Open Forum Summary: LMS Features

1. Faculty need to have a modest number of campus supported content-creation tools. Additionally, faculty need the flexibility to experiment with recently developed tools to more effectively utilize technology.
   
   
2. Faculty would like a single LMS environment from which all course content can be delivered to their students. Faculty and student should not be required to be aware of numerous application systems, administrative control points, nor access points.
   
   
3. Large portions of faculty time is based upon three major aspects of curriculum content
• negotiating course content with colleagues to ensure
1. the curriculum meets the intended goals of a department or program,
2. consistency across multiple sections of the course, and to improve
3. student learning outcomes.
• creating/updating content associated with a course at the beginning of each semester
• revising course content, including specialized content and assessment tools to meet the learning needs of the new set of students each semester.
  


4. The types of course material in which faculty are spending more time to develop include
• web pages that are ADA compliant
• video streaming, with the need for captioning
• quiz material
  
  
5. There is a need to have a repository of "learning objects" that faculty members can reuse as they develop and refine specific learning modules.
   
   
6. Even with material being placed online, which provides anytime access, there is still a need to have features the promote interactivity between and among class members.
   
   
7. Currently technology, which is available, is not being fully utilized to streamline administrative processes. The LMS system needs appropriate linkages with SOLAR: to provision accounts, to submit grades, etc. Moreover, other common tools present within many LMS systems, such as calendaring and task managers can be used to automate processes better.
   
   
8. There is a wealth of technological options available but many faculty members are not sure where to start, where they should go next, etc. There needs to be a focus on providing appropriate support for faculty, which range from sponsored affinity groups (like brown bags lunches), general support and training, up to on-going technology trainings that is contextualized for faculty, so faculty can make better connections between the technology training and their teaching effectiveness.
   

Comments made during the open forum:

What activities in either content delivery or content development do you spend the most time on, and why?

• Many faculty members are starting to use video as part of their curriculum. Currently, it is a time consuming process. Specific tools should be identified that reduces the amount of time to create the videos and to provide captioning to ensure the material is accessible to all students.
  
  
• We spend most of our time working with Online Instruction and WebCT, as we develop new content. We utilize tools like "Soft Chalk", and other tools that we experiment with to determine the most effective way to develop new content.
  
  
• We spend a lot of time making quizzes for a class. Some of these quizzes are for students to perform self assessments, others are geared to reinforce weekly material. Time is also spent on running analysis on quizzes to determine what adjustments we want to make in our content delivery.
  
  
• For our on-line portions of our classes, we have (or have begun) to utilize Eluminate. It provides us with the ability to Chat, Video Conferences, Share Presentation Material, and provide general interaction with our students.
  
  
• Most of the time I spend is in devising my content. Once developed, tweaked, and adjusted, I just drop it into WebCT so that my students can get access.
  
  
• I spent 60-70% of my time in negotiations with my collegues in my department. This is an important activity to ensure that all sections of a particular course utilize the same core content, but with enough flexibility for faculty members to add additional content (etc) for their particular section.
  
  
• ADA compliance takes a large amount of time. It would be helpful if there were hands on workshops and clarity about what is and what is not needed for ADA compliance.
  
  

Describe how you prepare
- new course offering of an existing course
- the curriculum for a multi-section course

• For a multi-section course, faculty create a single version of the course, and then we copy the material from the master version to each individual faculty members WebCT account. Faculty can then go into their copy of the course and update their section.
  
  
• WebCT currently does not retain more than two years of previous course material. It would be helpful if there was some type of repository for reusable course-content.
  
  
• One concern about reusable course content is Copyright issues. What rights are retained by the faculty member, and what rights are retained by the University?
  
  
• Another issue with reusable course content is access rights. Who gets to view the content, how can access be controlled, who has the ability to update my content?
  
  
• For video content there are also permission issues associated with folks that are in the video. Having a well defined process for "Permission to Use" and Release Forms would be helpful.
  

What communication tools do you current rely on for
- instructor to class communication
- student to instructor
- student to student communication
- class discussions

• The use of threaded discussions is used extensively. It allows each person to contribute to the discussion and the faculty member can review the discussion at a later time. Email is used in tandem with threaded discussions, primarily as a vehicle for faculty to send private comments/feedback to students about their posted material.
  
  
• The class-based email lists is used frequently to send reminder messages to students.
  
  
• If the calendaring system within the LMS has the ability to send email reminders automatically to students about tests, projects, etc., it would be helpful.
  
  
• Students need the ability to communicate with other students without the students worry about faculty monitoring. Chat rooms that were set up by this purpose are frequently unused.
  
  
• The face-to-face interaction is key to retain the required interactivity of a course. Eluminate helps with this interactivity. It provides a chat room (text, voice, and video), and various facets of the virtual environment can be recorded and provided to students after the session is complete. Students do need to have a camera, microphone, and speakers -- but such components are become more ubiquitous.
  
  
• Blogs and Wikis also help with communication. Blogs provide a subscription model where folks can comment on particular threads of discussions -- similar to a hypernews discussion -- but perhaps with more control on the particular subject matter.
  
  
• Wikis on the other hand can allow for a shared assignment to be created. Different roles (e.g., editor, author) can be assigned to manage the development of the content. Wikis also provide version control; hence a faculty member can review what type of actions are being taken by what students, and undo some activities as appropriate.
  

What tools enhance (or would enhance) student participation, student learning, etc.

• Synchronous chat rooms are helpful since they can draw in student participation.
  
  
• Hypernews (i.e., thread discussions) is more reflective. Students can ponder the discussion and contribute based their own schedules.
  

What administrative tools do you
- use that streamline administrative tasks associated with course delivery
- you wish you had to streamline administrative tasks associated with course delivery

• Within the registration of online courses, it is not clear enough to students that a particular section is an online course. Although there is some text that states its an online course, it is not enough.
  
  
• Each online course needs to have a set time. There is always the need for the faculty to have a "synchronous" online meeting in which all students need to attend.
  
  
• CSUDH has an automatic feed from their LMS to SOLAR. Having the ability to automatically transfer final grades from within our LMS to SOLAR would be extremely beneficial. It is currently is a mundane and manual task that faculty need to perform, which can easily be automated.
  
  
• Currently with Solar, Faculty members must enter grades on a one-by-one basis. It would be helpful if there was a way in which a spreadsheet of grades could be uploaded into the system.
  

Do you need an unified integrated environment or flexibility to use "best of bread" software?

• We want a single entry point in which students go to in order to get access to all their course material. Currently, there is a variety of systems (e.g., WebCT, WebWorks, Hypernews, etc.) that student must access with a variety of different access points. The individual pieces that are part of the LMS environment need not be a single vendor/open source solution.
  
  
• For the creation of course content, faculty members need to have the maximum amount of flexibility to utilize new tools. It would also be beneficial if the University could select a set of recommended tools and provide faculty with appropriate training and support for these tools. And at the same time, allow faculty members that wish to explore new tools and emerging technology.
  

What is the number one thing that you would like to see as an outcome of this assessment project?

• We would like to see steps taken that make the administrative tasks associated with creating course content reduced.
  
  
• We would like to see more resources put into place to help faculty utilize technology more effectively, and to help us place our curriculum online. Examples include support for creation of video content, web page development within an accessible environment.
  
  
• We would like to see more activities that teach Faculty how to better use technology. The support needs to be crafted to be contextual based to support a wide range of faculty needs.
  
  
• We would like to see more support that help faculty become more self-sufficient in the use of technology.
  
  
• We would like to see more grant support that will allow us to move our content on-line.