Jan Cooper, John Charles Reid Associate Professor of Expository Writing, finds that her students send her short questions by e-mail when they see that she's logged on. Cooper also has established electronic discussion groups for her classes and said the online discussions clear up many problems and questions so that classroom time can be devoted to weightier issues. Professor of Politics Eve Sandberg also uses bulletin boards to continue or initiate discussions that relate to class readings. Recently she found material on the World Wide Web about foreign aid, a subject one of her classes was studying. Students who read the file attached their own electronic notes to it, expressing their concerns, hopes, and evaluations.
Some professors devise complex Web sites for their courses.
Associate Professor of History Gary Kornblith has developed an online syllabus for students taking his class American History to 1877. His site is an electronic resource rich in hyperlinks, including those to outlines of his lectures, a virtual tour of the Plimouth Plantation, and the Covenant of the Oberlin Colony. Here, Assistant Professor of Sociology Daphne John, a consultant for a publishing company, is developing a web site for one of the publisher's introductory sociology textbooks. The site allows students from several campuses to communicate with one another about the text and about issues related to the courses they are taking that use the book. John oversees the discussion and prompts students with questions and topics.