On-line Office Hours

Listserv/E-mail

Strengths

• E-mail nearly ubiquitous
• Can be restricted to list members only, or be private between a faculty member and student
• Very interactive; communications can feel more personal

Weaknesses

• Attachments may be difficult to impossible to send
• Responsibilities of list owner can be time-consuming
• Some students may not want discussion to be publicly accessible to rest of the class
• Server load can be severe

MOO

Strengths

• Allows for near real-time interaction
• Material can be made into objects accessible only by certain permitted participants
• May appear as a more natural way to have open discussion

Weaknesses

• Can be difficult to access given crude client and style of the environment

Netnews

Strengths

• Easy to post
• Easy to view: newsreaders widely available and widely used
• Ability for followup discussion and clarification
• No recognized resource load on servers

Weaknesses

• Postings inherently public, at least to the campus community
• Poster's identity can be forged with relative ease

WWW

Strengths

• Faculty member retains the most control over material
• Widespread use of WWW browsers, even moreso than netnews
• Little to no marginal server resource impact

Weaknesses

• Students must actively search out material
• Difficult to support followup and discussion without additional design and coding