Paper Title
Survey of Online User Perspectives and Gender

Abstract
With greater accessibility to online classes, there is the likelihood of an increase in students choosing to enrol in them instead of attending in-class lectures. Administrators will need to address this trend, and to do this, they need a better understanding of the profile of online users, over and above students’ attitudes towards online education and how their grades differ from in-class lecture. The present study aims to add to this understanding and the role gender may play. An online survey was administered to more than a thousand students enrolled in a Fundamentals of Information Technology course at a Canadian University. The study focused on why students took the course, what they expected to gain from the course, and whether gender affects these perspectives and their experience with online classes. Results indicate that, except in a few instances, gender does seem to impact their perspectives. Index Terms - fundamental business technology, gender, online classes, profile of online student, social media, student perspective.