The informants averaged approximately 45 minutes to complete the e-mail interview. It also involved some degree of interaction between the interviewer and the interviewee. The investigators read over all the interviews at least two times, looking for trends and consistencies and generating 39 categories of responses and mnemonic codes to symbolize these categories. Some of the most important, most emphasized and most frequent responses made points we had not directly asked about. A lot of issues related to bandwidth limitations and the dominance of text in Web-based classes.
Some instructors feel as if a lifetime of teaching skills goes by the wayside.
They can not use their presence and their classroom skills to get their point across. Nor can they use their oral skills to improvise on the spot to deal with behavior problems or educational opportunities. Because of the reliance on text-based communication and a lack of visual cues, every aspect of the course has to be laid out in meticulous detail to avoid misunderstandings. Every lecture must be converted to a typed document. Directions for every assignment must be spelled out in a logical, self-contained way.