Piecemeal adoption of methods of online educational delivery can duplicate effort and waste an institution’s resources. Early enthusiasm for online delivery of courses soon fades without strategic initiatives on the institution's part. In August 1999 a Web Educational Development Advisor was appointed at JCU to research and evaluate systems for online teaching and learning, with a view to integrating the selected system university wide. That research and evaluation is the subject of this paper. The paper concludes with a set of ten recommendations for the adoption of an online system, beginning with the recommendation of specific software (Blackboard CourseInfo and Enterprise Edition) but progressing to strategies for full implementation. The project report and its recommendations will be of interest to other institutions engaged in a similar exercise.
The initiative will template production, staff training and technical support requirements. It will provide the infrastructure to deliver subject and course content online. Commitment to associated training through a new teaching skills program (not the focus of this paper) will ensure academic staff have the necessary skills to use this technology effectively in their teaching.
It is anticipated that dedication to a single comprehensive delivery system will bring economies of scale particularly in associated training and system maintenance and human resource savings (time and training).
This presentation will discuss perceived costs and benefits for teaching & learning in this institution, and is a useful case study of how one institution came to a decision about an online system.
The presentation will include a demonstration of a comprehensive website [HREF1] which combines
We found many similar initiatives in other universities in Australia and overseas. Several case studies describe research and implementation in other institutions. Despite this we found it necessary, for many reasons which will be outlined, to repeat the exercise at JCU.
One question was how to organise and manage the massive amount of often volatile information about systems, case studies, and word of mouth reports. Our solution was to develop a one-stop website for the Research and Evaluation of Online Systems. It was designed to provide comprehensive information about the search for a system, to stimulate thinking about a system among staff, to solicit opinion and advice, to allow staff to trial (as learners and developers) a range of the systems in practice, and to provide a medium for communication and collaboration. This paper will include a demonstration of that website.
Information was gathered over a period of several months from a number of sources including a review of the literature, experiences of other universities, case studies, and in discussions with system developers. The website outlines several of these initiatives which were valuable in informing the draft JCU feature set.
All system information has been progressively entered into a database (to be demonstrated. Continuing system trialling by a reference group will provide more data for this database. When complete it will also be made available on the website. It indicates system specifications, where systems are being implemented and how they measure up across a range of criteria (cost, authoring capacity, administrative capacity, delivery and technical issues, etc.). It displays as a comparative analysis of a range of systems on the market, including Lotus Learning Spaces, WebCT, BlackBoard CourseInfo, FirstClass, Web Course-In-a-Box, TopClass, and university built systems such as PlatformWeb (UNSW).
This project is driven by an intention to canvass the needs of the JCU community and ensure that these are at the core of JCU's adopted system. This presentation will demonstrate an interactive survey which is a part of the website and which invites opinion and advice about what matters in an online learning system. Its intention was to establish institutional needs and requirements before a recommendation was made. Comments have assisted in setting up an online discussion forum along lines of interest, also to be demonstrated. Primarily it is hoped that the website continues to provide a medium for communication and collaboration, a discussion that goes beyond this project to the changing nature of teaching and learning at this university.
The project included a scoping exercise to develop the system at JCU. To this end a system model was developed as an interactive website reflecting each part of the system, in prototype. This will be demonstrated as a useful means of testing user pathways through the system, and subsequently the costing of such a system.The presentation will outline criteria for rating the systems.
Our list originally identified approximately 100 criteria. These were reduced to the essential and the desirable. In the end nineteen key criteria were given prominence, evenly representing the needs of the four main stakeholders in an online system, with a fair amount of overlap. These stakeholders are:
The thirteen criteria were:
Additional key administration related requirements identified at JCU were:
Detail about how the shortlisted products measured up against these requirements for an online teaching and learning system is provided on the Research and Evaluation of Online Systems web-database.
(It is interesting to compare system features sought at this institution with the recent (May 2000) benchmarks set down by the National Education Association of America.)The presentation will expand on a selection of our findings:
From this exercise came a report and ten recommendations ranging from the recommendation for a single system, which was Blackboard's CourseInfo, graduating to Enterprise Edition, through a series of recommendations summarised here.
Recommendation 1: System recommendation
The nineteen criteria listed in this report must be met in any online learning system JCU adopts. To find out how well the shortlisted systems meet these requirements was the purpose of this project. Out of this it was possible to recommend one system for JCU.
On the bases of match to criteria and user feedback, Blackboard's CourseInfo system is recommended from the four main perspectives of Administrator, Course developer / Teacher, Technician and Learner.
Recommendation 2: Gateway into online delivery system
It has to be decided where courses and subjects will sit and how users will access them.
Universities deal with course entry in several ways. Where courses or subjects sit outside the University Website and students are given a separate URL it separates teaching and learning from the market imperative (information about the university). A separate URL for the course delivery system fragments the university as an entity in the eyes of the visitor and the university community. A common gateway is preferable for JCU because
It is recommended that course access be instantly available from the JCU Home Page, and that a wider range of online enrolment options be explored and eventually offered.
3: Recommendation 3:Phased take-up
It is recommended that the system be trialled with one school in Semester Two 2000 before graduating to full implementation university wide Semester One 2001 and ongoing. This approach allows users of the system to develop an awareness of its usefulness in pace with their skills, as the system grows with their needs.
Recommendation 4: Customisation of the system
In order to get the desired level of customisation at JCU it is recommended that there will be some tailoring of the Blackboard CourseInfo system to specific requirements, using either internal or external resources. For example buttons may need to be customised, and some tools e.g. at JCU we have a message board tool in Web Board and it is possible that we may choose to disable the Conference and Chat components of CourseInfo, in favour of WebBoard.
Recommendation 5: Quality Standards
Design of courses must be of a standard that attracts and retains online learners. Quality design of courses is both an instructional design (teaching and learning) and a marketing imperative.
It is recommended that Quality procedures in the development of course materials be established by Teaching and Learning Development and Teaching and Learning Resources and promoted as a key component of the Teaching Skills Program.
Recommendation 6: Generic skills /study skills access at top level
It is recommended that the system be customised so that learners have access to study skills and generic skills online such as a "Learning to Learn Online" module from top level.
Recommendation 7:Strategy & Policy
In the past many institutions have relied on enthusiastic volunteers, that is academic staff with some IT skills to develop online courses for their students. It is becoming evident that 'early adopters' often volunteer time and effort for a finite period.
A clear strategic plan is essential if JCU is to progress beyond the efforts of committed individuals. While success will builds on their commitment, leaving online delivery to individuals is not a strategic approach with lasting and ongoing institutional advantage.
It is recommended that JCU forge strategic priorities that underpin ongoing development and commitment.
Recommendation 8: Infrastructure
There is a need for provision of adequate infrastructure within which an online system will operate.
Annual competition for grant funding inhibits visionary developments that reach forward into the longer term, and encourages short term reactionary solutions.
The achievement of long term objectives for JCU would better be served by salaried positions than by piecemeal funding of projects.
It is recommended that in addition to a resourcing approach, the institution pursue strategic means to resolve the problems of infrastructure and to ensure operational success of online teaching and learning.
Recommendation 9: Priority for staff development and support in using the system
It is recommended that priority be given to staff development and support to use the system competently and confidently; in particular to maintain post selection support such as user network, helpline, and post installation training.
Recommendation 10: Evaluation
It is recommended that the system is continually monitored and evaluated in terms of its capacity to deliver outcomes, the quality of online teaching and the efficacy of online learning. Collaboration is recommended with other JCU initiatives, particularly between Teaching and Learning Development (TLD), the Teaching and Learning Quality Development Group (TLQDG) and the Teaching Evaluation Working Group.
It is recommended that TLD develop, in collaboration with TLQDG, an online evaluation survey instrument to be embedded in the recommended system, to address the issues associated with online learning and to accommodate flexibility of place, pace and time.
In choosing a system it is important to consider the needs of the institution and what will support it after the decision has been made: such as user network, helpline, and post installation training.
It is also important to look further than the immediate adoption of the chosen system. In the past many institutions have relied on enthusiastic volunteers, that is academic staff with some IT skills to develop online courses for their students. It is becoming evident that although early enthusiasts often volunteer their time and effort for a period, without support they burn out and eventually re-direct their energies. Leaving online delivery in the hands of individuals is not a strategic approach with lasting and ongoing institutional advantage.
Whichever online system is chosen for a university what will make it succeed is the strength of teaching in the institution: a feature which no system should be able to replicate. As long as the meanings of terms like flexible, teaching, learning and delivery are still debated hotly it is doubtful that any system could replicate the feature set of a good teacher. What a system can do is remove the twin tyrannies of distance and of time, widen the pool of learners, and replace the monotonies of managing teaching and learning, freeing the teacher to teach.
HREF1
http://www.tsd.jcu.edu.au/develop/survey_re/
Anne A'Herran © 2000 assigns to Southern Cross University and other educational and non-profit institutions a non-exclusive license to use this document for personal use and in courses of instruction provided that the article is used in full and this copyright statement is reproduced. The author also grants a non-exclusive licens to Southern Cross University to publish this document in full on the WWW and on CD-ROM and in printed form with the conference papers and for the document to be published in mirrors on the WWW.
[ Proceedings ]