Most students seem to see this new system as beneficial. "There is more interaction among students and also between students and the professor through the cyber community," says Park Hye-jin (Law, 3), and explains that students can write freely on the freeboard. The topics are not restricted to studying materials. It is anonymous and students feel at ease to discuss whatever is on the minds.
Students leave their inquiries in the Q&A chamber for classmates to answer. "Students too shy to ask questions or those who didn"t get a chance to ask questions in class, are no longer constrained by such dimensions. Cyber campus goes beyond time and space barriers," says Professor Ahn Hong-sik of the Economics Department.
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"Through the correspondence course section students can prepare, review, and make-up for the lessons," explains professor Ahn, though he adds, "as beneficial as it is for students, it requires professors to be diligent and invest a lot of time administering it." Professor Ahn spends nearly five hours a week answering questions and upgrading his lesson transcripts.
The Multimedia Education Institute states that currently there are 190 courses open on-line, most of them conducted concurrently with off-line classes.
In the case of Professor Ahn, he has made use of the cyber lecture room along with his school classroom for about four years: "The class evaluation scores given to me by students have shown an increase since I opened an on-line classroom in the cyber campus. And I think that a large part of the credit goes to balancing any off-line classes with the on-line classes. If many professors were to introduce this system, there will be much improvement in our education system."
neyessioui@ewha.ac.kr