Outreach

Internationalizing a Journalism Curriculum Using Distance Education Technology: A Pilot Project Between Lebanese American University and the University of Missouri-Columbia

October 26-29, 1999, Beirut, Lebanon

— by Magda Abu-Fadil (Lebanese American Univeristy) and Roger Gafke (University of Missouri-Columbia)

What the Pilot Project Taught About Using These Technologies

The project demonstrated that the editors could review and comment on student writing without incurring an unreasonable additional burden. Each editor spent about 20 to 30 minutes reviewing each story.

The project showed that e-mail is a reliable, effective way for editors to exchange stories and comments. In this project editors were the only people involved in the exchange. The editors passed to students the critique of their stories. If the distant editor were to be more directly involved in the editing process for a course, this process could become too cumbersome, since it requires the local editor to retransmit the critiques to the students. For a larger role in a course, direct e-mail contact with individual students or using a course-specific web work site might be more effective.

The project demonstrated that one must design cooperative projects within the limits of available technology. Distance education technologies are rapidly developing, enabling those with state-of-the-art equipment to connect with students in other locations as if they were face-to-face. The technology also enables the design and delivery of tutorials and simulations that go far beyond face-to-face education. However, these high tech systems are not universally available. In this project, access to the World Wide Web from LAU was more limited and often slower than from Missouri. Downloading stories at LAU frequently was uncertain and always required more time than receiving the stories as e-mail attachments would have taken. That was, in part, due to fewer bandwidths being available for use by LAU than at Missouri.

The Missouri stories were initially posted as web pages requiring more technology to edit than simple computer files do. Unless one uses the latest version of Netscape Composer or another web page design program, stories posted as web pages are not easily edited.

The project demonstrated the need to be comfortable with the technology. Only the faculty editors were involved this time; however, access to the Missouri web site required an orientation to the site and the use of passwords to open the story files. If students were to be involved, it would be necessary to give them risk-free opportunities to practice using the technology, to become familiar with the assignments and expectations and to understand the organization of the site. (Sandell)

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