Spanning the Distance:

Distance education is increasingly familiar in higher education, and librarians grapple with ways to effectively reach students who are geographically distant from the main campus and from each other. Although technology has increased access to library resources for many students, using the various systems often poses real obstacles. This paper describes a team-taught research/writing class for adult students who are geographically dispersed across the state. The course is taught in a traditional face-to-face classroom for one weekend and the remainder of the course is conducted over a computer conferencing system. Computer conferencing can supplement and extend human contacts between students and faculty. Linfield College's (Oregon) research/writing class is described, and pros and cons of computer conferencing are discussed.