Issues in the Design and Implementation of Web-Based Language Courses

Statement of the Problem
In Turkey, there is a growing awareness of the usefulness of computers in foreign language teaching and learning. Many people, including language teachers and administrators, have recently begun to realize the potential of web-based courses.
Therefore, they want to diversify foreign language education by adding this new element to their language teaching curriculum. Yet, because web-based instruction is a new concept in the British education system, few educators have been involved in the process of designing web-based courses, leaving very few individuals who are fully prepared for designing courses. New designers need to be sure of why they want to implement web-based teaching and how they can implement it in their institutions. Although there have been some studies about the design of web-based courses, little has been done to identify the factors effecting the design and implementation of web-based courses in higher education in the literature.
Bilkent University School of English Language (BUSEL) is interested in designing web-based courses for its students. Computers in BUSEL are not currently used for web-based teaching, but instead are generally used to give students access to materials directly relevant to their courses and exercises, including exam type material. Students are taken to the computer lab once or twice a course at BUSEL, and they are expected to visit the computer lab after classes to practise more on their own. However, administrators would like to explore and develop some new instructional design frameworks for online web-based courses since web-based courses offer many opportunities for forming collaborative learning communities.
The web-based course designers at BUSEL have general aspirations, but there is no exact WBI model in their minds. Therefore, they need to look elsewhere and learn from the others; the best place to turn is to other designers who have designed and implemented similar web-based courses. The first step that has to be taken in order to design courses for web-based instruction is to find out about programs that have the same general aims and explore the steps that have been taken to design and implement web-based courses in them. This form of investigation can be beneficial since the experiences of others, both positive and negative, can offer insights to professionals interested in pursuing similar paths. For this reason, it might be logical to conduct research asking WBI designers how they have designed and implemented their web-based courses.
In this work, a brief summary of the issues related to web-based instruction was presented. The statement of the problem, research questions, the significance of the study and key terms were covered as well. The second chapter is a review of literature on web-based instruction. In the third chapter, the participants, materials, and procedures followed to collect and analyze data are presented. In the fourth chapter, findings are presented. In the fifth chapter, a summary of the results, implications, recommendations, and suggestions for further research are provided.