10/122.5.1.5 Computer-mediated Communication
The four attributes that I have mentioned up to now (many-to-many communication, time and place independence, and text-based communication) are also available through other media, like postal mail, facsimile, phone, voice mail, TV, or books. Even audio and video conferences are possible without the use of computers. Why do we need computer-mediated communication? Computers combine all the previously mentioned media. This new form of communication, computer conferencing can be a very good means for group discussion. All comments on a certain topic can be stored and made accessible to all participants of the discussion. This provides the shared space essential to group interaction.In the face-to-face classroom all comments by the students as well as the drawings on the blackboard are lost at the end of each session. Even if the teacher uses transparencies, which can be copied for the students, instead of a blackboard, students' questions and comments are lost. On the other hand, the permanent storage of comments can also cause a problem, loosely called the ``vulnerability'' of textual communication [Har90]. This means that some people don't feel comfortable with the fact that their comments will be stored in a database.
In addition to computer conferences, hypertext and hypermedia offer increasingly powerful tools for online education. These tools help to link information from a variety of different medias. Using the World Wide Web (WWW) for the distribution of course material, both synchronously and asynchronously, opens new dimensions to online education. Unfortunately, the first generation of the WWW lacks features which are essential for online education, like user and group management, synchronous communication, and structured documents. The use of a Hyperwave server [Mau96a] and Java-applets, both discussed in the remainder of my thesis, can help to add the lacking features.