Another cycle

Having spent quite a bit of effort getting the e-learning horses into their harnesses last year and wondering whether all the trouble was worth it, this year could be the one where some furrows are usefully ploughed with less sweat on my part.

It has certainly been very liberating to simply direct students to the virtual store cupboard, without having to fill each of their baskets. Today's course material distribution takes ten seconds.

Me: "Log on to webCT, you'll see my course there, grab what you need"
Them: "er... great!"

Increasingly, students will expect more and more direct provision of on-line information. Here's a trendspotting survey in the Grauniad (spotted in Cutting Through). The conclusions talk about media buying habits of the youth, but these are trends that will probably affect student expectations in universities too. In not too many years' time, it has to be stressed. Next year's first tutorial could go like:

Them: "Hey grandad, I've looked for your RSS feed and course documents last week, where are they? I want my money back. I'm off."
Me: "er... wait!"