Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | A | Academic Exchange Quarterly

WebCT surveys: opportunities and challenges.

Article Excerpt
Abstract

Course management systems (CMSs) provide opportunities for instructors to create and implement web-based surveys, but some obstacles arise related to software compatibility issues and implementation challenges. Many of these problems can be avoided and others overcome through creative solutions.

Introduction

Since the dawn of the World Wide Web a decade ago, interest in web-based survey use has grown steadily. Research is still in the early stages of tapping the potential and discovering the limitations of using this medium for survey research. Nevertheless, the literature is rife with articles extolling the virtues of web-based surveys. Other researchers take a more cautious approach identifying problems with using this medium for survey research. One area of limited research that warrants further attention is the implementation of surveys in web-based course management systems (CMSs). This paper describes some of the implications manifested with the use of a WebCT survey during a study of web-based instruction and describes the solutions to these issues within one web-based CMS (WebCT).

CMSs are web-based software programs that provide an authoring interface and tools that allow instructors to create, facilitate and manage a course online without requiring knowledge of programming or web-development expertise. The popularity and proliferation of web-based CMSs have increased the use of surveys integrated within them. Regrettably, a thorough understanding of the implications and problems of surveys within this context has not accompanied this trend. One popular CMS used by many institutions in the U.S. is WebCT (www.webct.com). WebCT provides instructors more than 30 tools (including a survey tool) to help them create a web-based password-protected environment for their students. Because of the nature of this web-based context, some issues associated with web-based surveys identified in the literature are non-existent or minimized with the use of WebCT. The survey tool in WebCT assists an instructor in creating and implementing a web-based survey. This tool permits a number of options and capabilities such as providing anonymity for students participating in the survey, importing questions, permitting six types of question formats, integrating video and audio, tracking of non-participants, tracking of time spent on each question and on each survey, limiting participants to one survey attempt, automatically setting up a release date and end date of survey, and exporting of data to statistical packages. In spite of these benefits, the implementation of the survey tool in WebCT is not without challenges and implications that have not been widely documented in the literature.

Literature Review

Advantages of using web-based surveys include the ability to process results without separate data entry, cost savings, speed of processing and higher response rates if they are combined with other survey modes (Fricker & Schonlau, 2002) and the ability to observe participants' patterns of...