Latest Developments on the
e-Learning Project
By Dr. Eva Wong (EDO)
|
|
|
Eighteen months into the
University’s e-learning project, the first focus of the Information Systems
Strategic Plan 2005-2010 (Ref:
Network Computing Issue 46 - December 2005), every credit-bearing course
is now provided with an e-learning component on the Blackboard (Bb) Academic
Suite. This arrangement streamlines the process of Bb course site creation,
relieving teachers of the burden of course management, allowing them to easily
make use of the e-learning platform to communicate with their students as well
as involve them in teaching and learning activities not only within, but also
beyond designated class times. Now that a major milestone has been reached, the
next phase of the e-learning project is to enhance the value and usefulness of
the e-learning platform by further enriching it with more Bb built-in functions
and add-on packages. The aim is to enable and encourage both staff and students
to continue to make use of the e-learning platform to maximize their own
productivity.
New functions and features
include the rolling out of the Blackboard content system for all our users,
providing them with the capability for online storage and management of their
personal content (My Content) and the ability to distribute and share
their content with others (My Portfolio). To help teachers combat the
issue of students copying others’ work without proper acknowledgement,
anti-plagiarism software Turnitin and Safe Assignment has been
added to the e-learning platform. Besides these proper releases, there are a
number of packages on pilot. These include the voice tool, Wimba and two
popular web tools, blogs and wikis from Campus Pack. Apart
from the commercially available add-on packages or building blocks, there are
quite a few internally developed ones which warrant our attention as these also
provide the valuable service of helping to enhance student learning. The
following sections briefly describe these various functions and add-on features.
My Content & My Portfolio – A
powerful combination for reflective learning
All CityU members are familiar
with the e-Portal and the Learning Management System of Blackboard. Apart from
these two components, Blackboard also has a content system providing extra
storage and functions to allow users to manage their content more effectively.
Every regular user on the Blackboard system has now been granted space in My
Content. The initial quota on creation is 50MB, with an annual increment of
50MB on a designated date. This content area is a simple yet efficient storage
device allowing individual users to deposit materials and retrieve them anytime,
anywhere. The My Portfolio function available in the Blackboard system is
intuitive and easy to use, allowing individual users to include any information
into e-portfolios for effective dissemination. My Portfolio itself does
not have a storage capability, so users can make use of My Content to
store materials to be published via My Portfolio.
By making use of the web space
and communication infrastructure provided by the Blackboard system, My
Content and My Portfolio form a powerful combination to provide the
storage, web presence as well as easy dissemination needed to assist students in
starting up their learning portfolios. Together, they make a useful tool for
students to gather and showcase achievements of their learning, allowing
reflections on their learning to be recorded. This is of particular significance
in our OBTL initiative as evidence of students achieving specific learning
outcomes.
The My Portfolio function
was made available to a few groups of people to pilot since late 2006. One
project supported by the Teaching Development Grant (TDG) involved colleagues
from the English Language Centre (ELC) and the Education Development Office
(EDO) working together to enable participating students to create their
individual English Language portfolios documenting improvements in their
language as well as recording their reflections on their own learning. This
pilot formed the basis of a larger language portfolio project funded by the
University Grants Committee (UGC) for collaboration amongst all 8 UGC-funded
institutions. With experience gained on, and results shown in, the Blackboard
My Portfolio functions, our ELC is considered as a pioneer in this
cross-institutional project. Other pilot projects involved the use of My
Portfolio as part of the teaching and learning activities, as well as the
outcomes evidence gathering mechanism, of individual courses, thus further
facilitating OBTL adoption.
With these new functions, it is
important to be aware that each individual user has sole responsibility for the
materials stored under his/her My Content area and disseminated via
his/her e-portfolios. All use must be compliant with the laws of Hong Kong and
the regulations of the University. Furthermore, when a user leaves the
University, the space allocated to the user under My Content and My
Portfolio will be automatically recovered by the University, and any
material that is left in these areas will be deleted without prior notice.
Turnitin and Safe Assignment –
Two popular plagiarism prevent tools
With the issue of plagiarism and
blatant copying becoming a worldwide problem adversely affecting student
learning, we want to make use of our e-learning platform to first and foremost,
alert our students to moral and ethical matters regarding their learning. In
addition, we would like to provide teachers with tools to detect plagiarism.
Thus Turnitin and Safe Assignment, two of the most widely used plagiarism
prevention packages have now been integrated into Blackboard for all course
sites. Although the workings of the two packages are similar, their philosophy
and coverage are not exactly the same; hence both packages have been acquired to
allow teachers and students to use them as appropriate to their requirements.
Systems on Pilot – Wikis, blogs &
voice tools
Apart from the officially
released features and functions described above, in our continued effort to
source suitable packages of practical use and interest for teaching and learning
to add onto the e-learning platform, there are a number of systems currently on
pilot.
With blogs and wikis so prevalent
on the Internet, we are letting colleagues try out these tools on Blackboard
with the help of the package Campus Pack. The blog tool, Journal LX enables the
classroom community to have a more engaging platform to gather, share and
reflect on course-related topics, projects and assignments. The authoring tool,
Teams LX (wiki) allows students and teachers to author a dynamic website
collaboratively with version control and participation tracking function.
An important attribute of a CityU
Ideal Graduate is competent communication skill, thus providing opportunities
for language enhancement to our students is also a priority for the e-learning
platform. The voice tool, Wimba enables voice announcements, voice assignments
and voice feedback within courses in Blackboard. It helps to add extra
dimensions and variety to language learning by clever deployment of technology.
The Wimba tool itself is not only for language learning. A podcasting project
supported by TDG is currently underway to explore the use of the tool in helping
students comprehend, remember and make use of terms and phrases within specific
subject disciplines by storing glossaries in MP3 format for online "feeding" to
students via en mass iPod downloads.
"Home-grown" Features & Functions
– More integrated and more user-friendly
Apart from the above mentioned
"off-the-shelf" building blocks which were supplied by external vendors, our own
Computing Services Centre (CSC) and Enterprise Solutions Unit (ESU) have been
working in collaboration and with other units for specific learning applications
to work on the Blackboard platform to help further enrich the learning
experience for students. We are all familiar with the single-sign-on (SSO)
between AIMS and Blackboard which allows teachers easy access to their class
lists and profiles of their classes. Apart from facilitating communications
between teachers and students, these functions also help teachers to better
understand the compositions of their classes and their students’ learning
strengths and deficiencies via the aggregated LASSI scores. Another excellent
example of "home-grown" learning enhancement feature is the SSO between the PDA
system and Blackboard pioneered and developed by the Faculty of Business. This
integration allows students to move seamlessly between the Blackboard and PDA
environments, hence extending the learning environment from PCs and laptop
another step further onto a mobile device. Other pertinent examples include a
programme calendar and seat reservation functions developed by the Chinese
Civilisation Centre (CCIV) and a programming assignment assessment system
developed by the Department of Computer Science (CS).
"Home-grown" building
blocks must go through the same stringent testing and verification
before they can be released for general use on the e-learning platform.
As the system is now so heavily used, we cannot afford to allow
any add-on features and functions to have adverse effects on the
performance of the system. Further information and procedures on
developing building blocks can be found on
http://bbtest.cityu.edu.hk/building-block-bbtest.htm.
Online Guides and Further
Assistance
We strongly believe in making use
of the Blackboard platform to help users learn to use it, as "doing" is an
effective way to learn. To introduce these newly released or piloting functions,
Blackboard user guides with examples are available online to help students and
staff get started. The respective URLs are:
Blackboard instructor user guide:
Blackboard student user guide:
Direct links to instructor user
guide on:
http://www.cityu.edu.hk/edo/bb/guide/instructor/portfolio/
http://www.cityu.edu.hk/edo/bb/guide/instructor/safeassignment/
http://www.cityu.edu.hk/edo/bb/guide/instructor/turnitinassignment/
http://www.cityu.edu.hk/edo/bb/guide/instructor/campuspack/
The EDO has also scheduled
instructor workshops to introduce the use of the various functions and packages
to teachers. Furthermore, we are inviting interested teachers to join the pilots
so that we can truly evaluate the packages before the University officially
commits to purchase them. Interested colleagues, please send an email to
edo@cityu.edu.hk.
But it should be noted that with all pilots, we need to monitor the stability
and performance of the tools under trial, so colleagues have to be tolerant of
defects and deficiencies and take appropriate measures to protect essential
materials.
For students, the ELC and EDO
have jointly organized appropriate introductory workshops for My Content
and My Portfolio. Further workshops will be arranged as the project
progresses.
Performance
Tuning and Capacity Planning
With the e-learning
system becoming mission critical with more and more features and
functions being released on it, we have to be mindful of the demands
on the system and monitor its performance. Users expect the system
to be stable and reliable. So, rather than allowing the system to
grow "organically", we should be proactive in planning
for its capacity growth. In view of this, a consultant from Blackboard
has been engaged for a performance tuning and capacity planning
exercise. This exercise will last for four weeks, starting from
19 March 2007, and through it, we can foresee the demands and growth
of the system, then plan and act accordingly to sustain good performance
for September 2007 and beyond. A major task of the exercise is to
push the system to its limits to flush out the "weakest links".
This will be accomplished by generating huge loads on the system.
Further announcements will be made to alert users to take necessary
precautions. The fact that this performance tuning and capacity
planning exercise is done when the system is still in "very
good health" signifies that from a system administration perspective;
we are moving from a reactive mode into a proactive and anticipatory
one. Hence, the sound practices of risk assessment and management
are being adopted to protect a most important asset of the University.
As e-learning evolves into an integral part of our academic learning environment, continued enhancement of the environment becomes an important task. The enrichment will ensure that
appropriate tools and features will be made available to staff for more student-centred
teaching and learning activities, for students to further engage themselves in
learning, and most importantly, for evidence of the improved learning to be
gathered and documented.
The release of the content system
of the Blackboard Academic Suite represented an important new phase
of the e-learning project of the University. Accompanying the new
functionality is new responsibility for proper use. As such the
Committee on Information Technology and Services has established
a subgroup to review existing rules and regulations covering the
use of IT resources with the aim of updating them for appropriate
coverage in the 21st century.
|