What are the possible advantages of e-mentoring?
To date, there has been no research specifically focused on e-mentoring. The research which does exist tends to examine the perceived strengths and weaknesses of email as a communication medium. Whilst these are different issues the fact that e-mentoring is based on the use of email means that the characteristics of email will inevitably affect individual’s experience of e-mentoring. Using research about email it is therefore possible to identify four of its main characteristics which impact on e-mentoring. Email is: • asynchronous (ie that there is a time gap between sending an email and it being received and read); • text-based; • dependent on computer-literacy; and • a mechanism for communicating with disparate groups. Asynchronous Little has been written about the asynchronous nature of email except insofar as the time gap between exchange of messages results in lack of immediate feedback. Text-based Much research has been devoted to media choice, comparing for example face-to-face
