An online course at Jönköping International Business School, JIBS, was scrutinized from different perspectives. The course chosen for investigation was Business English Online (BUENGON 1), which was running for the second time since autumn 2001. The platform used was the school’s intranet called JIBSNet, developed to handle administration of all the courses, and to provide some facilities for communication between teachers and students.

Our research questions were:
· What do students have to consider when embarking on an online course?
· What administrative considerations must the tutor take into account in organizing such a course?
· What type of learning style/attitude may best suit due to the special characteristics of an online course?
· How to solve the interaction between students and tutor related to the special kind of teaching/learning situation.

How did we perform the study?

One student who had enrolled on the course, offered to provide the student perspective. The opportunity also served to gather material for his master’s thesis. This student’s supervisor was one of the authors of this paper; his online teacher was the other. The supervisor gave advice on how to perform the pre-course online questionnaire, where the aim was to determine all the students’ attitude to distance learning. One reason for not using interviews was partly because it was an easy way of reaching the students as they used IT as a tool during the course. Another reason was that not all the students lived in the vicinity. After the course, it was of relevance to conduct a follow-up questionnaire to find out why half the students enrolled, had dropped out. In parallel, and independently of one another, the teacher evaluated the course from her perspective.

Some Results: the Student perspective.
The number of places available on the BUENGON course was twenty, but only nineteen started. The pre-course questionnaire asked students about their home/work life, any previous experience of distance learning and their level of computer skills. Most of the students lived locally, whilst others were working abroad; they chose the course to complement their work, and a third had prior experience of distance study.

The follow-up questionnaire asked for learners’ perceptions of the course and whether the medium suited them. Students thought that the delivery of the course enabled flexibility. In fact all the students that passed the course, found that the design of the course made it more flexible (Totally agree = 9, Agree in a great extent = 1). They also found that was a good platform for interaction between students and tutor. To the question “Do you think the web platform (JIBSNet) has contributed to enhancing the course pedagogically? 4 students answered “Yes” and 5 answered, “To a certain extent”. Those who successfully completed the course had good computer skills and were even more positive to new technology.

Of the nineteen students who started the course, only ten of them finished. The most important reasons why they dropped out were:

· The design of the course didn’t suit me.
· I realized that distance learning was not for me.

The majority of the students found that the delivery was not appropriate for them. Conversely, it could be said that the student did not suit the course, or more generally: some students did not suit these types of courses. Of course the question then is raised about different learning styles.

Learning styles	Disagree	Agree partially	Agree	Agree very much	Agree fully	Total
Visual, learn new information through text and picture.	0	0	2	5	2	9
Auditory, learn through listening and speaking.	0	3	1	2	3	9
Logical, learn information through experiment and pattern.	0	0	2	4	3	9
Spatial, learn new information through painting and creating.	3	4	2	0	0	9
Kinaesthetic, learning new information through the body.	5	4	0	0	0	9
Group, take in new information through working in a group, comparing and relating to other people's experience.	0	2	4	2	1	9
Individual, take in new information through one's own work and by following one's own feelings.	0	0	0	3	6	9

As can be seen from Table 1, in the column Agree very much, a learning style that incorporated visual aspects seemed to be most appropriate when reading an online course, at least as far as our study indicates (five students). Also logical attributes turned out to be important (four students). Most important for these students was being able to work and learn individually. This could largely account for why these students left the course as they may have felt thwarted by all the group work tasks. Of the remaining ten who completed the course, students benefited from the flexibility of the delivery and considered the platform a useful place to house all course matters. They also appreciated communicating via the discussion forum (see Table 2).

General statements about the course	Disagree	Agree partially	Agree	Agree very much	Agree fully	Total
Course design has enabled flexibility in my studies, both geographically and in time.	0	0	0	1	9	10
Platform has improved communications with other students	1	0	5	2	2	10
Platform has improved communications with tutor	1	1	6	1	1	10
Has been easy to use and understand.	0	0	1	3	6	10
Tasks have been easy to understand and follow	0	2	4	3	1	10

The major problem they had were difficulties in understanding the written instructions to the set assignments, which they considered unclear, and confusing. The group work tasks also proved to be a bone of contention. Some students would have preferred to work on their own because few were willing to take the initiative in forming and maintaining contact with their groups. A face-to-face meeting would have been welcome to create a learning community.

Some Results: the Teacher perspective.
The frustration and stress related to delivering the first two offerings of the BUENGON courses were a result from lack of time and lack of coordination between the various administration bodies. The overall look and feel of the interface was dull and static. The tutor uploaded material, which the students downloaded. Lesson plans were being written and then revised as the course progressed; therefore it was not possible to give students advance notice of the assignments.

Another difficulty and source of bafflement was students’ responses, or lack of them. Students seemingly did not understand instructions; they wanted to seek personal clarification with the tutor; they had problems communicating with their group. However, the small changes in presentation of material, which in essence remained the same, changed its focus on what the tutor was preparing to what the student needed to know to be able to do the tasks. Once the materials had been written, and the design of the course put up on JIBSNet, it was possible to focus on the communication and interaction between the learners and tutor.

Students’ emails to the tutor seeking clarification to certain tasks provided valuable feedback on how well the course content was presented. Problems perceived concerned the structure and schedule. Confusion was caused by the heading descriptors in the menu on the webpage, which used the week numbers. Students were uncertain about the deadlines. Should the assignment be submitted during a particular week, or were they meant to be working on it that week?

Interestingly enough, students claimed that misunderstandings would be more easily rectified in the classroom which would allow instant feedback. Yet campus students tend not to follow instructions implicitly because they are relying on the verbal instruction despite having been given it in writing, which would then be subject to various interpretations and assumptions. On the whole, online learners completed the tasks satisfactorily because they had only the same written source.

Conclusions

In summary, both the teacher and the students mentioned geographical independence as the most important advantage i.e. the students can be taught almost anywhere, anytime. Both the teacher and the students expressed the need for a well-structured course; this included the administration as well as the content. The postgraduate student pointed out that the individual learning style was an important factor for success in taking part in an online course. The teacher viewed students’ approaches to learning as a key determiner as to whether students interact with the tasks and one another, and see the course through to its end. The various levels of computer skills and technical knowledge may affect the success of following through the course. The delivery platform therefore should be easy to use, reliable and support the learning. However, if students are not required to attend live classes, then money should be invested in the platform to create good venues to allow synchronous meetings, for instance.