Concurrent Sessions

"I Shrank My Class": Transforming Large Classes into Small Ones in Biology, Spanish, and Statistics

Monday, January 29, 2001
3:15 p.m. - 4:15 p.m. SESS09

John J. Cahir, Vice Provost & Dean, Undergrad Education, The Pennsylvania State University

John T. Harwood, Senior Director, Teaching and Learning with Technology, The Pennsylvania State University

Penn State is in the process of transforming three high-enrollment, high-impact courses taken by a large number of first-year students (biology, statistics, and Spanish). The goal of these three curriculum innovations has been to increase learning gains and reduce instructional costs. In each case we have found ways to work successfully with external vendors (e.g., textbook publishers) and to build successful teams of IT staff, faculty, and assessment specialists. The result will be a transformation of the learning culture at Penn State -- students are learning to be more active participants in their own education and to engage more substantially with faculty and peers about course content. As a result, a class of 960 students feels like a class of 24. Do the math: it's good for education!

A Collaborative Facilitated Model For Scalable Course Development

Tuesday, January 30, 2001
11:15 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. SESS29

Kris A. Biesinger, Associate Vice Chancellor, IIT Services, Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia

Brian Finnegan, Director, Emerging Instructional Technology, Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia

Shary L. Karlin, Director, Instructional Design & Development, Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia

Jessica Somers, Executive Director, Academic Innovation, Advanced Learning Technologies, Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia

The University System of Georgia's e Core (trademark) Project focuses on the development and delivery of online core courses comprising the first two years of undergraduate education. This effort is impacting the way in which online courses are developed and delivered across a system of 34 institutions. During the last two years, the University System of Georgia has undertaken an effort to design, develop and deliver high quality, interactive online courses and support services. The current course development process has evolved from a few small pilot efforts to a scalable process that relies on a team-based collaborative approach. The success of this approach is predicated upon a set of technical, legal and pedagogical standards and criteria that include, but are not limited to a common course interface, consistent coding practices, compliance with W3C accessibility guidelines, and adherence to copyright and intellectual property policies.

Aggregation without too much Aggravation: Centralizing Educational Technology

Monday, January 29, 2001
4:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. SESS17

Julie K. Little, Associate Director, ELI, EDUCAUSE

Susan E. Metros, Deputy CIO & Associate Vice Provost, University of Southern California

In January 2000 the University of Tennessee underwent a major restructuring of the university's administration that resulted in a radical transformation in leadership, institutional organization, resource allocation, and funding. The university moved from four to three accredited units with the consolidation of three campuses, and two campuses remaining autonomous. To emphasize instructional technology statewide, the President approved the creation of the Division of Educational Technology. The Division consists of the previously established Innovative Technology Center (ITC) on the Knoxville campus and planned Educational Technology Centers (ETC) to be located at the newly aggregated UT campuses. In this session the presenters will detail their methodology and the resulting plan that emphasizes the centrality of information technology by eliminating duplication and leveraging technology to motivate and support an expanded group of IT professionals and faculty located locally and at a distance. This includes assessing and determining the pedagogical and technical requirements of faculty within the new aggregated institution in order to establish standards, disseminate research, and deliver training, services and resources. Pilots are underway to provide scalable and sustainable statewide course management enterprise solutions and to advance and seed emerging instructional technologies across academic units. The presenters also will discuss the challenges ingrained in facilitating and managing institutional transformation that crosses, alters, and redefines the boundaries of a diverse set of campus cultures.

Buena Vista University: A New American College Near You

Tuesday, January 30, 2001
11:15 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. SESS31

Peggy L. Chown, Associate Dean, Centers Academics, Buena Vista University

John Phillips, Associate Vice President for External Programs and Marketing, Buena Vista University

How does a fairly traditional, small private university from Storm Lake, Iowa, offering 2 + 2 programs in partnership with public community colleges at ten Centers with seventeen sites scattered around the state, make the transition to become a leading New American College? This question will be examined in the context of issues that involve major curriculum reform; fostering the sense that the Storm Lake campus and the Centers are a single institution, offering comparable degree programs but utilizing different delivery strategies; facilitation of communication between the Storm Lake campus and the Centers - particularly with respect to curricular matters; attracting and retaining faculty at the Centers who are comparable in quality to faculty at the Storm Lake campus, while endeavoring to keep operating costs (and therefore tuition) relatively low; the difficulty of providing administrative support to the Centers from Storm Lake; and, most importantly, meeting the needs of our students and the communities we serve around the state.

Connecting Academic and Administrative Systems: A Case Study

Monday, January 29, 2001
3:15 p.m. - 4:15 p.m. SESS12A

Susan Beidler, Director Product Strategy, Oracle

M. Kayt Sunwood, Director, Faculty Development Center, University of Wisconsin-Superior

PeopleSoft and Blackboard have collaboratively developed an IMS compliant extract which creates accounts for Blackboard Web Courses from PeopleSoft's Student Information. UW Superior is the early adopter site for this interface and will be operational in the Spring Term of 2001. The presentation will focus on the early adopter experience and examine key implementation issues. It will also examine in moderate detail the nature and purpose of the XML objects created by the extract.

Creating a Blended University

Monday, January 29, 2001
2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. SESS06A

John C. Cavanaugh, President, University of West Florida

William H. Graves, Senior VP, Academic Strategy, SunGard Higher Education

Robert E. Tyndall, Vice Chancellor, Information Technology Systems, University of North Carolina at Wilmington

The University of North Carolina at Wilmington faces drastic growth in the size of its traditional student body over the next few years. To accommodate this growth and connect it strategically to the University's faculty development program, UNCW is becoming a "blended" campus that provides a seamless opportunity for students to be both "on-ground" and online in different combinations at any time in their life-long UNCW educational trajectories. By selecting a group of instructors each year to develop fully online versions of their core courses, UNCW is making it possible for traditional students to enroll in a selected number of fully online courses as a means of decreasing enrollment pressures on the physical plant. To manage this strategic focus on its investment in faculty development and information technology, the University created a change management position to oversee information technology resources and the e-learning services that it outsources.

e-Learning Portal and Assessment Tools

Tuesday, January 30, 2001
11:15 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. SESS28

Ali Jafari, Professor of Computer & Information Technology, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis

e-Learning Monitoring and Assessment Agent (ELMA) provides graphical assessment and tracking information of students in e-Learning environment. ELMA is a patent pending assessment and monitoring tool researched and developed at the CyberLab, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis. ELMA is operating within the Angel course management and portal software commercial available from the CyerLearning Labs.

Engaging the Campus: The Evolution of an eStrategy

Monday, January 29, 2001
3:15 p.m. - 4:15 p.m. SESS11

Ellen Yu Borkowski, Director, Academic Support, University of Maryland

Judith K. Broida, Assoc Provost & Dean, Continuing & Extended Education, University of Maryland

Full campus engagement in eLearning requires a strategy, a business plan, a competitive analysis, a funding or investment strategy, internal and external partners, a marketing plan, infrastructure support, customer service and academic commitment. How do you develop these important components? This is one campus's story that has applicability to many other colleges.

Everything You Wanted to Know About Faculty and Student Surveys and Aren't Afraid to Ask

Tuesday, January 30, 2001
11:15 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. SESS30

Carl F. Berger, Retired, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor

Determining tech readiness of you institution? Realize you really don't know what faculty and students are actually doing? Tired of winging it one more time? This session shares the design and results of surveys conducted at the University of Michigan and shows how the results, when properly presented, can make a difference in what you know and how you know it. The session will focus on practical faculty and student surveys, what to avoid, how to find out more than the basic information with the same amount of effort and how to get students and faculty to take the darn things. Results will help you show how presentation of a question data can make an extraordinary difference in the understanding of provost, presidents and persons needing to make decisions.

Faculty Development: Issues and Strategies for the Large Research University

Monday, January 29, 2001
2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. SESS04

Diane J. Davis, Director, CIDDE, University of Pittsburgh

Joanne M. Nicoll, Associate Director, University of Pittsburgh

The pre-reading article by Hagner emphasizes the importance of comprehensive, integrated support in "best systems" of faculty development. This presentation/discussion session will describe how one large, research university has identified and addressed the challenges of achieving these goals. Both broad strategies and "interesting practices" will be described. This session will consist equally of presentation and interaction, with a focus on faculty development within large, research institutions.

Fast-Tracking a Web-Based Program in a Traditional University

Tuesday, January 30, 2001
11:15 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. SESS26

William H. Graves, Senior VP, Academic Strategy, SunGard Higher Education

Ronald Legon, Provost, University of Baltimore

In May 1998, the University of Baltimore made the decision to build a fully web-based MBA program and launch it by January 1999. This decision reflected a larger need for institutional transformation in response to changing enrollment trends. The most significant issues that needed to be addressed were selection of the appropriate technology, building or outsourcing the infrastructure to support this technology, and steps to insure the support of faculty and staff (including resolution of intellectual property rights and provision of both technical and pedagogical support for faculty). The presentation will address:

• strategies adopted to resolve these issues
• how UB determined the right balance between insourcing and outsourcing
• lessons learned during the first program cycle

Handheld Computing in Higher Education - Beyond the PIM

Monday, January 29, 2001
3:15 p.m. - 4:15 p.m. SESS07

Archie Davis, Associate Vice Chancellor, East Carolina University

Robert L. Orr, Associate Vice Chancellor and CIO, University of North Carolina at Pembroke

Frank T. Prochaska, Executive Director, T & L Technology Collaborative, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Shelia Tucker, Assistant Professor, East Carolina University

David L. Watkins, Special Assistant for Information Technology, East Carolina University

East Carolina University and Western Carolina University have introduced handheld computing into the teaching/learning environment on their respective campuses. This program will focus on the visions for handheld computing by each university with particular emphasis on hardware/software platforms, faculty/course selection, faculty/student training, technical support, hardware deployment, program assessment, creating corporate partnerships and detailing best practices.

Western Carolina University's handheld initiative is an example of the institutional culture change that has evolved from the establishment of the university's freshman computer admission requirement in Fall 1998. East Carolina University's initiative is an example of a commitment to enhancing effective teaching, learning and communication processes anytime/anyplace.

Increasing Interactivity in Education

Monday, January 29, 2001
2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. SESS05

Don Lewis Millard, Director, Academy of Electronic Media, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

The education and training of the next generation will require more innovative approaches in order to reach and motivate the diverse groups (students, faculty, and professionals) that will be involved. The development and use of interactive multimedia materials, which focus on the simultaneous stimulation of multiple senses, will revolutionize the way technology is learned at all levels - from young child to senior citizen. This multimedia presentation will demonstrate and discuss our development of interactive learning modules that are meant to aid a student in understanding difficult concepts (e.g. calculus, electronic circuits, modulation, etc.). An overview of how the materials are being utilized in Rensselaer's studio-oriented facilities will be provided along with a discussion of our commensurate change in pedagogy.

Institutional Benefits of Enterprise-Wide, Next Generation e-Learning Platforms

Monday, January 29, 2001
3:15 p.m. - 4:15 p.m. SESS10

Larry D. Conrad, Associate VP & CIO, Technology Integration, Florida State University

Matthew Pittinsky, Chairman, Blackboard, Inc.

Pennie Turgeon, Chief Information Officer, Clark University

Join two early adopters of Blackboard 5 Level Three--Florida State University and Worcester Polytechnic Institute--and Matthew Pittinsky, Chairman and co-CEO of Blackboard Inc., to explore the institutional benefits of an enterprise-wide e-learning platform. As the e-Learning platform market has grown from instructor-based course tools, to campus wide systems, learn more about Blackboard's advanced integration with student information and security systems as well as the benefits of using the teaching and learning environment as the foundation for a full campus portal. In addition to learning about projects at FSU and WPI, Pittinsky will discuss Blackboard's Building Blocks ("B2") initiative - the notion that specific tools such as discussion boards, chat rooms, and quiz generators will become more specialized, and the core platforms will evolve into middleware or operating systems that allow institutions to bring together the most appropriate set of "vendor enabled" learning tools and content possible.

Koans of Change: Rationalizing Technology Cost Model

Monday, January 29, 2001
3:15 p.m. - 4:15 p.m. SESS12

Myk Garn, Associate Vice President for eLearning, Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education

Anthony L. Newberry, President, Jefferson Community and Technical College

Like kudzu across the South, the costs of instructional technology are growing over the back fence of distance education and onto the campus quad. Models of collaborative, technology driven delivery models such as the Kentucky Virtual University (KYVU) are elevating the need for institutions, systems, and states to address and resolve the seemingly competitive koans of on-campus and online cost models.

Focusing on the specific efforts of the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) to implement a Home Institution model, this session will describe the activities that Kentucky institutions are using to understand, rationalize, and manage the technology costs as enterprise-wide solutions. We will detail the profound ways in which technology is causing us to rethink the pricing of courses - these include in-state/out-of-state tuition, technology fees, tuition caps, and FTE sharing and/or counting - and describe the Kentucky proposals to address these dilemmas.

Shining a Flashlight on Academic Transformation, Locally and Nationally

Monday, January 29, 2001
4:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. SESS18

Stephen C. Ehrmann, Vice President & Director, The Flashlight Program, The TLT Group

Data can be used to: a) track whether education's character, goals, and structures are being transformed by its use of technology, b) identify barriers to such change, c) track problems most likely to be caused by a "successful" transformation, and d) assess efforts to cope with those challenges. Drawing on his writing about "The Third Revolution," Steve Ehrmann will describe how we can use data to accelerate and guide the transformation of higher education.

Sustainable Pathways for Strategic Change

Monday, January 29, 2001
2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. SESS03

M. S. Vijay Kumar, Senior Associate Dean & Director, Office of Educational Innovation & Techno, MIT

MIT has embarked on educational change initiatives involving the creation of technologies, tools and content to improve student learning and to assist faculty in teaching. A small number of strategic thrusts, rather than many isolated, individual efforts, have been selected to address targets of opportunity such as: active learning, scaleable and effective ways to teach collaborative design and collaborative engineering; new kinds of interactions between students and practicing professionals including alumni, as well as specialized instrumentation and unique experimental settings.

Besides the anticipated significance of the educational impact, a key characteristic of the selection and implementation of these initiatives is sustainability, both educational and technological.

This presentation will include an overview of the projects, their educational themes and some of the tools and techniques being employed. The dimensions of sustainability to be considered for viable educational change will be discussed, with particular consideration of infrastructure issues for the outcomes of these initiatives to be stable, long-lived and ultimately, widely available.

The Payoff for Systematic Evaluation of University-Wide Distributed Learning

Monday, January 29, 2001
2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. SESS06

Charles D. Dziuban, Director, Research Initiative for Teaching Effectiveness, University of Central Florida

Joel L. Hartman, Vice Provost, Information Technologies and Resources, University of Central Florida

Patsy D. Moskal, Associate Director, Research Initiative for Teaching Effectiveness, University of Central Florida

Steven E. Sorg, Asst. VP and Director, Center for Distributed Learning, University of Central Florida

Barbara E. Truman, Director, Course Development & Web Services, University of Central Florida

This presentation focuses on the robust findings from the University of Central Florida's research on distributed learning within the past five years. The presenters from this large metropolitan university compare success and withdrawal rates in courses featuring various degrees of Web presence in a sample of over 50,000 students. Additionally, they identify reactive behavior patterns of online learners (a construct that subsumes learning styles). Results regarding students who withdraw from this environment are compared to their reasons for withdrawing and their behavior types. The presenters discuss faculty perceptions of workload, interaction, and satisfaction as they relate to Web-based teaching. The session emphasizes the importance of a comprehensive evaluation plan specific to university goals and culture.

The Rice Podium: Lessons Learned in the Search for Scalable and Maintainable Classroom Technology

Monday, January 29, 2001
4:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. SESS16

William Soren Deigaard, Director,Networking, Telecommunications, and Data Center Operations, Rice University

Shisha van Horn, Manager, Educational Technology Services, Rice University

Providing access to consistently-configured and reliable hardware and software in the classroom is a key ingredient in encouraging the day-to-day use of technology in teaching. Inconsistent or unreliable classroom equipment almost guarantees that even the most adventurous and dedicated faculty will soon lose interest. Over the past several years, Rice University has gone through several iterations of our Teaching Podium design in an effort to develop a systematic approach to installing and maintaining classroom technology on campus. This presentation will discuss our progressive Podium design successes and failures, and the unanticipated problems we have had to address in developing a solid and sustainable approach to the integration of technology in our classrooms.

University of Arizona Instructional Support Team and Projects

Monday, January 29, 2001
4:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. SESS15

Wayne Brent, Senior Consultant, Learning Technologies Center, The University of Arizona

Jean Kreis, 2004 NLII Fellow-Web-Based Instruction, Sr. Program Coordinator, Casa Grande Union High School

In our effort to support a variety of web based instructional applications, the University of Arizona has developed a scaleable cross functional, multi-level organizational model. Consisting of focused teams that provide faculty and student training, as well as technical applications and systems support, the model maximizes the skills and expertise of a few people in meeting these educational needs. Our presentation will describe in detail the vision, inception, and hiring of the team, as well as the problems, successes and fun we have experienced to date.

In addition, resources to help faculty setup and administer their courses are being created and integrated in an interdepartmental UA effort. Tools and applications are being brought together for course planning, setup, administration, communications, delivery of syllabus, courseware, evaluation and assessment.

At this session, we will show the concept behind our coursebuilder project designed to integrate various course related services. We will also show syllabus and teaching planning tools currently under development.

University of Washington: Technology Serving Teaching and Learning

Tuesday, January 30, 2001
11:15 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. SESS27

Frederick Campbell, Dean of Undergraduate Education and Vice Provost, University of Washington

Tom Lewis, Director, Catalyst Research & Development, University of Washington

Oren Sreebny, Executive Director, Emerging Technology, University of Washington

Lizabeth A. Wilson, Dean of University Libraries, University of Washington

A teaching and learning transformation at the University of Washington is based on a vibrant, cross-campus partnership, UWired. This session will describe award-winning activities that draw on UW's well-developed infrastructure of ubiquitous, standards-based technology access plus a powerful and sustained collaboration among major university constituencies. Notable activities include innovative toolsets for faculty support and training, student literacy and involvement, and research on the science of learning. Winner: 2000 EDUCAUSE Award for Systemic Progress in Teaching & Learning.