Synchronous navigation control for distance learning on the Web

https://doi.org/10.1016/0169-7552(96)00065-7Get rights and content

Abstract

Most of the research on “distance learning on the Web” is learner-centric. That is, learners play an active role in their learning process, while instructors are passive or even invisible. Unable to treat the instructor/learner relationship as a whole causes some problems. Therefore, we introduce a new concept of instructor-oriented navigation control on the Web, and then propose and implement a protocol for it. In this model, an instructor (technically, master) can setup a learning group, and those who wish to be guided distantly (technically, slaves) during the study may have their navigation activities controlled synchronously by joining the group. We believe that instructors will become more active and positive with the help of our proposed model in a WWW-based educational environment.

Section snippets

Ping-Jer Yeh is a Master student at the Institute of Computer and Information Science, National Chiao-Tung University, Taiwan. He translated the comp.lang.c++ FAQ into Chinese, and is a regular contributor to local journals. His research interests include object-oriented technology, distributed systems, and programming languages.

References (19)

  • Bertrand Ibrahim et al.

    Advanced educational uses on the World-Wide Web

    Proc. 3rd Internat. World-Wide Web Conf.

    Computer Networks and ISDN Systems

    (1995)
  • David Nicol et al.

    Footsteps: Trail-blazing the Web

    Proc. 3rd Internat. World-Wide Web Conf.

    Computer Networks and ISDN Systems

    (1995)
  • Ming-Chih Lai et al.

    Toward a new educational environment

  • Chao-Hsiu Chen et al.

    The definitions, theories, and technology uses in cooperative distance learning

  • Jeff Conklin

    Hypertext: An introduction and survey

    Computer (IEEE)

    (1987)
  • Patricia Wright

    Cognitive overheads and prostheses: Some issues in evaluating hypertexts

  • Emanuel G. Noik

    Exploring large hyperdocuments: Fisheye views of nested networks

  • Polle T. Zellweger

    Scripted Documents: A hypermedia path mechanism

  • Tim Berners-Lee et al.

    Hypertext Transfer Protocol — HTTP/1.0, Internet Draft

    (February 1996)
There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (3)

  • Enhancing group awareness on the web: Prototype and experiments of sharing web page visitation information among teammates

    2012, Interacting with Computers
    Citation Excerpt :

    Some approaches use a special browser that allows users to control other users’ browsers, or to see what other users are doing or what page they are browsing. Some examples of these approaches are GroupWeb (Greenberg and Roseman, 1996), Albatross (Yeh et al., 1996) and GroupScape (Graham, 1997). Other approaches use common browsers, but in different ways.

  • CoLab: A new paradigm and tool for collaboratively browsing the Web

    2006, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Part A:Systems and Humans
  • Joint class experiments based on realtime Web-browser synchronization

    1998, Proceedings - 3rd Asia Pacific Computer Human Interaction, APCHI 1998

Ping-Jer Yeh is a Master student at the Institute of Computer and Information Science, National Chiao-Tung University, Taiwan. He translated the comp.lang.c++ FAQ into Chinese, and is a regular contributor to local journals. His research interests include object-oriented technology, distributed systems, and programming languages.

Bih-Horng Chen is a Master student at the Institute of Computer and Information Science, National Chiao-Tung University, Taiwan. Her research interests include distributed and educational hypermedia systems. She is currently developing an Internet problem-based learning environment based on the Albatross system.

Ming-Chih Lai is an information officer in the Chinese army. He received his Master degree in Computer Science from National Chiao-Tung University, Taiwan. His current interests include distance learning, distributed information management, and educational hypermedia.

Shyan-Ming Yuan is a professor at the Institute and Department of Computer and Information Science, National Chiao-Tung University, Taiwan. He received the Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of Maryland, College Park in 1989. His current research interests include distributed system design, fault-tolerant computing, CSCW, multimedia environments and ICAL in distance cooperative learning environment. Dr. Yuan is a member of ACM and IEEE.

View full text