11/22/96

ATHENS, Ohio -- Ohio University has offered the only college-based independent study program in Ohio since 1924, but Monday (Nov. 25) marks a quantum leap forward in the program's offerings -- an advanced composition course in which all the course work is performed on the World Wide Web.

English Instructor David Sharpe developed the course, English 308JW, in which students receive assignments posted on the WWW, submit work to the instructor by e-mail and exchange e-mail critiques of papers with other students in the class.

"This is the first completely on-line, full-scale university writing course offered in Ohio, and gives Ohio University a place among the institutions elsewhere in the country that are leading the development of internet distance learning," Sharpe said. "It is a pilot project for many more offerings to come from Independent Study."

The WWW course offers students interaction with each other, an option not possible in traditional independent study, according to Rich Moffitt, director of independent study.

"Students will be using group-share software so that when they submit a paper it will be shared with others, and they will respond by critiquing your work," Moffitt said. "What we're doing is recreating what we're doing in the classroom. In print-based classes, students submit papers and only get reaction from the professor. In the Web-based class, they get reaction from fellow classmates as well."

The course consists of 10 lessons, corresponding to a 10-week quarter, with seven papers and two rewrites. The course is open to Ohio University students, students at other universities who have reached junior-level status, and students in the university's External Degree Program. The class is limited to 20 students, who can sign up at any time until the class is full, and have one year to complete the course. As individual students complete the course, vacancies are created that allow new students to sign up.

"Even though the Internet is just emerging as a delivery method for distance teaching, it has the potential to overcome two of the disadvantages of the traditional print-based courses -- turn-around time of lesson assignments and the isolation of students from the natural interaction of the classroom," Moffitt said.

With students worldwide, Ohio University's Independent Study program is the only state-supported independent study program offered at a university in Ohio.

"My hope is that the group of students will include the broadest range made possible by the Internet: students living anywhere in the world, young and old, students who are full-time or working or retired, students both inside and outside a degree program," Sharpe said. "The diversity will lead to fertile discussions and critiques in ways that a normal classroom can't achieve."

For more information, contact Independent Study at 1-800-444-2910 or on the WWW:
http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/~indstu/index.htm.