UWIDEC APC P. 5d
2003/4
THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES
Issues
from DEC St. Augustine campus
Need for student data
1
All
aspects of the delivery modes depend on data on student registration. Before
the start of the semester the campus coordinator’s office needs to have data on
the number of students per course by site in order to ship materials in time
for the start of the semester.
2
Course
co-ordinators need to have class lists of students for their courses in order
to properly manage the delivery of the course. Course co-ordinators also need
contact information for tutors.
3
Information
on registered students is required to build the user accounts in WebCT online
course environment.
4
The
Examination section also need to know the numbers of students per course by
site in order to manage the mid semester examinations, coursework marks and
final examinations.
5
For UWIDEC
to centrally plan its activities it will need to have student data by course
and by site for all sites.
6
The
current campus’ student information systems do not identify students by site
and therefore does not provide useful data for UWIDEC operations.
7
There is a
very high level of expectation that the new Banner Student Administration
System (SAS) would provide the needs of UWIDEC for student data. The
implementation of this system is eagerly anticipated to have a positive impact
on all UWIDEC operations.
Campus Pipeline
8
The
campuses have recognized the importance of communications to students and each
one has implemented a portal using Campus Pipeline to keep students informed of
campus life. One of the useful tools of Campus Pipeline is that every
registered student has an email account and is grouped into class mailing lists
which tutors, lecturers and administration can use to maintain official
communication with the students.
9
The
downside of the three current implementation of Campus Pipeline is that just
like the current student information systems the students are not categorized
by site or categorized by UWIDEC. Therefore if a UWIDEC Course Coordinator at
one campus sends email to a class such as FD10A using campus pipeline two
problems would occur: 1) the email intended for UWIDEC students would reach the
mailboxes of all face to face students as well. 2) the email would not reach the
mailboxes of UWIDEC students on the Campus Pipeline servers on the other two
campuses.
10
One
possible solution to this is to move all the three Campus Pipeline
implementations into single one like the Banner SAS. Another solution is that
UWIDEC implements its separate Campus Pipeline server.
Online course development and delivery
11
Online
course development and delivery is currently an ad hoc activity which is
secondary to the current primary delivery mode of self instructional printed
materials, tutorials and teleconferences. Only about 9 courses of the
approximately 80 courses delivered in an academic year contains some online
content over the past two years.
12
It is
proposed that a temporary development team of instructional designers at the
three campuses be formed whose focus is to transform the printed materials for
an asynchronous web based environment. It is proposed that UWIDEC adopt a new
model of creating instructional materials – a single source publishing model.
In the single source publishing model, a single source of materials is used to
produce the final materials in any media – print, CDROM and the Web.
Delivery of electronic materials to students
13
Currently
materials in electronic format are being transmitted via email from campuses to
sites with the final destination being a student or a tutor. Also MP3
recordings of teleconferences are made available to sites for download for
students and tutors to replay in the computer labs.
14
As we move
to a fully asynchronous web based delivery students would expect to receive
electronic materials directly. This has been the request over the past two
years from students who can afford computer, printer and Internet access and
also have the necessary skills.
15
The future
cohort of students would be Internet savvy and expect digital media and UWIDEC
must address all the barriers which currently prevent this as a primary
delivery mode. Some of the barriers are copyright, IT infrastructure and
current materials creation modes.
The choice of Learning
Management System (LMS)
16
Currently
UWIDEC uses the WebCT server based at St. Augustine campus to delivery online
content.
17
This
academic year the other two campuses have also implemented WebCT servers. This
scenario can, if not controlled, can lead to UWIDEC courses hosted on three
separate servers with students and tutors having to login to three separate
servers. This situation should be avoided and it is recommended that all UWIDEC
courses should be hosted at the St. Augustine WebCT server.
18
The
selection of WebCT as the LMS for UWI has not been finalized. Other LMS that
are being considered include Blackboard, Bodington VLE, MIT dotLRN and the OAS
Virtual Classroom. UWIDEC has to participate in the campuses’ decision process
of the choice of LMS.
Distance Education Centre, St. Augustine
October 21st, 2003