Jamie Wood Last week, Samantha Sharman, Annabelle Mansell and Jamie Wood published a post on the QAA blog (“Reading Classics online: staff and student perspectives”) that explored student and staff perspectives on online reading in the discipline of Classics.
Here’s a short extract on some of the challenges of online reading:
Students and staff respondents in both the survey as a whole and the ClAH sub-set spoke at length about the challenges of reading online. Respondents talked about how managing distractions, efficient notetaking, maintaining internet access, and staying physically and emotionally comfortable are all crucial considerations for them when they read online. The physical effects of reading online, such as headaches and eye and back strain were mentioned repeatedly.
They also mentioned some benefits:
students in particular also emphasised a range of potential benefits, which all focused in different ways on its greater accessibility and potential to support independent working and research: “I can do it comfortably and at my own pace, and that I can take it anywhere as opposed to being forced to sit in the library, even if I were to take the books from the library it is still more comfortable to simply read online. There is also the advantage that there aren’t limited copies online, which can be an issue in the library if one book in particular is wanted.” (student respondent)
You can find the full article here.
