FIRST DRAFT (still fleshing out these ideas)
This page is dedicated to efforts beginning in November 2012 and tentatively concluding in June 2013 to draft an analysis that briefly summarizes the state of online education at UC and to make recommendations that fall within our purview as Directors in ETLG (based on a specific charge from ITLC).
Sites of Interest / Parking Lot (add items here that you think have value to our discussion)
YouTube of Fred Wison - venture capital pro with Union Square Ventures. This video describes how exclusivity is not optimal for learning tools / systems. To align with the diverse ways in which content is created, users are increasingly generating content extra muros and then repurposing it within the instructional context. In this way, the production and storage of the content does not have to be supported by university IT staff. The trend for vendors is to resist standardization of educational tools, promoting viral adoption beyond the control of IT departments and school districts. It may be better for campuses to embrace this trend and move toward freely available tools that operate on bottom-up selling approach: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV3SKcJD9rw&feature=plcp
Wilson's position is reminiscent of Professor Sally Jackson's comments that the campus is not the sweet spot but instead "the sour spot" for deploying large scale tech solutions, including collaboration technologies. See Educasue ELI discussion (uses Adobe Connect) with Jim Davis and Sally Jackson dated February 2012: https://educause.adobeconnect.com/_a729300474/p6nb2e2f7x9/?launcher=false&fcsContent=true&pbMode=normal Cue the start to 4:59 to catch the question put to Professor Jackson and her answer. Specifically, she resists the pressure put on the campus to contain students in standardized environments.
Also, the following link was shared with me at a Systemwide Library and Scholarly Information Advisory Committee meeting on October 23, 2012. It is a UC Berkeley whitepaper entitled "Can Online Education Technology Improve Excellence and Access at Berkeley" written back in March 2012 by AnnaLee Saxenian: http://libraries.universityofcalifornia.edu/planning/slasiac/102312/Online_Education_at_Berkeley.pdf. In this whitepaper, Saxenian calls for the creation of a Center for Online Education at UCB.
See also the October 2012 Chronicle of Higher Ed article entitled “On Becoming a Phoenix: Encounters With the Digital Revolution” by Catharine R. Stimpson. http://chronicle.com/article/On-Becoming-a-Phoenix-/134658/. In this article, Stimpson recounts her experiences taking an online course.
Check out Canvas open online network, which allows users to create an open public course for free… but is especially useful to canvas campuses that can “mooc-ify” a course by a simple flip of a switch – allowing certain courses to remain private (ferpa, faculty IP, copyright, etc.) and other courses to be free and open. https://www.canvas.net
General overview:
"Online Educational Delivery Models: A Descriptive View" by Phil Hill - Educause Review, November 2012. http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/online-educational-delivery-models-descriptive-view
Recommendations (Draft)
As we develop our ETLG recommendations to ITLC concerning online education, we might think about:
- encouraging system / campus policy changes to enable faculty who wish to rapidly innovate (course approval)
- encouraging system / campus policy changes to remove barriers that impede online education from occurring (e.g., enabling self pacing will require changes to policies concerning seat time requirement)
- removing bureaucracy and technical challenges to facilitate adoption by students (make it easier to start up and join quickly with the least amount of hassle)
- improving support structures on our campuses so that faculty have access to instructional design and instructional tech resources (including support on copyright, accessibility, etc.)
- developing shared metrics to measure effectiveness of Online Education (value of tech tools used as well as measuring learning gains / student satisfaction)
- securing funding adequate to support a growing learning infrastructure on our campuses (curation, storage, and archiving of digital content) - possible multi-campus / systemwide solutions
- continuing discussions on LMS and instructional software used across campuses
I'm hoping we can think in terms of 3-5 years from now with our recommendations.