Abstract
Niigata College of Nursing has started offering a new educational program supporting career nurses' re-training. A feature of the "virtual college" system, a component of the program, is that it combines accessibility to anyone with an internet connection, with bidirectional communication. We surveyed the opinions of end-users after they had operated the system. Survey comments such as "Because I am poor at using computers, maintenance of the system environment is impossible."; "I am very reticent to post ideas on the electronic bulletin board on the network because I cannot see the reaction of the readers."; "When using a Web camera, getting myself presentable for the camera takes time." resulted in a number of unforeseen issues being highlighted. In addition, a future challenge will be to secure the financial resources required to manage the system with its expanding base of users. These issues will need to be addressed in order for the system itself to improve, and to further advance the efficacy of the program.
