Issues associated with instructional management by instructors of online instruction

1. Issues associated with instructional management by instructors of onlineinstruction Elaine McRobbie

2. Common Themes • Building community • Time management • Communication • Technology.

3. Building community • Encourage student emails • Office hours and phone options • Find ways to bond the students • Photographs, bios, group projects • Face-to-face orientation • Threaded discussions

4. Time Management • Set expectations and rules for students and instructor • Use listservs or other forums • Instructor must set aside dedicated time for management issues

5. Communication • Times and dates for synchronous activities need to be clearly announced. • Clear and detailed instructions and expectations for online discussions need to be provided. • Instructors need to model expected behaviors • be cognizant of the several forms of online talk • control talk (providing guidelines and instructions) • humor (entertaining and lightening student spirits) • acronyms (eg IMHO – in my humble opinion; BTW – by the way) • emoticons (text cues to emotional states)

6. Technology • Know where to direct students having problems with the technology • Engage in training options • Boot camp • Face-to-face • Structured orientations

7. Issues associated with online programs & disciplines Mike Martin

8. Overview • Appropriateness • Faculty Readiness • Collaboration • Retention • Standards

9. Appropriateness • Chickens & Eggs • Disciplines & Programs • Tools ass. w/ discipline & its mastery • Can www facilitate? • If so, to what extent? • In part, whole, or complement • Don’t lose sight of learning objectives

10. Faculty Readiness • Culture & Background • Ready, retrain, or import • Resources & Approach • Publisher • Institution • Web • Professional Organizations • Grant-seeded initiatives • Homogeneity • Time & Incentives

11. Collaboration • Collaboratory • Library • Workspace • Professional Development • Utilize existing infrastructure • Cost-efficient • models online T&L • Transformative in regards to processes • Implicit training & marketing

12. people-to-people Communication, Groupware Services Distributed, media-rich information technology access to information access to facilities Interaction with the Physical World Digital Libraries, E-Pub Collaboratory http://www.scienceofcollaboratories.org/

13. Retention • Retention rate discrepancies • Nature of OL students • Background of OL faculty • Nature of OL learning • Maturity • Discipline technologies • Delivery method • Generational transitions

14. Standards • Accrediting commissions • Commitment, Best Practices • Principles, Guidelines • Content delivery • Objective mastery • By discipline? Delivery independent? • Transcript issues • Increasingly embedded, in “whole” or part

15. Issues related to institutional instructional infrastructure Sheri Barrett

16. Security • Certifications • Policies • Software options • Biometrics and other new trends

17. Bandwidth • Burgeoning need is overwhelming networks • PDAs, file sharing, VOIP, rich media • Ethernet switching, or Packeteer’s traffic management software possible solution options

18. Wireless vs. Wired • What to make available? • Security • Access Points • Appropriate policies

19. Strategic Planning • Systematic • Goal oriented, with performance measures • Continuous • Yearly updates • Deliberate • Decide where you want to go, don’t like technology drive the train

20. The Human Factor • Problems with Faculty motivation • How to push a boulder uphill • Training • Training • Training • Mentoring • Policy