Return to Main Menu

Professors a key-stroke away on web by Dick Peterson Public Relations A professor in your pocket? Not quite, but on your desktop, maybe. And certainly more accessible than in the classroom or the lecture hall. It’s accessibility that makes their courses on the Internet popular among MUSC online students, say assistant professor Richard Hernandez, Dr.P.H., and associate professor Thierry R.H. Bacro, Ph.D. Theirs are the only web-based, full-credit courses at MUSC listed with the Southern Regional Electronic Campus, and both are offered in the College of Health Professions. But distance education director Geoff Freeman predicts there are more on the way— “Fifty, maybe a hundred in five years, who knows?” It’s not that teaching on the web is better than teaching in the traditional classroom—it’s just different. And it presents students and teacher with options that can enhance the learning process. Here’s an option: Eliminate distance. Teaching classes on the Internet makes South Carolina’s leading academic medical center accessible to the world, not just to Lowcountry residents who can commute to the campus. When students log onto Hernandez’ health care marketing or Bacro’s human anatomy class, they are in class, studying that day’s lesson, and participating in real-time class discussions from their home or local library computers. “If they have questions, they have my answers, or we can have a discussion,” Hernandez said. When the bulletin board discussions go so fast and furious, Hernandez keys a “PAUSE!” just to give him time to catch up with answers. “Sometimes I’ll pre-write my questions and paste them into the chat dialogue box as the session evolves.” That gives him time to organize his answers, he said.  Bacro, who is usually at his computer from 8 to 11 p.m. each evening, welcomes questions e-mailed to him from his students. He’s even noticed students who are reluctant to participate in classroom discussions become much more animated online.  “It’s so much more lively, and I’m more accessible to my students,” he said. Bacro said he was even able to continue his teaching and maintain contact with his students while on a recent trip to France. He acknowledged, however, that their perception is that he is always available, which could raise unrealistic expectations. “Once you teach on the web,” Bacro said, “you see the new horizons that open for both students and professors. You also see that web-based classes can be a blessing and a curse. Gone is the eight-hour business day.”   Can web courses be trusted? by Dick Peterson Public Relations Distance education’s latest leap off campus with two Internet-based courses this semester certainly makes an expanding MUSC in a shrinking world more accessible to students who don’t commute.  But how can those students be sure that the money they plunk down for desktop-displayed instruction will deliver a worthwhile return in knowledge and recognized credits? After all, it’s a wild wild World Wide Web. And like the wild West of the last century, the virtual Internet frontier of the next century is a mix of opportunity and danger.  To minimize the danger and guide prospective students to legitimate Internet courses offered by accredited colleges and universities, the Southern Regional Education Board has a handy website, called the Southern Regional Electronic Campus. It lets students search the offerings by institution, course, and program. And it even assists with financial aid information and more. The electronic campus website can be found at <http://www.electroniccampus.org/>.  “The electronic campus sets standards, or principles of good practice, to make sure the courses they represent are legitimate,” said distance education director Geoff Freeman. He explained that a prospective Internet course at MUSC is submitted to the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education, which then approves the course for registration with the electronic campus. MUSC’s two Internet-based courses are listed right there with others from institutions in the Southern region. They are: health care marketing, taught by Richard Hernandez, Dr.P.H., and human anatomy, taught by Thierry R.H. Bacro, Ph.D.  Although other distance education courses have used the Internet to supplement class instruction transmitted by compressed video or in teleconference sessions, Hernandez’ and Bacro’s courses are the only courses taught exclusively on the Internet. They are semester-driven, follow a formal schedule, but include chat sessions that give students an opportunity to learn from each other and their professor in lively and instructive discussions. Since taking the distance education helm at MUSC a year ago, Freeman has focused on supporting faculty who wish to enter the world of electronic-assisted instruction. He has held training classes and seminars on how to use distance education technologies more creatively and has covered new technology topics like such as intellectual property rights and copyright issues for information published on the web. Freeman sees an inevitable trend toward greater reliance on distance education technology in the future. He sites the presence of compressed video teleconferencing in libraries, federal facilities and military bases. Companies use the technology to hold meetings across the miles or interview prospective employees without having to pay for flight to interview in person.  “A candidate for a job can just go to the local Kinko’s and be interviewed from half a world away,” Freeman said. He predicts that in time, personal computers will be advanced enough to do it.