Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
Features
Strategies for Training Online Faculty
8/12/2002
1. Workshop
A series of three one-hour WebCT workshops were offered to all faculty. To allow hands-on experience, all workshops were offered in the computer lab. To accommodate as many faculty as possible, each series was offered both in the morning and afternoon.
Each attendee was given access to a WebCT course so that they could orient themselves and manipulate its features. The workshops were designed so that the first one was simple to understand and only talked about the general features of WebCT. The third workshop of the series required them to perform hands-on exercises, such as uploading PowerPoint files to WebCT and participating in threaded discussions. All attendees were provided packets that contained instructions on every exercise that was performed. Articles dealing with pedagogical principles in online instruction were also shared. On the last of the series, two of the faculty members most experienced on WebCT were asked to give advice on how to facilitate online instruction and to avoid pitfalls when using WebCT.
2. Help Page
A personalized WebCT Help desk was developed to offer faculty assistance with commonly performed WebCT tasks. It was titled, “Learning How to Use WebCT”, and is available to all faculty once they access their WebCT. The Help Page contains workshop handouts as well as updated information on WebCT and distance learning. In addition, faculty were told WebCT also offers support in its help center. WebCT’s monthly newsletter is also circulated via e-mail to all faculty who are involved in WebCT.
3. Brown Bag
After the workshops were offered and the WebCT Help page was created, an hour was allotted every month for informal faculty meetings to share experiences using WebCT. The main goal of the brown bag lunches was to provide a forum for faculty to communicate best practices for teaching online.
4. Individual Support
Individual support was provided to faculty who sought assistance. While some faculty chose to meet in their personal office space, others chose to e-mail or telephone questions as they arose. The faculty’s perceptions of individual assistance were varied, as some expected the technical team would upload and design courses they were teaching. Others understood individual assistance was only for troubleshooting. The Associate Dean for Community Services handled requests of individual assistance to ensure each faculty-support person did not have too much scheduled at one time. A tally was created for the hours devoted to individual faculty assistance, which will be evaluated at the end of the school year to decide whether to adjust the number of support people.
5. Distance Education E-mail Communique
A distance education e-mail communiqué was attempted to update faculty on interesting points about distance learning. Resources included nursing, technology and education journals as well as professional organizations, including the U.S. Department of Education, Distance Education at Postsecondary Education Institutions, Accrediting Commission of the Distance Education and Training Council, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, and the American Nurses Association.
Recommended Reading
- Cedarville U Sets Up SonicWall Firewalls
Cedarville University in southwestern Ohio has implemented SonicWALL firewalls to provide high-speed gateway firewall protection for its 3,000 students.
- Data Breach Strikes U North Dakota Alumni Association
The alumni association for the University of North Dakota has gone public with a data breach that occurred when a laptop belonging to a software vendor was stolen from a vehicle. The computer contained the names of 84,000 university alumni, donors, and others, according to coverage by the Grand Forks Herald.
- Tips for Selecting a Campus CRM tool
As competition for students increases, colleges and universities are looking more and more to customer (or constituent) relationship management software for help in remaining competitive.
- Intercast Networks Goes into Beta with Kazam Video Service at Internet2 Universities
Intercast Networks has redesigned Kazam, its student Internet TV and video service based on the company's VideoXpress platform. Following a spring semester alpha trial at Columbia and Purdue University, the company redesigned Kazam's interface based on student feedback and added additional content that caters to a student audience.
- Michigan State Managing MRI Images from Africa with Acuo Tech DICOM Services Grid
Doctors at Michigan State University have begun using the Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) Services Grid from Acuo Technologies to transport and manage magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) results from a hospital in Malawi, Africa in order to monitor the impact of malaria on children.
- IIT Delhi Delivers Services with Ingres Open Source
Administrators at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT Delhi) have gone public with their installation of open source database management software from Ingres. IIT Delhi, one of seven leading institutes of technology in India, adopted Ingres Database to support administration functions such as grading, finance, human resources, procurement, and hospital administration.
