University

Problem:

The “Restrict access after this date” function affects all students and auditors without individual exceptions. In reality, universities need to grant individual exceptions for Incomplete grades, grade challenges, or other special cases.

Solution:

A Section Instructor could select all the students except the one who needs access and Deny access to them. Then the restrict flag could be lifted, allowing just this one student into the section.

Do students still see the section and get a difficult to understand error message when they are denied access?

I guess it depends on who you ask.

Well, the CIO’s thought they were most effective as classic IT-support providers. That’s basically putting PC’s on desktops. But their managers thought that CIO’s were most effective in explaining and determining the college’s technology course into the future. Managers really want their CIO’s to be “informaticists.” Wayne A. Brown, Johnson County Community College Are College CIOs Thinking What Their Bosses Are Thinking?

Self-reporting is a notoriously bad means of measuring behavior. So I take these sorts of things with a grain of salt.

I have read many times the view CIOs need to educate higher education administrators about technology to help shape the vision of where higher education is headed. When Joe Newton at Valdosta State took over as CIO, he found Ronald Zaccari, expected more than just “putting PCs on desks”. Ron also expected seamless services, a data warehouse, IT to work with every facet of the university, and even to help the cabinet shape its direction by providing how technology can help. The previous president didn’t even check his own email. So to have one who better understood technology meant having to step up to a higher standard.

Another aspect I found interesting was about degrees. Wayne suggested a positive direction was CIOs having degrees in technology management. A commenter preferred CIOs having a Ph.D. in an academic discipline and secondarily “technology qualifications” so they would understand teaching and learning. I find this hilarious because all too often I hear complaints Ph.D. programs teach people how to do research and present… not teach.

Also, the comments make a distinction between presidents and provosts versus deans and department heads. The latter are the “academic administrators”.

All that said, I just want a CIO to figure out what management wants done, prevent them from having too high expectations, and provide the resources for me to do it.

This is intended to be a more thoughtful response to Laura regarding Course Management Systems and the need for innovation.

Currently, Course Management Systems are bloatware. They got this way by trying to provide everything to everyone. One instructor wants a feature, the university presses for this feature, the CMS programmers put in the feature. Okay, maybe not even 1/2 the time, but given that we have about 15,000 instructors, even a tenth getting a tenth of what they want adds up very quickly. Where they overlap is where companies feel the pressure to add these features.

In my experience, people have found CE and Vista clunky and difficult to use since 2001ish. Basically, that was when the shiny newness wore off at Valdosta State. If anything, then its gotten worse over time. Personally, I think this is the case because its not easy to use. Part of this lack of ease is because of the sheer number of possible actions required to accomplish frequent tasks. Another part is the overwhelming possible branches one might take [1] in the decision tree. Part of what makes us intelligent is visualizing the goal and taking the steps necessary to get is there. When software is not easy to use, the users feel stupid because they cannot figure out how to get to the goal.

Think about the complaints we have been seeing about CE6 from people using CE4. They are griping about features they are used to using disappearing. No one wants to lose the features or options they frequently use. They also wish the features or options they never use would disappear.

From what I’ve seen, instructors will make use of what the university
provides. When universities don’t provide what instructors want, then
these instructors will find what they want elsewhere and make use of
it. Large companies take a long time to integrate new features. By the
time they figure out the user base wants something, incorporate it,
release it, and customers implement it, the users have become used to
using it elsewhere are not attracted to a feature they’ve been using
for years elsewhere. So then we invoke FERPA and whatever to move them
to the CMS which is more clunky than what they were using already.

So enough with my griping… What is the solution? Well, maybe we should think about what a Course Management System should do?

1. Course management: This means it provides the university administration means by which they can control access to classes. Its not for the faculty so much as provosts, vice presidents, and registrars to be comfortable the university is not allowing students to take something without paying the institution.
2. Learning: Specifically, these are communication of concepts and evaluation of concept comprehension.

In a nutshell, #1 is the course list and administration screens while #2 is the course internals. If our focus is recreating the university in an online environment, then the CMS is the right approach. By importing the data from the student information system, we build a hierarchy just like the course catalog and put students into virtual representations of these classes. This mindset is where instructors want to build classes that consist of their lectures, the assignments, and the assessments. Its the face-to-face class online. Thankfully, online classes are moving to using tools to better utilize the advantages of the WWW. However, the focus is more towards improving peer discussion.

Maybe this approach isn’t the best one for learning? Last month I read a few articles off a web site advocating a different model: students gathering and creating information themselves (Personal Learning Environment). The instructor in this model becomes more of a mentor like independent study or how universities functioned at the time of our Founding Fathers. I’ve been hearing this is the direction education ought to take for over a decade now. However, I think its unlikely as its easier on the instructor to use the bird shot approach.

My Approach: The CMS is only an integration framework to provide access to tools. It doesn’t try to provide these tools at all. There are hundreds of wiki products who are better at some things depending on how its used. Why should the CMS think it can do it better than all of them? Same thing applies to blogs, social bookmarking, file sharing, etc. This means universities will provide a number of these tools and support dozens of different applications and integrate them all. We will have to better understand data flow, security, how all these pedagogically work well together. It’ll be a nightmare.

[1] One of things I unfortunately still do is recreate the user’s actions by figuring out what they clicked on in the recorded session. Much of the problems we see are user error, probably through not understanding the ramifications of the action.

The B.S. in Professional Studies online program will enable students to acquire expertise in significant areas of contemporary professional life, and is equally relevant in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors. Coursework for the major is constructed around five areas of study - social science (understanding people in a diverse world), critical thinking, creativity, communication, and business. The curriculum is designed to enable students to become professionals in their field of choice, building on their prior education and experience. Drexel University Launches a Unique Online Degree For Professionals

Does this sound like BS to you too?

Last week I said “pretty much only your parents care about your major as bragging rights to their friends“. The critical explanation is the last sentence, which I read to mean This is your last shot at getting a degree and going out to the work force because you suck as a student.You are hopelss at Chemistry, Sociology, or even Philosophy. So… take this degree and go get a job. Thanks for the money!

Found this quote interesting.

I’d guess the same is true for most college graduates. Tell me, what’s the point of spending 60-80 hours a week learning things that you immediately forget? Why I regret getting straight A’s in college

College is about developing a love of life long learning. Hopefully, after four years of intensive studying, the student should learn to love the acquisition of knowledge. They will continue with their education and earn graduate degrees as well! Wishful thinking, perhaps?

No one explains to students a major only really matters in some cases:

1. Getting an engineering, a research, or another highly specialized job. Otherwise, pretty much only your parents care about your major as bragging rights to their friends. No one majors in Sales.
2. Getting into a graduate program. Its easier to start a graduate program by having a related degree. Many will allow candidates to take senior undergraduate classes to catch up with the people who took the major. Why take them in grad school when you could have taken them as your major?

Students sadly expect picking a major to open the doors they need to get a job. The piece of paper mostly represents the former student’s commitment to working through the worst bureaucratic nightmare humans have ever created. Next, it represents the student’s mastery of basic concepts in an area (continue on through the Ph.D. / M.D. / J.D. / Ed.D to be an expert). College isn’t about getting you a good job. Its about helping you become a better person.

I figured this out my Freshman year as I was figuring out what I wanted to pick for my major. Explaining it to my friends really pissed off a few. They felt they’d were wasting their time in classes they would never use. Personally, I don’t think I’ve taken a class I have not used in some way. Of course, I really do have a love of learning, so maybe college worked for me.

tag: education, university

Since restaurants get sued for not paying royalties for public performances of copyrighted music, it seems likely playing a song at an athletic event is a public performance. I wonder how much the UGA Athletics or just UGA pays ASCAP for the ability to do this? Certainly, its not academic use.

Youuuuuuu - Red & Black Sports

In a craze that has swept much of the nation, the “Soulja Boy” dance has caught on in a big way with Georgia football. During home games against Ole Miss and Auburn when the Bulldogs were down, the song has cranked through the speakers and pumped up the players on the sideline, to the delight of the fans.

In an unrelated note: if the RIAA gets its way through a US House bill, then universities will have to pay millions for monthly subscription fees whether or not individual students are or are not downloading music. Plus, they have to prove they are stopping students from downloading illegally. The repercussions of not doing these being the loss of federal financial aid.

tag: copyright, politics, RIAA, ASCAP, UGA