Utilizing the World Wide Web for Distance Learning 
and Communication

James L. Mohler
Purdue University

ABSTRACT
This paper presents information regarding the effectiveness and efficiency of World Wide Web based educational communication and delivery. It presents the current state of networking technologies and the speed associated with delivering rich multimedia elements over the Web. Specific limitations regarding Internet connection, delivery and other concerns surrounding Web-based multimedia elements are discussed.

INTRODUCTION
The number of students connected to the World Wide Web is increasing at an exponential rate, as is the number of course pages and sites. Sources estimate that nearly 2,000 new users log onto the Internet each day. Now, more than ever, educators must regard the World Wide Web as a viable and requisite means of distributing course materials and as an effective distance learning tool. To remain globally competitive, educators must be able to efficiently provide Web-based information to students, stringently maintain the information at their site, and functionally access the information from the classroom and remote locations.

    Many new technologies are emerging that can be used to aid instructors in delivering real-time, acceptable media presentations at a significantly lower cost than in times past. Utilizing audio streaming technologies, video conferencing equipment and software, and standard HTML-based Web pages, instructors can widen their audience to include those whose presence is via the Internet. Yet some consideration must be given to the acceptable about of data that can be delivered effectively on the Web.

A COMMUNICATION TOOL
First and foremost the Web is a communication tool. Throughout the history of communication there have been many technologies that have greatly impacted the scope and quality of communication. From the moveable-type printing press to the desktop computers of today, many advances have taken place that have revolutionized how many people could be impacted by a message, how vividly that message was portrayed, and how much cost was associated with broadcasting the message (Mohler, 1997a). 

    The Web is by no means the first revolutionary communication media or information channel, but it is a medium that has evolved and been made available to masses of people with the shortest amount of development time. Inventions such as the press, telegraph, phonograph, and telephone have indeed impacted communication, but over a much broader timeline. In as little as eight years the Web has grown to over 4.852 million host computers as of January 1, 1995 with three times as many people browsing the Web worldwide (Rockman, 1997). Today business, educational, governmental and personal users everywhere are beginning to use the Web as their principal means of communication on a daily basis.

    Seeing the tremendous volume of perspective clientele, huge marketing efforts have been aimed at the Web. Rockman (1997) described a 1994 Potter report (an industry standard research group) which projected that marketing on the Web results in 10 times the units sold at 1/10th the cost of traditional advertising. Web marketing is 1/4 less costly than conventional channels and can be a large part of a business' sales, as exemplified by DEC who's revenue increased by $20 million dollars as a result of Web advertising. 

    No matter what type of communication is occurring, the Web provides a worldwide communication channel that has not been readily available before. The Web provides an excellent and efficient means of informing, educating, persuading, or entertaining and is often times cheaper per capita of audience impacted. In education, as with marketing, the Web provides many advantages over conventional methods.

THE WEB AS AN EDUCATIONAL DELIVERY TOOL
Looking at pages found on the Web, almost every conceivable topic can be found somewhere on the Net. This has given rise to sites such as Alta Vista and Yahoo that do nothing but track and list Web sites around the world. Although all sites are designed to communicate, nevertheless, not all are focused with an educational intent or designed with appropriate pedagogy. 

    When aptly used as an educational delivery tool, the Web provides four distinct advantages that make it an applicable medium for educators. These include dynamism, time-independence, global accessibility, and cost. These features make the Web an efficient and effective medium for educational communication -- assuming the limitations of the Web are acknowledged and observed during development.

Dynamism
Of all the media that can be used for educational delivery none is more dynamic than the Web. The Web is dynamic in both its edibility and in the range of media elements that can be implemented within it. Much like CD-ROM media, hypermedia can include text, graphics, sound, animation, and video. Interactivity, too, tops the list of features for this medium, but dynamism alone does not make the Web unique (Mohler, 1997b). Educators have long used multiple media in educational delivery; utilizing both traditional and electronic elements for the presentation of ideas, concepts, and theories. Therefore, the ability to deliver multiple media does not necessarily make Web delivery, or computer multimedia for that matter, unique. It is dynamism combined with the Web's ability to overcome time, space, as well as the reduced cost of developing and distributing Web materials that makes it unique.

Time
An important aspect of Web delivery is that it is time-independent. Information effectively designed for the Web can be readily accessed at any time of day. Alternatively, one of the primary means of conventional education is interaction with the teacher due to knowledge that is gained through real-time interaction or within a lecture setting. Yet in the traditional educational environment, the instructor's time with students is limited. Real-time information can only be provided when the instructor is accessible or when time allows for the creation of traditional, paper-based materials. This can create a barrier for learning because instructors cannot be accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week. 

    The Web, however, overcomes the limits of time. The time-independent nature of Web materials allows students to have access to delivered materials or instructor developed supplements at any time of day and independent of the educator's schedule.  Likewise, through the use of interactive chat sites and email, students can also maintain communication by interacting with instructors or other students from remote locations. 

    Successful completion of courses is drastically affected by interpersonal interaction. Interaction is a vital part of learning and motivation. Most correspondence courses have a low rate of completion due to a lack of interpersonal interaction with peers and instructors. A student's motivation to complete a course is decreased when there is no interaction between instructor and students, or between students and their peers (Campbell & Bourne, 1997). It is important that some level of teacher and student interaction be maintained no matter what medium is being used in educational delivery.

Worldwide Audience
In addition to time-independent reception, the audience for an educator's message becomes much more broad through the use of the Web. With a single connection to the Internet, the student or educator has the proverbial "world-at-his-fingertips." Assuming materials are distributed on-line, there are fewer accessibly restrictions for both delivery and reception. Students can access information from laboratories, dormatories, libraries, households or anywhere a valid Internet connection can be established. The biggest advantage of Web-based delivery and communication is that the limitations of time and space are both negated, making materials available anytime or anywhere.

Cost
Many of the educational technologies that have been used in the past require significant investments in both hardware and software. Video, laser disks, and CD-ROMs all require costly investments to create effective products. Creation of custom media by instructors is often beyond the personal budget of the individual. Aside from hardware and software, production of these types of media also require a wide array of skills or the collaboration of many individuals to bring the product to fruition. 

    Conversely, the hardware and software needed to create Web-based materials is relatively inexpensive. A simple text editor can be used to easily create Web pages, granted that the educator has knowledge of the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). Inexpensive painting and drawing programs can also be used to add graphics to course Web pages. Nonetheless, many believe that creating pages requires extensive knowledge of the HTML langauge and indeed this type of knowledge is invaluable. Yet for the individual who is not familiar with the language there are many inexpensive tools that can be purchased that help even the laymen create and distribute Web materials. 

    Many Web creation tools have been developed that allows almost anyone, regardless of extent of knowledge, to create Web pages. Most tools can be classified as either generators, convertors, or editors. Generator are applications that allow the developer to create pages visually. Convertors are applications that convert a native file format, such as a Microsoft Word (DOC) or Rich Text Format (RTF) file to HTML, while an editor is a program that assists an individual knowledgeable in HTML with creating Web pages (Ash L. & Riggs, D., 1997; Chandler, D., 1995). In any event, production of Web-based materials is more cost effective (impact per capita) and requires less hardware and software than does the production of an educational CD-ROMs, laser disks, or videos.

CONSTRAINTS OF TODAY'S WEB
Although many would like to market the Web as a full-blown multimedia environment, those who use it on daily basis realize that it is not. Much of the hype provided by national media sources project an image of the Web that is false. Realistically, CD-ROM-type multimedia, with large video segments, high-quality audio, or high resolution graphics are not effective on the Web due to bandwidth restrictions. Since the file size of rich multimedia elements is quite large, accessing them on the Web requires very fast Internet connections. Downloading large digital files with low bandwidth connections requires long periods of download time, which can be detrimental in the educational setting. Therefore, the quality of the media elements embedded within Web pages must be designed and included very conscientiously and conservatively.

    With Web delivery, effective media elements are much lower in quality than those characteristically found in other media. Media elements delivered over the Web are lower in quality so that they do not exceed that which can be efficiently delivered through the architecture of the Internet. In general, delivery of computer media is always limited by the weakest link. A multimedia system with a slow CD-ROM drive (such as 1x speed) will not play video off of a CD very well, no matter how fast the processor is or how much RAM is available. On the Web, the weakest (or slowest) link is often the end-user's connection which limits the amount or quality of data that can be efficiently delivered.

    High-quality audio, video, animation and graphics requires much bandwidth to download, display, or playback effectively. For example, a single high resolution graphic at 640 x 480 pixels can require up to a 900 kilobyte data rate to be delivered without any noticeable lapse of time. One minute of acceptable quality, compressed audio (22.05 kHz, 8-bit, monaural) can require download speeds of up to 1.3 megabytes per second while 15 seconds of compressed video (with audio) at 160 x 120 pixels requires 900 kilobytes (Mohler, 1997). The higher the quality the media element, the longer it takes to download or view off of the Web. 

	Many claim that for the Web to be an effective educational delivery tool that it needs to support video and audio. In reality, this depends upon your purpose and what kind of educational media you want to deliver. It is true that educational materials that depend heavily upon video or audio may be more effectively delivered on CD or laser disk media. However, the Web itself can be effectively used for educational delivery when rich multimedia elements are not a necessity. With today's Web, rich multimedia elements cannot be as effectively delivered over the Web as they can be with CD-ROM or laser disk media. However, strides are being taken which allow educational developers to combine Web and CD-ROM media; using the Web for real-time, time-sensitive data and CD-ROMs for high bandwidth media elements. Many authoring applications, such as Director, Quest, and IconAuthor allow a developer to combine media for more effective educational delivery.

    In addition to the obvious restraints due to bandwidth, delivery of Web media is also limited by the type of client software that is used to browse the Web. Since the HTML language is a semantic language, the first concern is that of appearance versus design. Often times a Web page created on one platform or browser does not always look the same when viewed from another platform or browser. HTML is a language that gives a cursory description of how a document should be laid out; not necessarily as a fixed page description. Thus, some visual appeal and continuity can be lost in Web pages designed on specific browsers or platforms. It must also be noted that special Web elements such as video, audio, and animation require add-ons or plugins that may not be available for all platforms or browsers. Scripting languages, such as VBScript, JavaScript, ActiveX and Java, can also be limited to specific platforms and browsers.

    Aside from the technical concerns and technical limitations of the Web, one must also note that there is much concern about the validity of information being placed on the Web, particularly when it is aimed at informing or educating. Instructors who desire to use the Web for educational delivery must teach students to be conscientious and skeptical consumers of information on the Web. As noted previously, information about almost anything can be found on the Web, yet there is no validation process of the source from which the information emanates. With the ease of creating and placing content on the Web, everyone who receives information from it must question what is presented as well as the validity of the source. Too often students readily receive information presented on the Web as fact rather than recognizing, analyzing and critically validating the information presented. 

DESIGNING EFFECTIVE MATERIALS
Designing effective materials for the Web requires some basic knowledge of the size of media elements to be delivered versus the perspective bandwidth of the audience's connection. Looking at the general parameters for media elements can help ensure that the materials created can be effectively and efficiently utilized by the audience. 

    In reality, determining the effectiveness of any media element over the Web is an issue of size. The larger the size of the digital files being delivered, the longer the wait time for downloading. On the Web file weight equals user wait. Thus, designers must be focused upon the lowest common denominator in the Web chain. If a majority of your audience uses a modem, the elements delivered from your pages should be designed around the bandwidth limitations of a modem. If a majority of your audience uses a direct network connection, you can design around a larger bandwidth. Note however that as with all educational materials, you must be cautious about the assumptions you make converning your audience. Assumptions that are too broad may hinder or eliminate a portion of your audience.

LOOKING TO THE FUTURE OF THE WEB
For everyone, the Web is a learning experience. No matter whether you are just beginning to browse the Web or if you've been developing materials for some time, you'll find that the World Wide Web is a grand experiment that is open to everyone who can obtain a connection to it. Much like the learning process that has occurred (and is still occurring) with media such as interactive multimedia, a lot of time is being spent on developing the genre of this new communication medium. The Web alone does not replace older technologies, yet it can supplement them in a way that wasn't available before. 

    Undoubtedly as time goes on, we'll conitnue to better understand what is and what is not effective on the Web and concurrently, developments in compression and networking technologies will continue to advance, allowing more options for the effective distribution of media on the Web. However today, designers of informational, educational, marketing, and entertainment media must design around the limitations imposed by the current technology. Just as with CD-ROM multimedia, which continues to evolve at an astounding rate, the Web too is rapidly advancing and changing into a more viable communication alternative everyday. 

REFERENCES
Ash, L. & Riggs, D. (1997). A world of Web tools. Web Publisher, pp. 16-22.

Campbell, J. & Bourne, J. (1997). Designing distributed learning systems. The Proceedings of Orlando Multimedia '97. Arlington: The Society for Applied Learning Technologies.

Chandler, D. (1995). Running A Perfect Web Site. Indianapolis: Macmillan Computer Publishing.

Mohler, J. L. (1997a). Graphics, Animation, and Multimedia, volume VII of the Web Publishing and Programming Resource Library. Indianapolis: Macmillan Computer Publishing, (in press).

Mohler, J. L. (1997b). Teach Yourself to Be a Webmaster in 14 Days. Indianapolis: Macmillan Computer Publishing (in press).

Rockman, Steve. (1997). The mysteries of the universe: Finding keys to interactive technology and making them work for you. The Proceedings of Orlando Multimedia '97. Arlington: The Society for Applied Learning Technologies.

Contact the author at:
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765.494.9089