Monitoring a CMC environment created for distance learning

Abstract

Projects using Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) are becoming of interest to all academic institutions World‐wide. STILE (Students’ and Teachers’ Integrated Learning Environment) is one such project which included four universities in the United Kingdom. The Open University implementation of the project was called M205‐STILE and it used a CMC environment with 110 students and nine tutors nationwide and in Europe. The participants were on‐line from February to October 1995 and the provision of these facilities allowed distance learning students to avail themselves of better communication with both their tutor and with fellow students. This paper discusses, from both the tutor and student perspective, how computer science students made use of a CMC environment created especially for them. It illustrates that students used the system to learn more about the subject area and about each other, and to sustain or motivate themselves throughout the learning period.