Annual Report 2006-2007

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» Annual Report

Annual Report 2006 - 2007

Executive Summary

Online Learning (OL) continued to provide leadership, coordination, management, and support to RIT's online and instructional technology efforts throughout the 2006-2007 academic year.

OL encourages greater efficiencies in the teaching and learning process by supporting new instructional tools, providing support services for both faculty and students, and adapting existing tools for RIT's online and classroom environments. Technology can and should provide a more efficient way of handling the operational functions of teaching.

The interest and use of customized and homegrown tools at RIT is growing quickly. Many faculty members want flexibility, choice, and support in using tools to create content and interaction in their courses. During the 2006-2007 year, OL introduced many new or enhanced tools, such as peer2peer, a new peer evaluation tool. This online tool eliminates the clumsy paper and email solutions that faculty have had to use in the past. Projects like peer2peer help make our base investments even more valuable.

We also introduced a webinar series, one that not only offers online, real-time training on myCourses features, but also demonstrates the use of Adobe Connect, our web-conferencing system that was rolled out to online faculty this year. Faculty can participate in these webinars live from the convenience of their office, or access the archives at a later date.

At the same time, technology should have the capability and potential to transform the teaching and learning experience. Using the myCourses course management system and other online technologies seems to trigger a process of re-thinking or reorganizing courses for many RIT faculty. During this year, for example, a group of math faculty made innovative use of our suite of Adobe products to communicate visual and graphical content in ways never thought possible in online courses. OL continued its successful Blended Learning Program, allowing more campus faculty to engage students in pre- and post-class online discussion and collaboration.

Highlights for 2006-2007

Efficiencies
Growth in the use of Breeze/Connect web-conferencing system. In addition to upgrading from Macromedia Breeze 5 to Adobe Connect 6, we had a 116% increase in use from faculty over the year, both for credit and non-credit events. Because it simulates important aspects of face-to-face meetings, use of Connect Live reduces travel expenses and increases flexibility and convenience.
New accessibility tools developed. OL developed the RIT Media Player, which greatly streamlines the process of adding captions to streaming video and audio, and collaborated with NTID make it possible to use CPRINT services to caption Abode Connect sessions while they are being conducted.
Growth in use of Online Course Evaluation (OCE) system. OCE was used by 2,488 courses, an increase of 23% from the previous academic year. By replacing paper forms, OCE offers much greater efficiencies in collecting, analyzing, and distributing course-evaluation data.
Piloted new myCourses peer evaluation tool. With development assistance from RIT's Software Engineering program, OL successfully piloted peer2peer, an online tool that allows members of small groups to easily and anonymously assess each other's performance.
Growth in use of online survey tool (Clipboard). Clipboard recieved 37,920 survey responses, an increase of 33% from the previous year. Clipboard provides a cost-effective alternative to commercial online survey tools, all of which charge monthly service fees.

Efficiencies

Growth in the use of Breeze/Connect web-conferencing system. In addition to upgrading from Macromedia Breeze 5 to Adobe Connect 6, we had a 116% increase in use from faculty over the year, both for credit and non-credit events. Because it simulates important aspects of face-to-face meetings, use of Connect Live reduces travel expenses and increases flexibility and convenience.

New accessibility tools developed. OL developed the RIT Media Player, which greatly streamlines the process of adding captions to streaming video and audio, and collaborated with NTID make it possible to use CPRINT services to caption Abode Connect sessions while they are being conducted.

Growth in use of Online Course Evaluation (OCE) system. OCE was used by 2,488 courses, an increase of 23% from the previous academic year. By replacing paper forms, OCE offers much greater efficiencies in collecting, analyzing, and distributing course-evaluation data.

Piloted new myCourses peer evaluation tool. With development assistance from RIT's Software Engineering program, OL successfully piloted peer2peer, an online tool that allows members of small groups to easily and anonymously assess each other's performance.

Growth in use of online survey tool (Clipboard). Clipboard recieved 37,920 survey responses, an increase of 33% from the previous year. Clipboard provides a cost-effective alternative to commercial online survey tools, all of which charge monthly service fees.

Transformations Efforts
Online Learning Student Community (OLSC) successfully launched. This portal-like site (within myCourses) consolidates previously dispersed information, and provides geographically dispersed online students with a common means of interaction.
Student Response System is taking off. Clickers, as they are commonly called, are wireless keypads that allow faculty to quickly assess students' understanding of a topic. Nineteen instructors and 1,676 students used clickers, an increase of 13% and 36 %, respectively, from the previous year. Student Affairs, Admissions, Wallace Library, NTID, and other units use clickers for non-credit activities.
Faculty recognition. At this year's Online Learning Award ceremony, Morton Isaacs received the Online Learning Exemplary Teaching Award, and Stephanie Ludi received the myCourses Exemplary Teaching Award (each award comes with a $1,000 stipend).
New online program in the E. Philip Saunders College of Business (COB). OL staff worked closely with COB faculty and administrators throughout the year to design and develop eight core MBA courses for online delivery.
Blended Learning Program continues to foster faculty development, both internally and externally. Thirty-one instructors offered blended courses for the first time, an increase of 15% from the previous year. In addition, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation published Blended Learning: Research Perspectives, which included a chapter written by two OL staff, Michael Starenko and Joeann Humbert, on RIT's blended learning initiatives.

Transformations Efforts

Online Learning Student Community (OLSC) successfully launched. This portal-like site (within myCourses) consolidates previously dispersed information, and provides geographically dispersed online students with a common means of interaction.

Student Response System is taking off. Clickers, as they are commonly called, are wireless keypads that allow faculty to quickly assess students' understanding of a topic. Nineteen instructors and 1,676 students used clickers, an increase of 13% and 36 %, respectively, from the previous year. Student Affairs, Admissions, Wallace Library, NTID, and other units use clickers for non-credit activities.

Faculty recognition. At this year's Online Learning Award ceremony, Morton Isaacs received the Online Learning Exemplary Teaching Award, and Stephanie Ludi received the myCourses Exemplary Teaching Award (each award comes with a $1,000 stipend).

New online program in the E. Philip Saunders College of Business (COB). OL staff worked closely with COB faculty and administrators throughout the year to design and develop eight core MBA courses for online delivery.

Blended Learning Program continues to foster faculty development, both internally and externally. Thirty-one instructors offered blended courses for the first time, an increase of 15% from the previous year. In addition, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation published Blended Learning: Research Perspectives, which included a chapter written by two OL staff, Michael Starenko and Joeann Humbert, on RIT's blended learning initiatives.

Next Steps

Online Learning Classroom. The A400 Online Learning Classroom was used extensively in the early '90s to record video lectures for distance (now called online) courses. The video-lecture format has largely been replaced by more interactive courses with content created directly by faculty on their desktops. We plan to extensively renovate this classroom to be a center for collaborating with faculty in teaching experiments that explore and evaluate innovative strategies for the effective use of technology.

Second Life. OL is an early explorer and adopter of Second Life, the rapidly expanding computer-mediated virtual environment in which users inhabit and interact via "avatars." In 2007-2008, OL will purchase, build, and manage an "island" in Second Life to support a variety of educational experiments and communication activities for the broader RIT community.

Adobe Connect. After a successful pilot phase in 2005-2006, OL rolled out Adobe Connect (previously Macromedia Breeze) to online faculty this year. Connect is a web-based communication tool that allows anyone to collaborate in "real time" using VoIP, whiteboard drawing, and text chat, and also to share presentations, computer desktops, and other materials. If institutional support is forthcoming next year, OL will extend its Connect services to on-campus faculty and courses, and to non-credit activities, such as admissions events and hiring committees.

Clipboard 2.0. OL developed the Clipboard online survey system to enable RIT faculty, students (with faculty oversight), and staff to set up, deliver, and evaluate surveys with a user-friendly web-based tool. In the coming year OL will roll out Clipboard 2.0, which will include new question types, branching questions, submissions redirects, permissions, LDAP groups, and a host of enhanced usability and navigation features.

Essentials of Online Teaching course. As a supplement to its core coaching and training services for individual faculty, OL will develop and offer a three-week online course for RIT faculty who are new or relatively new (1-2 courses) to online teaching. The course will be offered every quarter, or as often as demand permits, and will include a $300 stipend.

Online Writing Lab (OWL). The OWL is a pilot program to provide support to online students who cannot visit the Academic Support Center for tutoring with writing. Each quarter in 2006-2007 there have been 6-10 courses involved. Because the pilot was so successful, we plan to extend the OWL service to all online courses in 2007-2008 and incorporate it into our ongoing support structure.

Blended Learning Summit. The goal of blended learning is to combine the best features of classroom instruction with the best features of online interaction to promote active independent learning. Since the fall of 2003, OL has supported more than 135 RIT faculty through two major blended learning initiatives. OL will convene these individuals next year for a summit meeting to discuss the institutional impact and future direction of blended learning at RIT.

Emerging Technology Partnerships. OL has been fortunate to work with many faculty exploring innovative uses of instructional technology. This year we piloted a new incentive program for special projects called Emerging Technology Partnerships (ETP). For 2007-2008, OL will partner with a number of RIT faculty, including Scott Hawker, from Software Engineering, who will be refining Knowledge Studio, a digital library designed to find content in the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge taxonomies; and Mike Yacci, from Information Technology, who will be experimenting with intelligent agents for online learning environments.

myCourses growth and improvement. Our course management system, myCourses, continues to grow in both popularity and features. Early in the coming year we expect myCourses usage to surpass the 50% mark. Next year we will purchase a new database server (based upon the recommendations of ITS) that will have four times as much memory and processing power as our current server. A significant software upgrade of myCourses is planned for the end of the year.

Student Response System. We will continue to support the classroom use of clickers to enhance student-to-student and faculty-to-student interaction. This year we experimented with iClickers, and will continue to explore this new device in 2007-2008.

Tables

Download the complete Online Learning 2006-2007 Annual Report .