Using the World Wide Web for teaching improvement

The World Wide Web has impacted the educational model in a fundamental way and forced educators to think of ways that this technology can be used to improve teaching effectiveness. This paper describes an implementation of the continuous improvement philosophy in a graduate level Operations Analysis class by using the web to obtain immediate and systematic feedback from students on lecture and other course activities. The feedback obtained is analyzed to determine how the delivery and content of the course can be improved. In the short-term the response is to address immediate problems or diffculties encountered by students. In the long-term a fully searchable web site with references to readings, audio/visual modules of class lectures. problem solutions and frequently asked questions (FAQ) materials is to be developed. Technology issues and the lessons learned from the experiment are discussed. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.