Supporting CMS Users at Drexel University
As a new academic year begins, the Office of Information Resources and Technology
at Drexel University looks forward to promoting and supporting new and existing
technologies for faculty and students. While incoming students display increasing
technological savvy, it is still necessary to provide support and assistance
to ensure they can take full advantage of the tools the university has invested
in to enhance their academic experience.
New software is available for computer aided design and for creating electronic
portfolios, in addition to a new campus portal integrating all enterprise systems
together under a single sign-on. Use of these products requires not only effective
support, but also an aggressive information and marketing campaign as well.
One tool, which has had, and continues to have, an impressive impact on the
academic experience at Drexel for both students and faculty is our course management
system, WebCT.
WebCT was licensed for the entire university in 2001. It was made freely available
to all faculty to use in whatever courses they would like, and an extensive
support group was established to promote, encourage, and facilitate adoption.
As with most new academic technologies, the early adopters were few; the adoption
rate has now accelerated and the number of faculty participating has increased
rapidly.
We targeted our traditional undergraduate program to use WebCT and encouraged
hybrid courses as much as or more than we did totally online courses. In two
years, more than 350 faculty members have been trained and are using WebCT,
and over 1,000 courses have incorporated WebCT technologies into the learning
process.
The Whys and Hows of CMS
There are many good reasons why schools are currently employing learning management
systems (LMS) to put academic materials and entire courses online. Some institutions
want to redefine themselves; others want to generate revenues by attracting
non-traditional populations; yet others want to make academic material more
accessible to students or use new technologies to reduce costs.
However, the most compelling and fundamental reason to put course material
online is the opportunity it provides faculty members to rethink, redesign,
and reengineer curricula that they have been using for, in many cases, a very
long time with the traditional student population.
To be truly effective in transforming courses for the Web, faculty members
must dissect and analyze the courses extensively to determine such things as:
(1) Will face-to-face classes be part of the course? If so, how many, who should
teach them, and should they be lectures, labs or discussions?
(2) How can the online capabilities and features be used to enhance course
material and appeal to different learning styles?
(3) How will students be engaged in course materials and guided to interact
with classmates to create a dynamic and interactive learning experience for
them?
(4) How will the technology be deployed as a tool for constructive and demonstrative
goals, and not just as entertainment?
Analyzing and scrutinizing courses to this extent is something that many instructors
are not accustomed to doing, are often not interested in doing, and in some
cases are not capable of doing. It requires objectivity, patience, and honesty
to evaluate a course one has taught frequently and over a long period of time.
Many faculty members teaching classes repeatedly are repetitious in their approach,
and teach and re-teach what they taught before in the same way they taught it
before. When reengineering a course for the Web, it is necessary to examine
the status quo and make critical changes.
The Role of a Training and Support Group
Here's where an effective training and support group makes all the difference.
Their role is much more than just scanning images and teaching faculty how to
use the LMS or how to record audio clips to insert in courses. Their role is
to guide faculty through the process, critically analyzing courses, rearranging
material, suggesting new course organizational and presentation approaches,
and showing them how to integrate the Web technologies effectively in the new
course organization to enhance content and delivery.
The group established to assist faculty through the redesign labyrinth must
have a variety of skills and be able to assume different roles. Some must be
good teachers themselves and be able to teach faculty how to use the LMS and
related technology tools effectively in their courses. Others must understand
instructional design and good pedagogy to guide the process of reorganizing
content and presenting material in the most appropriate way. Others will have
to be experienced with audio, video, and other multimedia so as to interject
these media to demonstrate and elucidate where appropriate. Others must be able
to act as mentors to faculty after initial training, to answer questions, and
to provide guidance throughout the course reengineering process.
Most schools do not have the luxury of being able to support an extensive course
development group, so it is necessary to attract and train staff who can specialize
in a couple of areas and play several roles. It is also necessary to ensure
that, as staff become experts in specific areas, they share their new skills
so that cross training takes place within the group.
The ultimate goal, then, of moving course materials online is to improve the
quality of the educational program by carefully rethinking and redesigning content
presentation and delivery. Institutions committed to wholesale "online course
development" should keep quality as the foremost goal. Everything else will
follow.
Often these initiatives result in more effective use of senior faculty, reduced
costs by eliminating face-to-face classes, attraction of new and different student
markets, and greater student satisfaction. Notwithstanding these practical benefits,
the bottom line should be that courses improve as a result of the attention
they are given and students' academic experiences are enhanced.
Drexel has been so successful in its use and acceptance of WebCT as its university-supported
LMS that it has entered into partnerships with other schools to both host the
application and provide access to users from other campuses, as well as provide
training, mentoring, and help desk support. Currently Drexel hosts WebCT for
Cabrini College, Neumann College, Rosemont College, Philadelphia College of
Osteopathic Medecine, and, most recently, Wilkes University.
These partnerships enable the smaller schools to have access to a state-of-the-art
enterprise LMS, WebCT, and avail themselves of high-level training and support,
both of which they might not be able to afford on their own. Moreover, these
relationships offer faculty an opportunity to meet with colleagues from other
schools, share ideas, and expand their own creativity. It is an extremely beneficial
situation for everyone involved.
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