Some strategies for promoting student
adoption of Internet services

Abstract: One pathway towards the adoption of new educational technologies is to ensure acceptance by students prior to use by staff for formal teaching and learning purposes. In the case of email, world wide web publishing and other Internet services, adoption is complicated by concerns over the cost and organisation of access facilities, regulation of user behaviour, equitable access for all students in a class, and the need for user training and technical support. This paper discusses a strategy which addresses these issues by seeking the greatest scope for student involvement and a collaborative learning approach to Internet services. It is illustrated by our experiences with "cleo", an Internet host operated by Murdoch University Academic Services Unit.

Introduction

The phrases "attract sustained attention" and "viable base of modem users" represent two important features of the context within which cleo commenced operations at Murdoch University. Although staff use of Internet email for research and administrative communications grew rapidly at Murdoch University during 1993-95, use of email and other forms of Internet based communications for teaching and learning purposes attracted very little attention. Very few students had access to email and other Internet services. Any attempt to incorporate these into teaching would require unit coordinators to devote an excessive amount of time, effort and very scarce funds towards organising an effective way to overcome that barrier. Thus cleo adopted a primary purpose in drawing attention to "computer mediated communications" being attractive to and being used by students, overcoming the access barrier without requiring any special effort or major funding by the University.

Cleo's operations tackled the creation of a "viable base of modem users" because Murdoch University lacks on campus facilities for student access to email and other Internet services. Developing a user base amongst undergraduate and graduate coursework students depends very much upon modem communications, although on campus access to Internet services via cleo has been trailed for some students, notably with several Law School classes in a CAUT Project and a group of international students (Atkinson, 1995i). This feature of our context is unlikely to change significantly until late 1996 or 1997. Modem communications, for which students purchase and house at home their own personal computer and modem, and use their own telephone line, constitute the only way to proceed, when on campus workstations are not available.

Modem communications

The University has to provide the modems and telephone lines which answer a user's modem call, a host computer and the local area networking infrastructure. User training and support services, host management, fund raising and other tasks have to be undertaken. However, connecting users via a modem pool does not entail the rather large expenses and maintenance work associated with providing laboratories filled with personal computers for on campus use by students. Also, use of modem communications can attain a momentum for rapid growth more readily than is the case with on campus access to the Internet, at least in some contexts such as that faced at Murdoch University.

How we developed attractive services

• Offering users full access to the Internet. The wider the range of services and purposes offered, the greater is the probability in favour of successful commencement and continuing, effective use (Atkinson, 1995a). However, this approach may be criticised by those who feel that it allows excessive use for social and recreational purposes in contrast to academic purposes.

• Attractive local services from cleo's web server, majordomo listserver, ftp server, pop server (for Eudora and other email agents), slip emulation, irc client and others, plus access to the University's Internet newsgroups host "newsman" (Atkinson, 1995b).

• Facilitating access from computers at home via modems, by enabling the use of graphical interface software for Internet services (Atkinson, 1995c).

• Supportive induction for new users, including individualised assistance for initial technical problems, and avoiding extrinsic pressures to learn at a specified rate (Atkinson, 1995d).

• Avenues for group communications on technical matters in using computers, for the dual purposes of providing user support for novices, and giving experienced users a forum for helping and teaching other users and for contributing towards enhancement of the system. Our main avenue is the emailing list "eff_one@cleo" run by cleo's majordomo listserver (Atkinson, 1995e). Eff_one provides a very substantial supplement to the user support services available for cleo users.

• Avenues for purposeful communications relating to immediate, study oriented activities, such as access to the University CWIS, the Library's catalogue system, email to tutors, and experimental investigation of assignment submission by email.

• Avenues for group communications relating to the University's intellectual and social environment. For this purpose cleo runs the list "bushcourt@cleo" (Figure 1) for student comments and debate on contemporary issues concerning the University community (Atkinson, 1995e). The list "telegraph@cleo" is run for geographically remote students.
  

  Figure 1. The business end of an emailing list - inspecting the /etc/aliases file on cleo, open at the entries for bushcourt and law-students (a list to support several Law School units). This complexity is hidden from the list owner and users, being seen only by cleo's "majordomo-owner". Users "see" these and other lists only via the graphical interface provided by their email handler.

• A substantial and growing user base, in terms of numbers of users and their level of activity. Accounts on cleo are available for both external and internal students, from any of Murdoch's Schools. The "liveliness" created by the users of a host attracts increased participation, for example users own web pages (Atkinson, 1995f) and community access (Atkinson, 1995g) are encouraged on cleo.

• Users in control of their own purposes and assured of a participatory role in shaping the purposes and management of their host. Issues include reasonable implementations of user charges satisfying both University and users, access to a full range of Internet services, privacy rights, freedom of expression rights, and ethical conduct of communications and publishing activities (Atkinson, 1995h).

• Securing additional funding to cater for growth and operational expenses. Cleo's main external grant was from the Committee for Advancement of University Teaching (CAUT) for the 1994 project "Collaborative learning through computer conferencing" (Atkinson, 1995i). User charges now contribute a substantial part of cleo's funding (Atkinson, 1995j). Academic Services Unit salary savings have funded a hardware upgrade for cleo, progressing towards a cutover in February 1996 which will give a two to threefold increase in host capacity at a cost of about $15,000 (Atkinson, 1995j). Some further funding will be obtained from the University's NPRF 96 Grant for "Innovative delivery methods for Murdoch University's South West Campuses" (Atkinson, 1995k).

Outcomes from cleo operations

The number of student users of cleo grew rapidly during 1994 and 1995, until cleo growth was placed "on hold" by the University's Information Technology Policy Committee (ITPC) in mid 1995:

      Feb94    Jun94    Mar95    Sep95    Dec95
        45      308      459      607      541

The pause in cleo growth was due to concern over cleo users taking a dominating share of the capacity of the University's modem pool, uncertainties about the impact of traffic volume charges which were introduced for AARNet members in 1995, and a view that development of University policies on Internet access for students should not be pre-empted by the rapid growth in cleo's operations as the only provider. However, after a period of declining numbers and an extensive deletion of inactive users and users who had left the University, the main uncertainties have been overcome by a series of actions and events which open the scope for a resumption of growth. These include:

• introduction of user charge for cleo users (Atkinson, 1995j). Current levels are $25 per six months for student users, and $45 per six months for community users. Income is used for modem pool expenses, traffic volume charges and minor maintenance. It is not a full cost recovery charge, because staffing for cleo operations and hardware depreciation are not covered.

• creation of a "cleo only" modem pool, which countered the criticism that cleo users were "hogging all the modems" and preventing staff users from obtaining connections. Capacity is leased from Computer and Network Services Unit under a full cost recovery charge, currently $880 per port per year.

• a strong defence of cleo's role and strategies by cleo's users. Ironically, the threat that cleo would be forced into a negative growth phase turned out to be a stimulus for increased student utilisation of Internet services. For example, the new list "bushcourt@cleo", set up initially to discuss user charges and "how to run cleo", attained viability very quickly and at this point in time is the major avenue for electronic debates and consensus formation on topical issues concerning the Murdoch University community.

• a resumption of growth during the summer of 1995-96, backed by Academic Services Unit and NPRF funds, by a healthy position in the cleo user charges budget, continuing enhancements in user support documentation and techniques, a resurgence in the level of inquiries for first time Internet access via cleo, improved procedures for induction of new users, support from student organisations, successful addition of Windows 95 users, and confidence in a "user driven" approach to future introductions of teaching and learning applications based upon world wide web and email list services.

We cannot predict the ultimate extent to which Murdoch students will provide their own home based equipment for Internet access via cleo or other hosts, but 40% by the end of 1997 could be a realistic forward estimate. The extent to which this growth will cater for equity considerations is also uncertain. The principal area of difficulty is off campus, geographically remote students who do not have low cost Internet connections available. Another area of difficulty, also impacting mainly upon off campus students, is that students who experience difficulty in access to user training programs for information technology skills will be disadvantaged, just as those who do not acquire language, literacy, numeracy and library skills are disadvantaged in tertiary study.

Regulation of user behaviour is not a major issue amongst cleo users, although many staff appear to be fearful of the risk that student actions on the Internet may lead to criticism of the University. Cleo has an extensive record of freedom from significant incidents in the contentious areas of content regulation, hacking and copyright. Cleo user interest in "objectionable materials" appears to be a level similar to that found on Internet hosts generally. In line with the Internet community at large, bushcourt@cleo debaters are very much opposed to the simple blanket forms of censorship sought by some sections of society.

Cleo's strategy of promoting student adoption of Internet services by "attracting sustained attention" and a "viable base of modem users" attained maturity, and a sustainable momentum, by the summer of 1995-96. It is now time to increase the effort towards the next phase of growth, in the carriage of teaching and learning applications. The final section of this paper examines some implications and give suggestions on how to broaden out from the user base secured during 1993-95.

Some implications for teaching and learning applications

Student adoption of on campus access to Internet services is likely to be enhanced by offering a wide choice of environments. These may include traditional "computer laboratories", workstations in the Library environment, workstations in a "coffee shop" or "cybercafe" environment, and workstations in Student Village (the University's student housing). Experience with international students at Murdoch through the Council for International Educational Exchange, Institute for Study Abroad and other schemes who became users of cleo for their one or two semester visits gives some indications. Small, informal rooms each with a relatively small, socially coherent group of users are likely to be favoured by students, in two variations, "quiet" environments in the Library or within School Buildings, and "social" environments in School Buildings or elsewhere such as Guild of Students offices.

If modem access is complemented by on campus access from a variety of environments and with full access to Internet services, we will meet one essential prerequisite for teaching and learning applications. This is a very extensive student user base, familiar and at ease with computer communicated "reading" and "discussion". The second essential prerequisite is a body of staff who are also familiar and at ease with teaching via Internet services. In this aspect the development strategy promulgated by the Academic Services Unit is to build up a relatively simple infrastructure for delivery, comprising world wide web server and listserver.

World wide web and listserver delivery of teaching and learning activities have a number of advantages compared with more complex forms of computer assisted learning. A web server provides a form of "lecture presentation", which is complemented by an email listserver providing a form of "tutorial group discussion". Our initial experiments in "tandem" operation of web pages and emailing list are very encouraging. These are in progress with the list edtech-aus@cleo and web pages http://cleo.murdoch.edu.au/aset/, for Australian Society for Educational Technology, and the list trdev-aus@cleo and web pages http://cleo.murdoch.edu.au/trdev-aus/, for the TAFE, vocational education and training sector. Initial experiments with Murdoch University units supported by web pages and emailing list will develop during 1996.

Designing units for delivery support via world wide web pages and an emailing list is simplified through relative ease of use by unit coordinators and tutors, compared with the greater complexities associated with authoring tools for interactive multimedia resources. For email, the typical tools are one's word processor and an email handler such as the widely used public domain program "Eudora". Web page writing is more complex than email, but support services and training courses are available locally (Rehn, 1995). Colour photographs are readily incorporated into web pages (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Netscape web reader view of cleo and carmen's statement on hardware (only the first 8 lines of text are visible). This picture occupies 24 kB of disk space on cleo, only about one eighth of the file size required for word processor handling of the image. It was taken with an Apple QuickTake digital camera and normally would never be viewed via a paper print.

By using standard Internet services such as world wide web and email, infrastructure developers avoid the very large investments of resources required to produce alternatives. Furthermore, it would be rather pointless to embark upon some kinds of developments, for example an email system specifically for teaching purposes, when great tools are readily available from the public domain (all of cleo's listserver software and associated Unix utilities are free from the Internet).

Strategies for introducing Internet services into teaching and learning are likely to vary widely between different universities, depending upon context factors such as allocation of funds, extent of dual mode teaching, nature of the student population, staff experience with new technologies and many others. The details of our experience with cleo may have only marginal relevance in other universities, but we hope that the major principles concerning accordance of a role to student participation will be considered widely.

References

Atkinson, Roger and Rehn, Geoff (1995). About cleo. URL: http://cleo.murdoch.edu.au/help/info/about-cleo-carmen.html

Atkinson, Roger (1995a). Offering users full access to the Internet. URL: http://cleo.murdoch.edu.au/help/accounts/gen/cleo-internet-access.html

Atkinson, Roger (1995b). Cleo services - listserver, www and others. URL: http://cleo.murdoch.edu.au/help/info/tlc-hostserv.html

Atkinson, Roger (1995c). Graphical interface software for modem access to Internet services. URL: http://cleo.murdoch.edu.au/asu/edtech/cleo_web/graphical-interface.html

Atkinson, Roger (1995d). Supportive induction for new users. URL: http://cleo.murdoch.edu.au/help/activities/new-users.html

Atkinson, Roger (1995e). Emailing lists eff_one and bushcourt. URL: http://cleo.murdoch.edu.au/asu/edtech/caut94/why-lists.html

Atkinson, Roger (1995f). Users own web pages. URL: http://cleo.murdoch.edu.au/help/info/users-web-pages.html

Atkinson, Roger (1995g). Community access via cleo. URL: http://cleo.murdoch.edu.au/help/info/commserv-net.html

Atkinson, Roger (1995h). Cleo conditions of use. URL: http://cleo.murdoch.edu.au/help/accounts/accounts.html

Atkinson, Roger (1995i). Collaborative learning through computer conferencing. CAUT Project 1994. URL: http://cleo.murdoch.edu.au/asu/edtech/caut94/collab-learn.html

Atkinson, Roger (1995j). Cleo user charges. URL: http://cleo.murdoch.edu.au/help/accounts/bulletins/bulletins.html

Atkinson, Roger (1995k). Innovative delivery methods for Murdoch University's South West Campuses. National Priority Reserve Fund 1996 Grant. URL: http://cleo.murdoch.edu.au/asu/projects/nprf96/nprf96.html

Rehn, Geoff (1995). Geoff's lessons on writing web pages (ASDF 95 Project). URL: http://cleo.murdoch.edu.au/asu/edtech/asdf95/lessons/lesson_index.html