Student Email and the Customer Service Demand

A very accurate (at least from my own online teaching experience) and timely article from Denise Knight and Noralyn Masselink about student demands. I think anyone who teaches online could probably write a similar essay, but congratulations to the authors for stating it well. Here is a small selection, but please take the time to read the entire article...especially the netiquette tips that can be used by faculty and shared with students.

eLearn: Feature Article: "Ever since email exploded onto the scene in the early 1990s, it has become a fast, popular, and convenient medium for communication between college students and their professors. Some would argue that it has become too convenient. Students today seem to rely less on face-to-face meetings or phone calls with their instructors and more on electronic mail, which they use to challenge grades, explain absences, deliver unsolicited paper drafts, and announce their intention to 'drop by' outside of office hours, assuming that we will either be available or shift our schedules to accommodate their needs. Today's students view themselves as customers in a consumer culture who are entitled to answers and information 24 hours a day. Do things really have to be this way?"

Examples of the suggestions:
Don't email your professor to ask whether they will excuse a particular absence.
Don't email your professor to ask whether they will excuse a particular absence.
Don't expect an immediate response to your email.
You are what you email.
Use proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation.

These are simply a few of the excellent suggestions. For more information, check out

"i dont mean too bother u but": Student Email and a Call for Netiquette, By Denise D. Knight and Noralyn Masselink, State University of New York College at Cortland

Questions for Covey: Communicating Potential

Stephen Covey, in May's Training magazine:
Questions for Covey: Communicating Potential

What are the challenges of leading a globally networked team?

"Obviously, the first challenge is a lack of face-to-face communication, where the transference of emotion takes place and a genuine liking and respect develops. That's why it's important to have such face-to-face meetings, at least annually, so people get to know each other in both informal and formal ways. Then put technology to work. Remember, however, that technology is a great servant but a bad master. Until the trust is high, it's difficult to communicate in shorthand and to really produce third-alternative solutions that harmonize the real cultural and political differences that exist around the world."

JMS: I think this concept applies to collaborative work at a distance (even if it is across campus), and to a certain extent applies to online education experiences. Must all online courses have an F2F component? No. But should any online course make a real effort to foster the "transference of emotion" that develops "respect" and "liking".