Installation and Access to the Program
Students get "lifetime" access to CONNECT by purchasing a manual with a class data disk and, most important, their individual access number. The cost is a reasonable $26.95 for the Window versions (DOS versions vary) and I have never had any students who felt they had not received full value. (One advantage of this arrangement is that a school or department doesn't have to make any investment in the program, other than to install it on their LAN-server or FTP-server; thus, faculty members can decide to use the program without having to ask for university purchase of a site license.) My experience is that the students who have learned and used CONNECT are very likely to start asking other professors to adopt it, because they like the pedagogy and after all, they already have a license.

The wide range of computer network setups at different schools poses constant but not insoluble problems for the Ann Arbor support team and requires technical expertise beyond that which most teachers have. CONNECT should be set up by someone who understands the local configuration (perhaps in consultation with Ann Arbor) and tested by the teacher long before a course begins--just in case. It is relatively easy for faculty and students to set up the program on their home computers also (directions in the manual and on the Web), whether from disk or downloading from the Web. This feature will be especially important for people using CONNECT.Net from home; I was able to download the program, the demo and an update quite easily using the directions given on the Web.

Ease of Use
CONNECT is not a difficult program to launch in a class, especially for teachers and students who will spend a little time with the manual. Teachers can "practice" with the Connect demos, even from their home computers, and they probably should, since what the teacher sees and can do is often different from what the students see and do. As a rule, my students have mastered most of CONNECT in two sessions, even if they are not familiar with Word or WordPerfect (although comfort with mouse-clicking seems to be rather crucial). Once they discover how to use the Comment/Discussion feature, they are rolling, although they may have to have a refresher session when they start reading their graded papers on the program. There are three excellent student tutorials which come with the program that the teacher can activate.

One key feature of the program is its "transparency." Papers are saved periodically while the student is writing and are automatically saved, both to the student's disk and on the network, when they are posted. No naming is necessary. Usually, if disaster strikes and the network crashes (it does happen), papers will appear when the student re-enters the program. Students who lose or damage their disks can use a new one, and CONNECT will restore all of their work. There will be unexpected problems, even with these safeguards, but as a rule, the process runs very smoothly and students do not ever have to re-type a paper. My students ordinarily feel safe enough that they do not take advantage of the option to print their papers.

Updating
Hooking your software to Word or WordPerfect is like hanging on to a speeding train, as Norton has discovered. CONNECT is constantly being changed and upgraded, and the updates are readily available on the Web. Some updates come at the request of teachers on the list; this year the ability to embed hot URLs in an assignment or a paper was offered mid-year. Most updates are technical; for example, at the end of one semester, serious WORD macro viruses appeared on our network which eliminated part of the CONNECT program (imagine the student's horror at discovering, when getting ready to post an important paper or exam, that there is no longer a CONNECT button at the top of the page!). A number of teachers reported the problem directly to the CONNECT help lines and to the CONNECT list; soon there were update firewall files posted on the Web. In fact, the program must be updated each semester or year, else there is a reminder message which appears on the teacher's screen.

Support
Rarely have I seen any program with so much friendly and useful support attached. Whenever I have encountered problems (usually because of something I have done) and called the 800-number, I have immediately been connected with a live and most patient person who led me to a solution, and did not once make me feel dumb. E-mailing Fred McFarland is almost as quick, and especially useful if you want the instructions written down. This kind of help is available only for the teacher, however. This means that the teacher must learn enough to help students when they encounter problems; and some will, although most are already addressed in the manual.

This fall, when I adopted the new CONNECT.Net, I severely taxed the support system. My school decided to put Word97 in upgraded public computer labs and my office, but my own computer classroom is plugging along with Word6. The conversion files were either inadequate or missing, the older computers were infected with obscure macro viruses, and the resulting problems proved chaotic. The troops came to the rescue, with about 10 hours of help coming from Fred in Ithaca, Stephen in New York City, and Mark in Michigan, working and testing the files right from my FTP server until the problems were worked out. Fortunately, I seem to have been the only person in North America having CONNECT problems at that time. It can be quite hazardous to link your fortunes to the dizzying pace and secret codes of Microsoft, as Norton has found, but they are meeting the challenge.

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