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In the summer 1997 I spent four weeks at Richmond College, the American International University in London, leading a team of Information Technology (IT) and faculty in identifying and designing a pioneer project that would advance the use of technology in teaching.

Richmond College <http://www.richmond.ac.uk/> enrolls 1,300 students representing 100 nationalities, with no one predominating. In many ways, it is like a miniature Brooklyn College. The university has two campuses: freshmen and sophomores are based in Richmond, a attractive London suburb, while upperclassmen and graduate students study at the Kensington site in the heart of London. I was on the Kensington campus, in an office in an eighteenth century house where the author William Makepeace Thackeray once lived.

Richmond College's goal, as expressed in its 1995 self-study, is to become "a leader in the use of technology among overseas colleges." The university has made a commitment to introduce relevant advanced technologies into each discipline, and to identify, develop and use teaching methods that make the best use of emerging technologies. Accordingly, Information Technology (IT) staff wanted to mount one or two projects each year that would promote the innovative use of information technology in teaching, and to encourage faculty to make greater use of IT in the classroom.

GUIDING PRINCIPLES

The project team (myself, a programmer, IT's faculty development specialist, and two faculty members) began by developing a group of principles we believed to be of critical importance in the development and presentation of learning through technology:

• Students must enjoy active, "hands-on" experiences.
• The learning process should be one of discovery in which students come to conclusions as a result of inquiry and analysis.
• The material must engage the student's interest.
• Technology-based learning should integrate coherently and smoothly with classroom experiences.
• Technology-assisted learning should stimulate student-to-student and student-to-faculty communication.
• Technology-assisted components should employ innovative ways of presenting material.

Early on, the team selected the Internet/World Wide Web, rather than other promising formats (CD-ROMs, network-based software) as the platform for our project. In doing so, we were influenced by several practical factors:

(A) The Web was easily available from a variety of campus facilities.

(B) Judging from the attendance at Web-browsing areas throughout the campus, students perceived the Internet and much of what it delivers to be interesting (if not riveting) and stimulating (if not electrifying).

(C) Most students were fluent with Internet browsing software (Netscape; Microsoft Internet Explorer), eliminating the need for extensive training.

(D) The university provides every student with an e-mail account, creating ease of access.

(E) The cost of developing and updating Internet teaching materials is significantly lower than developing CD-ROMs or specialized software programs.

GOALS

As the adage goes, it is necessary to walk before one can run. Recognizing the value of everything said above and factoring in Richmond College's resources and aspirations, where should we begin? The team decided that a project that created Web pages for individual Richmond College courses had the potential to:

• Provide them with a solid introduction to the Internet and its capabilities
• Stimulate further experimentation and more sophisticated applications

• To design and construct a shell for a Web-mounted Course Page, a framework that could accommodate both the undergraduate and graduate curricula at Richmond College
• To create within this shell a demonstration page for one Richmond College course
• To test this page with students and adjust the shell accordingly
• To plan for the full-scale implementation of Course Pages
• To anticipate and identify the issues to which the project was likely to give rise

The project team developed the following technical and design principles that underlie the concept of the Course Page shell:

• Frames. Richmond College uses frames as a design/structuring feature for its Web pages. A smaller left-hand frame serves as the outline or index to the Course Page, while a larger right-hand frame contains information.

• Animation. The machines that support and access the Course Pages vary in power, affecting the speed with which the pages will load, as well as their appearance. For these reasons (and because novelty wears thin with time) the team opted for a modest amount of animation.

• Appearance. Because (at least initially) each Course Page will have a common "look," colors, fonts, backgrounds, and so forth that would wear well were chosen. Conventions (underscored text indicates a link) and icons (the open/closed folder) with which students are familiar, because they represent standard Web practice, were also incorporated.

• Control. Both buttons and text are used to give students maximum control of their location in the Course Page. "Top of Page" and "Back" buttons allow them to move easily within frames. Notices like "Choose an option from the left frame" and on-screen printing instructions also guide students, giving them a sense that they are in the driver's seat as they peruse the Course Page.

• Comprehensiveness. The shell accommodates every element a faculty member could conceivably want to include in an electronic Course Page.

• Coding. The shell's coding will remain standard for each Course Page so that, to create a page for a new course, IT staff need only plug in the applicable data. (Where a faculty member does not have, or does not wish to use, certain categories of information, these will remain empty.)

• Linking. The Course Pages make maximum use of links to other electronic resources (the library's CD-ROMs; the library catalog and other databases; World Wide Web sites and search engines) so that students can perform as many activities as possible from within the shell itself.

• Standardization. The Course Pages make full use of, and link to, other databases. These include databases of faculty and student profiles. Similarly, the same comprehensive set of CD-ROM and Web search engine links will be used for each Course Page.

• Organization. The shell organizes course materials in a logical, stratified fashion that places items of more immediate interest to students nearer the top of the hierarchy. The Course Page outline includes these categories; the Roman numerals do not appear on the page but are supplied here to give a clearer idea of hierarchy:

  II. Course Information

A. Previous Exams
B. Practice Exams

I also designed a top page from which all the Course Pages will be accessed. The design is a simple one in which, from the smaller left-hand frame, students may access pages by Instructor's Name, Course Name, or Course Identification Number.

Depending on the student's choice, in the right-hand frame a list of all courses for which Course Pages have been developed will appear, organized accordingly:

Instructor's Name generates a list like this:
 

Robert Brown	The  Middle-East in  Modern Times	History 101.2
Mary Jones	Primitivists and the Modernists	Art 505
Lesley Smith	Chekhov and His Contemporaries	Theater 115.5

 

Course Name generates a list like this:
 

Chekhov and His Contemporaries	Lesley Smith	Theater 115.5
The Middle-East in Modern Times	Robert Brown	History 101.2
Primitivists and the Modernists	Mary Jones	Art 505

 

Course Identification Number generates a list like this:
 

Art 505	Primitivists and the Modernists	Mary Jones
History 101.2	The Middle-East in Modern Times	Robert Brown
Theater 115.5	Chekhov and His Contemporaries	Lesley Smith

(Libraries typically organize professors' reserve reading lists in these three ways, because there is no telling which piece of information a student may have or may consider to be important.)

Also attached to this page's left-hand frame are buttons that lead students to general instructions on how to use the Course Pages and how to search the Internet.

NEXT STEPS

At the end of the four-week project, the team identified the following tasks that should be completed before the start of the fall term:  

• Develop a publicity/public relations campaign for the new Course Page program and implement it before the start of the fall term.
• Develop a faculty training program for authoring Web pages. While some faculty will be happy to accept a standard Course Page, developed and maintained by IT staff, most will want to learn  how to create and control pages themselves.

• Design a method for obtaining both design and technical feedback about the Course Pages. The moment that pages begin to load slowly or programming glitches are discovered, IT staff will want to know. Students may also have suggestions for changes or additions to the shell, or improved design. Within each page, students have the ability to send staff electronic feedback via a "comments" button.
• Add new features to the Course Pages, as IT capability permits. Examples include links to student information databases (for, say, students who want to know what grade they earned in a course), and passworded "work spaces" enabling students working in teams to share files and other data.

Technology-based learning has particular appeal for Richmond College, as well as a significant
impact on the university's multinational student body. According to the university's recent self-study, "students arrive at Richmond from a variety of linguistic backgrounds." Technology-assisted learning can yield dividends for students who are insecure about their abilities, or reluctant to speak in class. In self-directed learning, the instructor appears less authoritative, creating a less threatening learning environment. Because of the university's highly diverse enrollment, this project and its successors should increase the academic success and participation of those for whom English is not a first language.

This initial Course Page project and those that follow will encourage new instructional skills and increase Richmond's base of knowledge about technology-assisted learning. They will create at Richmond College a community of scholars who are actively sharing and assessing one another's work, and learners will be the chief beneficiaries. The project will also foster a new generation of university-educated youth who will go on to use technology to improve their own lives and those of others.

IT staff view faculty as their partners, rather than their pupils, in this enterprise: before long, those faculty who really take to technology may know more than the most competent IT staff member. Staff recognize that these faculty leaders will be of great help to IT in advancing the program. IT staff stand ready to shift the reins, as technology-for-teaching becomes a faculty-directed program. Working toward this transfer of leadership is an important goal of the program.

Finally, I found it immensely satisfying to step back from the role I play in academic computing at my own institution, and work directly with faculty in creating a Web-based teaching tool. I gained many insights into the work done by my own staff at Brooklyn College, and emerged with a greater appreciation for their responsibilities and achievements. If anyone would like to see the Richmond College Course Page shell, drop by the Faculty Lab (019 Library) or my office (215 Library)--Nick Irons or I would be glad to share it with you.

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