From the Editor

Greetings Dear readers of TOJDE, I am pleased to inform you that in the 7th year of TOJDE is appeared on your screen now as Volume 7, Number: 1. Very much thanks to all of you once more that we met with you 22nd time, since January 2000. In this issue we published 15 articles like before issue, three book reviews, news and announcements for our readers. And also, we cancelled for the Call for Papers to the 4th Special Issue of The Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education (Volume: 7, Number: 2) which would be delivered in April 2006, instead of this issue, for the reason that have not enough quality papers for publishing on special theme. 36 authors from eight different countries are pleaced in this issue. These published articles are from Bangaldesh, Brasil, Canada, India, Malaysia, Nigeria, Turkey, UK and USA In this issue two articles are dealt with English Language Teacher Training (DELTT) Program application in Turkey, by Anadolu University. I gave a place to them as the fist and the last article. The first article of this issue is coming from The Anadolu University, which is written by Belgin AYDIN and T. Volkan YUZER. They are assistant professor at Anadolu’s Education and Open Education Faculty. Their article titled as “Building a Synchronous Virtual Classroom in a Distance English Language Teacher Training (DELTT) Program in Turkey”. Their paper reports a synchronous project, “the virtual classroom” prepared for the Distance English Language Teacher Training (DELTT) Program. The process of developing the synchronous project and the interface with its specific components were reported with examples and supported by theoretical background from the related literature. The evaluation of the project concludes that the virtual classroom facilitated increased authentic interaction and encouraged learners to become more autonomous. Second article is dealt with internet use adoption among academicians which is written as joint article by Norazah BTE MOHD SUKI and Norbayah BTE MOHD SUKI from Malaysia. In their study which entitled as “INTERNET USE ADOPTION AMONG ACADEMICIANS: Comparing Innovative Adopters and Other Adopter Types”, mentioned that how Internet use differs between academicians who are innovative adopters and other types of adopters. Data were collected from 301 respondents. Results provide new perspective on innovative adopters among Malaysian academicians; they have less experience than other adopters in shopping for products online, make fewer purchases online and pay small amount of money in shopping for products online than other adopters. Directions for future research are also discussed. And than third article is “How Istanbul HSBC Bank Operators Use Lotus Notes within Electronic Performance Support Systems” which is written by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Servet BAYRAM. He is from Computer Education & Instructional Technologies Department at Marmara University, TURKEY. His paper explores that use the Electronic Performance Support Systems (EPSS) efficiently is important in developing web-based applications. In this way, the aim of the study is proving the idea that Lotus Notes is a convenient tool for creating a powerful EPSS within the HSBC Bank example in Istanbul. For this reason, EPSS Domain Features Checklist is developed to assess the study group’s perceptions at the bank. The participants of the present study group consisted of 104 expert Lotus Notes (LN) users from the Bank Executive Management Center in Istanbul. It could be said that Lotus Notes is a helpful tool to show and to explain how EPSS activities are doing in what manner at the Istanbul HSBC Bank. The fourth article is from Texas State University, USA. It is dealt with student perceptions of classroom instruction which is titled “Comparison of student perceptions of classroom instruction: Traditional, hybrid, and distance education”, written by Mary Jo Garcia BIGGS. Her article reports the results of a project that examined student perceptions of the psychosocial learning environment in a distance education classroom. The study utilized a survey instrument, Distance Education Learning Environments Survey (DELES) that was distributed as a pre-test/post-test to three sections of the same course taught in three distinct formats: traditional classroom instruction, distance learning, and hybrid (partially on-line/partially face-to-face). The fifth article came from Brasil, written by Profa. Dra. Margarita V. GOMEZ. Her subject is entitled as “Contemporary Spheres for the Teaching Education: Freire's principles”. She focuses on Freire's cogitation on Information Technology (IT), resources for education have been known since the decade of the 50s. Within the internet context, the proposal implies a digital writing and reading ability that is based on communication and dialogue skills and, as fundamental strategies for reading the world, the real/virtual world, the knowledge of the daily speech, of writing and reading within a multi-diversification of digitally generated texts. She stated that long distance education through the internet from Freire's prospective is supported by the principles of popular education, that is: critical proximity to reality, radicalism (there is no neutral education), announcement, political organization, text-context relation, dialogical methodology without disowning the culture of silence that operates in the internet and this what it generates. I hope it is very interesting article to learn about Freire's principles for Tojde readers The sixth article which is jointly written by Prof. Murray TUROFF, Prof. Starr Roxanne HILTZ, Xiang YAO Information Systems Department, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Zheng LI from Pace University, Dr Yuanqiong WANG from Towson University and Dr. Hee-Kyung CHO from Fairleigh Dickinson University, USA. Their article is titled “Online Collaborative Learning Enhancement Through the Delphi Method”. Their paper pointed out an overview of these studies and then focuses on a recent case study in the fall of 2003 that demonstrated the ability of a computer mediated asynchronous Delphi process as a tool to scaffold collaborative idea generation and evaluation in both face to face and distance courses. The use in this case of comprehensive, broad, one level interaction menu, and context visibility to provide the submenu choices, are clearly two of the approaches that make an impact on reducing cognitive overhead so the participants may concentrate on the discussion and not the mechanics of the interface. The seventh article which is also joint study which is written by Dr. Bharat I. FOZDAR and Dr. Lalita S KUMAR, from School of Sciences, IGNOU, India. Their paper entitled as “Teaching Chemistry at Indira Gandhi National Open University”. In this paper authors are try to define intending to establish the credibility and authenticity of the B.Sc. (major) in chemistry programme by giving a brief comparative account of IGNOU and conventional university courses. It discusses the delivery aspects of this programme highlighting the existing delivery mechanism, analyses the weaknesses in the present system substantiated by a survey study and also suggests some new approaches to make chemistry courses more effective from learner’s learning point of view. The survey study has been helpful also in suggesting appropriate technologies for the effective delivery of Chemistry courses. The eight article arrived us again from USA. The article which is entitled " Running head: Online And Traditional Student Differences?" This title is discussed point of a study of motivational orientation, self-efficacy, and attitudes, differences between online and traditional students view. It is written by Dr. Tara STEVENS, Texas Tech University and Assistant Professor Carrie SWITZER from University of Illinois at Springfield-USA. The paper is aimed that to evaluate the differences in demographic characteristics, motivational orientation, self-efficacy, and attitudes about technology between students who enrolled in a course offered in the traditional setting and those enrolled in the same course online. The two groups, each comprised of 27 students, were administered self-report measures to evaluate their levels of technological self-efficacy, attitude toward technology, and motivational orientation. Participants also reported their age, number of online courses taken, and gender. Results indicated that the two groups did not differ in terms of their attitudes about and feelings of self-efficacy toward technology. Despite many similarities in motivational orientation, online students did report higher levels of interest, curiosity, and intrinsic motivation, suggesting that students in online courses may prefer autonomy in the course design. Further research is necessary to determine whether students seek out online courses because they possess motivation or if online courses create motivation. Next and he nineth article was sent to TOJDE by Rosman AHMAD, Rodger EDWARDS and Bland TOMKINSON from School of Mechanical Aerospace and Civil Engineering (MACE) University of Manchester, UNITED KINGDOM, Their paper is titled as “The Use Of WebCt In Distance Learning Course In University of Manchester”. They mention in their paper that the use of Internet was seen as an important issue in the development of an understanding of the complex process of instilling knowledge to post graduates students. Well-established universities are re-examining their missions and looking for different ways of providing lifelong education. There was a clear agreement between both staff views and students’ views regarding the effectiveness of using WebCT within the MACE projects as well as the other two WebCT programmes run in University of Manchester. The tenth article which is jointly written by Inci MORGIL from Hacettepe University, John H. PENN West Virginia University Department

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