Course Management Systems: Expectations And Outcomes

Abstract

In the 1999-2000 academic year, an ambitious overhaul of a large, introductory computer literacy course at the University at Buffalo (SUNY) was initiated with the help of a grant from the Pew Learning and Technology Program 1 . This course enrolls approximately 1200 students per year, divided into lecture sections of 200 and laboratory sections of 20-40 students. With the help of on-line and LAN-based technologies for teaching, testing, and course management, we transformed the course from a traditional lecture format with short, unstructured laboratory meetings to a more student-centered model with fewer lectures and more structured laboratory experiences. While this course is not specifically targeted towards science and engineering students, the issues addressed herein are of interest to all educators who use or are considering using a course management system. Faculty for the course are technology-savvy computer scientists whose familiarity with computing technology influences their expectations regarding content and performance of off-the-shelf educational technology products. Specifically, expectations with regard to the course included the following: • A course management system (CMS) would decrease time spent on course administration. • Grading time would be reduced by shifting to on-line and web-based training and assessment tools. The CMS would facilitate on-line grade maintenance. • Lecture time would decrease due to the use of interactive, on-line tutorials for topics that have proven difficult to cover in lecture. These interactive materials would be integrated into the CMS. • As a result of the above-mentioned technologies, there would be a cost savings in faculty time and lab assistant expenses that could be recouped by the department (dollars) and by the faculty members involved in the course (more time for research). There were positive outcomes related to the incorporation of technology materials into the course, including a measurable increase in student learning and satisfaction as well as cost savings for the department. However, there were also a number of negative outcomes. Administrative time spent on the course increased considerably, and grading time did not decrease. In addition, troubleshooting computer-related glitches, including problems such as network bottlenecks, software performance, and inability of different pieces of software to communicate with one another, required much more faculty time than anticipated. The expectation that the CMS would allow for coordination and integration of different on-line resources was not realized. While there have been a number of studies of the impact of technology on student learning and outcomes, our focus is on the faculty perspective of teaching with technology. Our experiences using on-line materials including a CMS in a large undergraduate course have led to the identification of a number of factors that influence the effectiveness of computer-based educational technologies. These findings should prove valuable