Mr. St. Amand's class included students from Canada, Germany, Israel, and the United States. Other courses taught in BioMOO included students from Australia, Belgium, Britain, France, and Italy. Most were younger than 35 and all were male, reflecting a lopsidedness that he says characterizes the field of biocomputing.
Even with a group of interested, advanced students, Mr. St. Amand's biggest challenge was to keep the class on track. On-line conversations have a way of threading off into oblivion, or heading chaotically in several directions, unless they are sternly commanded. No one knows who is typing next, and suddenly several unrelated statements can appear on the computer screen.
Mr. St. Amand has become a veteran of these situations, and he often intervened to steer the discussions. "Okay, let's move on now," he would say. "Who can define the next term?"
Students replied quickly, and the discussion rolled onto a new topic. They also learned to ask their more-specific questions in e-mail messages outside of class.
Responding to those messages, preparing for the on-line sessions, and posting homework questions on the World-Wide Web kept Mr. St. Amand busy for hours each week. Nonetheless, he says he's happy to have donated his time.
"I needed more teaching experience and I wanted to keep up with the latest happenings in biocomputing," he says. He says he also "wanted to be one of the pioneers of this new teaching 'interface.'"
This was Mr. St. Amand's second summer teaching in BioMOO, and, as he steered discussions and responded to technological mishaps, his experience was evident. Sometimes lags developed between the typing of messages and their appearance on the screen, slowing the class for several of the participants. But all in all, Mr. St. Amand was pleased with this year's outcome.
Student evaluations, which Mr. Fuellen collected last week, reflected similar feelings among students in all of the courses. Eight of the 18 students who wrote evaluations said the "MOO sessions take too much time and few things get done." But the majority -- including some of those who complained about the sluggishness of the MOO -- said the on-line sessions were useful, and only three advocated dropping them altogether.
"You can deal with 'burning problems' on the BioMOO, and in-depth discussions require mailing lists," says Mr. Friedberg, the Israeli student, during a chat in BioMOO after the final class. "I think that, combined, it is more effective than learning in a physical classroom."
The combination of e-mail communication and MOO chats also bridged the distance between students and professors that often exists in a real classrooms, say the participants. In the MOO discussions, Mr. St. Amand acted more as a moderator among fellow researchers than a lecturer in front of a class, they say.
Participants agree that the BioMOO courses may not be a perfect substitute for all classroom situations. These were graduate-level courses, designed for people with a specialized interest. A group of people interested in biocomputing might get as much or more out of a face-to-face course, Mr. Reimer, the German student, says on the last day of class. "But who works in a place with this many people experienced in biocomputing?"
As the final MOO session ended last month, students kept up their chatter -- talking about everything from biocomputing conferences to the merits of German beer -- and promised to visit each other in real life. Then they turned to their instructor and gave him a virtual round of applause.
Mr. St. Amand described himself as "turning red," and then typed, with a virtual smile: "Thanks for the flattery, but it won't affect your grades!"
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