We are often introduced to new technology before we realize how extensively it will impact our lives. This phenomenon is understandable, acceptable, and at times even exciting when it comes to the realm of entertainment (with the advent of the digital compact disc, for example). When technology shows itself as applicable to our professional responsibilities as academic advisers, however, then we must take an active rather than passive role in discovering its potential.
Such is the case with e-mail. It was not introduced to us with a manual outlining its possibilities. Most of us have simply found ourselves responding to e-mails from colleagues and students in the same manner as we would a phone call, and this has formed the basis for our accurate but narrow conception of e-mail. Many advisers have gone a step further and discovered the potential of listservs for professional development and sharing of ideas with other advisers. However, when it comes to interacting with students, many of us may not see the utility of e-mail in any other way than as a variant of the common phone call, and in this I feel we are professionally remiss. We scramble to answer our e-mails in a timely fashion while we worry that we are losing contact with students who should be seeing us face-to-face. Yet we should be taking a step back and looking at e-mail systematically rather than reactively. A systematic approach will serve us both practically by helping us to develop a better system for responding to e-mails, as well as professionally by fostering the use of e-mail to greatly enhance our advising.
This proposed systematic approach is based both on my collaborations with Don Woolston at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and on theories I have encountered in my work towards a masters degree in Instructional Systems at Penn State. The approach involves laying out: 1) what is known about e-mail as a medium 2) how this unique medium might be applied to improve academic advising, and 3) what the downsides of e-mail are and possible solutions to these problems. Each point is described below:
What is known about e-mail as a medium
E-mail is a communication system which uses computers to “exchange place-independent, asynchronous, text-based messages.” It supports “one-to-one (personal) and one-to-many (broadcast) communications” (Harasim, 1993, p.6). This means that e-mail interactions do not require the participants to be in the same place at the same time, and communications can take place either conversation-style between two people or announcement-style from one person to many recipients. Furthermore, e-mail is no longer simply text-based. Pictures, sounds, and word-processor documents can be sent as attachments to a text e-mail message. Some e-mail software is also evolving into a format similar if not identical to Web browsers, allowing the messages themselves to include colors, pictures, text, and sound.
These multimedia enhancements have greatly improved the richness of e-mail as a medium of communication, but they serve perhaps more to enhance another phenomenon relevant to e-mail which Harasim (1993) mentions. She describes global electronic networks as being communities, as evolving into a “social space” (p.4). E-mail is part of a larger social network, one of websites, chatrooms, bulletin boards, and more. People with common interests can manifest and share these with each other in a place which does not exist in physical reality, yet is as real and natural to its participants as a mall, coffee shop, or back porch was to me when I was growing up. To take a close look at e-mail as a medium is to see it as more than a tool. It is to see it as a realm in which we must meet many of the students we advise in order to reach them in a way in which they are comfortable.
How this unique medium might be applied to improve academic advising
Since the one-person-to-many aspects of e-mail are already well recognized in the form of listservs and mass distribution lists, I will not discuss them here. Instead, I will focus on some of the best advantages of e-mail which are not yet universally capitalized upon, those which stem from the fact that e-mail is independent of place and time. Because it is place-independent it is great for distance advising - students who live off campus and have a computer may find this the most feasible approach, especially if these students are returning adults with many outside responsibilities that make it difficult for them to come to campus whenever they want.
E-mail's asynchronous nature allows advisers and students to hold conversations with one another at optimal times. One professor, when talking about using e-mail in a class, states, “When I am in a good mood on a Saturday morning, I can sit down and answer a bunch of student questions, rather than when I am tired and busy on a Tuesday afternoon” (Harasim, Hiltz, Teles, & Turoff, 1995, p.78). This applies to academic advising as well. We can take time to think about how we will answer each one, and we do not need to place swiftness of our response at the top of the list of what is important. If we feel a referral to a face-to-face meeting is necessary, we can think about why and explain this before we answer. If we want to respond to the e-mail directly, we can think carefully about how we will answer. The beauty is that we can wait until we are focused on the issue in each particular e-mail before we answer, rather than responding immediately when we receive the e-mail, when we might be tired or having a bad day.
The asynchronicity of e-mail is a concept with which many of us are uncomfortable, and it needs a great deal of further investigation: there is no etiquette or protocol for how long one can wait to respond to an e-mail! Some people feel that a few days is the maximum time acceptable, but my experience has been that students have not had a problem waiting a good bit longer than that for a response, depending on the issue which the e-mail presents. Given a heavy load of e-mail, prioritization of responding has to occur, and delays in some responses seem inevitable. Yet because we are not comfortable with a delayed response, we may choose to respond to e-mails with a referral to a meeting rather than an answer when we are pressed for time. While there are many times when a personal meeting is more appropriate anyway, we must be very careful in handling those instances where e-mail is feasible. If e-mail is a community/social space, and if we give a referral instead of a reply in order to respond quickly to an e-mail, we may in fact be alienating some of our students. Perhaps it would be better to wait a few days longer to respond in order to answer a question. Future research should examine the time frame for e-mail responses as well as the feasibility of externally-set time protocols (e.g., “an adviser will respond to you within three days”).
The time-independence of e-mail also allows for a level of spontaneity previously not possible in a conversation. When something dawns on a student, (s)he can write it down and discuss it with an adviser in an e-mail while it is still fresh in her or his mind. If an adviser forgets to mention an important piece of information in a meeting, (s)he can communicate this to a student through e-mail. Research still needs to be conducted in this area to determine whether or not a cohesive conversation can be held over a long period of time through e-mail. If not, then the advantages afforded by the spontaneity mentioned here are lost.
For more applications of e-mail to advising which are not necessarily tied to its uniqueness as a medium, please visit examples of what works and what doesn't (Woolston & Lipschultz, 1997).
The downsides of e-mail and possible solutions to these problems
Some problems associated with e-mail as a unique medium, as discussed above, have no ready solution and should be a focus of future research on e-mail in advising. The problems below have also come to light from a combination of personal experience, collaboration with Don Woolston, and input from participants in a pre-conference workshop (Woolston & Lipschultz, 1998). These problems do have possible solutions, and these are listed in the table below:
| Problem | Possible Solution |
|---|---|
| Non-verbal cues are limited, leading to possible misinterpretation of feelings associated with the e-mail | State feelings in words in the e-mail itself, or use emoticons - see overview of e-mail (Woolston & Lipschultz, 1997) for examples of emoticons |
| Discussion of confidential information not always secure | The risk of disclosure of information to people who should not see it is minimal. See e-mail, sensitive information, and confidentiality (Woolston & Lipschultz, 1997) for a more detailed explanation. |
| E-mails are context deficient - there is no simple way of determining that the sender of an e-mail is who (s)he claims to be | Use e-mail directories to verify any suspicious e-mail addresses. If still suspicious, refer the person to a phone or face-to-face meeting |
| Overload - too many e-mails, not enough time | Begin keeping track of how many e-mails are received in semester and how much time it takes to answer these. Use this to justify blocking out time for e-mails. If this is not possible, develop a “canned” response to refer people to set up face-to-face meetings during times of overload |
Conclusion
Although e-mail is ubiquitous and in most cases a part of our advising responsibilities, it is definitely not a well-established phenomenon in advising. The points described above have been presented to facilitate new and/or better ways of incorporating e-mail into academic advising. It is hoped that at least some of the ideas are new to everyone and that they will inspire more research in the area of e-mail and advising so that e-mail might become better grounded in advising. The present author and Don Woolston will continue to research these issues and share their findings through the web, NACADA presentations, and e-mail.