CIT Infobits - September, 2003
Issue 63
ISSN 1521-9275
About INFOBITS
Infobits is an electronic service of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ITS Teaching and Learning's Center for Instructional Technology. Each month the CIT's Information Resources Consultant monitors and selects from a number of information and instructional technology sources that come to her attention and provides brief notes for electronic dissemination to educators.
How Much Time Does Online Teaching Take?
The Interactive Syllabus
DIY Online Teaching
Information Ecology Lecture Series
New Internet Scout Website
Recommended Reading
HOW MUCH TIME DOES ONLINE TEACHING TAKE?
One of the perceived barriers to increased faculty involvement in online instruction is that it involves more time than traditional face-to-face courses. Belinda Davis Lazarus, Associate Professor of Special Education in the School of Education at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, conducted a study of three asynchronous online courses to determine the amount of time needed to teach them. The results of her study are reported in "Teaching Courses Online: How Much Time Does It Take?" (Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, vol. 7, issue 3, September 2003). Lazarus measured the amount of time required to complete the following:(1) reading and responding to emails; (2) reading, participating in, and grading 10 online discussions; and (3) grading 15 assignments. The report of her findings is available online at http://www.aln.org/publications/jaln/v7n3/v7n3_lazarus.asp.
The Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks [ISSN 1092-8235] is an electronic publication of The Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C). Current and back issues are available at http://www.aln.org/publications/jaln/.
Sloan-C is a "consortium of institutions and organizations committed to quality online education" and is funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. For more information, see http://www.aln.org/.
"There is nothing inherently 'sizzling' about the syllabus, and since it structures the course, it seems a poor candidate for innovation." In "The Interactive Syllabus: A Resource-based, Constructivist Approach To Learning" (The Technology Source, July/August 2003), Sylvie L. F. Richards proposes to remedy this situation. Richards, Multimedia Designer/Developer for Academic Information Technologies at Brooklyn College, City University of New York, defines the interactive syllabus as "a learner-manipulated environment in which concepts are presented in different ways and at different times, resulting in multiple and adaptive interpretations necessary for knowledge acquisition." Drawing on her experience training Brooklyn College faculty, she explains how to construct interactive syllabi. The article is online at http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=1017.
The Technology Source [ISSN 1532-0030] is a free, peer-reviewed bimonthly periodical published by the Michigan Virtual University, 3101 Technology Parkway, Suite G, Lansing, MI 48910 USA; tel: 517-336-7733; fax: 517-336-7787; email: mivu@mivu.org; Web: http://www.mivu.org/
Current and back issues of The Technology Source are available at http://ts.mivu.org/.
In "Rolling Your Own: Online Without an LMS [Learning Management System]" (SideBars, September 2003) Bob Byrne, technical liaison at the British Columbia Institute of Technology's Centre for Distributed Learning, shows how small organizations offering fewer programs and courses could offer online classes using free or low-cost tools. As a minimum, Byrne suggests providing a website for course content and communication tools (email, discussion, and chat) for instructor/student interaction. The article, which includes links to some of the tools, is available online at http://online.bcit.ca/sidebars/03september/inside-out-6.htm.
SideBars is distributed by email and on the Web and is published by the Learning Resources Unit of the British Columbia Institute of Technology [http://www.lru.bcit.ca/] to provide "useful information and news items for instructors, course developers, educational technologists and anyone else who has an interest in distributed learning in its various manifestations." For more information, contact the editors at email: sidebars@listserv.bcit.ca. Subscription information: http://online.bcit.ca/sidebars/subcribe.html.
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Information Technology Services also offers some free tools that institutions can use for online instruction. The Share Carolina program, hosted by the ITS Center for Instructional Technology, shares code with other academic institutions and non-profit organizations for instructional Internet development tools. Share Carolina tools include code that you can install on your campus server to run discussion forums, build web pages, and create forms and quizzes. You can download Share Carolina code at http://www.unc.edu/cit/sharecarolina/. Please note: due to limited resources, UNC-Chapel Hill cannot provide technical support in the installation or use of these tools.
INFORMATION ECOLOGY LECTURE SERIES
In 2003-2004, the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke University is sponsoring an interdisciplinary lecture series on "The Information Ecology." This series will feature presentations by scholars from Duke and around the country on intellectual property and related areas - such as innovation economics, Internet and communications policy, cyberlaw, genomics, and a variety of other subjects. Through these events, the Center hopes to build connections between scholars across disciplines and between universities. The lectures are open to all.
All lectures are to be webcast (for up to 60 simultaneous viewers) so that you can watch a lecture over the Internet from your desktop. Webcasts will also be archived for later viewing. Fall semester lectures include:
November 10
Marc Rotenberg, Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center
November 14
Professor Wesley Cohen of the Fuqua School of Business: "Patents: Their Effectiveness and Role"
November 21
Professor William W. Fisher III of Harvard Law School: "Alternative Compensation Systems for Digital Entertainment"
More lectures will scheduled for the Spring semester. For details on these lectures and their time and place, see http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/events.html#lecture.
The Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law School is the first university center in the world devoted to the public domain, the realm of material -- ideas, images, sounds, discoveries, facts, texts -- that is unprotected by intellectual property rights and free for all to use or build upon. For more information, go to http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/.
The Internet Scout Project has a new, redesigned website at http://scout.wisc.edu/. Since 1994, the Scout Project, located at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has focused on "developing better tools and services for finding, filtering, and presenting online information and metadata." The Project publishes The Scout Report, a weekly publication for educators, librarians, and researchers.
The Internet Scout Project is part of the National Science Foundation's National Science Digital Library (NSDL) Project. NSDL aims to be the largest science, technology, engineering, and math digital library ever created. For more information about NSDL link to http://www.nsdl.org/.
"Recommended Reading" lists items that have been recommended to me or that Infobits readers have found particularly interesting and/or useful, including books, articles, and websites published by Infobits subscribers. Send your recommendations to kotlas@email.unc.edu for possible inclusion in this column.
"The Trouble with Out-of-the-Box Thinking"
An interview with Andrew Hargadon on continuity and its critical role in the innovation process
Ubiquity: An ACM IT Magazine and Forum, vol. 4, issue 30, September 23-29, 2003
http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/interviews/v4i30_hargadon.html
"Pushing people harder to think out of the box doesn't work. Many of the revolutionary ideas in the technologies and arts don't come from the person who solves the problem by thinking out of their box. It comes from the person who has seen the right solution already somewhere else -- who has other boxes to think in."
Hargadon is Associate Professor of Technology Management at the Graduate School of Management at University of California, Davis, and Director of Technology Management programs. He is author of How Breakthroughs Happen: The Surprising Truth about How Companies Innovate (Harvard Business School Press, 2003; ISBN: 1578519047).
