Class management: The forgotten task
David Jones
Colin McCormack
Central Queensland University, University College Cork
ABSTRACT
All teaching and learning requires administrative support in the form
of assessment management, student enrollments, student tracking, (Hansen
and Frick 1997), student transfers, payment and a variety of other tasks.
For some time most of these administrative tasks have involved the use
of computers and more recently electronic data interchange and the World-Wide
Web (Norris and Olson 1997). However the use of the Web for class management
tasks has been mainly limited to institutional requirements and occur outside
the classroom. The use of the Web to assist individual educators in performing
class management tasks within the classroom, such as assessment management
and student tracking, is less common. This is despite the fact that the
Web provides a number of advantages over existing practices and enables
the adoption of new class management tasks that can significantly improve
the learning experience for both students and teachers.
Keywords: World-Wide Web, Class Management, Class Administration
Introduction
The use of the Web to support education can be thought of occurring in
four areas: information distribution, communication, student assessment
and class management (Hansen and Frick 1997, McCormack and Jones 1997).
For most educators the initial emphasis has been on using the Web for information
distribution (Jones 1996), communication (Fowler et al, 1996) and student
assessment (Byrnes, Debreceny and Gilmour, 1995). Use of the Web to aid
in class management tasks is still rare and yet if implemented appropriately
can offer some considerable advantages to students, staff and institutions.
This paper will make a distinction between class management tasks that
take place “outside a class” and those that occur within. Class management
tasks which occur “outside a class” are generally the responsibility of
the institution and includes tasks such as student registration, payment
of fees, credit transfer and production of student transcripts. These tasks
are generally performed by a centralized administrative division and occur
either before or after a student takes a class. Class management tasks
that occur "within a class" include recording student grades, assessment
management, and tracking student progress. These tasks are usually the
responsibility of the educator in charge of the class.
This paper starts by examining why you might consider using the Web
to perform class management tasks, in particular it examines some of the
generic problems introduced by current methods use to implement class management
tasks. Next the paper provides examples of how educators are currently
using the Web to perform class management tasks (“within the class”) such
as publicity, increasing interaction, assessment management and student
tracking. Finally the paper makes some general observations on the issues
involved with implementing Web-based class management.
Why use the Web?
The majority of class management tasks deal with the storage, manipulation
and distribution of information. The abilities of computers in storing
and manipulating information makes the use of computers in class management
tasks obvious and very common. For example, almost all institutional student
records systems are based on large scale, commercial databases and many
individual educators use spreadsheets and personal database systems to
manage class results.
Since these tasks are already performed using computers why would you
wish to integrate them with the Web? The following section describes three
reasons:
-
Solving problems created by existing methods
-
Supporting Web-based education
-
Enabling new practice
The problems identified below are not new and there have been previous
attempts to solve them through the use of technology. The section closes
with a discussion of the differences between the Web and previous attempts
to solve these problems.
Solve problems with existing approaches
While computers are well suited to the role of storing and manipulating
information the implementation and characteristics of traditional institutional
systems raise a number of problems when performing class management tasks.
All of the following problems originate from the closed nature of traditional
institutional administrative systems that make catering to client needs
and sharing of information difficult.
Inflexibility
The traditional administrative systems used by Universities can be characterized
as closed, proprietary, controlled and secure (Jacobson 1995). These characteristics
clash with a major aim of these systems, to make information available
to the staff and students who require it. In particular most students view
computing as pedestrian, public and wide-reaching (Jacobson 1995). The
difficulties in retrieving or entering information into these traditional
systems can frustrate clients and increase the time and resources required.
Variety
While a class is being taught educators are required to maintain information
about the performance of students. This information is eventually used
to calculate students’ final grades. It is not an unusual requirement for
this information to be updated and reviewed by a number of people involved
in the grading of student work. The design and closed nature of institutional
systems makes it difficult for them to be adapted to fulfill the needs
of individual educators and classes. As a result it is not unusual for
different educators to record student information using a variety of different,
individualised formats including paper-based, spreadsheets and personal
databases. The resulting variety in information storage format makes it
difficult to easily retrieve, share and analyze information. This means
it is impossible for institutions to identify student trends and take appropriate
action during a teaching period. Some examples include the ability to identify
in the first few weeks which students have not attended a tutorial or submitted
the first piece of assessment or track how well students are understanding
particular concepts.
Duplication
Before the necessary analysis of student information can be performed the
information maintained by individual educators must be entered back into
the institutional system. Traditionally this has involved the following
three steps:
-
Extraction
Information maintained by the educator usually contains extra information
not required by the central system. The required information (e.g. student
number, percentage and final grade) must be extracted.
-
Conversion
The format used by an individual educator usually doesn’t correspond
with the format used in the institutional system. Therefore it must be
converted into some interim format that both systems recognize.
-
Entry
The information must now be entered into the institutional system.
Given the variety of formats used by educators it is not uncommon for the
standard format used to transfer information to be paper. In this situation
the following occurs (this is what happens at Central Queensland University):
educator copies (by hand) computer-based information onto a computer print-
out produced by the student records system, that paper is returned to Student
Administration where someone else manually enters the data from paper into
the institutional system, another print-out is then produced for the educator
to visually check to ensure no mistakes have occurred, any changes are
returned to central student administration to be entered onto the computer.
The extra handling by human beings significantly increases the chances
of human error, increases the workload of the people involved and significantly
slows down the process.
Distribution
The duplication of data entry problem comes about not only because of the
closed nature of existing systems but also the inability of existing computer
systems to share information electronically. As a result paper or other
physical media must be used for information distribution. Apart from the
duplication of data entry, this reliance on physical media also makes the
distribution of information slow and could lead to the loss of information.
The distribution of assessment from student to marker and back again
is one “in class” management task which suffers from the use of physical
media. It is not uncommon for assignments to be given to the wrong grader
or to sit uncollected in a postbox. Even if delivery goes off without a
hitch it still takes some time for an assignment to travel from student
to grader and back. This problem is magnified in distance education where
students and grader can be located in different hemispheres.
Consistency
As a result of many of these problems it is not unusual for multiple copies
of information to exit. For example, the institution’s database will track
which students are in a class, the person in charge of the class will also
maintain a copy and each of the graders will maintain a copy. Each copy
of this information will change in response to different events. The institution’s
copy will change as students add or drop the class while the grader's copy
will change as they grade student assessment. Without automation attempting
to maintain consistency amongst these different versions is a difficult
and time consuming task which is prone to human error.
Support the new environment
Whatever teaching medium is used, face-to-face, print-based distance education
or Web-based education, the characteristics of the medium creates a requirement
for administrative support that is specific to its needs. For example,
face-to-face teaching requires the support of a room allocation system
to time-table classes and print-based distance education requires editors,
publication facilities and distribution mechanisms. The unique characteristics
of the Web as a teaching medium creates a need for changes in existing
administrative services and totally new ones. In many cases these new requirements
can only be provided by appropriate use of the Web itself.
Enable new practice
The combination of the computer’s information processing power and the
Web’s information distribution abilities can be used not only to change
the way existing administrative tasks are performed but also to make it
possible to introduce totally new administrative tasks. As always new practice
should be adopted because of the benefits it will provide rather than doing
so just because the technology makes it possible.
Why is the Web any different?
The problems with the use of computers in class management and administration
identified above are not new. The people responsible for managing information
within Universities have known about these problems for many years and
have previously attempted to address these problems with Electronic Data
Interchange (EDI), client/server computing and Distributed Computing Environment
(DCE) (Shull, Arzt and Updegrove 1995). Each of these technologies has
done little to address the problems faced by institutions and even less
for the problems faced by individual educators. Why is the Web going to
be any different?
There are a number of reasons why the Web is different including
-
not proprietary
EDI and many types of client/server computing are proprietary. They
are based on technology specific to a particular software manufacturer
and are not widely used (relative to the Web) which generally increases
the cost and decreases availability. The Web (most of the time) is based
on widely accepted standards which are also widely implemented. DCE is
based on a standard that has yet to achieve the market penetration of the
Web.
-
platform independence
A Web browser is available for almost every computer platform currently
available and most new computers come with a Web browser already installed.
It is no longer necessary to produce and distribute a client program with
which people access the data, this in turn reduces the cost.
-
ubiquitousness
The Web is almost ubiquitous, especially in the University sector.
This means that the Web is generally accessible, cheap and familiar to
most people. This helps reduce the cost of training.
-
ease of programming
Previous solutions to these problems required significant programming
effort. The Web significantly reduces this effort through a number of factors
including the fact that the client application (the browser) already exists,
there is a large quantity of good quality, free development tools and servers,
and the client interface (HTML) is simple to program.
The Web provides all of the information distribution and sharing abilities
of previous solutions without many of their problems and at a significantly
lower cost.
Examples of class management
The use of the Web for class management and administrative tasks is increasingly
common within the University sector. For examples refer to Alderson and
Granger (1995), Jacobson (1995), Bennet and Kannenberg (1996) and the Web
site for “Web Development for Higher Education Administration” (http://webdev.indiana.edu/).
However the majority of these uses are for tasks which are “outside the
classroom”. Tasks such as enrollments, payment of fees and production of
student transcripts are generally the responsibility of the institution
rather than the individual educator. The use of the Web by educators to
assist in their class management tasks is growing but is less common. The
following provides examples of how some educators are using the Web to
perform class management tasks.
Class promotion
A Web-based class can generate interest from students throughout the world,
especially if the institution provides the appropriate administrative support
for a Web-based classroom and a global student population. Attracting students
from throughout the world implies that students are able to find and are
interested in the class. Finding a particular class on the Web is not straight
forward. As some traditional Universities are still grappling with the
implications of Web-based delivery the promotion of Web-based courses is
often left to the individual educator. This section describes one simple
method for increasing the profile of a Web-based course.
There are a number of methods through which people find a particular
Web-based course. These include search engines (e.g. Infoseek, AltaVista),
directory systems (e.g. Yahoo), mailing lists, newsgroups, topic specific
areas (e.g. the Unix Guru Universe Web site for Systems Administration)
and word of mouth. The common first step in promoting a Web-based class
is registering with the appropriate search engines, directory systems and
other associated areas. However, given the size of the Web this step often
makes little difference.
For example, one of the authors teaches a course in Systems Administration
(Jones 1996) which is entirely Web-based. In early 1997 a search of Infoseek
(
http://www.infoseek.com/) using
the terms "systems administration" generated a list of over eleven million
documents. After searching the first 100 entries and not finding any mention
of the author’s course, interest waned.
Metadata (Miller 1996) can be used to improve this ranking as the algorithms
employed by Infoseek and other search engines place increased importance
on pages which make appropriate use of metadata. In the case of the author’s
course the following steps were performed
-
add the following line to the class home page,
resubmit the page to Infoseek, and
wait a couple of days for the new data to be processed.
Three days after the first search, another search using the terms "systems
administration" returned another list of over eleven million documents.
However this time the author’s class on Systems Administration was the
first entry. Six months later, at the time of writing this paper, the entry
for the author’s course was no longer first, but was still in the top three
entries.
Increasing interaction and participation
Learning is an interactive experience where the quantity and quality of
student/student and student/teacher interaction can significantly influence
the quality of the experience. There are a number of factors that can limit
the level of interaction and participation by students in a class. The
following examples demonstrate how some educators are using the Web to
address these problems.
Class Photo Album
The primary aim of the class photo album at Rochester Institute of Technology
(
http://www.cs.rit.edu/) is to help
faculty to learn the students’ names and provide a easy way for students
to get to know each other (Reek and Reek, 1996). The RIT photo album provides
three different types of Web page. The lecture pages contain a list of
the students and staff in a particular lecture group, each name provided
a link to a personal sketch of the individual student or staff member.
The laboratory page contains a list of names together with photos of the
students and staff in a laboratory group. The aim for this type of page
was to make it easier for staff to associate a student’s name with their
face. Finally, each person has a personal sketch page that includes a photograph
and some background information on the individual.
Attendance Rolls
It is not uncommon for attendance at tutorials and practical sessions to
contribute to students’ final mark. This is usually done as an incentive
to increase student participation and attendance. For this to work records
of student attendance must now be maintained. The traditional approach
is to maintain a paper- based roll that is updated during each session.
Experience shows that this approach suffers from a number of problems including
forgetting to bring the roll to a class or losing it. This is a particular
problem when there are multiple instructors and even more so if they are
geographically dispersed. A final problem with this approach is that it
is often difficult for students to check their attendance outside normal
class times.
Figures 1 and 2 show one solution to these problems, a Web-based attendance
system that is part of the Webfuse system (http://webfuse.cqu.edu.au).
This system stores the record of student attendance on the central Web
server. This information can be updated at any location which has Web access
via a password protected Web form. Similarly students could check their
attendance from any Web browser (figure 2).
Figure 1
Web form for setting attendance
Figure 2
Web page for checking attendance
Bulk email
Many students are reluctant to approach educators to ask questions or report
problems they are having. This can lead to these students feeling isolated,
which increases their anxiety and decreases the effectiveness of their
learning. Asking students if they are having difficulties in group situations,
such as lectures or class mailing lists, may gain some response but many
students still feel intimidated. An alternative approach, which has a much
more personal nature, is to contact each student individually However the
time consuming nature of this approach means it is usually not possible.
Bulk email programs provide a solution that combines the efficiency of
the lecture or mailing list with the personal touch of the individual contact.
Bulk email programs operate in a way similar to the mail merge facility
of a word processor. These programs are provided with a list of email address,
corresponding names and a message. They then proceed to send the message
to each person on the list. The main different between a bulk email program
and a mailing list is that messages from the bulk email program look as
if they have been sent directly to the recipient instead of a mailing list.
This apparently personal touch can lead the student to feel more apart
of a class and that the educator is actually taking an interest in their
personal progress. Using bulk emailers to send a “how are you going” message
to all students early in a semester can help reduce a student’s sense of
isolation and keep them going through a touch time.
Evaluation and feedback
Class evaluations are one approach to identifying the problems or strengths
in a particular class. Traditionally these evaluations are performed at
the end of a class and use paper-based questionnaires. Performing these
evaluations at regular intervals during a class may help the educator adapt
class content or presentation in response to student feedback. However,
the time required to prepare, distribute and analyze these questionnaires
usually make it too expensive to become a regular part of a class. The
use of Web forms in conjunction with computer-based analysis of the data
can significantly reduce the cost of performing regular evaluations.
Current uses of Web-based forms include
-
http://www.sd.monash.edu.au/sft1101/
The Introduction to Software Development subject at Monash University
(Australia), uses a completely anonymous feedback mechanism using a simple
Web based form. In order to assure students that the process is anonymous
the source code for the script and the feedback file are publicly available.
-
http://webclass.cqu.edu.au/Units/81120_FOCT_Hardware/
The Fundamentals of Computer Hardware subject offered by Central Queensland
University in both distance education and on-campus modes uses a weekly
evaluation of the study guide to guide future development.
This technology could also be incoporated into a peer-assessment strategy
where students anlayse and mark the work of other students. The Web-based
forms could act as the primary interface for student comments.
Assessment management
The resource intensive nature of assessment can often decrease the quality
of the feedback provided to students (Oliver and Mitchell, 1996). However
much of the process of performing assessment is mechanical, repetitious
and a perfect candidate for the application of information technology.
Appropriate application of information technology to reduce costs could
make it possible to increase both the quantity and quality of assessment
and feedback to students. This section examines the methods by which people
are starting to use the Web and associated systems to assist the assessment
procedure.
Methods being used
Assessment management is fundamentally about the distribution and manipulation
of information in the form of student assignments, grades and comments.
It is not unexpected to find that educators have been using computers and
computer networks to perform this task. Assessment management can be said
to have four components:
-
Submission system
The process by which pieces of assessment travel from student to grader
and back again. Traditionally this has been done using paper but this is
being replaced by email or Web-based submission.
-
Marking systems
Traditionally assessment is graded by the person grading the assessment
physically writing on the assignment. The trend to electronic media has
seen the development of computer-based systems such as PASE (Oliver and
Mitchell, 1996) which has become CleverX (http://www.cleverx.com/)
and Markin (http://www.net-shopper.co.uk/creative/education/languages/martin/markin.htm)
-
Storage
In a traditional paper-based assessment system it is not unusual for
only the grades given to each student to be stored as assessment is usually
returned to the student. Computer-based systems allow all assignments,
comments and grades to be stored for later review or moderation.
-
Results distribution
A list posted to the educators door is the usual mechanism by which
assignment grades are distributed.
In attempting to make use of information technology to aid in assessment
management some educators are using a combination of unintegrated tools.
For example, email might be used as the submission system, a word processor
is used to annotate student assignments, storage is taken care of by a
spreadsheet and a mail folder and a manually updated Web page is used to
distribute results. Experience has shown that using a collection of systems
with little or no integration and little administrative support can actually
increase the workload involved in assessment management (Jones and Jamieson,
1997). This has led to the development of integrated systems that combine
all four components of the assignment management process. The Webfuse system
(http://webfuse.cqu.edu.au/) includes
an example of a completely Web-based assessment management system.
Desirable characteristics
Experience with three generations of Internet-based assessment management
(Jones and Jamieson, 1997) has led to the development of a list of desirable
characteristics for an assessment management system. These characteristics
are
-
no delivery delays
No time should be wasted in delivering assessment from the student
to grader and back again. This is especially important in distance education
where assessment may spend a number of weeks in transport. This requires
that assessment be automatically routed to the appropriate person.
-
automatic status display
Both students and staff need to know information about the status of
assessment and marking. Students need to know the current status of their
assignment, has it be successfully submitted, has it been graded and how
does the grade compare to that of other students. Staff require information
on how many assignments they have left to mark, how many assignments particular
graders have marked and how well the students are performing on particular
questions.
-
centralized storage with distributed access
All information related to assessment must be stored centrally but
must be accessible from anywhere. Different people will have different
types of access. For example, students should only be allowed to access
material about them while the educator in charge should be able to access
all information. Central storage removes problems of duplicating data entry
and maintaining consistency between multiple copies.
To achieve all of these characteristics requires an integrated approach
with a significant level of automation. Ad hoc procedures using email of
Web-based submission can significantly increase the amount of resources
and effort required to manage assessment. This is particular true in classes
with significant student populations.
Issues
In adopting an electronic assessment management process there are a number
of issues to be considered including
-
Lack of support for non computer-based assessment
Computer-based assessment submission requires that the assessment be
in a computer-based format. However, not all assessment can be converted,
or if it can is prohibitively expensive, into a computer format, examples
include botanical samples and performance art.
-
Access to the technology
Both students and the people grading the assessment must have access
to the technology. This is a significant change for both students and graders.
-
Marking online versus printing
Electronic submission of assessment gains many advantages by not using
the print medium. However many graders are not comfortable with reading
online and must instead print student assessment before marking. If this
is necessary it does increase the resources needed for electronic submission
of assessment.
-
Incompatible file formats
To grade an assignment it must be able to be read. There are a number
of reasons including strange applications and different versions of applications
which may make it impossible to read a student’s assessment.
-
Virus infestation
It is not uncommon for computer files to be infected with a virus which
may cause dameage to the computer. With a large group of people submitting
computer files it is likely that at least some of those files are likely
to be infected.
-
Lack of administrative support
Traditional assessment management already has a large amount of administrative
support that is missing in many forms of electronic assessment management.
Educators making us of email submission of assessment, without any administrative
support, are finding the process much more time consuming than traditional
methods. For significant benefits as much of the assessment management
process as possible must be integrated, automated and appropriately supported.
Student participation and progress tracking
Traditionally many educators have relied on physical signals from students
to gauge the interest, attendance and to some extent the understanding
of students. How effective these traditional approaches are is questionable
especially with the increasing variety in student backgrounds and increases
in student numbers. For example,
My first lecture as a student was a wretched experience. With
199 other students I counted myself lucky that I was in the main lecture
theatre and not in the overspill room receiving closed circuit television.
(Laurillard 1993, p1)
The increasing use of the Web as a learning medium means that this familiar
ability may no longer be available (Goldberg 1996). This section examines
some of the possibilities for student tracking that are possible within
a Web-based classroom. If appropriately implemented this task can be performed
more effectively and efficiently in a Web-based classroom than in a traditional
classroom.
Why do it
Tracking student progress and performance allows the educator to make decisions
on how successful past teaching methods or approaches have been, how much
a particular resource is being used and provide some indicator of how well
students are handling particular concepts. Student tracking can be done
on an individual, student-by-student basis or it can be done to track trends
in an entire class or student cohort. In the past student tracking has
usually been done manually in the form of keeping attendance rolls or analyzing
student performance on assignments and class tests.
In a Web-based classroom it is possible to record for every student
the Web pages they visit, the messages they contribute, the quizzes they
take and every other interaction they have with the Web-based classroom.
If the appropriate analysis is performed this information can be put to
a number of purposes including
-
identifying problem areas
If students are constantly reviewing a Web page that describes a particular
topic or all students answering a particular quiz question incorrectly
this may point to some problems in understanding or delivery.
-
identifying methods of use
Logs of how students interact with the Web-based classroom can provide
ideas about their mental model of the Web-based classroom and whether or
not it is suitable.
-
a basis for assessment
Students may be expected to perform certain tasks in order to obtain
marks. For example, contribute a certain number of messages to the conference.
Requirements
Any system which aims to track student participation and progress must
include the following three components
-
Information collection and storage
Information about student participation and progress must be gathered
and stored. Traditional approaches generally rely on manual recording of
attendance and results. In a Web-based classroom where the majority of
activity is computer-mediated this information can be automatically logged.
-
Information analysis
Raw information alone is of little use, the next step is to analyze
the raw data to identify trends and generate useful information. Manually
examining a large amount or raw information is a laborious, time consuming
job that may not provide many benefits. However this is exactly the type
of task computer programs can do efficiently.
-
Response
To make any difference to the learning experience the results of the
analysis must be put to some use.
Doing it in a Web-based classroom
The following section briefly describes the alternatives that exist for
performing student participation and progress tracking within a Web-based
classroom. The discussion is broken up using the three components identified
in the previous section.
Information collection and storage
Almost all activity, be it accessing information on a Web server or communicating
via email, in a Web- based classroom occurs via the services of a computer
program such as a Web server or mailing list manager. The great majority
of these programs are written to generate log files which record activity.
Analysis
There are a number of tools which can aid in analysis of student participation
information in a Web-based classroom including
85321 Traffic Report Wed Apr 30 20:04:31 1997
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Report interval ------: Since Thu Apr 24 0:00:01 1997 (7.00 days)
Oldest post ----------: Mon Jan 22 13:12:00 1996
Most recent post -----: Thu Jul 18 0:05:00 1996
Total posts ----------: 152
Total unique posters -: 39
Total unique subjects : 140
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Breakdown by day: (7 posts, average of 1.0 posts per day.)
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Apr 30 | Apr 29 | Apr 28 | Apr 27 | Apr 26 | Apr 25 | Apr 24 | Apr 23
0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1
Top 10 Posters (Representing 77.0% of the total traffic.)
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51 (33.6 %) David Jones
34 (22.4 %) david@knuth.cqu.edu.au (David Jones)
8 (5.3 %) Karl Auer
5 (3.3 %) Ian Norley
4 (2.6 %) Bruce Jamieson
4 (2.6 %) "E. Tansley"
3 (2.0 %) Lam
3 (2.0 %) Greg Vinall
3 (2.0 %) Glen Flower
2 (1.3 %) (David Williams)
Top 10 subjects (Representing 19.1% of the total traffic.)
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10 (6.6 %) Suggestions
3 (2.0 %) Suggestions (fwd)
2 (1.3 %) Viewing the Study Materials Off-line
2 (1.3 %) Viewing material offline
2 (1.3 %) Use of Groups in Unix Systems Administration
2 (1.3 %) Problems with Linux, Chapter 7, Verse 11
2 (1.3 %) Problem about linux
2 (1.3 %) NetScape
2 (1.3 %) More problems downloading
2 (1.3 %) Internet Explorer
Hourly distribution of postings:
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1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
4 2 0 0 0 1 0 0 7 1 9 0 7 4 3 4 1 0 7 5 0 5 6 6
|---------- AM ---------|---------- PM ---------|
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MailWatch v0.34 by Shayde. http://www.homeport.org/~shevett
Each of the tools mentioned so far are generic tools which can cater for
the needs of educators. An example of an analysis tool designed specifically
for education is the student tracking component of WebCT (Goldberg 1996).
While this system draws on basically the same log files as the previous
tools it provides information that is of interest to the educator including
-
Recording the first and last time students access the class
Useful for identifying those students whom have not yet started or
have not done work recently.
-
Identifying the distribution of access Provides a breakdown of student
access to the various sections of the Web-based class including participation
in the class bulletin board.
-
Page tracking Provides information on how particular pages within the class
are used. How often do students visit? How long do they stay?
WebCT also allows individual students to access their personal usage information.
Response
Most implementations of student participation and progress tracking currently
stop at the analysis stage. A response of any form usually requires the
educator to view the analysis, make some value judgments and then carry
out a number of tasks. The next generation of tools will include support
for automating some responses. For example, it would be possible to automatically
send an email message to students who have not yet started or haven’t submitted
a piece of assessment on time.
Next generation tracking systems
Student participation and progress tracking in the Web-based classroom
is still in its early days. The next generation of tools will provide more
educationally relevant analysis and integrate each of the three necessary
components. As a result these tools will significantly reduce the amount
of time required to perform student tracking and enable educators to closely
monitor each individual student’s progress. Further integration will allow
student tracking to occur not only within individual classes but also to
track a students progress across all of the classes they are taking.
Discussion
While there are a number of benefits to be gained through making use of
the Web in class management tasks there are also a number of issues that
must be considered. This following section discusses some of these issues.
A solution searching for a problem
There is an often cited, and very valid, concern about the use of technology
Many a trail has been taken simply because the technology made
it possible, not because we had any evidence of need or evidence of the
actual benefits we would realise. (Rezmierski 1996)
Increasing the use of the Web in class management tasks is not an example
of this misguided use of technology. As was detailed earlier there are
a number of problems with existing approaches that need to be addressed.
In addition University practice is being influenced by changes in the environment
and in their students. Universities are now required to teach students
from an increasing variety of backgrounds, in increasing numbers and to
do so with decreasing funding. It is these changes and the previously identified
problems which are driving the use of the Web in class management tasks.
If you build it, they will not come
Many of the examples of “in class” use of the Web in class management tasks
have been by a single or small group of educators. These educators, and
their students, have received some benefits from their use of the technology.
However those benefits are small compared to those available if these systems
are used by all of the educators in an entire department or institution.
In attempting to implement widespread use of the technology many institutions
are falling into the trap of “if we build it, they will come”, assuming
that by building the systems that the educators and students will start
using the system. It has been found however (Kling and Allen, 1996), that
implementing the technology, even implementing the technology well, is
not a guarantee that the system will be used or be effective. Organizational
issues such as whether or not people are rewarded for using technology,
is the technology accessible and has it been integrated into work practices
all influence the eventual success of a technology. These pressures are
especially important in the use of the Web for administrative purposes
where widespread benefits are only achieved if the system is widely accepted
and existing practice changes.
Problems to overcome
There are a number of problems to be overcome if you plan to use the Web
for class management tasks. These problems do not generally outweigh the
benefits which can be achieved with an appropriate implementation but they
do require consideration. The problems include
-
freedom of information
Do students have access to information you store about them? In Europe,
students are entitled by law to see any information kept about them on
computer and in some cases the response of educators has been to store
information on paper. With some forms of technology individual access to
personal data may be possible however on other systems this may be quite
difficult and expensive to implement.
-
privacy
Information about individuals should not be made public and so information
stored in these systems needs to be restricted to specified people. It
is common practice for educators to place a listing of student numbers
and final results on their door or notice board. How does this practice
change if the listing is placed on the Web?
-
security
Related to privacy is the desire for the information in these systems
to be kept secure from interception or modification. The technical solutions
to these problems are relatively well known.
-
acceptable performance
Any person who has used the Web is familiar with the performance difficulties
that plague some sites. When using the Web for class management tasks it
is important that the application perform at some acceptable level at all
times.
-
reliability and stability
One of the benefits of the Web-based approach to management tasks is
that as an interface it can be available 24 hours a day rather than being
restricted to business hours. To ensure that this benefit is available
the technology must not be prone to regular crashes and may require out-of-hours
technical support.
-
accessibility
While a significant number of people in the University sector, especially
on-campus, can access the Web there are still people who cannot. Until
universal access can be guaranteed alternative approaches should be available
to support those without access. This is some part conflicts with the need
to totally replace old methods with the new in order to gain large benefits.
Conclusions
Using the Web in class management tasks combines the information distribution
advantages of the Internet/Web with the information processing and storage
capabilities of a computer. This combination provides a platform that can
significantly change and improve the effectiveness and efficiency of class
management tasks by solving many of the problems with existing approaches
to class management. This can be seen by the increasing use of the Web
to provide access to information stored in institutional databases. Use
of the Web for class management tasks by individual educators during teaching
is still relatively rare and yet there are a number of interesting possibilities
for such use. Successful implementation of Web-based class management tasks
is not solely a technical problem, and requires both structural and cultural
changes from the organization. Furthermore issues such as freedom of information,
privacy, security, performance, reliability and accessibility also need
to be considered.
Acknowldgements
This paper is based on material originally published in “Building a Web-based
Education System” (McCormack and Jones 1997)
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David Jones
Department of Mathematics and Computing
Central Queensland University
Rockhampton, 4702
Australia
Email: d.jones@cqu.edu.au
WWW: http://cq-pan.cqu.edu.au/david-jones/
Colin McCormack
Department of Computer Science
University College Cork
Ireland
Email: colin@odyssey.ucc.ie
WWW: http://odyssey.ucc.ie/www/colin.html
©,1997. The authors, David Jones and Colin McCormack,
assign to the University of New Brunswick and other educational and non-profit
institutions a non-exclusive license to use this document for personal
use and in courses of instruction provided that the article is used in
full and this copyright statement is reproduced. The authors also grant
a non-exclusive license to the University of New Brunswick to publish this
document in full on the World Wide Web and on CD-ROM and in printed form
with the conference papers, and for the document to be published on mirrors
on the World Wide Web. Any other usage is prohibited without the express
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