by Yvonne Belanger | October 7th, 2009
Interviews and focus groups so far have indicated that email is still the primary mode of online communication for faculty and students outside of class time. Although other online communication tools are widely available and commonly used by both faculty and students in other contexts, these tools (such as IM chat & webcams) do not seem to be commonly used to support communication between faculty and students.
To supplement face to face communication, faculty and students report relying almost exclusively on email for communication outside of class time. Nearly all faculty and students interviewed so far report having a webcam and generally are comfortable with video-enhanced communication using tools such as Skype. Faculty interviewed had typically only used these types of video-enhanced online communication tools when communicating with research collaborators and student advisees. Chat tools (such as AIM or Jabber) are not commonly used for faculty-student communication for campus-based courses.
Faculty who do have custom email lists of enrolled students set up by their local IT departments use these heavily and find them to be very convenient. Faculty who do not have these email lists typically email students using Blackboard or STORM. When asked about these web-based email tools, faculty reported that this tool was less convenient than using standard email. Commonly voiced issues included:
- Less convenient than using their normal email client to send messages to one (or a mailing list) of students
- Not retaining an original copy of “Sent” messages
- Doesn’t facilitate sharing answers to common questions (FAQs) asked by many students
- Bounces are not visible to the instructor
Faculty who use Blackboard Announcements did report finding the new “Email this announcement” feature in Blackboard a helpful enhancement.