Using the Web in a Finance Class: A Web-Enhanced Class or a Web-Centered Class

Abstract

Much has been written about the advantages of using the Internet in an educational setting. This paper discusses the benefits as well as the costs of using a web-site in a Finance class. It also documents what is currently being included on Finance class web-sites and tries to demonstrate that the web is a useful tool in a college business class and specifically in a finance class. The paper shows that a class web-site can improve the course for both student and faculty. Web-Centered classes are defined as those classes that use the web in an integral manner. The class would be vastly different without the Web. Conversely, a web-enhanced class is one that uses the web but more as a supplement or to disseminate documents. A model is presented that predicts where a web-site will be most advantageous to the learning experience and as a result where a web-centered class may be more advantageous than a web-enhanced class. The benefits of web-usage are increasing functions of technological sophistication of both students and professor, scope of the material covered in the course, size of class, physical size of the university, level of the course, the degree to which the school is equipped to handle the technical demands of a web-centered course, and the pace of change in the course matter. Teaching a web-centered class without a text book is discussed and by example it is shown that in the right circumstances, using a class web-site in lieu of a traditional text book may be worthwhile.