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Features
Louisiana State University: Nursing Faculty to Online Health
8/12/2002
Although plenty of anecdotal information is available on students’ perspectives
on online education, information on how to manage faculty members’ transition
to online instruction is scarce, especially for professional schools and small
colleges and universities.
To be able to effectively offer courses online, a faculty must be both inspired and guided. Unfortunately, technology is often installed before an understanding of the system itself occurs.
At Louisiana State University, the School of Nursing tacked this problem, aiming to maintain high standards of teaching while moving toward next generation learning resources, such as online teaching software and World Wide Web applications.
As a first step, course objectives on using the Internet were incorporated into syllabi in all academic levels. Two major projects were started to ease the use of the Web in course instruction: First, an online teaching application was purchased from WebCT. Second, a Distance Education Committee (DEC) was established, composed of the Associate Dean for Community Services, the top computer support person, and volunteer faculty members.
The DEC’s main task was twofold: to develop strategies to support faculty in online teaching, and to recommend policies related to distance education. The DEC meets every month and invites all department heads to share insights into how the transition is progressing. The DEC also remains in close contact with the Curriculum and Education committees of the school.
The school’s computer staff also provided a series of volunteer workshops to introduce the faculty to WebCT and its features. The faculty started sharing their experiences as the first WebCT course was offered. The administration, aware that hiring a full-time Web master would ease the technical difficulty of putting courses online, is now studying the financial requirements of adding the position. In the interim, the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs has reallocated teaching responsibilities for two faculty members to become Web facilitators for the faculty.
Information identifying a faculty member’s needs in going online is generally scarce. That’s partly because each school uses different technology, but also because the technology itself is often changing rapidly. In its case, the School of Nursing began by identifying the most pressing needs of its faculty before they could make the transition to online. This was to get them acquainted on how WebCT works, to have hands-on experience on how to upload courses on WebCT, and to have a resource center where faculty could easily seek out information about online teaching.
It was also important that faculty be aware of the need to reformat their course structure if they wished to involve the Internet in their teaching. At the onset, we discouraged faculty from merely uploading their courses on the Web without first determining if their course objectives would be affected.
Reactions from the faculty to online teaching have been mixed. Some approached the use of technology as a waste of time and resources. Others looked at it as a challenge. They were willing to spend time and energy to place their courses online. Still others hoped someone else would take full responsibility. We have observed, however, that a faculty member’s individual reaction is often directly related to their knowledge of computer usage.
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