Spring 2013 Faculty Institute Recap

This year’s faculty institute was a huge success!

This year's Faculty Institute was held at the Charlotte Campus on Saturday, April 13th. The day was filled with collaboration, sharing of knowledge, and discussions on everything Edison Online faculty are faced with while teaching in the online environment.Throughout the day, participants were engulfed with best practices in which they were able to learn more about and take back to use in their courses online.

The day started off with Dean Mary Myers welcoming everyone and thanking them for their continuous hard work in the department.

Next up was Kim Turano, Edison Online’s Student Support Specialist, who spoke about the Edison State College Early Alert System. If you missed the session and are interested in learning more about the system, Kim is holding a webinar on the Early Alert System on Wednesday May 15th. Registration for this session is available through the Portal.

Later in the day, participants split into two groups for breakout sessions. Six Edison Online Faculty members presented to participants on a variety of topics:

• Tim Bishop previewed the new library resources redesign, including the Edison Library’s YouTube channel. Videos review common library tools and research strategies, including how to search the library database.  These videos are available as long-running videos and as shorter partial videos for ala carte use.
• Marsa Detscher spoke on learner engagement. She explained the three types of engagement: behavioral, emotional, and cognitive. Interest in the topic boosts emotional engagement and increases retention. She went on to explain the different engagement techniques: multiple methods of student/student interaction and multiple ways of creating student/instructor connection.
• Jean Labriola’s session centered on how to encourage critical thinking and writing skills in science courses using case studies, debates, discussions, and essay exams.  Jean explained that science and healthcare fields need graduates that can think critically, express themselves clearly, and work with others.  She discussed how these activities in her science courses push students to not only recall material but also use the soft skills needed in the field after graduation.
• Stefanie Sanders went over TurnItIn and Grademark. Sometimes using Crocodoc can be confusing and hard for students to find instructor comments. Using Grademark requires students to use the TurnItIn feature Edison State College provides to its faculty for plagiarism. The built-in Grademark feature allows students to see their originality report and professor comments all in one clean, easy-to-read screen.
• Tom Swierz spoke about his student contact information form. He explained that most students ask questions in math courses that are too complex to explain via email.  Tom uses a PDF file to retrieve student’s personal information so he can contact students when needed. He stated that the students can also benefit from actually hearing the voice of their professor and feel more at ease in a live phone conference and that contributes to his success rate and retention of students in his courses.
• Myra Walters' session included tips and tricks on how to use the media tool while in Canvas. She requires her students in speech classes to use this feature in discussions. After explaining how to record and upload a video to a discussion, Myra discussed how much more personal it is for students to interact with each other using this feature because they can actually see and hear one another. 

The 2013 Edison Online Faculty Institute was a huge success. Edison Online is in the process of converting the speed sessions listed above into webinars and workshops for those who were unable to attend. To keep updated on all the latest professional development opportunities Edison Online offers, make sure to check out http://online.edison.edu, or Instructor Information Station announcements.

This post was written by Thomas Turano (Coordinator, Training and Support). 

Engaging Your Students with Articulate Presentations

Articulate studio is an eLearning authoring tool that is used here at Edison Online. After it is installed, Articulate can be found as an added ribbon in PowerPoint. Inside of the Articulate ribbon, you come across many new options to develop new ways to present information to students. You are provided with easy options to add flash movies, web objects, learning games, and even attach other material to the presentation. If the presentation contains animations and/or audio, the course designer is able to sync animations with the narration while creating the presentation. The major features in this ribbon include Articulate Engage and Articulate Quizmaker.

Articulate Engage allows you to take course information and put it into many different types of interactions. Some of these interactions are shown in the screen below and include Timeline, Glossary, FAQ, and Tabs. Any of these interactions can be used as a way to engage the learner more so than reading a wall of text. Learner retention increases dramatically when the learner is engaged and clicking through content instead of just reading.

Quizmaker quizzes are an option to test students throughout a content presentation. This will not count towards the students’ final grade; but requiring a certain percentage correct before being able to advance in the presentation helps with learner review and retain knowledge of the subject. When creating a graded quiz you have quite a few different question types to choose from as shown below. These question types range from True/False questions to Hotspots on images. To ensure learners comprehension, you also have the option of requiring students to get better than a certain score before they are able to move further into the content presentation.

Finally, Articulate Presenter is used to publish the presentation after the finishing touches have been made. When the course designer publishes an articulate presentation they are given many options. With Presenter you are able to customize the way that the content is delivered. User navigation can be customized in case you do not want students to jump ahead to the end of the presentation. You are also able to customize the navigation tabs. For example, if there is narration in the presentation, you must add the script to the notes section on the PowerPoint slide. This allows students to be able to read the narration required by the ADA regulations.

You might be asking yourself, “How can this useful to me and my course?” Articulate encourages active learning rather than passive consumption, making the learner retention sky rocket. It also gives the ability to condense multiple slides into a single interaction. When I was a student and opened a PowerPoint that was 50 slides, I dreaded the coming hours. With Articulate, the student will see a content presentation that is not slide after slide of just text. Engagement is a crucial part of learner retention and even though the exact same amount of information is in the presentation, it is condensed into a more learner friendly presentation.

• Click here to review a sample presentation. 
• Can you think of ways to use this in your own courses? 

If you are interested in trying Articulate Studio please contact your assigned course designer. We can work with you to design some interactive Articulate presentations for your course.

This post was written by Robert Shannon (Assistant Course Designer).

For more information about Articulate products, you can also visit http://www.articulate.com.

Turnitin.com: Advancing the cause of web authoring academic papers one at a time!

It's widely known that Turnitin.com started as a small peer reviewing application and has blossomed into a plagiarism empire chock-full of online tools. It helps faculty and students find the true meaning of the contents in a paper as well as the true author of these ideas. Before Turnitin, McGraw-Hill had a program called Catalyst 2.0 (circa 2001-2003) with a few capabilities but it was clunky and not very user friendly.  Pearson also had peer review inside their My Writing Lab software. Almost 50% of Turnitin.com users teach subjects other than English, writing, and literature in higher education institutions across 126 countries.

The founders built an archetype of Turnitin that detects non-original content in a student's written work.  All colleges and university have core courses that require outcomes which result in improving student comprehension, research, and academic writing and Turnitin assists in many ways which will be revealed later in this piece.

In addition, Turnitin releases Write Check to provide students with formative writing tool built in. Turnitin is an Internet-based plagiarism-prevention service created by iParadigms, LLC.  According to Turnitin they seriously check for potential non-original content by comparing submitted papers to several databases using a proprietary algorithm. It scans its own databases, and also has licensing agreements with large academic proprietary databases. Inside turn it in we have grade mark and Peer Mark which are also useful and students can submit papers up to 5000 words. Students can use any browser or operating system to submit a paper also.

In addition, Turnitin releases Write Check to provide students with formative writing tool built in. Turnitin is an Internet-based plagiarism-prevention service created by iParadigms, LLC.  According to Turnitin they seriously check for potential non-original content by comparing submitted papers to several databases using a proprietary algorithm. It scans its own databases, and also has licensing agreements with large academic proprietary databases. Inside turn it in we have grade mark and Peer Mark which are also useful and students can submit papers up to 5000 words. Students can use any browser or operating system to submit a paper also.

What are their issues and challenges?

One prevalent issue that Turn in it in faces is when actual physical libraries of universities and public schools subscribed to online services; there were fewer hard cover books to read. People starting using Explorer, then Google, before they ever attempted using EbscoHost, Proquest or Lexis-Nexus. This led to copying and pasting text into papers and other issues for faculty to deal with, but it was harder to catch, requiring the professor to do their own Google searches when they were alerted by phrases that did not sound like their student. According to Turnitin's in house data, Wikipedia is used by 75% of all students. Google searches reach 94% and are the bane of English faculty across the world's existence! In Turnitin’s own research they have found that tackling plagiarism in online courses is not easy.  Which begs the question:  How do all students learn?  The answers are frightening at times as seen here because only 18% of them actually read a real book.

There are free study networks where college students can share and find class-specific study notes, created by McGraw-Hill Higher Education Division. Again, there were concerns from colleges and state entities about privacy and ownership the papers submitted by students to any platform such as this to prevent student cheating.  The good news is Turnitin claims its records of student work comply with FERPA, since the statute only applies at a few specific points like when it is transmitted to them, and when it is released from the database or even when a match is found with another submission. In the former case it is not considered part of the educational record since it has not yet been graded, and in the latter it does not disclose personal identifying information of participants over time.

Coincidentally, however, the Family Compliance Policy Office, the department of the Department of Education responsible for enforcing FERPA, has stated that colleges who use this service must submit student papers to Turnitin only if they remove all personally identifiable information from them first. There are more issues like size of the files and PDFs and trouble with Firefox.

In a Turn it in white paper issued this month we see that professors of all subject areas had a great deal to say about student performance in writing such as:

• Awkward wording
• Mature word choice
• Fluency
• Vague
• Comma splices
• Commonly confused words regarding misspelled words
• Passive Voice and 
• Run on sentences

The attached study found that 13-14% of the problems were dealing with formatting (APA or MLA guidelines) and chronic punctuation issues.

Longevity and usefulness explored!

Turnitin has also teamed up with Pearson and ETS Technology to form the company called Write Check.com which checks for plagiarism, offers online tutoring in writing and grammar reporting for students to use as a preventive measure before they actually submit their work. Write Check was thoughtful because they gleaned input from faculty to develop the software so students can correct their mistake in a formative manner. As we know writing is a process that takes time and practice so Turnitin will be around for a long time developing user friendly software to help students succeed. After Turnitin teamed up with CrossRef, it developed iThenticate to serve scholarly publishers.

If you would like to discuss how to use Turnitin for course assignments in Canvas, please contact your assigned course designer or visit the helpful guides linked below:

• How do I enable Turnitin for an Assignment?
• How do I set a course submission comment for a Turnitin Assignment?
• What happens if there are Turnitin submission errors?

This post was written by Scorpio Welch (Course Designer). 

New Software Implemented for Proctored Tests

Edison Online and the Testing Center implemented SynchronEyes™ classroom management software in all online testing labs before the fall semester began. The new program is providing even more security during proctored testing and so we wanted to share some more information about that with our instructors. Please watch the video below for an overview of the new software and learn more about how proctored testing is working at Edison.

 

If you have trouble viewing this video, please click the following link: http://tinyurl.com/bmwgavj.

This video post was created by Robert Shannon (Assistant Course Designer) and Thomas Turano (Coordinator, Edison Online Training and Support). 

Grading by Assignment Groups in Canvas

When we polled students during the Canvas pilot, we found that grading by assignment group is one of the features that students like best. However, it is also one of the things to which some professors have had trouble adjusting, as it represents a paradigm shift.   The reason students like it is because they can easily see how they are doing-- not only with their final grade, but also how their performance is broken down.   They have adjusted to it very quickly. Students can even put in "possible" grades to see what they would need to score to get such-and-such a grade (see http://guides.instructure.com/s/2204/m/4212/l/55065-how-do-i-check-my-what-if-grades).

With that in mind, here are a few tips for faculty members that will help you adjust.

• After an assignment is due, make sure to enter zeros in your grade book for all students who have not completed the assignment.  This can be accomplished by either putting the zeros in manually or, if you have finished all of the grading for students that did submit assignments, you can set a "default grade" which will put "zeros" in for all students who did not submit that assignment.  This accomplishes a number of things:
  
• It sends a message to the student saying that he or she has received a zero. This often results in students "coming out of the woodwork" and getting back on track.
• It updates students' scores for both their final grade and the grade for that category, so that they don't think they have a higher grade than they do.
• It still allows, if you see fit, for students to complete and submit the assignment.  You can then "re-grade" it and the numbers are adjusted automatically.

Again, students love it, and we have not received any complaints from them about it).  In fact, we can envision the situation arising where a student may be upset if a professor is not using it (especially as students become accustomed to seeing the system in their other classes).

This post was written by Dobin Anderson (Director, Academic Review & Improvement for Edison Online). 

Using Canvas to be VOCAL

Savery (2005) suggests that to manage online classroom behaviors, online instructors should be VOCAL - Visible, Organized, Compassionate, Analytical, and a Leader-by-example.  These five tactics serve as a preventative management technique for the online instructor, and Canvas has many features that can help us to be VOCAL.

1. Online instructors should be visible.
   Visibility can be implemented in a number of ways, including frequent contributions to discussions and prompt feedback.  Canvas’s integrated video and audio options for announcements, feedback, and discussions can help increase instructor visibility as well – it’s nice to put a face to a name!
   
   
2. Online instructors must be organized.
   Through structured learning modules and assignments with clear dates and expectations, in addition to Canvas’s calendar and notification tools, organized instructors can provide a clear path for students - and focus their time and energy on engaging students in the content.
   
   
3. Online instructors should create a compassionate classroom environment.
   The online classroom can sometimes feel alienating to students who are used to face-to-face interaction.   Creating a classroom environment that is personable and engaging can combat this feeling.  Compassionate and engaging online courses in Canvas utilize threaded discussions, Chat and Conference features, and collaborative tools like Google Docs.
   
   
4. Online instructors should be analytical.
   New analytical tools in Canvas, in addition to the existing rubric tools, help instructors evaluate whether students are meeting course and college learning outcomes.  For further analysis, utilizing Canvas’s ungraded survey quiz to collect student feedback mid-term can assist with course evaluation and revision.
   
   
5. Online instructors must be Leaders-by-Example.
   It’s important for the instructor to model the behaviors they wish to see in the classroom.  For example, if an instructor is using Canvas to integrate images or YouTube videos into the course, providing a brief overview of the video and crediting the source can increase student familiarity with citation and referencing their research. Bandura’s social learning theory applies here!

Savery’s VOCAL model provides one good way to approach online classroom management – and Canvas has a few built-in features to support the model.  When we design new courses in Canvas, we try to keep these items in mind.  But in what other ways can instructors utilize Canvas to be VOCAL in the online classroom?

For more information:

• Savery, J. (2005). BE VOCAL: Characteristics of successful online instructors.  Journal of Interactive Online Learning, 4(2).  Retrieved July 3rd, 2012 from http://www.ncolr.org/jiol/issues/pdf/9.3.2.pdf
• Learning Theories Knowledgebase. (2012).  Social Learning Theory (Bandura) at Learning-Theories.com.  Retrieved July 3rd, 2012 from http://www.learning-theories.com/social-learning-theory-bandura.html 

This post was written by the Edison Online Course Design team.

Open Educational Resources and the Online Classroom

As copyright, Fair Use, and redistribution are currently being strongly debated in our society, it’s best for instructors to be well-versed in their rights as educators.  This is part two of two in a series of blog posts regarding copyright, fair use, and open educational resources in online and higher-ed classrooms.

The last blog post in this series detailed the intricacies of teaching with materials that have been copyrighted.   There are a number of educational resources available beyond traditionally copyrighted materials, but the terms are different from traditional copyright.  These resources are just as robust – and more easily available – than commercially-published items.  So what are they, and how can they be used?

Public Domain

As mentioned in the earlier post on copyright, items that never qualified for copyright, such as government documents and records, ideas and facts, and phrases, slogans, and symbols; copyright-expired items; and  items that are not copyrighted, including those created for public use are all part of the public domain.  For example, everything (except sound recordings) published in the US before 1923 are in the public domain.  The next admissions to the public domain will be in 2019 - this link from Cornell gives a very good overview of what qualifies to be in the public domain (http://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm).  These items are free for use in class.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons protects an author’s content by supplementing and modifying a traditional copyright license, allowing the author to select how their work may be used by others.  It provides a number of designations, including requiring attribution, reuse for noncommercial reasons, sharing remixed versions under a similar license, or restricting derivative works, or any combination of those items.  So, if you create a classroom activity and wish to share it with other instructors, but want to retain some legal rights to the work, a CC license may be a good idea.  Creative Commons’ website has a license tool available (http://creativecommons.org/choose/) to decide what type of license is best for your needs.

Creative Commons licensed works are available to instructors, provided you follow the terms of the license.  These terms are usually listed somewhere in the description and sometimes include a graphical representation.

Open Educational Resources

Other open educational resources contain materials that are free and open to distribution and creation of divergent works.  Some works may have restrictions on how you share the work, but are freely available to anyone who wishes to use them.  MIT’s OpenCourseWare project, the OER Commons, and a number of other sites contain higher-education modules, activities, and content that can be used to supplement an online class.  Instructors should credit as appropriate – a common courtesy.  A large body of resources is available and appropriate for inclusion in higher education courses – currently, nearly half of all resources available on the OER Commons site are designed for post-secondary education. 

The Internet age has truly increased access to knowledge across all levels of education – instructors should be aware of copyright and related licensing to understand what can and cannot be used in class.  With such robust resources at our fingertips, our jobs in education will involve searching out and utilizing the best resources possible in the classroom.

The following links are excellent resources for instructors to search for images, learning activities, videos, and other classroom materials that are open educational resources or creative-commons licensed.

Activities, Content, Books, Articles

• http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/course/index.php
• http://www.oercommons.org/browse/edu_level/post-secondary
• http://www.merlot.org/merlot/index.htm
• https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/
• http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm
• http://www.bloomsburyacademic.com/
• http://www.flatworldknowledge.com/

Videos, Images, and Other Multimedia

• http://wbi.worldbank.org/wbi/
• http://vimeo.com/creativecommons
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/smithsonian
• http://search.creativecommons.org/
• http://commons.wikimedia.org/
• http://www.khanacademy.org/

 References

http://creativecommons.org/about

http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter8/8-a.html

This post was written by the Edison Online Course Design team.