On-line learning: a student viewpoint

During the second semester of 2001, one hundred and seven undergraduate and postgraduate students enrolled in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) degree programs at three different institutions located in New South Wales and Victoria, Australia and in Singapore participated in an on-line course. The course was designed with two objectives. The principal objective was to gain an understanding of the student experience of collaborative learning within on-line groups where the student body and membership of the groups was geographically and institutionally dispersed. The secondary aim of the project was to determine the feasibility this form of interactive, simultaneous teaching at dispersed centres. The paper describes the course experience from the viewpoint of student participants, starting with the initial creation of the collaborative groups through the interactions required to complete the group tasks to the conclusion of the course in which the students reflected upon their experience.