B Y   M A R Y   A N N   E I L E R ,  P h D
Chicago Chapter

You’ve decided to teach on the Internet. You’re quite confident you have successfully separated reality from hype. You’ve read the research on pedagogical paradigm shifts in the digital age; you’ve listened to the war stories about bandwidth and technical support. Never mind that your own graduate students have argued that your traditional classroom course on Online Design is far too interactive and paradoxically not amenable to digital presentation. You’ve summarily dismissed intellectual property and other legal issues because you want to be on the cutting edge of 21st century technology. You have even taken an online course yourself to get a student’s perspective on asynchronous learning and you’ve attended at least one distance learning conference. Finally, you are planning to take a semester off from teaching so that you can give yourself a six month lead-time to re-engineer your course.

You are ready to begin! Right? Well, maybe!

In the Spring 1999 semester, I announced to my graduate students in Online Design that I had begun preliminary discussions with the university’s office of Distance Learning Technologies to migrate the course to the Internet in 2000. After all, what better way to teach the principles of online design than to do so by integrating all the riches of the Internet? I asked for their input as I began to rethink how components of the classroom course could be realized in an asynchronous Internet environment.

Online Design is based on design concepts and issues derived from research in human computer interaction as they apply to the development of user interfaces (Web sites, online documentation, instructional multimedia, and so forth). The course is a blend of informal instructor lecturing and student work, presentations, and application evaluations at computer terminals in a lab. The instructor’s role is primarily that of facilitator or coach in a highly interactive team environment. Students are required to submit a final project from selected topics on the history and practice of interface design, prepare a scholarly written report, and make a visual presentation through overhead transparencies and/or computer terminals, video, and so forth Students submit interim reports and readings throughout the course as part of the participatory/iterative design process. They share copies of their interim presentations with other members of the class.

Since my Online Design course incorporates activity/task and user analyses as key components in interface design, I “modeled” the process for my students by constructing six tables. Each table had three columns:

I then filled in the first column of the six tables. The first table, Instructor Lecture Activities, included:

1. Verbal introduction to the course, explanations, with student questions regarding interpretation of course objectives, requirements, and so forth.
2. Lectures on required textbook readings.
3. Lectures and demos integrated with slides and/or transparencies.
4. Lectures and demos integrated with Web sites at student computer terminals in the lab.

Similarly, the table on Instructor-Student Activities included issues for online delivery:

1. Instructor’s ad hoc response to students’ questions in real time, including “stories from professional experience” to illustrate or elaborate a point.
2. Face-to-face instructor-student conferences on project development with work in progress (paper storyboards, screen prototypes, application site structures, and so forth).
3. The ongoing use of whiteboards for ad hoc instructor observations and for spontaneous student postings.
4. Instructor-to-student, student-to-student, and instructor e-mails between classes.

The third table, Student Presentation Activities, addressed delivery issues:

1. Students’ presentations in class of paper-based interim progress reports, sometimes with computer demos, slides, or other visual media.
2. Student oral delivery of final projects with a variety of visual media (some slides, transparencies, videotapes, computer applications, their own or those of others).
3. Students’ presentations to class of reading synopses based on journal articles.
4. Student enactment of rapid prototyping, usability tests, all replete with necessary “props” (that is, screen captures, questionnaires, interviewing protocols).

The fourth table addressed Dissemination  of Materials:  

1. The instructor’s distribution and interpretation of model projects, synopses, and interim reports prepared by former students (and used with their permission).
2. The dissemination and “walk-throughs” of supplementary readings/handouts.
3. The dissemination of the students’ final print-based project research reports.

The fifth table focused on Evaluation Activities:

1. Instructor’s written evaluations threaded throughout the printed student projects.
2. The students’ oral presentations to the class for their final projects.
3. The instructor’s verbal and written evaluative response.

The sixth, and perhaps the most challenging table, addressed Student-to-Student Interactions:

1. Collaborative lab exercises at computer terminals, sometimes involving the Internet.
2. Collaborative lab exercises with other online genres delivered through diskettes and/or CD-ROMs.

Asking the "hard" questions

As I began to ponder the six tables, I found myself asking questions that, at best, appeared to point to “procrustean” solutions:

1. How could I begin to compensate for the rich learner-to- learner and instructor-to-learner interaction and why was I compensating after all?
2. What would become of the spontaneous anecdotal sharing triggered by a paragraph in a journal article or a statement in the required readings?
3. What could replace the linguistic turn-taking in conversation of a well-conducted traditional classroom?
4. What would replace the chagrined look on a student’s face that would lead me to rephrase a response for better understanding?
5. Were my students right in cautioning that the course would be diminished by migrating it to Internet delivery?

The option of streaming video technology could capture my “lectures,” but I began to realize that as a veteran teacher I seldom stayed poised in one place for any length of time. I began to realize that I almost never used notes or a podium. Instead, my delivery of information, prompted by readings, student questions, and so forth, was more “highly-informed talk,” and “conversation” than “lecture.” And what of the student-to-student spontaneous repartee? I learned that there are legal issues involved in videotaping students.

Furthermore, the university had informed me that I would have two student audiences:

1. The real time classroom audience where the videotaping would occur.
2. An asynchronous distance learning audience that a week later would view the class activities as well as my delivery and other materials online.

Was I shortchanging those students who would log in at a distance? Would e-mail, or for that matter a class Web site, adequately address their needs as a community of learners or would they be “second class citizens” in an asynchronous world?

The more I pondered the variables, the more I began to realize I was in the midst of a pedagogical paradigm shift. I feared I might be compromising (if not sacrificing) my course prematurely on the altar of technological expediency. Although I had done my homework on distance learning, it was only when I came across The Report of the University of Illinois Teaching at an Internet Distance Seminar December 1999 (http://www.vpaa.uillinois.edu/tid/report/) that my specific concerns as a teacher were addressed. Posing the question “How do I determine if online teaching is successful?" the Report responds:

“High quality online teaching is not just a matter of transferring class notes or a videotaped lecture to the Internet: new paradigms of content delivery are needed. Particular features to look for in new courses are the strength of professor-student and student-student interactions, the depth at which students engage in the material and the professor’s and students’ access to technical support.” (page 4).

Later in the Report, the authors sound another familiar note:

“We might say that any administration’s lead in implementing technology in the classroom runs the risk of ‘technology driving pedagogy,’ when true concern for education dictates that ‘pedagogy drive technology.’ ” (page 17).

The University of Illinois Report continues to remind me that above all else good teaching is the goal in all learning environments, synchronous or asynchronous. The authors ask and remind us:

“Does good teaching in the classroom translate to good teaching online? If so, what elements can be translated and which ones can’t or shouldn’t?” (page 24).

To this consciousness raising, I might also add: Do different content areas (that is, subject matters) require their own pedagogical approaches?

Though the above discussions might imply that I am pessimistic and negatively disposed to re-purposing Online Design for digital Internet delivery, the contrary (ironically) is true. The Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), where I teach, is at the forefront of distance learning in its use of streaming video technology. Document camera technologies that can scan whiteboards, posting of lectures through PowerPoint slides, and ancillary use of a course Web site for resource postings and student electronic idea and information sharing are all viable options. The distance learning course in which I participated through Vanderbilt University in the summer of 1999 made very effective use of the Allaire Forums (ALN) conferencing system that allows students and professors to post to the appropriate conferencing threads. Not only were we students able to communicate with each other, we were also able to click on other students’ development of Web site and/or Intranet site constructions in progress and offer our comments.

I also experienced first hand that technical and instructional support was a viable option and could be made available through e-mails, conference system technology, and sometimes at critical junctures, a phone call between student and instructor or technical facilitator. Critical to my own success in the Vanderbilt course was the immediate technical support I received from the facilitators.

I also came to appreciate the set of computer skills an online course can require. My own Online Design course, if delivered on the Internet, would require a baseline technical/computer competency level from prospective students as a course prerequisite.

Bandwidth for the industry as a whole, not only for distance learning, is also a key variable. I soon learned that sufficient MegaHertz and modem speeds are critical to successful online delivery. In short, we all do not have a T1 line nor can we expect students to defray the cost of upgrading their computers for their online courses to support streaming video or comparable technology – at least not for now. Not all students have sound cards and firewalls can prohibit the use of microphones. Also, not all students operate from the same computer platforms – will Macintosh, Windows, Windows NT, UNIX and so forth all support the same software applications to conduct online meetings?

If anything, I learned from my experience that I need to take a more judicious look at the re-purposing of my course for online delivery. I need to put “first things first” and ask myself not how technology could compensate for a highly successful interactive traditional course but how I could use technology to improve what I was doing in the classroom and what I should retain (at least at this state of the art) in the traditional classroom format.

Armed with my new insights, I again met with IIT’s Distance Learning Technologies staff. Together, we brainstormed and discussed at length the following options for the Online Design course:

1. Bring together the distance learning students and the real-time classroom students in the a weekly or bimonthly video conference.
   
   
2. Require possibly two key off-line meetings for both the real-time and asynchronous student audiences:
   
   
   • A pre-course meeting to discuss issues such as using technology in the course. This meeting might include a mini-tutorial in technology relevant to the course such as preparing PDF (Portable Document Format) files. The meeting might also include discussion of learning goals and objectives, how to access technical support (a university Help desk?) and class logistics.
     
     
   • A final class meeting could be held where student projects would be presented in real time.
     
     
3. Provide a conferencing system so students could post work-in-progress to the appropriate “threads” and discuss with each other and with the instructor the status of their work.
   
   
4. Determine software applications that are compatible across platforms for online “meetings.”
   
   
5. Develop my own course Web site where I could post my syllabus and make print documents available in PDF format. At appropriate points, I could provide segments of the syllabus through PowerPoint slides.
   
   
6. Synchronize PowerPoint slides with my streaming video presentations. Also, I could make the slides available as PDF downloadable documents.
   
   
7. In addition to a conferencing system, provide the Internet students with the options of e-mailing, faxing, or snail mailing their work (that is, storyboards, Web site prototypes, usability questionnaires, and so forth) to me and other students. Students might also transfer their work through File Transfer Protocol (FTP) or through PDFs.
   
   
8. Given enough lead time, prepare word processing documents and other electronic document enlargements or prints with sufficient fidelity for the document camera so that real-time students could see the documents projected on TV in the classroom as would the Internet students online.
   
   
9. Obtain copyright permission to scan relevant portions of published documents that, in a traditional classroom, I would refer to with “have you seen this article?” With copyright permission, the Distance Learning Technologies staff could scan these documents for online presentation. Selected illustrations from adopted textbooks for the course could be scanned as well.
   
   
10. Because Online Design focuses on interface design and online documentation, require a fee to access the online digital libraries of appropriate professional organizations, several of which have student memberships. Such access would resolve copyright issues and provide an extensive circulation of professional literature between and among students.

Course management is always a challenge in an online or off-line environment. The logistics for such management need to be mapped before the course is launched. For example, issues of who retains intellectual property rights also speak to the issue of quality assurance – who will maintain, update the course, and so forth. Alison Schneider’s article AAUP Seeks Greater Faculty Role in Distance Learning Decisions (The Chronicle of Higher Education 6/25/99 A34) reports that the policy decision of the American Association of University Professors is that professors, not institutions, should retain primary rights to materials prepared for online courses. Schneider further discusses contractual arrangements for online ownership, control and use of distance education materials, and compensation for their creation. My own ongoing research reveals that questions such as who will provide staff support, computer equipment, software, instructor compensations (at the same or higher rate than for traditional courses?), and shared ownership of a course abound in the literature. The intellectual property issue is far too complex and multifaceted to argue policy in this article except to say it must be addressed and resolved.

The time and cost to re-purpose a traditional course for online delivery (or for that matter to create a course from scratch) is also an issue that both instructor and institution should address so that expectations on both sides are realistic. Depending on the course, it may take two or even three times as long to prepare an online course versus a traditional classroom course. Of course, statistics vary on the type of the course.

Class size, an issue in traditional course delivery, remains an issue in online delivery. Jeffrey R. Young’s article Faculty Report at the University of Illinois Casts Skeptical Eye on Distance Education (The Chronicle of Higher Education 1/14/00 A48) advocates a lowering of the student-to-instructor ratio contrary to some of the distance learning marketing materials that perceive such courses as “cash cows” for the sponsoring institutions.

Finally, at this juncture some issues (for me at least) remain unresolved. I am still not confident that I can improve upon (or even equal) in a distance learning environment the rich verbal and nonverbal interaction between and among students and instructor that prevails in my current, traditional, Online Design classroom. The availability at some point of two-way streaming video possibly will convince me that this critical learning variable will not be lost.

What is needed, I am convinced, are more empirical studies like Scott Johnson and Steven Aragon’s et al. Comparative Analysis of Online vs. Face-to-Face Instruction (http://www.outreach.uiuc.edu/hre/public/comparison.pdf). The study compares outcome and process data from students in one of two versions of a graduate-level instructional design course for human resource development professionals – a traditional face-to-face format and an online version without direct face-to-face contact.

As the authors explain,

“The findings…show that online learning can be as effective as face-to-face learning in spite of the fact that students in online programs are not as satisfied with their experience as students in more traditional learning environments.” (page 21).

Implications of the study for future online programs include, as the authors again explain:

1. Analyzing student feedback and progress to improve student-instructor communication.
2. Understanding why online learners report lower comfort levels with their learning so that online delivery strategies can increase student confidence.
3. Making instructors aware of the limitations of online programs.

I love teaching and the technological possibilities of online delivery fascinate me. I know I cannot ignore the growing demand for distance learning courses at both the graduate and undergraduate levels, nor do I want to. My intent to make use of new technologies remains strong. However, as part of my “rethinking” process, I also know that I cannot turn a deaf ear to Johnson and Aragon’s final observations about what the findings in their study suggest, namely that  

“...online instruction may not be suitable for courses that require high degrees of student instructor interaction and feedback, such as performance-based training methods courses that rely on considerable mentoring and coaching. Until the technologies for online instruction better simulate real time interaction, program developers need to avoid courses that require frequent socialization between students and the instructor” (page 21).

So it is that the “rethinking” of my Online Design course for Internet delivery remains for now “a case study in progress.”

More later!

Getting Started Creating Online Courses: A Three Level Workshop Offered Online by the Center for Asynchronous Learning Networks (ALN), Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, Summer 1999.

Johnson, Scott D. and Aragon, Steven R., et al. Comparative Analysis of Online vs. Face-to-face Instruction. Department of Human Resource Education. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (http://www.outreach.uiuc.edu/hre/public/comparison.pdf)

Schneider, Alison. AAUP Seeks Greater Faculty Role in Distance Learning Decisions. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 6/25/99, A34.

The Report of the University of Illinois Teaching at the Internet Distance Seminar December 1999 (http://www.vpaa.uillinois.edu/tid/report/)

Young, Jeffrey R. Faculty Report at the University of Illinois Casts Skeptical Eye on Distance Education . The Chronicle of Higher Education, 1/14/00, A48.

Mary Ann Eiler is an adjunct instructor in the Technical Communication and Information Design Program at the Illinois Institute of Technology. She created both the Document Design and Online Design graduate courses for the program and teaches both courses. She is also on the staff of the American Medical Association where she is involved in Web site and Intranet development for the Department of Database Licensing. Mary Ann is also the Chair for the Website Management Issues SIG, for the American Association of Medical Society Executives (AAMSE).