Online and Blended Business Education for the 21st Century

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The ‘soft/non-life’ discipline: information systems research in online teaching and learning

Introduction

Beginning with works such as Roxanne Hiltz and Murray Turoff’s The Network Nation (1978), research in what eventually became known as online or e-learning has extensive historical roots in the information systems discipline. This research evolved from studies of computermediated communication to collaborative virtual learning environments through research such as Hiltz’s studies of NJIT’s Virtual Classroom (Hiltz, 1994; Hiltz and Wellman, 1997; Hiltz et al., 1986), and studies during the 1990s that combined compressed video and electronic communication (Alavi, 1994; Alavi et al. 1995, 1997; Leidner and Jarvenpaa, 1993). Although each ...