AUC Academic Conference 'From Virtual to Reality' The University of
Queensland 1996AUC Academic Conference 'From Virtual to Reality' The University of
Queensland 1996
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Paper Title:
Beyond The Virtual Classroom-
Building On-Line Learning CommunitiesPresenter / Author:
John Greenwood, Victoria University of Wellington
Keywords: Internet, Commerce
Faculty area: Commerce
This paper needs to be viewed at full screen size. Please click on the window size button at the top right of this window in the title bar.Introduction
Modern information and communications technologies now have a level of cost and accessibility that they can be considered seriously as a means to support learning communities. This paper discusses the experiences of deploying those technologies in two post-graduate, post-experience programmes at Victoria University of Wellington (VUW). The programmes are the Diploma in Information Systems (DipIS) and the Master of Management (MMgt).
There are many universities and other places of learning that are experimenting with providing support using the World Wide Web (WWW) and other Internet services to both internal and distance groups of students in a variety of courses and programmes. Reported examples are increasingly available (for example: Boalch, 1996; Dwer, Barbieri, and Doerr, 1995; Dyreson, 1996; Gordin, et al, 1995; Jones, 1996; Lapachet, 1994; Pennell, 1996; and Turoff, 1995). This project differs from many of those in other institutions by supporting the entire programme of study, not solely one or two individual courses within a programme.
Currently, the support for the learning communities of the DipIS and MMgt programmes has been provided using Internet services such as the world wide web, gopher, telnet, news groups, and electronic mail. Participants in both programmes are required to have an Internet electronic mail address and full access to other Internet services, particularly the WWW and Telnet. The access can be through any Internet service provider (ISP), although many participants in both programmes choose to use the university as their ISP.
What are the DipIS and MMgt programmes?
The DipIS is post-graduate, post-experience diploma programme offered at VUW. The programme is traditionally structured, with twelve courses taken over three years. Participants normally work full-time and attend classes on a part-time basis, coming to the university at least one evening each week, and occasional weekends.
The MMgt is a joint programme offered by VUW and the University of Auckland. Developed in response to initiatives from the New Zealand Management Development Consortium Ltd. (NZMDC), the MMgt is an action learning-based programme designed for the needs of the individual participant and their sponsoring company. The NZMDC was established in 1994 to promote management education in member organisations, which include some of New Zealand's largest private and public sector organisations. The MMgt programme is quite unlike a traditional course-based, post-graduate management qualification such as an MBA, in that participants complete three major real projects in their sponsoring organisation over a two year period. Although the participants gather as a group for some short courses and seminars, the main focus of the programme is building individual learning paths for each participant, focussing on the major projects.
Both groups of students face problems such as access to academic and other university staff, access to university resources such as the library, and the pressures of fitting study around work and family commitments which they have in common with many distance students. In attempting to address some of these issues, both the DipIS and MMgt are making increasing use of computers and telecommunications to support the programmes.
The DipIS and MMgt home pages
Commencing with the 1995 cohort of the DipIS, participants in the programme were required as a condition of their acceptance into the DipIS, to have, or have good access to, a personal computer and appropriate hardware and software to facilitate remote access to the university. This requirement was put in place partly because of a belief by the academic staff that a programme about Information Systems should be closer to the forefront of delivering administrative and learning support using information technology. The intention at that time was to enhance communication between lecturers and participants using electronic mail, and to allow presentations and other course materials to be available electronically. It was also planned to explore some groupware technologies at appropriate points in the programme. Because most participants in the DipIS use computers in their workplace, it was expected that they would have access to Intel-based technology, with Microsoft Windows as an operating system. In the end, the hardware and operating system used by participants lessened in importance as the main vehicle for the delivery of the services became the Internet, most obviously via the WWW.
From its inception in 1995, technology was a mandatory component of the MMgt. Primarily, the aim was to encourage participants to make effective use of information resources including the Internet and other electronic resources such as university databases. Participants were also expected to develop their skills using computer technology as a management tool, an important requisite for today's managers (Rayport & Sviokla, 1994; Berman et al. 1994). Initially a single hardware platform (Apple Macintosh Powerbooks) was specified in the interests of standardisation and ease of support. Subsequently, technology on the programme became more platform independent by providing all information resources via Internet tools such as the WWW (Berners-Lee, et al, 1994).
The DipIS and MMgt programmes now provide very similar interfaces to their participants, despite starting out implementing solutions based on "Wintel" and Apple technologies, respectively. The DipIS focussed on using Windows software and failed to get underway in the first semester of 1995 due to problems such as inexperience providing and supporting remote access in a Windows environment. In fact, the technical difficulties initially encountered providing access to a Windows server for the DipIS were never surmounted, but overtaken by the development of the DipIS home page.
The MMgt decision to use Apple technology was in part based on the knowledge that there was already a good deal of experience with supporting remote access at Apple's New Zealand distributor, at VUW and at Auckland University . The first intake into the programme ( April, 1995) had an intensive two days of training using AppleMail and a PowerShare mail server, an Apple file server, MacIP Telnet software, and Netscape version 1. Participants were expected to be familiar already with the Microsoft Office software.
By the second intake into the MMgt (September, 1995), a single web page provided convenient access to general programme related information, WWW starting points, library catalogues (via a Telnet helper application), and a new programme newsgroup. This simplified the two days of training somewhat, although participants still had to grapple with AppleMail, and accessing the Apple file server, in addition to learning how to drive Netscape.
The WWW page developed for the MMgt was easily adapted to provide a DipIS home page. Similarly to the MMgt, the DipIS programme also had its own newsgroup. Participants in the programme used Internet email, generally using the VUW-supported Eudora mail software.
Over the summer of 1995/6, both the DipIS and MMgt home pages were revamped substantially, to enhance their effective and efficient use by the participants in the programmes. This included separating the single page into a hierarchy of pages to reduce load time, and linking a listserv service with each newsgroup to allow access to this service for participants whose ISP did not receive the appropriate news feed.
While the design of the DipIS and MMgt home pages is expected to remain relatively stable in the medium term, the content of pages, especially at the 'bottom level' pages, will be more dynamic, responding quickly to individual and course information needs. From 1996, both programmes are providing a platform independent, electronic support infrastructure for their learning communities.
A description of the DipIS and MMgt home pages
The DipIS and MMgt home pages differ in style and function from organisational marketing and public relations home pages which are common on the WWW. Neither are they similar to personal home pages, examples of which are found in abundance. The DipIS and MMgt home pages provide a variety of types of support to two communities of learners in specific programmes, and their structure reflects this underlying philosophy.
The DipIS and MMgt home pages were designed to make it as simple and convenient as possible for programme participants to access various information resources, via the WWW interface presented by browsers such as Netscape. The opening page of the DipIS and MMgt home pages are shown in Figure 1. The major sections of the DipIS and MMgt home pages are described in the sections following, illustrated by pages from both the DipIS and the MMgt home pages .
Figure 1: The opening pages of the DipIS and MMgt home pages.
News
The newsgroups (or mailing lists for those not accessing the pages through Victoria or Auckland Universities were created to give all participants in the DipIS and MMgt programme a forum for informal communication. They are open to all students and staff involved in the programme, and are unmoderated. Participants are encouraged to post any message they like, on any subject, whether it be messages of a general nature about the programme, about the courses, or about the rugby or netball results from the weekend's matches. The newsgroups are seen as a vehicle for participants to get to know a little more about the others in the programme and to share a little of their own interests, concerns, and progress.Figure 2: The DipIS News page.
The "News" page for the DipIS is shown in Figure 2. Users are given the option of accessing news via the newsgroup or the mailing list. The mailing list was set up when the programmes allowed participants to use any ISP, many of which would not have the newsgroup in their normal news feed. Any messages posted to the newsgroup are automatically sent to the mailing list and vice-versa.
Notices
This page contains administrative notices relating to the programme. Typically it might contain announcements of forthcoming seminars available to participants, notices about movements of people involved in the programme, announcements of programme timetables, links to online course evaluations and results, etc. It also has an archive of past notices, to assist those just embarking on the programme to build a picture of the kinds of experiences that are available to them. This page is by it's nature subject to the most change. Figure 3 shows the MMgt "Notices" page.
Figure 3: The MMgt Notices page.
Course Resources (DipIS); Management Resources (MMgt)
This page contains resources that participants might find useful in relation to their coursework or projects. The DipIs "Course Resources" page (shown in Figure 4) has links to pages for each course in the programme that wants to provide online course information, Internet resources, files to download, and the like. There is also a page with some general Information Systems resources. The MMgt "Management Resources" page currently contains links to a number of web pages dealing with management.
Figure 4: The DipIS Course Resources page.
Library Resources
This page contains links to numerous library resources available on the Internet. There is a link to the VUW library catalogue (the MMgt Library Resources page also has a direct link to the Auckland University library catalogue) and to other New Zealand university libraries. When a user selects the library link, the telnet application specified as a helper application for Netscape opens a session with the library catalogue system. Library catalogue systems generally allow searches for specific titles, authors and keywords in the library's holdings, and, if the user is a library member, access their borrower records. The MMgt "Library Resources" page is shown in Figure 5.
Figure 5: The MMgt Library Resources page.
Other Resources
This page contains several links to pages of other resources that programme participants might find of interest. They include sections such as:
· "Accessing Internet Resources"-a page containing Internet access related information such as links to current versions of browsers and helper applications, links to ftp sites, some links to HTML resources, etc.
· "Some New Zealand Starting Points"- a page containing some New Zealand links.
· "Some MBA Resources"-a page of links to MBA resource pages around the world.
· "Online Magazines and Journals"-some online journals and magazines.
· "Starting Points"-some information technology companies and other links to give participants some general starting points for exploring the web.
· "Fun Sites"-some 'just for fun' links.
The DipIS "Other Resources page is shown in Figure 6. Participants are encouraged to regard these pages as dynamic. If they find a resource on the Internet that they think will be of general interest to participants or of specific application in the programme, they are asked email the URL to the programme home pages maintainer who will add it the page for the edification and entertainment of all participants.
Figure 6: The DipIS Other Resources page.
Students and Staff
The Students and Staff page is about the people involved in the programme. It includes links to staff involved in the programme either directly or through their Department pages. It also contains links to individual participants home pages. Participants are encouraged to have a personal home page, as use a means of allowing others involved in the programme access to formal and informal information about themselves. If a participant has not yet built a home page, there can still be a link to their email address. The MMgt "Students & Staff" page is shown in Figure 7.
Figure 7: The MMgt Students & Staff page.
Use of the DipIS and MMgt home pages by programme participants
It is difficult to measure the use made of the DipIS and MMgt home pages, and since they are designed as much as starting points (especially for WWW browsing and library catalogue sessions) as destination pages, measuring usage may not be particularly useful. It is possible to get a notion of the Internet usage of programme participants, as records are kept of the connect time of users accessing VUW as their ISP. Tables 1 and 2 show average usage figures for DipIS and MMgt participants at VUW, respectively. Both groups currently average about 60% of possible users dialling in at least once per week (the DipIS is a bigger group than the MMgt). Interestingly, the two groups exhibit different patterns of access. The DipIS users average over 17 sessions per week to just 5 by the MMgt users. Not surprisingly, DipIS users also have a larger average weekly connect time-about 3 hours 48 minutes to the MMgt users' 2 hours 30 minutes. The MMgt users have spend more time per session-31 minutes compared to 13 minutes. These statistics unfortunately give no information about which services are getting used, or which services are accessed via the home pages. They do show that participants in both programmes are making use of the Internet services available to them.
Stevens and Greenwood (1996) discuss the results of an online survey of information technology in the MMgt programme. In brief, as a result of the integration of technology into the programme, the group had broadened their experience of computer-based tools-largely in the area of remote access and Internet tools, especially Internet e-mail and the WWW. Their pattern of use of personal productivity tools showed no significant change. A majority of respondents indicated that the technology component of the programme had added value to the overall quality of the programme (84.6% affirmative), increased the speed with which they can do their work (69.2%), and enhanced the skills or knowledge they brought to their job as a manager (76.9%).
Although the use of the DipIS and MMgt home pages to date is encouraging, there is still progress to be made. Most participants in both programmes are confident users of electronic mail, and use it to communicate with academic staff and each other as required. Browsing the WWW is an activity which many participants spend some time with, although a number are disappointed by the quantity and quality of relevant information available. The 1996 class of the DipIS have been able to undertake some of their lecturer and course evaluations online as part of a research project being carried out at VUW (further details of the online survey methodology can be found in Greenwood and Recker, 1996 and Recker and Greenwood, 1995), an opportunity which they viewed positively.
There are a number of areas where participation was disappointing. The use of the newsgroups in both programmes is sporadic and limited to a few individuals. Participants in both programmes are slow in setting up personal home pages, despite not being required to mark up the HTML themselves unless they wished to. Both participation in the newsgroups and development of personal home pages are non-compulsory activities, and to date they seem to lack a critical mass of participants to become successful. The contribution by participants to the content of the pages is not great to date, perhaps reflecting a lack of direct course related use of the WWW, and the lack of self-maintained personal home pages.
The use of the DipIS and MMgt home pages by staff is still limited. Staff are able to be members of the newsgroup/listserv, and can access the pages. Many staff involved in the programmes are not very Internet aware as yet, as evidenced by the lack of staff home pages, and the limited use made of the DipIS (in particular) in course delivery. Some use has been made by staff to deliver course materials (presentations, course notes, etc.) using the WWW, and there has been direct use of the WWW in at least one course. The participants would like to see this increase.
Conclusions
The DipIS and MMgt home pages have fulfilled their original basic objectives of providing convenient access to various Internet tools for programme participants. Plans to further enhance the support for the programmes include providing an archive of mail messages, encouraging more staff use of the pages in relation to the courses they are involved with, trying to encourage greater use of the newsgroups to try to build and foster a greater sense of community, and providing some interactive chat facilities for both formal and informal use.
Staff and students alike are almost unanimously positive about the DipIS and MMgt home pages. It is seen as the basis for an excellent support framework for the learning communities. The use by of the pages to support individual courses will certainly increase, as will the use of the newsgroups and the related activities. The way forward looks to be an evolutionary process, encouraged by the project champions and enthusiastic users. Support of programmes via Internet tools in a manner similar to that detailed in this paper has the potential to be a powerful way to foster learning communities.
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References
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John Greenwood
Senior Lecturer,
Graduate School of Business and Government Management
Victoria University of Wellington
P.O. Box 600,
Wellington, New Zealandphone: +64-4-496 5451
fax: +64-4-4965435email: John.Greenwood@vuw.ac.nz
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