Developing Web-based Instruction: planning, designing, managing, and evalutating for results. edited by Elizabeth A. Dupuis

As for standards, I doubt that hard line rules, such as all submitted work must be returned within 5 days, would be a good idea – nor would faculty easily accept such strictures. However, students need programs to put together some guidelines and expectations. Like Meredith and Lori, I have had some absolutely abyssmal classes in which professors ignore questions, have no discussions and return work months after the due date. I think that in the online environment there can be no excuse for not grading the first assignment well before the second is due. Policies are essential so that students understand what to expect, what is acceptable behavior and what is not. I am more than willing to be flexible – but only when the professor is also willing to be flexible and engaged about issues and problems that he/she might be having.

Jason makes a great point that everyone’s expectations are different – and I think this is part of the problem in enviroments where faculty are not clear. If a professor is unclear about the class, its content, the work involved or how the discussions should take place, the class becomes chaotic.

Since everyone has different expectations, and I do not require discussion postings, individual students already have an opportunity to develop their own senses of community within the class. I hope that online conversation between and among students will flow naturally, and that people will not feel compelled to post just to get points. If someone wishes to abstain, that’s their perogative, and I don’t count it against them.

(Actually, I didn’t even think about distance learning “communities” until encountering Meredith’s posting. However, upon reading it, I started thinking about my own online class this semester.)

Just to reduce the risk of having people totally unengaged from the weekly lessons, I at least require a reaction paper. That way, I can assess how well students engage with the lessons, and more reserved students have an opportunity to express their thoughts without the fear of embarrassing themselves in front of classmates (Probably not good for “building character,” but I can sympathize with those feelings myself.)

Meredith: first, sorry to take up so much space.

I sympathize with your bad online experience. I am not sure who you would have or could talk to. At Hamline, we have technology advisors for each school program and our IT who help students with any technical difficulties. We at the library do get a lot of those questions as well. Heck, we even get research questions. YEAH! At least the questions are not “Where is the bathroom?” LOL! As for training faculty, it is more in how to use Blackboard. The librarians also assist in helping faculty make use of online linking for their readings. I am interested in how Norwich builds their “online community”. Is there anything specific that they do? Especially with students who can never come to campus?

As for your second part on library assignments I am in total agreement. I never teach a BI the first weeks into a semester. I ask the Profs. that they wait at least 3-5 weeks before we bring their classes in for a session or two. They have to be starting their research or are working on their research questions. Good luck with being embedded and I would like to hear about some of the things you try with the students.

I do find its strict surveillance of instructors rather heavy-handed, though. While taking action against instructors who chronically neglect students sounds sensible, it seems a bit cumbersome to tick up every infraction and reprimand instructors for every incident. Like students who might not be able to turn in a paper on time, instructors might have extenuating circumstances that do not allow them to give everyone an adequate response immediately. Small class sizes would ameliorate the likelihood of such scenarios, but such standards sound problematic for universities with larger class sizes.

I would be interested in learning more about the rationale for having a 24 hour turnaround time for answering a student’s question. For instance, do professors have to give any type of response to a question within that time period? With the promise of a better follow-up answer, would a quick one- or two-sentence response suffice? Does discretionary use of an automatic “out of office” message count? Does this response time include weekends, or just the “business week?” Does a student’s “information need” have to be completely fulfilled within that time period? (Once a librarian…) Most importantly, how were these standards developed?

Come to think about it, what about the 72 hour turnaround time for grading? Depending on the assignment, that seems a bit too fast to give decent feedback.

That’s quite a few questions right there, actually. No 24 hour turnaround is necessary for those, however. I’m just thinking out loud in the form of several questions. (“Distance learning for $200, Alex.”)

I don’t think community is built around required discussions and assignments. While I think it’s great to build a sense of community around a course, it’s even more important to build it around the program as a whole. Yes, lots of people are lone wolves, but when you have a problem, it’s nice to feel like there is someone (either a fellow-student, a faculty member or an administrator) whom you can contact. I had no idea whom I could contact if I was having a problem. There are ways to build online communities for programs that are not built around activities or discussion boards or requirements. Norwich has done that quite nicely (though they do require discussion postings in separate classes), and I applaud them for it.

Some of the graduate classes here do have “library assignments” and I have found them rather counter-productive. They’re usually offered right at the beginning of the class and have the students using the databases and other resources to find specific things. They also usually point the students to some of the tutorials I’ve created for the grad students. It’s great that it gives them some experience using the library resources, but it isn’t tied to a real research assignment in the class and by the time they get to that, they seem to have forgotten everything. In the classes where I have library tutorials tied to their regular assignments, I’ve found them to be much more useful because they’re offered at the point of need. It’s like teaching a very general Information Literacy class that isn’t tied to an assignment versus teaching one that is tied to an assignment and helps them to more effectively complete that assignment. In the latter, students are much more likely to learn from the class because they see an immediate application and benefit to what they’re learning. I think information literacy should be integrated seamlessly into the curriculum; it should not be an “add on” because it will be seen by students that way. Just my 2 cents and things may be different at other institutions.

Here, we get a large number of reference questions from grad students in the research intensive programs. Military History students seem to have particular trouble adjusting to doing research online. I hope that my being embedded into the course will give me the opportunity to answer many common research questions for an entire class rather than one individual, enabling the people who usually do not ask questions to benefit from their classmates questions (and my answers). The military history students are a lively, eager and curious bunch, so I think I will have my work cut out for me!

As someone who’s shy and retiring, I certainly sympathize with those who might not want to participate in the course “community.” Still, I think that students should have an opportunity to build community, even if some decide that they prefer to keep to themselves. Some people have participated in my individual lesson discussion boards, while others have not. I had thought of counting such participation towards the course grade, but I decided that it would be too cumbersome to assess. Instead, I’m opting for weekly reaction papers to figure out what students are getting out of the readings, and I’m using the lesson discussion boards for those who would like to share their insights with others.

I do know that for some of the classes that they try to get most people to campus at least once as a group, but this is not always possible. And that is really not the point. The point is that an online class IS different from an in person class and can not transfer every type of behavior we would expect in a classroom. Even if we supplied everyone with web cameras. 

As for training instructors in how to facilitate an online class that would be very difficult. You can show them how to use and make the most out of a class management system, such as Blackboard, but not everything can be transferred “nicely’ into an online class. Some classes and discussion demand real time interaction and collaboration. Hamline does have pretty good support for those professors who need help in developing their class, but I am not sure they would be the ones to say “this is how you should run your class”

If I get enough students, I will be teaching an information literacy class soon with a colleague of mine. We have created, through Blackboard, an online component, which contains the basics: intro test, readings, syllabus, discussion board (with guided questions). We expect this to be about 20% of their “class time”. Will this work? I have no idea, and it will be interesting when we have to recalibrate our expectations.

Meredith, I see you are going to be “embedded”, please let us know how that goes. The profs. I work with make sure “library stuff” is a part of their resources in Blackboard: tutorials, research guides, etc… Some of the better ones even have “library assignments” that forces them to do or look at certain things: the catalog, a flash tutorial, an e-book, etc… I have talked to several librarians in our consortium about being embedded and found that it wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. They didn’t get a whole lot of questions. Maybe it is different with grad students? Or maybe, they need some library assignments integrated with their work? 