blogging for the sciences

I came across a reference to this article in nature on the sciences using blogs and wikis. It points out some o f the strengths of Web 2.0 for the sciences. It also ties the origins of the web as a collaboration space for researchers into the modern technologies that make that real. The web up until now, Web 1.0 as it is now coined, was at its core far more static and siloed. I believe that researchers working in a wiki on a project is really the realization of Tim Berners-Lee’s world wide web. While I can see over-blogging as a distraction. I can also see having a blog on certain project where you document your progress through the experimental stages. It provides a nice chronological record of what you did, when, and why. I think it could capture the excitement better than a finished paper would — and serve as a tool for students, showing them the excitement of the field. As more younger faculty come up the ranks I suspect we’ll see a shift in collaboration tools used.

ECAR student study for 2005 out

I just saw that the ECAR Study of Students and Information Technology, 2005: Convenience, Connection, Control, and Learning is out. While the full study weighs in at a hefty 140 pages, the Key Findings is a brisk 10 pages and is a must-read. A few points jumped out at me in the key findings:

• “Students spend 11-15 hours / week using electronic devices” (not cell phones). That is a lot of time.
• “Students view technology in the classroom as supplemental to their course experience, not as transformational.” I’m torn on this one. On the one hand as a technologist I want technology to be transformational. But on the other hand I am happy that students want the face-to-face interaction. I know that some faculty worry that all of these technologies are going to ruin education. But it seems clear that students know where knowledge and teaching come from and where learning happens, though they might not realize it.
• “Most students have used a course management system (CMS), and most have had positive experiences.” This surprises me some as I tend only to hear about the negative experiences in my profession. I generally believe most have at least a neutral experience (not bad) now that we’ve moved to moodle. But a recent article in our student newspaper had a student saying they didn’t like having materials in the CMS because they had to use a computer to get at the materials. I guess there are always exceptions.
• “According to responding students, IT is improving their learning. Students report that our institutions and our faculty are integrating IT inconsistently into courses.” They found that instructor IT skills had the largest positive impact on student engagement in the course. Here we have the challenge of instructional technologists. How do we help all of the faculty to consistently use IT effectively at some arbitrary level? In all honesty we’ll have plenty of work for the next decade or so. As more faculty come into the fold who have grown up with technology (and more retire), I believe we’ll see a shift in needs. I’m not sure I know what that shift will be. I often wonder if it will be a shift to more support for teaching skills. Learning how to teach isn’t so much part of the graduate experience as it once was. At least that’s my perception based on conversations with senior faculty.

Blog lag

My blogging sure has taken a hit as of late. Things have been busy at work (migration from Blackboard 5.5 to moodle 1.5 — and all of the customizations to moodle, course evaluations online — both a new set of questions and doing it online) and at home (our 2nd story is about to be removed and rebuilt anew).

The online course evaluations have been very interesting. It’s a real intersection of students, faculty and technology. You have the factors of student attitudes to course evaluations — are they anonymous? do the faculty care? does my opinion matter? And then the faculty attitudes towards evaluations — what if only students with negative opinions do them? non-tenured faculty worry about tenure decisions. And then the technology factor of being online adds the new variable of response rate. Doing paper evals during class gives a captive audience — the evals are optional, the faculty member has to leave the room, but the time allotted varies. The handwriting issue also comes into play for anonymity. Doing them online makes it easier to not do them. There hasn’t been extensive research on doing course evaluations online, but there are some articles I’ve found.

First of all, some effective practices are emerging. The TLT Group’s Flashlight Program BeTA Project has some insights to successful online evaluations. What is interesting is that several of the articles I found on the subject echo similar findings. Generally, institutions awkwardly start doing online evaluations. Sometimes things go bad, they try a few things to improve response rates, and then find things that work. These practices match quite closely the BeTA findings above.

What I find interesting is that the institutional culture around evaluations seems to influence their success when taken online. I’ve learned from smarter people than I that the social aspect can overwhelm a technology project. This is why Dr. Pike used Bolman and Terrence’s 4 frames (structural, political, human resource, cultural) when approaching the course evaluation redesign last summer (see our paper for more).

Back to some resources if you’re looking to move your institution to online course evaluations. I’ve tried to link to them all and note the institutions. Some focus on response rates, some are more general. Some have bibliographies that can lead you down more paths.

• “Student Feedback on Teaching: Online! On target?” – Cummings and Ballantyne, Murdoch University.
• “Student Feedback on Teaching: Reflections and Projections” – Refereed Proceedings of Teaching Evaluation Forum 28 – 29 August 2000, Perth, Western Australia
• “Lessons Learned From Online vs. Paper-based Computer Information Students’ Evaluation System” – Liegle and McDonald, Georgia State University
• “On-line vs. Paper-and-Pencil Surveying of Students: A Case Study” – Handwerk and Carson, University of North Carolina at Greensboro (ERIC document RIEAAPR2001)
• “Administration of Web versus Paper Surveys: Mode Effects and Response Rates” – Matz, University of North Carolina (ERIC document ED439694).
• “Online Student Evaluation of Instruction: An Investigation of Non-Response Bias” – Thorpe, Drexel University
• “Findings from the 2001 Pilot Administration of Your First College Year (YFCY): National Norms” – Sax, University of California, Los Angeles
• “Online Course Evaluations: Lessons Learned” – presentation at The CALI Conference for Law School Computing 2005
• “Online Student Evaluation of Instruction” – California State University Fresno TLT
• “The Effects Of Delivery Mode Upon Survey Response Rate And Perceived Attitudes Of Texas Agri-Science Teachers” – Fraze + more, Texas Tech University
• “Online Student Course Evaluations: Review of Literature and a Pilot Study” – Anderson + more, University of Kentucky
• summary of online course evaluation trial – Finke from email list archive
• “Summer 2004: Summary of Response Rates for Online-Delivered Course Evaluations” – Conn + more, Northern Arizona University
• “Online Course Evaluations: One Institute’s Success in Transitioning from a Paper Process to a Completely Electronic Process!” – presentation at Association for Institutional Research Forum 2005
• “An Experimental Investigation Of Student Response Rates To Faculty Evaluations: The Effect Of The Online Method And Online Treatments” – Dommeyer + more, California State University
• “Incentives The Key Ingredient for Successful Web-based Course Evaluations” – Murphy, University of California

New issue of Innovate is out – edu gaming

The new issue of Innovate is out and it focuses on educational uses of gaming. Kurt Squire, COTF X afternoon keynote, has an article about his experiences using Civilization III.

This link is making the rounds too. U of Saskatchewan Library has a list of peer-reviewed academic journals with RSS feeds. What a great way to keep an eye on your discipline’s journals. I hope more scholarly resources start to take advantage of RSS. It could be a great time saver for busy faculty wanting to keep on top of publications.

Circumnavigating the blogosphere

It’s been busy in blogland while I was away. My RSS feeds are full of articles! Here’s some tidbits:

The problem of U of Phoenix ads showing up on the web next to small colleges in searches (something that has been noticed in this region) warranted an article in the Chronicle. After the Phoenix president was confronted at a conference this practice was corrected. But search engine ad placement will always be tricky for small institutions that don’t have large marketing budgets.

I might have to be careful here if I ever need to change jobs! I am liking these Chronicle first-person articles by pseudonym-ed professors from midwest liberal arts colleges.

The Encyclopedia of Distance Learning looks interesting (though pricey). The table of contents is most impressive as is the editor list. Judith Boettcher visited Augsburg a year or two ago (I forget exactly when) and she was an impressive woman to talk to.

I was listening to the World’s technology podcast (July 8th) and was interested in the segment on the role of social technologies in the London bombing aftermath. With most voice communication networks overwhelmed, people used their blogs to post “I’m alright” so that friends and family would know. And camera phones and social picture networks like flickr generated immediate pictures of the aftermath. Even though the voice systems were overloaded, the phones could connect to the internet and upload pictures! One woman started a wiki for people to build an information center on the tragic event — several news outlets followed with pages for people to post their accounts. It seems like these technologies are linking people both in text and images after a major tragedy like never before.

In addition, On The Media had a bit on wikipedia’s entry on the bombing. It fascinates me that this page did not exist and then was created and is filling with information on the event. And the page will continue to change as details unfold. The segment is worth a listen. It really helps differentiate wikipedia from an encyclopedia and from the media. The social nature of these technologies — wikis, blogs, personal devices, flickr — fascinates me in that they allow for the construction of information in almost realtime by everyone.