The technology is changing faster than I can keep up with. I just started learning HTML when it is now in the process of being made obsolete by VRML . There has been no decrease in class attendance. If any thing, it has increased as students realize that they need to come to class to understand the context of the lecture pages. The development of Web based course material has very little to do with distance-learning, despite the rhetoric to the contrary.
Students have to be forced to use the network.
If left on their own they won't. As a result, I think the principle success of Instructional Technology to date, lies in improvement in the way lecture material is presented. The opportunity for students to use the technology to interact in a more fundamental way with the course and its material has only been seized by the most motivated students. A program for faculty incentives to develop Web-based course material must be developed. If not, other Universities will do those courses for us.