Freeman admits to having the usual failures of a pioneer. There is less staff administrative work because the Web is used for announcements, such as where to lodge assignments, errors in a text, changes to deadlines, and guides to marking. Staff have to discourage students from calling by phone and private e-mail, instead of logging on to the site. But there is still a huge workload in the Internet-posted queries. Some students at other universities became irate when Freeman failed to respond to their queries.
Students expect staff to respond seven days a week, and mark faster.
Now, without the Internet, the requests would be totally unmanageable. I used to get 40 calls on my voice-mail before I even started work. He predicts that in the coming decade, some universities will fail, especially those that have chased short-term economies at the expense of quality.