Contents:
- Distance Education, On-Campus Mission, and Strategic Fit - **A Special
Feature** by Nancy and Tim Franklin
- Distance Courses Included in Schedule of Classes - Linda Ferguson
- What's New at the Library - Judy Tribble
- The Office of Independent Study - Bob DiBella
- Chat's Room - News from the Faculty Computing Resource Center
- Student Service Coordinators: Ready To Help You and Your Distance
Students - Sue Allmon, Paula Betros, and Nancy Pearson
- ACNS Computer Training for April - Teresa Crafton
- CTA Workshops
- Thought for April
Welcome to Interaction, ISU's monthly electronic newsletter for people
interested in developing and teaching distance education courses. The
purpose of Interaction is to provide you with information on course
development and design, new technologies, and teaching distance
courses. As the name implies, we hope to make this electronic
newsletter "interactive," its contents reflecting current issues,
challenges, and innovations in teaching. Your part is simple-just tell
us what you want. Send us your questions, frustrations, and topics of
interest, and we will include information on that topic in a future
issue. In addition, we invite you to share your experiences and tips
on teaching distance courses, and to send us announcements of upcoming
events. Please submit your comments and requests to interact@web.indstate.edu, a
secured access e-mail account. Your contributions will not be posted as a "global" message to subscribers
of Interaction. The staffs of Continuing Education/Instructional Services,
the Center for Teaching and Learning, the Library, ACNS, and other
ISU offices are eager to answer your questions and offer you assistance
as you develop and teach your distance education courses.
Distance Education, On-Campus Mission, and Strategic Fit
by Nancy and Tim Franklin
Tradeoffs, choices, and questions of strategy and fit swirl in todayÕs
campus dialogue. With histories and missions centered on a face-to-face,
campus-based, perhaps residential, educational model, the communication
revolution harkened by computers and networks brings with it many tensions
for public institutions. With new delivery modalities (the Web, two-way
video, CD-ROMs, etc.) rushing to take their place with the more familiar
ones and new populations achieving access through anytime and anyplace
learning, questions of direction emerge. How are resources to be invested?
Where should institutional effort be directed? Our discussion here begins
with the assumption that, whether now or later, some or all of Indiana's
institutions will have to respond to expectations and pressures to serve
public needs with a subset of programs delivered through distance education.
If this assumption holds, the critical question becomes: how does serving
these new populations relate to the traditional, face-to-face enterprise?
It seems clear that, in searching for a strategy, each institution should
expect the new activities to fit and reinforce the traditional activities.
This discussion: (1) expands on the pressures undergirding the above
assumption; (2) summarizes the concept of strategy; and (3) identifies
several domains of strategic fit between distance education, teaching with
technology, and the on-campus mission.
Pressures to Serve
The current dialogue about distance education is burdened with uncomfortable
choices because of the actual and potential public goods associated with
teaching through technology. While acknowledging that debate still exists,
evidence mounts about enhanced learning quality, learning productivity,
access to learning, and positive impacts on economic and workforce
development that does or will exist from applications that employ
instructional technology on- and off-campus. The recipe for tension becomes
clear when the public benefits created by successfully implementing this
anytime, anyplace vision of higher education are combined with the demands
for a more educated populace created by the dual forces of global economic
competition and a technologically-complex workplace.
Public institutions, funded ostensibly to educate students to be productive
citizens and make the knowledge and expertise of its faculty available and
accessible, will find it difficult to ignore the call to provide more
access, a broader scope of educational opportunities, and greater assistance
in workforce development. The purposes of public higher education and the
potential benefits of instructional technology and distance education are
too closely aligned not to create the strong expectation that the breach
will be filled by publicly-funded institutions, whether they be the
existing ones or a new genre. Choices and tradeoffs will be inevitable.
Thinking Strategically
Strategy involves choices and tradeoffs. Michael Porter, in his article
'What is Strategy?' (1996), distinguishes between operational effectiveness
and strategy. Porter suggests that operational effectiveness -- achieving
excellence in individual activities -- has been a central managerial focus
over the past two decades. This approach to success (in, say, gearing up for
distance education) avoids tradeoff decisions -- with each new endeavor
patched onto the old -- and means that success results from working faster
and faster to stay ahead of the competition (Sound familiar?!!).
On the other hand, Porter (1996) emphasizes that strategy is concerned with
'combining activities that fit and reinforce one another. Strategy is about
making tradeoffs to achieve a sustainable, competitive advantage.' Without
a fit among institutional activities, there will be no distinctive strategy,
little sustainability, and the simpler task of overseeing the operational
effectiveness of independent functions will determine the institution's
relative performance. 'The success of strategy depends on doing many things
well Ð not just a few - and integrating among them.' Hence, as we turn back
to the issue of finding an optimal strategy for integrating distance
education with our traditional on-campus activities, the question of
strategic fit becomes central to determining an effective institutional
strategy.
Synergy and Strategic Fit
As we have traveled these paths to support the transformation of teaching
and learning, we have discovered that there is a tremendous amount of
synergy between the new and the old, between meeting the needs of one
institution and meeting the needs of the state. Stated in Porter's terms,
we believe that our traditional, on-campus effort has been strengthened and
made more distinctive by a strategy of fitting an appropriate set of
distance education programs into ISU's overall institutional strategy. In
this closing section, we would like to identify the strategic fit within the
institution between distance education and on-campus education, and at the
state level through collaboration and partnering that have been integral to
the support of DegreeLink (italicized subjects below relate to fit or its
benefits).
First, from an institutional perspective, technology and the effort to reach
the new student populations have been catalysts for change. We believe that
teaching and learning in the traditional campus environment has been
positively influenced by the support strategies established during the
implementation of DegreeLink. The instructional design and media
development support structure has benefited not only distance education,
but also has augmented the on-campus integration of technology in teaching
and learning (one has only to look at the advertising messages from Indiana'
s public institutions to recognize that technology in teaching on campus has
become a surrogate for quality in the public perception). The Course
Transformation Academy has been a vehicle to provide faculty education about
teaching in a technology-mediated environment, but also has sent a clear
message about the importance of developing its faculty, the university's
most valuable resource. Innovative pedagogy approaches necessitated by
distance education and technology have promoted a greater focus on student
learning and have enhanced the educational dialogue.
The necessary development of an infrastructure to support distance education
has yielded numerous (and many yet to be appreciated) benefits for our
on-campus environment. The technical infrastructure and instructional
classrooms have allowed faculty and students on campus to teach and learn in
richer and more flexible ways. Mainstreaming our student support services
for distance education has resulted in better coordination between
administrative offices and information systems and in revisiting many of the
'standard' details to better meet student needs across the board. At the
macro-level, two of ISU's predominant support organizations, Continuing
Education and Information Services, have begun to reenvision their missions
and structures.
The need to develop flexible formats for courses associated with DegreeLink
programs has resulted in greater course availability for our on-campus
students. The public awareness of ISU and its on-campus opportunities have
been significantly enhanced as we have reached out to new student
populations whose families and colleagues had little previous familiarity
with ISU. As programs mature, student enrollments will bring revenues that
can help add faculty lines that will strengthen the entire university. Our
students have become more diverse in age and life experience, which has
enriched the education of our traditional students.
Partnering between institutions has increased transfer options for students
in Indiana, and has reduced duplication of program offerings and associated
costs to the state. Educational access for Hoosiers has been expanded and
affordability enhanced through DegreeLink partnerships. Finally, because
these partnerships are contributing to the development of Indiana's
workforce by providing more citizens with higher levels of education,
opportunities for economic development are stimulated as employers with
higher paying jobs look to locate in Indiana.
In closing, the dynamics of public need and new delivery modalities, while
bringing inevitable change and its associated discomforts and tension, can
provide opportunities for an institution to strengthen its core mission
while it addresses the new demands. However, to succeed, thinking
strategically about the fit between new initiatives and the existing
campus-based activities is a critical step for a traditional institution.
In our experience, a strategic fit is possible and the dialogue need not
succumb to either/or dichotomies. The manner in which distance education
might reinforce and strengthen the bread and butter on-campus program
deserves considerable attention and explication so that the tradeoffs
necessary to support distance education also are understood to strengthen
and sustain the on-campus enterprise.
Porter, M. (1996) 'What is Strategy?' Harvard business Review; Nov./Dec.
ISU Distance Courses Included in Schedule of Classes
by Linda Ferguson
Several efforts are underway to facilitate distance course identification
and registration. Distance education courses were included in the Fall 1999
Schedule of Classes. In addition to appearing in the regular departmental
course list, the courses appear in a separate Distance Education section at
the back of the Schedule. A Distance Education Course Information page
precedes the list of courses and provides clarification regarding section
numbers and delivery modes noted in the course bldg/room column. We hope
to provide additional information in the Spring 2000 Schedule of Classes.
A memo was sent to the department chairpersons and academic deans
on March 1 requesting that all distance education courses be included on the
Spring 2000 Schedule Information Forms due in the Registrar's Office on
April 23. In addition to identifying the delivery mode, chairpersons were
asked to submit the URL for each web course so that the URLs can be included
in the Schedule as comments.
You can help by providing the URL to your chairperson so that it can be
included with the other schedule information submitted on April 23. We also
plan to use standard clarifying comments for semester-based correspondence
courses ("Semester-based correspondence course - contact the Independent
Study Office at ext 2555") and IHETS courses ("delivered via television over
the IHETS network"). The goal is to provide as much course information as
possible in the Schedule of Classes and thereby reduce the number of phone
calls the student must initiate to get further information.
What's New at the Library
by Judy Tribble
New and Improved LUIS Catalog
By this time, you may have heard that the Library is planning to unveil a
new library catalog shortly after the end of the Spring Semester. The
catalog will retain the familiar LUIS name but will offer new features which
students and faculty will appreciate.
The catalog will be web-based, an environment with which most users already
have familiarity. Many of the features found in internet search engines
will be present, such as search boxes, basic and advanced search options,
relevancy ranking, emailing results, and the use of natural language.
Another useful feature will be the "hot" links to other internet resources.
The present LUIS catalog will indicate when a source is available on the
Web by providing the URL. Presently the user must print off the URL and
reenter the often lengthy address on the web browser. The new LUIS will
allow the user to click on the URL and be redirected to the web site
automatically. The new LUIS will have screens which can be better
configured to local specifications. The appearance of the screens
will likely change between the planned May 15,1999, introduction
date and the beginning of the Fall Semester. The Library
will be seeking reactions and input from faculty and other users over the
next few months.
New Library Home Page Design
If you have searched from the library home page (http://odin.indstate.edu)
recently, you may have noticed that we are asking our users to "test drive"
our new home page design. One of the strengths of the new home page is that
its frames environment allows direct connectivity to library services which
were previously buried under two layers of menus. Of particular interest to
distance education faculty will be the buttons for distance learning,
electronic reserves, and interlibrary loan. We hope you will take a few
moments to link to the new home page and give us your opinion on its
appearance and functionality by filling out the online comment form.
The Office of Independent Study
by Bob DiBella
The Office of Independent Study has had long experience with
development and delivery of courses at a distance. Increasingly, as
courses are designed and developed for technology enhanced distance
education, our office is prepared to provide support for new delivery
modes. We feel our greatest impact may be in the area of student
services, and hope that we may be of assistance to departments
contemplating courses on the Internet or the Web. Specifically, we
can:
1. Provide course materials such as textbooks, tapes, CD-ROMs, and
study guides to students.
2. Provide initial information about the course including the course site
address, how the course will be conducted, and schedule information.
3. Facilitate communication between the student and the instructor as
necessary or desired.
4. Assist with the proctoring of examinations as required.
If you are planning to offer a course at a distance and would like to
discuss how our office may be of assistance, please feel free to
contact us at 812-237-8080.
Chat's Room - News from the Faculty Computing Resource Center
* The Faculty Computing Resource Center helps faculty maintain web
pages and chat rooms, answers technical questions, and has a variety
of technical resources at your disposal including hardware repair
facilities, in-house technical consultation, and even a technical
periodical library for faculty check-out. We're open from 8:00am -
4:30pm, Monday through Friday. Call for details: 237-2603.
Student Service Coordinators: Ready to Help You and Your Distance Students
If you have distance learners in your courses, encourage them to take
advantage of the services offered by ISU's three full-time student service
coordinators - Sue Allmon (Columbus), Paula Betros (Indianapolis), and Nancy
Pearson (Logansport). All three are ready to help distance students with
any of the processes necessary to get started and complete their bachelor's
degrees. These individuals provide one-on-one support and information to
prospective and admitted ISU students, including help with:
- admissions
- registration for classes
- financial aid
- ordering textbooks
In addition, Sue, Paula, and Nancy market ISU degree programs and courses
throughout the state.
Contact information:
Sue Allmon
Ivy Tech - Columbus
Tel. (812) 372-9925 Ext. 141
Fax: (812) 372-0311
E-mail: sallmon@dlink.indstate.edu
Paula Betros
Ivy Tech - Indianapolis
Tel. (317) 921-4379
Fax: (317) 921-4246
E-mail: pbetros@dlink.indstate.edu
Nancy Pearson
Ivy Tech - Logansport
Tel. (219) 753-5101 Ext. 312
Fax: (219) 753-5103
E-mail: npearson@dlink.indstate.edu
ACNS Computer Training for April
by Teresa Crafton
ACNS computing courses for ISU faculty and staff are hands-on
introductions to computers and computer software. Taught by ISU faculty
and ACNS staff, these courses cover basic to intermediate computing
skills and will help you get started learning about computers and using
technology in the classroom.
Courses during April include:
Presentations with Microsoft PowerPoint
PowerPoint introduces the concepts associated with computer slide
presentations and the basic features of PowerPoint. Important topics
include using templates, importing and manipulating text and graphics,
and creating outlines and handouts.
- Instructor: Susan Powers, Curriculum, Instruction, and Media Technology
- Prerequisites: Word Foundations course or equivalent word
processing experience.
- Class Schedule: April 16 (Friday) from 9:00-11:00 am
Communicating with Your Students Electronically
This workshop explores methods of communicating effectively with
your students via technology. Topics include how to create and manage
email discussion groups, hypermail archives, and online chat.
Discussion covers synchronous and asynchronous tools. Class structure
includes time for questions, answers, and sharing of experiences.
- Instructor: Susan Powers, Curriculum, Instruction, and Media Technology
- Prerequisites: Pegasus Mail course or email experience; Word
Foundations course or equivalent word processing experience; familiarity
with a web browser such as Netscape.
- Class Schedule: April 22 (Thursday) from 2:00-3:30 pm
Web Publishing with Netscape Composer
This course will introduce the basic tools needed to create an HTML document
for publishing on the World Wide Web. Netscape Composer is used to edit the
page, to create links, and to transfer and view your page.
- Instructor: Susan Powers, Curriculum, Instruction, and Media Technology
- Prerequisites: Word Foundations course or equivalent word processing
experience; Familiarity with a web browser such as Netscape.
- Class Schedule: April 23 (Friday) from 9:00-11:00 am
Classes are located in the new ACNS Training Lab in the School of
Education, SE 119. To register for these courses, or for more information,
email ACNS-Train@indstate.edu or call Teresa Crafton at x4140.
A full schedule of training for faculty and staff is available at
http://web.indstate.edu/acns/user-serv/training/fscourse.html
CTA Workshops
CTA for Your Colleagues
Are any of your faculty colleagues planning to develop web-based
courses and looking for help getting started? The next CTA workshop,
scheduled for May 17-21, 1999, is a one-week, intensive CTA modeled
after last summer's well-received intensive version. Those interested
should call Mary Luz Petrowski at x8639 to register, or direct
questions to Nancy Franklin at x8452.
Thought for April:
"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."
-Theodore Roosevelt
Interaction is an electronic newsletter delivered on the first day of
the month via electronic mail. Each issue offers information on
teaching, learning, course design and educational technologies, and
events pertaining to distance education at Indiana State University.
We invite your comments, articles, and suggestions. Please contact
Interaction at interact@web.indstate.edu
Interaction is published by the Office of Continuing
Education/Instructional Services.
