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The World Wide Web as an Environment for Collaborative Research: An Experiment in Graduate Education
Article

, , University of Washington, United States

IJET Volume 3, Number 2, ISSN 1077-9124 Publisher: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE), Chesapeake, VA

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Abstract

During the past 2 years the Internet has become an integral part of scholarly communication. However, it is difficult to find research which focuses on the educational potential and pitfalls of the World Wide Web (WWW) as an environment for collaborative research and publication. This study seeks to examine this area by using a group of doctoral candidates to collectively develop an extensive and diverse Internet document. More specifically, the authors have attempted to answer several basic questions: What happens when a group of researchers attack a single problem from different perspectives, working in an environment in which research findings, notes, insights, and inquiries can be shared and linked on a regular and continuing basis? How is the information which results from such an investigation to be integrated into a formal hypertext document? How is such a document, composed over time, to be designed and edited? Finally, how is such a document to be constructed so that it will be useful to others?

Results of this preliminary investigation suggest that students with serialistic or dualistic learning styles do not readily develop open hypertexts, despite repeated encouragement toward a nonlinear approach. The discussion includes various means of enhancing future studies of this nature, in particular the establishment of several design conventions. Drawbacks of Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) are also discussed, and suggestions are made for future research and development. The WWW site created by the students can be viewed at http://artsci.washington.edu/drama-phd/19title.html.

Citation

Wolcott, J.R. & Robertson, J.E. (1997). The World Wide Web as an Environment for Collaborative Research: An Experiment in Graduate Education. International Journal of Educational Telecommunications, 3(2), 219-236. Charlottesville, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Retrieved August 12, 2024 from .

© 1997 Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE)

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