Critical features for enhancing the design of Web-based learning materials

The penetration of the World Wide Web (Web) in our daily lives has been growing at an exponential rate and it is inevitable for educators to follow and to adapt to this new way of living. Although some researchers had proposed guidelines for designing Web-based instructions, most Web-based learning materials (WBLM) are primarily designed by the course co-ordinators. This phenomenon could be problematic especially when there is little empirical research in this area. Thus, this research aims at identifying the critical features affecting the effectiveness of WBLM. The important features of WMLM were gathered in an earlier phase of this research and a questionnaire was developed accordingly. This paper reports the opinions gathered from nineteen participants who attended a seminar related to Web based learning. The respondents gave very positive opinions to almost all the items asked. However, they believed that co-ordinators´ comments and quick responses were found to be the most crucial. This finding could be served as a guideline for developing WBLM.