of the Virtual Seminar for Professional Development in Distance Education
The Virtual Seminar in Distance Education is an on-line, World Wide Web-based asynchronous discussion forum that was designed to provide university faculty and administrators with professional development in the field of distance education.
This documentation contains all
of the components of the project’s Website (except for the listing and
photos of the participants), including all of the discussion and participant
projects, as well as the formal evaluations of the project and the web
server statistics.
The purpose of this documentation is fourfold:
Given this global scope, the leaders realized that it would be necessary to utilize a more technology-based communication system than was in general use within distance education. The World Wide Web seemed to be a natural medium, but there were few, if any models to guide us. No one else was attempting this and few had any experience to guide us. We had already had some limited experience using the Internet utilizing an e-mail-based Listserv and we were anxious to expand this using web-based computer conferencing. While such web-based conferencing had been in use for a while, its use for worldwide faculty development was unknown. Thus, the Virtual Seminar was a true experiment, not only in its use of technology, but also in the design and management of the course.
When the authors of this report first conceived the Virtual Seminar, there were several general ideas that were viewed as central to the overall concept, and critical for its success:
The Curriculum of the Seminar
The curriculum of the Seminar was
conceived as being a mix of both theory and practice. The concept of "theory"
was a broad one, which encompassed the foundations of distance education
(its history and formal educational theories), a broad conceptual look
at national, cultural and institutional structures, and an overview of
the effect of technology on the field. These were broad categories of discussion,
and represented an attempt to get new distance educators to appreciate
how distance education evolved and to identify the important influences
and issues of the present. The idea was to ask a different top expert within
the field of distance education to act as an expert mentor in each of the
four areas of "theory" (see the curriculum below). It was argued that the
presence of such a distinguished mentor would act not only as a direct
source of information and opinion within each topic area, but it would
also act as a "motivator" for the continuing involvement of the participants.
It was assumed that participating faculty and administrators would need
a strong reason to continue in the Seminar and it was thought that the
presence of these top "name" experts would be such a motivator.
Added to this theoretical base, were a series of specific topics that more closely related to the actual practice of distance education. It was hoped that in these discussions, the participants would talk and learn about the day to day logistical issues of being a distance educator.
It was also clear that it would be necessary to have several planning and summary periods throughout the course of the Seminar. Therefore an introductory session was planned at the beginning and a summary and conclusions session was planned at the end of the Seminar. In addition, a summary and planning session was placed in the middle, which logically separated the "theory" from the "practice" aspects of the Seminar. The total number of sessions (modules), each of which lasted one week, added up to 10.
The curriculum looked as follows:
Module | Topic | Expert |
1 | Introduction to the Virtual Seminar on D.E. | Bernath / Rubin |
2 | Foundations (History) of Distance Education | Böerje Holmberg |
3 | Institutional Models of Distance Education | Gary Miller |
4 | Theories in Distance Education | Otto Peters |
5 | Technology in Distance Education | Tony Bates |
6 | Preferred Application Topics & Project Proposals | Bernath / Rubin |
7 | Student Support and Assessment Issues | Ulrich Bernath |
8 | Instructional Design and Course Development | Eugene Rubin |
9 | Technology Applications | Bernath / Rubin |
10 | Summary and Conclusions - Projects | Bernath / Rubin |
Requirements for participation
The Seminar was free to a maximum of 45 participants. 15 places were reserved for potential German participants, 15 for Maryland participants, and 15 for various participants from around the world. Within each category, participants were accepted on first come, first served basis. The design was chosen so that the first two groups served the geographical area of each leader as well as created natural geographical groupings that would allow for easy later evaluation, and the third group provided an international and cross-cultur.
In return, each participant was required to commit to:
Each participant was expected to work on a project during the course of the Seminar. This could occur in a team (that is, in conjunction with other participants), or as an individual project. The planning for the project occurred after the first five modules (Introduction plus all of the "theory" modules). This allowed the participants to get a perspective on the field and to develop some ideas for their projects. They then had only 3 weeks to complete the project and submit a report for the others to read.
The Structure of the Virtual Seminar
In order to understand how the Virtual Seminar operated, it is necessary to look at:
The physical structure of the Seminar
The Seminar lasted 10 weeks. This was viewed as the maximum length that could be fit into the participants schedules as practicing faculty. It was designed to start after the majority of participant’s classes had begun (so as to not interfere with the beginning of their teaching responsibilities) and end before the beginning of examinations (which is also a work intensive time for most faculty). However, the length of the Seminar was experimental since we did not know the ideal length that would result in maximum learning, as well as maximum attendance.
The Seminar consisted of a main page, from which all other areas were reached. This page was designed to fit on one single screen and to be of minimal size to facilitate downloading. General announcements were posted on the page. From the main page, the following pages were accessed:
Special note should be made of the web-based computer conferencing software
that was chosen for the seminar discussions. After exploring a variety
of tools designed for web-based communication, the software HyperNews
was selected. This was a software tool that ran on a Unix operating
system. UMUC had already had some experience with this tool and so it was
relatively easy to adapt. HyperNews allowed for "threading", which
meant that one could follow the logic and flow of the conversation. This
was considered an important capability of the software. The fact that HyperNews
was free was not irrelevant to our decision. It should be noted, however,
that HyperNews is not the only appropriate software for such use.
The documentation of the various Seminar discussions clearly show how "threading"
and messages are displayed for the users.
The pedagogical structure of the Seminar
As stated previously, the Seminar was divided into two main sections: "Theory" and "Practice". Each Module (other than the organizing modules 1, 6, and 10) was structured so that participants were assigned a reading(s) on the Friday of the week before, and the participants were expected to begin to discuss that reading beginning on Monday of the next week. On Tuesday, the expert came into the discussion and responded to the questions and observations of the participants. Back and forth discussion occurred through Friday. The Seminar Leaders summarized the discussion on Friday, thanked the guest expert, and assigned the reading for the next Module. This structure, along with a few other organizing principles, allowed us to achieve some additional goals:
The experts came into each week ‘s discussion on Tuesday
and stayed until Friday. None of the experts were experienced with web-based
teaching and thus each "learned while doing." Each expert had a unique
way of dealing with the discussion. Some were expository, and occasionally
gave mini-lectures. Some were consolidative, grouping various participants’
comments and questions together, and then responding. Some responded individually
to each participant on a more personal level. Each of these strategies
seemed effective in their own way, and usually resulted in continuing conversation.
The management strategy of the Seminar
The Seminar Leaders planned and executed the Seminar at a distance from each other. This, in fact, turned out to be one of the hidden objectives of the Seminar; to test whether this kind of Internet collaboration was feasible. The two leaders were in almost constant communication via e-mail and would call each other by telephone once a week or so to discuss strategy and resolve problems. Introductions and Summaries were usually drafted by one leader and sent for editing and additional comments to the other. The result was then posted to the discussions.
As each expert’s week approached, they were contacted by e-mail or telephone to ensure their connectivity and preparation.
In practice, each of the Seminar Leaders needed to check the Seminar discussions and monitor their e-mail several times a day. Problems such as slow or balky web servers, participant connectivity, and browser problems needed to be solved regularly.
General messages were posted to the main web page each week, and links to each new discussion and readings needed to be activated. In addition, occasional formatting errors in the messages as well as message placement in the discussion tree needed to be corrected.
A considerable amount of time was
invested at the beginning of the Seminar in verifying which participants
were committed, connected and on-line. There were several drop-outs at
the beginning, and these "places" needed to be refilled. In addition, participants
were asked to submit a biography, send in a photo and take a pre-Seminar
questionnaire. The administration and monitoring of this required a lot
of time, but resulted in a more close-knit community among the participants.
The Contents of this Documentation
The reader should note that the transcripts of the various discussions in these documents are not verbatim transcripts. In principle, nothing was changed with reference to the overall content of the discussions. However, each participant was allowed to edit their own contributions (which consisted mostly of changes in grammatical structure, spelling, punctuation, etc.) The participants eliminated only a very few contributions, and this did not substantially change the meaning or flow of the conversations.
Occasionally a participant’s contribution was placed in an incorrect position within the threaded discussion. There are very few of these, and they have been moved to their "correct" placement in terms of the flow of the discussions.
Finally, a few words have been removed from many messages. These words were usually greetings to specific fellow participants. At all times, the participants acted with what we call "web civility". This means that all conversations were polite and, in general, of a positive tone. We never had to remove a message because of the tone or content.
This documentation of the first Virtual Seminar includes:
Conclusions from the project
The formal and informal evaluations of the project, as well as additional post-project analyses are presented in this documentation. Most of these were presented on-line, either as a separate document or embedded in the Week 11 discussion (an extra week of discussion that was offered to the participants approximately three months after the conclusion of the project.)
The reader might wish to directly reference these conclusions.
Of particular interest are:
Ulrich Bernath and Eugene Rubin
January, 1999