ABSTRACT
The Internet has provided new ways of assessing communication skills at a distance, including debate, participation in discussions, negotiations and collaboration, and it has created new forms of disciplinary discourse. Communications in this medium provide us with new challenges, as they are neither the same as oral exchanges nor written communications. Rather, the Web medium creates new kinds of synchronous and asynchronous communications, with new linguistic conventions and an accompanying ‘netiquette’, which may shape disciplinary discourses in new ways. Similarly, oral communication skills are usually assessed in combination with content of a presentation. Oral skills have been more difficult to assess at a distance, unless residential schools or audio and videotapes are employed for the purpose, with varying degrees of success. Assessment with an emphasis on such a transient thing as oral communication is a special challenge to support and administer at a distance.
