Integrating face-to-face and online teaching: academics' role concept and teaching choices

This paper reports and analyses data from a longitudinal qualitative research study which is investigating the changing teaching self-concept of university lecturers who combine online and face-to-face teaching. The first phase of this collective case study research has focused on the experiences of five 'early adopter' university lecturers during and following one teaching semester. The themes which have emerged across these individual case profiles are reported here. These academics became more conscious of their teaching as a result of the decisions they have had to make in combining live and online modes. Those who integrated computer-mediated communication (CMC) into their teaching became notably more self-monitoring of their actions under the scrutiny of their students and other 'users'. While the five academics in this group were enthusiastic about web-based teaching, they each still kept live, on-campus lecturing at the core of the teaching-learning process.