While formal synchronous presentations may not be possible or practical online, instructors can still provide opportunities for projects to be shared, explained, and discussed in the class forums. We found during the evaluation that there were two kinds of feedback provided by online instructors. Information feedback, as the name implies, is informational or evaluative in nature, such as an answer to a question or an assignment grade and comments. We found that instructors were good at giving prompt information feedback to the students at the beginning of the semester, but as the semester progressed and instructors became busier, the frequency of responses decreased, and the response time increased. In some cases, students got feedback on postings after the discussion had already moved on to other topics.
Acknowledgement feedback confirms that some event has occurred.
For example, the instructor may send an e-mail acknowledging he or she has received a question or assignment and will respond soon. Acknowledgement feedback was especially important in the case of one online course we evaluated, where one member of a student team submitted that team's projects. The instructor confirmed that she had received the assignment on time, providing reassurance to students. Still, we found that instructors rarely provided this kind of feedback, generally only when they were behind and wanted to inform students that assignments would be graded soon. We believe that online instructors should be conscientious about providing both information and acknowledgement feedback to students.