Introducing the Penn State World Campus through Certificate Programs
in Turfgrass Management and Geographic Information Systems
Alfred Turgeon, David Di Biase, Gary Miller
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The Pennsylvania State University
Abstract
This paper describes two of the distance educational programs-Turfgrass
Management and Geographic Information Systems-offered through the Penn
State World Campus during its first year of operation in 1998. Detailed
information is provided on how these programs were selected and supported,
the nature of the students who enrolled and the faculty who developed
and taught the courses, and the technology and infrastructure employed
for delivering content and engaging students in collaborative learning.
The organization of the World Campus, the evolution of these programs,
and the results obtained from them during the first 18 months of operation
are presented. Several contemporary issues are addressed from a faculty
perspective, including: teaching effectiveness, relationship with students,
satisfaction with product, compatibility with other responsibilities,
ethical concerns, incentives and rewards, team efforts, support services,
perceptions by colleagues, scholarly value, opportunity cost for faculty,
intellectual property concerns, and compensation.
I. INTRODUCTION
The Pennsylvania State University has been a pioneer in distance education.
For more than a century it has offered distance education courses using
a variety of synchronous and asynchronous technologies, from correspondence
study to cable television to satellite and interactive video. In 1992,
a University-wide task force recommended that distance education be
repositioned within the mainstream of the University's academic life.
In 1996, President Graham Spanier appointed a study team to evaluate
the feasibility of creating a new on-line campus of the University-the
World Campus-that would use the Internet and other technologies to establish
ALN-based learning communities around signature Penn State programs-programs
for which Penn State has an acknowledged academic reputation.
All World Campus programs reside in the Colleges of the University.
All academic Colleges were asked to identify programs that had potential
for World Campus delivery. These were then evaluated on the following
criteria:
- Academic reputation
- Readiness of the academic unit to develop the program
- Appropriateness for technology-based delivery
- Existence of an identifiable market sufficient to generate self-supporting
income
- Scalability over time
Among the first two programs selected for development were an undergraduate
Certificate Program in Turfgrass Management (TM) and a noncredit Certificate
Program in Geographic Information Systems (GIS).
The series of turfgrass courses comprising the TM Certificate Program
are the same as those offered in the resident Turfgrass Science major
within the College of Agricultural Sciences; they include: Turfgrass
Pesticides (TURF 230), The Turfgrasses (TURF 235), Turfgrass Pest Management
(TURF 236), Weed Control in Turf and Ornamentals (TURF 238), Turfgrass
Edaphology (TURF 334), Turfgrass Cultural Systems (TURF 337), and Case
Studies in Turfgrass Management (TURF 436). The first course, offered
in January 1998, was TURF 235. This was followed by TURF 230 and TURF
334 in September 1998, and TURF 436 in January 1999. The remaining courses
are currently under development and are expected to be available during
the 1999-2000 academic year. With the exception of TURF 230 (a one-credit,
continuous enrollment course), all are three-credit, cohort-based courses.
Students enrolled in this program can accumulate transferable credits,
continuing education units (CEUs) with 4.5 units equaling these credits
toward certification by the Golf Course Superintendents Association
of America, and a certificate upon satisfactory completion of at least
15 credits of coursework. The intended audience for this program is
anyone interested in pursuing a career in the turfgrass industry; students
have included golf course superintendents and crewmembers, landscape
maintenance personnel, and undergraduate students at other academic
institutions.
A second signature program selected by the study team was Geographic
Information Systems (GIS) in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences.
GIS are based on specialized software tools that integrate database
management, mapping, and spatial analysis capabilities. Skillful and
knowledgeable GIS practitioners are valuable to businesses and government
agencies that need to know where customers and resources are located,
how products and services can be delivered most efficiently, and where
new facilities ought to be built. The Certificate Program currently
consists of four courses: The Nature of Geographic Information (GEOG
5121), Elements of GIS I: Database Creation and Management (GEOG 5122),
Elements of GIS II: Data Analysis and Display (GEOG 5123), and GIS in
Practice: Environmental Applications (GEOG 5124). Although comparable
resident courses already existed, differences in clientele, format,
and scheduling prompted the creation of new courses for delivery via
the World Campus. The GIS Program launched in January 1999 with a cohort
of 52 students. Each course lasts ten weeks, followed by a three-week
break. Courses have been designed to entail four to eight hours of student
effort each week. Students earn four CEUs per course. They can complete
the sequence of four courses and earn a certificate of achievement in
one year. New cohorts begin in January, April, July, and October. The
intended audience includes professionals employed by local, regional,
state, and federal government agencies, environmental consultancies,
utilities, and others whose work involves analysis of geographic data,
but who lack formal education in geography or geographic information
technologies.
Courses are offered on a specific schedule, but students have great
flexibility about when they choose to participate. Both the TM and GIS
programs involve cohort-based, asynchronous learning networks with flexibility
built into course schedules.
II. RATIONALE
The goal of the World Campus is to become fully institutionalized within
Penn State. This cannot happen unless teaching in the World Campus is
both professionally rewarding and personally satisfying. Penn State's
Faculty Senate has established guidelines that ensure that World Campus
and other outreach teaching is considered part of the teaching portfolio
in promotion and tenure processes. The objective of building World Campus
into the regular teaching load of faculty is also designed to make World
Campus participation part of a faculty member's normal professional
experience. At the same time, the University is committed to integrating
World Campus teaching into the rest of the University's academic program.
It is intended that faculty will develop and teach ALN courses for both
World Campus and campus-based students in a seamless educational environment.
To this end, the President has earmarked $1 million over the next four
years to support development of courses that meet both World Campus
and residential campus needs.
The World Campus is part of a broader change in the use of technology
in the Penn State learning environment. This raises questions about
how faculty who become involved in technology-based learning environments
should be supported and rewarded. Several University-wide studies are
now underway, including one by an Intellectual Property Task Force that
is examining the entire range of issues related to copyright and patents
in light of the new technologies, and another by a committee that is
proposing guidelines for intercampus use of on-line courses.
For faculty within the College of Agricultural Sciences, the principal
motivating factors for creating the TM Certificate program were: to
explore the potential for Web-based instruction for resident and distance
students, to extend the reach of turfgrass educational activities to
students throughout the world, and to respond to the opportunities presented
by the inauguration of the Penn State World Campus. With respect to
the Agricultural Sciences faculty generally, the goal was to entice
faculty members to participate through the creation of effective courseware
models and a support system to assist them with courseware development.
For the TM Certificate Program faculty specifically, the goal was to
create a comprehensive program of courses involving six faculty members
and through which students could become qualified in turfgrass science
and management. All faculty recruitment activities were directed at
members currently within the institution. Some participated enthusiastically
because they could see that it would enhance the Turfgrass Program's
international reputation and provide salary supplementation or additional
financial support for their academic activities. Others were either
reluctant to take on new responsibilities, or felt that the benefits
were not sufficient to warrant the expenditure of the required time
and energy.
With respect to the GIS Certificate Program, mainstream tenured and
tenure-track faculty members who specialize in GIS declined to participate
because they perceived the personal and professional incentives to be
inadequate. The program went forward after the Geography Department's
head determined that nontenure-track faculty members were available
who were willing and able to develop and deliver a high-quality program.
A noncredit certificate program was proposed because department faculty
members who were concerned about competition with the resident program
were unlikely to approve a degree program. Geography faculty, like many
other nonparticipating faculty members around campus, remain skeptical
about the motives and quality of World Campus programs. Developing broad
understanding of the ALN environment and how best to integrate it into
the academic community is an ongoing concern.
III. BACKGROUND
A. Institution
As noted earlier, academic readiness was one of the key criteria for
the selection of the first few programs to be developed for the World
Campus. TM and GIS were uniquely positioned because participating faculty
were early innovators in the use of technology.
The initiation of the TM Certificate Program in 1997 was preceded two
years earlier by efforts to create Web-based learning resources to support
resident instruction in turfgrass management. At that time there were
very few courses employing Web-based technology at Penn State; of those
that did, few contained learning resources that students could access
independently. Also, as the first generation of Web editors were not
as capable as those available today, innovative uses of HTML coding
were often required to create instructional modules and other learning
resources. Initial efforts were directed at making decision cases used
in the TURF 436 course available on the Web for the 1996 spring semester.
The course was offered to Penn State resident students and a group of
distance students from Rutgers who were included in discussion classes
via interactive television. In September 1996 the College of Agricultural
Sciences provided annual funding of $75,000 to support a new Educational
Technologies Program under Dr. A. J. Turgeon's direction. In this program,
a large inventory of turfgrass instructional courseware was produced
and assistance in courseware development was offered to faculty from
other programs and units within the College. In the fall semester of
1997 the introductory turfgrass course (TURF 235) was offered by Dr.
Turgeon to student volunteers at the University Park and Berks campuses
as an entirely Web-based course. Based on the results of this experience,
adjustments were made in the organization of materials as well as in
the sequence and frequency of activities the students were asked to
perform. Thus, when the World Campus TM Certificate Program was initiated,
the learning resources to support the capstone (TURF 436) and introductory
(TURF 235) courses had already been developed and field-tested.
The Certificate Program in GIS was a natural extension of existing activities
in computer-mediated instruction within the Geography Department. The
Department's Deasy Laboratory has played a leading role in multimedia
software development for geographic education since it helped to create
a series of animated historical map essays for the 1993 edition of the
New Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. Since then it has published numerous
CD-ROM titles and Web resources that foster student-centered learning.
In 1997 Lab Director David Di Biase developed a Web-based general education
course called "Mapping Our Changing World" for traditional
resident instruction. Most Geography faculty members now use some Web-based
course materials, though none were intended for use in asynchronous
learning networks.
B. Faculty
Dr. Turgeon, Professor of Turfgrass Management, Department of Agronomy,
is Senior Faculty Coordinator of the TM Certificate Program. He is also
author and instructor of the program's introductory (TURF 235) and capstone
(TURF 436) courses. He has 31 years of experience teaching turfgrass
science and management, and has received several teaching and service
awards. Dr. T. L. Watschke, Professor of Turfgrass Science, Department
of Agronomy, has 29 years of teaching experience and is also the recipient
of several teaching and service awards. He is responsible for TURF 230
and is currently developing TURF 337 and co-developing TURF 238 with
Dr. Larry Kuhns, Professor of Horticulture, Department of Horticulture,
who has 23 years teaching experience. Andy McNitt, Instructor in Turfgrass
Science, Department of Agronomy, is responsible for TURF 334; he has
14 years of teaching experience. Dr. Paul Heller, Professor of Turfgrass
Entomology, Department of Entomology, has 20 years of teaching experience
and shares responsibility for developing the TURF 236 course with Dr.
Wakar Uddin, Assistant Professor of Turfgrass Pathology, Department
of Plant Pathology, who has three years of teaching experience.
David Di Biase, Senior Lecturer in Geography, is Faculty Coordinator
of the GIS Certificate Program. He is also author and instructor of
the Program's introductory course. He has 10 years of experience teaching
cartography and geographic information science, and has received national
and university awards for innovation in computer-assisted geographic
education. His World Campus responsibilities account for 60% of his
time. Dr. Todd Bacastow, Senior Research Assistant affiliated with Penn
State's Environmental Resources Research Institute and an Adjunct Assistant
Professor of Geography, has had 20 years experience in mapping and geographic
information systems as an officer in the U.S. Army, and eight years
experience as an instructor at the U.S. Military Academy and at Penn
State. His participation in the World Campus accounts for 40% of his
time. Barry Evans is also a Senior Research Assistant with the Environmental
Resources Research Institute who spends 25% of his time developing and
teaching World Campus GIS courses. He has more than 20 years experience
in GIS applications and training at Penn State and in the private sector.
The program also supports two full-time faculty research assistants-David
Walrath and Jason Cupp-who are responsible for developing custom GIS
software applications and tutorials, and for responding to students'
software-specific inquiries. A Deasy Lab staff member also contributes
HTML development and illustrations on an hourly basis. Except for DiBiase,
none of the faculty members had prior experience with computer-mediated
teaching. The current three part-time and two full-time faculty members
are barely sufficient to deliver the four-course program. As enrollments
grow, we plan to employ one part-time instructor and one full-time assistant
to maintain and deliver each course. Recruiting additional faculty members
to teach existing courses and to develop new ones is one of the most
challenging problems facing the GIS Program.
C. Support
The World Campus is seen as a cost center within the University. It
is responsible for all costs related to course development, delivery,
and support. The World Campus works with the sponsoring academic unit
to develop a budget to support faculty and other costs within the academic
unit, as well as World Campus costs for program development, student
support, marketing, and technology infrastructure. The budget and scope
of work for each program represents a consensus between the academic
unit and the World Campus.
The financial support model also includes a revenue-sharing plan under
which the academic unit receives, initially, 50% of all net income.
Once initial program development costs are recovered, this increases
to 80%. The purpose of this model is to provide academic units with
a new source of income to incentivize their participation and support.
The World Campus uses a program team approach to instructional development.
This team includes a senior faculty coordinator who serves as the primary
liaison with the academic unit and with other participating faculty.
Other members of the team include a World Campus program manager who
is administratively responsible for the program; a program-marketing
manager who is responsible for promotion and marketing; a representative
of Distance Education Student Services; and an instructional designer.
A single instructional designer works with all faculty in the program
to facilitate consistency and synergy among courses. The instructional
designer and faculty may also call on a World Campus resource team of
programmers, graphic artists, editors, technical typists, and other
media and technology specialists.
While the long-range plan for the World Campus assumes that most faculty
who teach World Campus courses will do so as part of their normal teaching
load, salary supplements and support for technical assistance were provided
to entice faculty into developing and teaching these courses. The costs
associated with operating the Certificate Program in TM included partial
salaries for five faculty plus full salary for one instructor, along
with funds to support one half-time wage-payroll graphic designer. For
the Certificate Program in GIS, these costs included three partial and
two full faculty salaries, as well as purchases of computing equipment,
peripherals, and software. Faculty participation in professional conferences,
marketing trips to professional association meetings, and other relevant
activities are also covered.
Recently the World Campus created FADEV 101, a six-week, on-line course
for faculty designed to help them better understand ALN teaching before
they get involved in a program. This course helps faculty understand
the nature of ALN and the personal and professional commitment that
is needed to be successful. The World Campus is also taking several
steps to encourage faculty to work together to shape the future of ALN
at Penn State. The World Campus director of academic programs convenes
general World Campus faculty meetings three times per year and meets
regularly with key Faculty Senate and Graduate Council committees.
The World Campus also provides a broad range of on-line support for
students, including on-line registration and technical support. World
Campus Student Services staff is responsible for responding to technical
and administrative problems and coordinating logistics for materials
delivery, submission and return of assignments, and proctoring of examinations.
This level of noninstructional support is critical to the overall success
of the program.
D. Enrollments
The World Campus was launched in January 1998 with a pilot semester
that included initial courses in four certificate programs. During the
first full academic year, the World Campus offered 33 individual courses
in eight certificate programs. Almost 900 people were admitted to these
programs by the end of the fiscal year. The World Campus goal is to
offer as many as 30 degree and certificate programs, comprising 300
courses and generating 10,000 course enrollments per year by 2003. The
TM Certificate Program has had 214 course enrollments since its startup
in January 1998. Since the GIS Program began in January 1999 there have
been 188 enrollments.
E. Learners
The World Campus is directed primarily to students for whom a traditional
campus experience is either inconvenient or geographically impossible.
Students come from all corners of the United States and from other countries
as close as Canada and as distant as China and Malaysia. In the case
of TM, one course was also offered to residential students at Ohio State
University through the CIC Common Market of Courses, an experimental
program among Big Ten institutions to share the use of technology-based
courses across institutions.
Learners in the TM program differ substantially from on-campus learners.
Their ages range from late teens to early 50s. While nearly all are
fully employed on golf courses or in some other facet of the turfgrass
industry, some are students at other institutions or on temporary leave
from full-time study. Their goals range from acquisition of college
degrees and/or professional certification to simply becoming more knowledgeable
in turfgrass science and technology. While some are proficient in the
use of computers, others are new to computer technology and find computer-based
learning very challenging at first. This is most evident in the introductory
course (TURF 235). Surprisingly, if given the opportunity, the more
proficient ones are eager to teach those encountering problems. By encouraging
students to work together in teams at the very beginning of the course,
the demands on the instructor's time for dealing with computer problems
have been dramatically reduced. It is also important to establish standards
of participation and performance in the first week or two to ensure
that students complete their assignments and interact in a timely and
satisfactory fashion.
Students enrolled in the GIS Program range in age from mid-20s to mid-50s.
Most have full-time jobs that already involve use of geographic information
technologies, but lack formal education in the field. Some seek to start
new careers. Students log into the course in the early mornings before
work, evenings after work, or weekends. Some are permitted to study
during work hours. Many students enter the program with considerable
skepticism about the amount of attention and the quality of the instruction
they will receive. We have found that the instructor of the introductory
course needs to work hard to assure students that they are not learning
in isolation and that the instructor will be responsive and accommodating
to individual circumstances. Also, it seems clear that students who
believe they are pioneers in an innovative enterprise are more likely
to forgive the inevitable technical obstacles that arise in on-line
learning.
IV. METHOD
A. Technology and Infrastructure
World Campus courses use a variety of technologies to present information,
give students access to learning resources, facilitate interaction,
and provide administrative support. The emphasis is on creating a highly
interactive learning community that uses resources to inquire about
issues, solve problems, and work on collaborative projects. Currently,
WebCT and First Class are the two primary software platforms for World
Campus courses. While most upper-division courses and all graduate courses
are cohort-based, some lower-division courses use a rolling enrollment
approach, giving students the maximum flexibility while ensuring their
access to a community of interest.
Students gain access to the World Campus through the Internet. They
must have an Internet service provider and an appropriate browser (typically
Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer). All courses are located on
a secure Penn State server. Upon admission into a program, students
receive a Penn State access account that gives them access to Penn State's
on-line library services and other resources. Upon registration in a
course, they also receive a course password that allows them to enter
the learning environment.
All of the turfgrass courses are Web-based and the course delivery platform
is WebCT. Students are asked to secure computers with specified minimum
technical requirements. The courseware includes lessons (containing
graphic-intensive instructional modules patterned after classroom lectures,
and formative quizzes) for acquiring recall and concept knowledge, and
exercises (practicums, laboratory exercises, and decision cases) for
developing problem-solving and critical-thinking skills. To date, streaming
video and other multimedia enhancements have been avoided because of
bandwidth limitations and concerns. All courseware is maintained on
a series of servers based in the institution's Center for Academic Computing.
The content of the GIS Certificate Program courses includes lessons,
quizzes and exams, activities, bulletin boards, and E-mail communications.
Lessons are analogous to lectures, but consist of text and graphics
rather than "talking heads." No streaming video or audio
presentations are employed. Students access lessons via a secure course
WebCT site on the World Wide Web. Typically, students compile and print
the lessons, then read the printed copy. The lessons include many links
to Web sites published by organizations that produce and use geographic
data. Students return to the WebCT site to follow the links. Lessons
in the first course of the four-course sequence include frequent, ungraded,
multiple-choice-format practice quizzes. The lessons conclude with quizzes
that are automatically graded. The first course concludes with a final
exam in the same format.
As students progress through the four courses, the proportion of course
content devoted to lessons and quizzes decreases and the emphasis on
student activities increases. Activities are tutorial assignments that
culminate in deliverables which students are required to submit to the
instructor as E-mail attachments or as HTML pages published in a course
gallery. For instance, students in the second course are required to
use an authentic GIS software package to digitize features shown on
a scanned map and then submit the file to the instructor as proof of
their ability to perform the task. By arrangement with a leading GIS
software vendor, students are able to purchase authentic GIS software
at nominal cost from the University's bookstore. In addition, the program
ships data needed to complete assigned activities to students on CD-ROM.
The quality of communications among students and between students and
instructors is a crucial factor in students' perceptions about the quality
of an ALN experience. In both TM and GIS Certificate Programs, communications
take place in either a bulletin board space of the WebCT site-which
supports threaded discussions-or via E-mail. Chat is used sparingly
or not at all because it requires students to meet at the same time.
Threaded discussions, by contrast, are very fruitful. Often hundreds
of messages are exchanged among students over a 10- to 12-week course.
Instructors can foster a sense of community by encouraging students
to check the threaded discussion list daily and to contribute to discussions
regularly.
B. Content Delivery
In the introductory turfgrass (TURF 235) course, students access designated
lessons and complete the associated quizzes by the due dates published
in the course calendar. The results of the quizzes are automatically
recorded in the student database, thus indicating completion of the
lesson and the level of recall and comprehension of the material. Summative
exams include two-hour exams (50 points each) and a final (100 points)
taken under the supervision of a local proctor. Answers to assigned
questions in the five practicums are posted to the bulletin board for
review and critiquing by students in five-member groups. After revision,
the instructor critiques the answers. Students receive up to 10 points
for the initial answer, up to 10 points for participating in the critiques,
and up to 20 points for their final answer, for a total of 40 points
for each of the five practicums. Since the exercises draw upon the material
covered in the lessons and involve frequent interaction among students
and between the students and the instructor, they have become the centerpieces
of each course. In the capstone course (TURF 436), after completing
an orientation case, students select three decision cases from the 11
currently available (and develop their own topic case) and post the
reports and attachments to the bulletin board. Following completion
of each case, the instructor assigns several questions based on each
student's case reports. The answers are handled in much the same way
as the practicums in TURF 235: students receive points for their initial
answers, participation in the critiques of their groupmates' answers,
and their final answers. The other courses employ elements from both
the introductory and capstone courses.
In the GIS Certificate Program, quizzes and activities involve deliverables
that must be submitted by specified dates. We are convinced that weekly
deadlines are necessary; several students have remarked that they relied
upon deadlines to justify attention to the course when many other responsibilities
were competing for their attention. From an instructor's standpoint,
the rhythm of the courses is distinctly different from resident instruction.
Faculty members who are used to confining their attention to students
to teaching days find it challenging to adjust to the necessity of daily
interactions with off-campus students. And there is no question that
daily interactions are required. Portable computers equipped with modem
ports and Ethernet cards should be standard equipment for ALN instructors.
At the outset of the GIS Program, when development of declarative knowledge
is emphasized, faculty members rely primarily on automated multiple-choice
quizzes and exams to assess student performance. As the program progresses
through the second, third, and fourth courses, however, emphasis shifts
from declarative to procedural knowledge, which we evaluate by personally
inspecting individual student project deliverables-including reports
and digital files produced with GIS software. Just as with traditional
resident instruction, one of the greatest creative challenges confronting
ALN teachers is to identify authentic deliverables that reveal a lot
about students but are easy to evaluate. We have found that it is worthwhile
to teach students how to produce HTML pages and publish reports on the
Web in a course gallery. Public exhibitions motivate students to do
more careful work and enable them to inspect and learn from, each other's
projects.
C. Organization and Evolution
The World Campus is organized within the Department of Distance Education
at Penn State. Distance Education is administered by Outreach and Cooperative
Extension, which includes centralized market research, client development,
and marketing communications functions that support the World Campus.
Support for the course development function and the technology infrastructure
represents a partnership between the World Campus and the University-wide
Center for Academic Computing.
Like other World Campus courses, the responsibility for TM and GIS resides
in the home academic units, which are responsible for faculty assignment,
curriculum, and overall academic approval and quality. While the responsibility
for the content of each course resides with the instructor, the instructor
shares the responsibility for course development with the instructional
designer responsible for developing standardized presentation formats
for the various components of the courses and for integrating materials
within the WebCT delivery platform. Others, including computer-graphics
personnel, work in support or advisory roles. With respect to the set
of courses comprising each program, the faculty coordinator provides
leadership in structuring the curriculum in consultation with department
administrators, faculty, and the instructional designer.
The introductory course in the TM Certificate Program (TURF 235) has
been taught five times, while TURF 334 and 436 have been taught three
and two times, respectively. The structure of TURF 235 and 334 have
remained the same since the courses were introduced; however, systems
were put in place to enhance their efficiency and effectiveness. For
example, weekly messages, critiques, timely tips, and other messages
are stored in electronic desktop files for easy retrieval and use. A
tracking system has been developed using a spreadsheet, also accessible
on the computer desktop, for recording students' activities on exercises.
TURF 436 was restructured to eliminate the preparation of group reports
due to problems encountered during its first offering. The lesson learned
was that the success of group activities should not be entirely dependent
on any one student. For example, if a particular student fails to prepare
his portion of a report, the entire group suffers; however, if that
student fails to participate in the critique of another student's answer
to an assigned question, the exercise can still succeed as long as most
of the other students participate.
The GIS Certificate Program has recently begun its third quarter of
operation. By January 2000, all four courses will be offered quarterly.
Our growth strategy involves adding support for a second GIS software
program and developing additional courses at the advanced level. As
discussed earlier, specialized GIS software is a fundamental component
of a geographic information system. No one vendor serves more than about
one-third of the GIS software market at present; future trends are uncertain.
Starting in January 2000, we will begin to develop a second, parallel
track through the Certificate Program that is based on a second GIS
software package. By July 2000, we will provide education based on two
products produced by vendors that together account for approximately
60% of the GIS software market. Students will be asked to choose one
product or another at the beginning of the program. We expect that the
GIS faculty will need to be increased to one part-time instructor and
one full-time GIS specialist to develop and maintain the dual tutorials
associated with each course. We also plan to develop additional advanced
courses, such as GIS Programming, Business Applications, Transportation
Applications and others, depending on the availability of new, qualified
faculty members. By January 2002, we hope to begin offering advanced
courses to qualified students without prerequisites. Our goal is to
attract 1000 enrollments per year by 2002 (400 annually in the first
course, 280 in the second, 200 in the third, and 140 in the fourth).
V. RESULTS
A. Student Response
Both telephone and E-mail surveys were used to collect data from students
who had successfully completed TURF 235. The most important factor influencing
students to enroll in the course was convenience. Also important were
accessibility and the reputation of the institution and the instructor.
They also cited the importance of interaction among students and between
the students and the instructor.
Students in the spring 1999 offering of the introductory GIS course
were surveyed to find out how much effort the course required, how students
felt about the required effort, and what they liked most and least about
the experience. Twenty-nine students responded to the survey. Forty-one
percent stated that they worked from four to eight hours per week; 38%
stated nine to twelve hours. The actual effort required was close to
the intended workload, and 79% of respondents felt that the level of
effort was "just about right." Comments on what students
like most and least were uniformly constructive and encouraging. Students
enjoyed most aspects of the networked medium; one student who especially
appreciated the lesson links to external Web sites remarked, "I
had no idea there was that much information available" on the Web.
Others liked the instantaneous feedback provided by automated quizzes,
although one complained "there are better explanations if you get
the question wrong than if you get it right." One student
confessed to being pleasantly surprised by the quality of communications,
stating, "I felt like I was a participant in the class more than
any [face to face] class I've taken lately." Complaints focused
on the instructor's occasional tardiness in delivering promised materials
and on the slow performance and seemingly frequent downtime of servers.
B. Faculty Response
With respect to faculty satisfaction with the TM program, all who have
participated to date are enthusiastic about distance education generally
and Web-based instruction specifically. Despite the fact that you cannot
see or hear your students, you do get to know them quite well through
their words and their activities. As you monitor the interaction among
students, you see examples of professional as well as unprofessional
behavior. Through your interaction with students, you can demonstrate
professional behavior and, thus, teach by example. When students attempt
to put what they know into words, they reveal their command of facts,
their understanding of concepts, and their ability to apply what they
have learned to analyze a problem and develop an appropriate solution.
Each demonstration of knowledge provides the opportunity to assist students
in their professional development. Most of us have been surprised at
how effective Web-based instruction can be. Unlike classroom instruction,
students cannot hide in the back of the class. Everything they do is
visible and, thus, subject to some response by the instructor, should
he or she take advantage of the many opportunities to help students
to learn.
Faculty satisfaction is uneven in the GIS Program. The faculty coordinator-who
designed the program and who has the most at stake in its outcome-is
most gratified by its early success. Other faculty members are less
enthusiastic. They worry that the heavy workloads involved in launching
the program may not ease after the initial courses are complete. They
wonder how long it will be before the novelty of communicating with
students by E-mail every day wears off. The original World Campus plan
called for the use of teaching associates to support growth of enrollments
in individual courses; the GIS Program is likely to be one of the first
programs where this need is addressed.
In addition, all GIS faculty are offended by the University's expectation
that faculty authors will sign away intellectual property rights through
the University's standard "work for hire" copyright agreements.
A University-wide Intellectual Property Task Force is addressing this
concern through review of current copyright policy. And because the
GIS Certificate Program remains peripheral to the operations of the
Department, faculty members have received little recognition for their
accomplishments so far. Faculty satisfaction is a crucial concern, since,
in light of the perceived lack of incentives, it will be difficult to
replace faculty members who may choose to leave the program for other
opportunities. On the other hand, if the program is able to build upon
its early successes and earn not only revenues, but also recognition
for educational excellence, faculty rewards and satisfaction are apt
to increase.
The World Campus has now completed its first full year of operation
as Penn State's 25th campus. Fourteen programs are now either being
offered or scheduled for launch in the coming year, including the first
World Campus master's Degree (in Adult Education). Development will
begin on five additional programs in the new academic year. As the World
Campus expands, the experiences of faculty in TM, GIS, and other early
programs are helping to shape both process and policy.
VI. ISSUES
A. Teaching Effectiveness
Faculty members with no experience in Web-based distance education are
likely to ask, "Can you really teach students whom you can neither
see nor hear?" Those of us who have been teaching for many
years may remember when we first started-eyeball-to-eyeball contact
was emphasized, as was the importance of using your students' facial
expressions as a measure of how well you were doing. This and other
forms of body language or nonverbal communication provided feedback
by which to guide the direction and flow of a presentation. But in Web-based,
distance education, communication is asynchronous and, thus, other tools
must be employed. For example, lecture material may be covered through
student-centered learning resources called instructional modules. These
modules may, in turn, be incorporated into lessons that provide an introduction
to the material, including a series of questions that establish learning
objectives. The lessons may conclude with formative quizzes, which assess
student recall and concept knowledge and, thus, are themselves valuable
learning resources. And the lessons may be complemented by practicums
comprised of questions to which students respond by applying what they
have learned from the lessons to solve puzzles or problems. Students
in small teams can work practicums collaboratively, so that each student
functions as both learner and instructor with respect to his or her
teammates.
The difference between conventional classroom instruction and Web-based
distance education is as great as the difference between driving a car
and flying a helicopter. While some of the skills one acquires from
driving may be applicable to flying, they are not by themselves adequate;
thus, transitioning from one to the other requires the acquisition of
additional skills. Similarly, transitioning from conventional classroom
instruction to Web-based, distance education requires the acquisition
of skills specific to this new teaching mode. It is important to emphasize,
however, that the destinations, pedagogically speaking, are the same;
we are simply employing different vehicles and routes by which to get
there. An additional bonus from learning new teaching skills through
involvement in Web-based distance education is that some of these skills
can enrich conventional classroom instruction. For example, in discussion
classes in which questions are employed to systematically lead students
through an analytical process, critical points are usually listed on
a blackboard. Since the asynchronous environment of the Web is not well
suited to an intense discussion class, concept mapping, learned through
a tutorial on the Web, has been successfully employed to teach these
same skills. And successful use of concept mapping on the Web can lead
to its use in the classroom in place of the conventional blackboard
lists. As a consequence, both teaching modes have benefited from and
been transformed by attempts to develop effective Web-based instructional
methodologies.
B. Relationship with Students
In Web-based distance education, despite the fact that you can neither
see nor hear your students, you can get to know them quite well through
their words. The way they express themselves and the ways in which their
words are organized to form sentences provide insight into how they
think. A student's ability to draw logical conclusions from an analysis
of a problem or problematic situation or present defensible arguments
in support of a particular course of action is largely revealed through
his or her words. And by reacting appropriately to their words, we can
shape the mental processes that give rise to those words.
C. Satisfaction with Product
One systematic approach to assessing faculty satisfaction is to consider
how distance teaching affects the quality of the relationships that
give meaning and purpose to our lives. For example, a teacher might
consider the extent to which distance teaching improves, detracts from,
or has no effect on relationships with students, collaborators, departmental
and disciplinary colleagues, institution, family, community, and the
products of his or her work. A satisfactory relationship with the products
of one's work follows when instructors have access to the resources
they need to produce and maintain quality instructional products. It
is unrealistic to expect that ALN materials are ever "finished."
The experience of faculty members involved in these programs indicates
that revision of on-line materials is necessarily a continuous process.
Faculty members' satisfaction with the products of their work also depends
on the extent to which they retain authority over the work after it
has been delivered to students. This concern raises the issue of intellectual
property policy, which we consider below.
D. Compatibility with Other Responsibilities
Relationships with family, friends, and community are likely to suffer
if a teacher spends too much time at work, and teachers are likely to
be dissatisfied with distance teaching if they perceive it to require
an inordinate amount of effort. Several studies presented at the Sloan
ALN Summer Workshop consistently reported that faculty members perceive
distance teaching to be more work than face-to-face delivery. However,
despite anecdotal evidence and tabulations of perceived effort, no one
really knows yet whether distance teaching is more work or less. Studies
of this sort should be high priorities in the ALN research agenda as
current on-line courses mature.
E. Ethical Concerns
Faculty members tend to be thoughtful and conscientious people. They
are not likely to be satisfied with distance teaching if they feel it
is a morally suspect enterprise, as some suggest [2]. Rather than dismissing
such claims, it is important that leaders be able to articulate compellingly
how ALN addresses legitimate social needs. Many of these needs have
been articulated in the Kellogg Commission's report "The Engaged
University."
In an information society, continuing education has become both an individual
and a social imperative. ALN allows institutions to extend their educational
resources to working adult students in response to this need. In addition,
institutions are recognizing that effective participation in an information
society demands citizens who can find, evaluate, and use information
to create the new knowledge needed to solve new programs. ALNs support
an active, collaborative learning environment that builds these skills
in students, on campus and off. It is important that ALN be seen as
a response to these needs and not just as a new way to generate income.
F. Incentives and Rewards
Financial and other incentives do exist and play a role in encouraging
faculty members to respond positively to opportunities in Web-based,
distance education. The principal reward that makes distance education
so satisfying, however, is the opportunity to extend the reach of your
teaching to students who otherwise would not be able to learn from you.
As these students may be from anywhere in the world, incorporating them
into your classes can result in a geographical and cultural blend from
which each participant, including the instructor, can learn.
G. Working in a Team Effort
Independence of thought and action is a basic tenet of academic freedom.
While most faculty understand and appreciate the principle of shared
authority that underpins the life of an academic community, they also
value their independence in the classroom. The technical complexity
of ALNs, however, requires that faculty work in a team environment.
An on-line course represents the collaborative work of faculty and nonteaching
professionals. This has both philosophical and operational implications.
Philosophically, the team environment requires that members understand
each other's roles, responsibilities, and authority. The faculty member's
authority over the content and objectives of the course is absolute,
but in this environment, it is also informed by the expertise of instructional
designers, programmers, graphic artists, editors, and others who contribute
to the final work. At the operational level, faculty must accommodate
the needs and time constraints of other team members.
H. Required Support Services
The ALN environment places new demands on faculty for instructional
development and delivery. In order to ensure success, institutions have
the obligation to provide faculty with basic support services. Faculty
should be provided with release time or extra compensation to accommodate
the workload associated with course development. Beyond that, faculty
should have ready access to equipment, software, and human resources
to help create ALN-based courses. Among essential human resources are
instructional designers, software application specialists, graphic artists,
text editors, and other technical specialists. These should be provided
as part of the institution's ALN infrastructure. In addition, institutions
should provide professional development opportunities to help faculty
members build their course construction and teaching skills. The need
for support continues into the course delivery process.
Faculty members should have access to the technical support they need
to respond to problems that may arise. If the ALN program is directed
to off-campus students, the institution must also arrange for a variety
of additional support services, from registration, records and materials
distribution to support for lesson transmission, testing at a distance,
etc. Penn State employs more than 100 professionals who devote a significant
portion of their workload to support World Campus students and instructors.
This human infrastructure includes specialists in marketing, marketing
research, marketing communications, client development, student services,
technical support, and instructional design. Faculty members who understand
that their efforts are supported by a quality professional staff are
more likely to be satisfied than faculty members who feel that they
are going it alone.
Faculty members active in their professions travel often. Portable computers
should be standard equipment for ALN faculty, so that they can stay
in touch with students while on the road.
I. Perception by Colleagues
An important concern expressed by many faculty members is embodied in
the question: "Will faculty become roadkill on the information
superhighway?" This assumes that computers can actually replace
teachers. It fails to recognize that the role of a teacher in the educational
process is not to simply show and narrate slides (something that a computer
can do), but to effect learning through interaction with students. In
Web-based, distance education, this interaction typically begins with
monitoring student activity, as well as student performance on quizzes
and problem-solving exercises. The instructor can then respond by motivating
(encouraging them to keep up with their assignments), intervening (getting
them back on track when it becomes obvious that they have gotten off
course), critiquing (providing feedback on the quality of their work),
and responding (answering their questions, perhaps by pointing them
in the right direction).
Within individual academic units, ALN teaching should not be perceived
as a peripheral activity. Instead, it should be viewed as part of the
unit's normal, ongoing teaching function. Penn State's World Campus
is directed primarily at off-campus students. Penn State has structured
the World Campus so that successful ALN programs will become a new income
source for the academic unit, with the goal that this will increase
the perceived value of this kind of teaching by faculty peers. Penn
State is also creating policies that facilitate the use of World Campus
courses by on-campus students, adding value to the more traditional
teaching roles.
J. Is This Scholarly Work?
Preparing Web-based courseware is analogous to writing a book. Learning
and/or developing new teaching techniques is analogous to learning and/or
developing new experimental techniques. In Scholarship Reconsidered:
Priorities for the Professorate, Ernest L. Boyer distinguished among
different types of scholarship-discovery, application, integration,
and teaching [1]. Web-based instruction involves all four.
In 1995, the National Research Council (NRC) ranked Penn State's Department
of Geography as the number one graduate program in the United States.
The ranking was based on two criteria-perceived quantity and quality
of research publications and quantity and quality of Ph.D.s produced.
The Department's current strategic plan consists of a single goal-to
retain the Department's ranking through the next round of NRC rankings
in 2005. Few, if any, faculty members perceive participation in distance
education programs as a way to achieve this goal. However, if the Certificate
Program in GIS achieves its goals, it will generate a revenue flow so
substantial that all faculty members will be compelled to take notice.
Instead of waiting for the academic culture to change so that teaching
is valued on a par with research, a more fruitful strategy for ALN advocates
may be to create sound business plans. Economic benefit, along with
demonstrable excellence, is the key to fostering faculty acceptance
of ALN.
K. Opportunity Cost for Faculty
The World Campus focuses on programs for which the University has an
established reputation for excellence. Most often, they are also programs
in which the faculty have strong research programs and are in high demand.
Opportunity cost is, as a result, a significant issue, since World Campus
programs involve multiple faculty in a long-term commitment to delivering
certificate and degree programs. For this reason, the World Campus works
at all levels within an academic unit to ensure that a program fits
within the strategic goals of the unit. The program must be accepted
as an ongoing function of the academic unit.
L. Reward from Institution
The first and most important reward from the institution is the recognition
that teaching in the World Campus is recognized as part of the faculty
member's teaching role in the promotion and tenure process. The Penn
State Faculty Senate has included this in its new promotion and tenure
policies. The next step will be to equate the development of ALN course
materials with publishing a textbook. Access to new professional development
opportunities and support services associated with expanding teaching
roles provide an additional, overt, and immediate institutional reward.
M. Intellectual Property
Intellectual property is a serious issue for many institutions that
participate in ALN. Course development is a team effort that involves
significant use of University resources to support the work of the faculty
member. Penn State currently has a University-wide Intellectual Property
Task Force that is reviewing all intellectual property issues, including
development of on-line courses. The overriding issue is how best to
protect the interests of the faculty, the University, and the students.
Among the main issues that concern both administration and faculty are
the need for better definition of what is covered by a copyright and
what remains the property of the individual faculty member, the ability
of faculty to use copyrighted material in other University-related work
and in individual scholarly work, protection of third-party copyrighted
materials incorporated into ALN courses, and protection of student rights
when they contribute to a work. The intellectual property issue is made
more complex by the entry of private companies into the on-line education
and training arena. Increasingly, faculty members are torn between their
commitments to the University and opportunities to work with commercial
firms.
N. On-Load versus Extra Compensation
Penn State's World Campus is conceived as a fully integrated element
of Penn State's academic community-the 25th campus of the University.
As a result, the goal for World Campus programs is that it be integrated
into the core academic units of the University and that faculty members
participate in the World Campus as part of their normal teaching workload.
REFERENCES
- Boyer, E. L. Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities for the Professorate.
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, Inc., 1997.
- Noble, David F. Digital diploma mills: The automation of higher education.
First Monday, Accessed January 21, 1998, http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue3_1/noble/index.html#d3.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Alfred Turgeon grew up on a golf course and worked at Metropolis
Country Club in White Plains, NY, through his high school and college
years. He majored in Turfgrass Management at Rutgers University where
he earned his B.S. degree in 1965. Graduating with an R.O.T.C commission,
he then served a three-year tour in the U.S. Army (including one year
in Vietnam) as an infantry officer, helicopter pilot, and meteorology
instructor. He resumed his graduate study at Michigan State University
where he earned his Ph.D. in 1971. His first professional position was
at the University of Illinois as Assistant, then Associate, Professor
of Turfgrass Management. He then moved to Texas where he was Professor
and Resident Director of Research at the Texas A&M Research and
Extension Center at Dallas from 1980 to 1983. He then joined the Tru
Green Corporation as Vice President for Research and Technical Services
from 1983 to 1986. His next move was to The Pennsylvania State University
where he served at Professor and Head of the Department of Agronomy.
In 1994, he resigned from his administrative position to devote himself
full time to turfgrass education and associated pedagogical research
and development, with emphasis on innovative computer-based and inquiry-based
learning resources and techniques. Dr. Turgeon has over 250 publications,
including a popular textbook entitled: Turfgrass Management, now in
its fifth edition. He currently serves as Senior Faculty Coordinator
of the Penn State World Campus's Turfgrass Certificate Program, a web-based
series of undergraduate courses with students enrolled from all over
the world.
Contact: Department of Agronomy, The Pennsylvania State University,
116 ASI Building, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802; Telephone: 814-863-7626;
Fax: 814-863-7043; E-mail: aturgeon@psu.edu;
URL: www.cas.psu.edu.
David Di Biase is Senior Lecturer, Geography at The Pennsylvania
State University. He was trained as a cartographer at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison in the 1980s. He has since realized that maps are
a special case of distance education. At Penn State, he teaches both
resident and distance versions of a general introduction to geographic
information science. He also directs the George F. Deasy GeoGraphics
Laboratory, an information design studio whose professional and student
employees create educational software, World Wide Web sites, and print
cartography for clients on campus and off. In 1999 he was honored with
the Media Achievement Award of the Association of American Geographers.
Contact: Department of Geography, The Pennsylvania State University,
302 Walker Building, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802; Telephone:
814-863-1790; Fax: 814-863-7943; E-mail: dibiase@psu.edu.
Gary Miller is Associate Vice President for Distance Education
and Executive Director of the World Campus at The Pennsylvania State
University. He also serves as Affiliate Associate Professor of Adult
Education. Dr. Miller holds a Doctor of Education degree in Higher Education
from Penn State. He is the author of The Meaning of General Education:
The Emergence of a Curriculum Paradigm (Teachers College Press, 1988)
and has contributed chapters on continuing and distance education for
five books published in the U.S. and the United Kingdom. He has presented
numerous papers on undergraduate curriculum, continuing education, and
distance education at national and international conferences. Dr. Miller
currently serves on the Executive Committee of the International Council
for Distance Education and the Board of Directors of the Midwest Universities
Consortium for International Activities, Inc. Over the past few years,
he has chaired the Commission on Principles of Good Practice in Continuing
Education for the National University Continuing Education Association
and has served on the Taskforce on Quality Principles in Distance Education
for the American Council on Education and on the Taskforce on Distance
Learning for the Middlestates Commission on Higher Education. Prior
to assuming his current responsibilities, Dr. Miller served as Executive
Director of the International University Consortium and Associate Vice
President for Program Development at the University of Maryland University
College.
Contact: Outreach and Cooperative Extension, 211 Mitchell Building,
The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802;
Telephone: 814-863-3248; Fax: 814-865-3290; E-mail: gem7@outreach.psu.edu.
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