Status of
Distance Education at IUPUI
July 2003
Executive Summary:
Indiana
University-Purdue University Indianapolis has offered courses at a distance for
over 25 years. The first decade was dominated by continuing medical education
and graduate health professional education with content delivered to remote
sites through interactive television. Initial technology delivery included
ITFS, Indiana
Higher Education Telecommunications System, with one-way video and
two-way audio. In 1990, IUPUI began to invest in the development of
undergraduate courses to be delivered at a distance. In addition,
In the past 5
years, two primary factors have changed the face of distance education in
Today, IUPUI offers
five graduate programs completely at a distance: a Master of Science in
Adult Education awarded by the IU School of Continuing Studies,
a Master
of Science in Global Supply Chain Management and a Master of Science
in Finance awarded by the IU Kelley School of Business, and a Master of Science
in Music Technology awarded by the IU School of Music. The IU School of Public and Environmental
Affairs offers a certificate in Non-Profit
Management.
Undergraduates can
earn one of three undergraduate degrees at IUPUI: an Associate
of Arts in General Studies or a Bachelor of General Studies awarded
by the IU School of Continuing Studies, and an Associate of Science
in Histotechnology awarded through the IU
School of Allied Health. Students can earn one of two certificates in Information
Technology or E-Commerce through
the Purdue School of Engineering and Technology. While only a few complete
programs are available entirely at a distance, IUPUI has been successful in
engaging 12 of the 17 schools on campus in using distance education technology
to teach students at a distance.
IUPUI has adopted a
philosophy of encouraging all faculty to use distance
education technologies to engage students more completely in the learning
process. Student services and learning content is available to learners 7 days
a week and 24 hours a day. IUPUIs always on philosophy is evident when we analyze the
adoption and integration of the campus-wide online learning environment, Oncourse.
I. Teaching
and Learning Training and Tools:
In the mid 1990s, few professors had experience
with courses available on the World Wide Web. Efforts to create a distance
education course were individual, ad hoc efforts with little institutional
support. Course development for distance learning was not available at an
enterprise level. The IUPUI Center for Teaching and Learning
was in its infancy to provide such support and acquired a site license for
In 1998, a major developmental effort occurred
which profoundly shaped the delivery of distance education at IUPUI. The IUPUI
WebLab, now known as the CyberLab,
introduced Oncourse. This innovative learning environment
enabled students to view course syllabi, electronic library materials, participate
in threaded messaging and chat rooms, and other conveniences to facilitate
information exchanges and measure student performance. Oncourse
provided an online environment which consolidated video, audio and text files
into a single, easy-to-use environment. The teaching and learning environment
was further enhanced by dynamically connecting each course section to student
information, validating and authenticating their enrollment status at the
university. While the initial beta test of Oncourse
was limited to 15 sections, over 75 faculty members agreed to participate
with little or no training. The highly intuitive design and architecture provided
faculty members with a tool that was powerful, interactive and easy to use.
In May 2002, 25% of every
course section taught at IUPUI (1294 out of 5214 sections activated) utilized
Oncourse. While not 100% of the
faculty and courses are delivered completely at a distance, over 71% of the
teaching faculty at IUPUI use the Oncourse learning environment and over 26,000 students
(79% of the student population) are active users of Oncourse with over 18,000 students interacting on the
system over 10 times in the spring semester alone.
The IUPUI Office of Professional
Development (OPD) engages faculty and academic staff in activities that will
further their own growth and achievement of professional goals. OPD coordinates
these professional development activities at a campus level. In the true
collaborative spirit that characterizes IUPUI, OPD integrates resources from
University Information Technology Services, University Libraries, the Center for
Public Service and Leadership, and others to address their mission.
To carry out its mission
of professional and organizational development, the Office for Professional
Development collaborates with other units and organizations on and off campus
to:
OPD is composed of
several program areas, each with a special focus. Of particular interest in
distance education are the Center
for Teaching and Learning and the
Center for Teaching and Learning:
The Center for
Teaching and Learning concentrates more specifically on instructional development,
instructional technology, instructional research and assessment, and information
resources as they relate to instruction. The Instructional Design and
Development Team works to develop
effective teaching strategies and improve student learning outcomes by engaging
in the following activities:
The Instructional
Technology Team assists faculty with the appropriate use of technology in their
teaching, both in the classroom and online.
Consultations and
workshops are available to faculty and can be tailored to the specific needs of
IUPUI schools or departments. Hands-on training sessions include:
Incorporating quizzing into your online course
Authoring an interactive CD-ROM
Incorporating chat and discussion forums in your online
class
Adding video and audio elements to your
online materials
Creating a DVD
Publishing Web content
Scanning sides or film negatives
Color correct, crop, and enhance still images
Copyright Management
Center
The Copyright Management
Center (CMC) serves the IUPUI and larger IU with the management of
copyright issues arising in the creation of original works and in the use of
existing copyrighted works for teaching, research, and service. The CMC originated at
IUPUI in 1994 specifically in response to those needs; it was the first office
of its kind at any college or university in the United States. In the pursuit of
those programs, university activities frequently raise questions about the
relationship of copyright to the university's research, teaching, and service
mission. A principal objective of the CMC is to facilitate a constructive
relationship between higher education and our legal rights and responsibilities.
The CMC meets that objective by several means, including: conducting
presentations and workshops on copyright issues; preparing handouts and other
explanatory material; disseminating announcements of current developments;
developing instructional programs for the university community; leading efforts
to establish policy standards; and creating a public website and other means for
sharing information.
Distance Learning gives rise to complex copyright issues
related to both the question of ownership of the newly created work, as well as
the question of "fair use" of existing materials. The CMC keeps abreast of the latest legislation
and provides links on their website to serve as resources for determining proper
use of copyright works in distance education.
III. Content
Development
Community Learning Network:
Nearly a decade ago, the
IUPUI Community
Learning Network (CLN) obtained a grant from the Corporation for
Public Broadcasting to launch a distance education initiative to attract under
represented students to the institution through enrollment in distance education
general education courses. Ten general education courses were developed as
television and video courses with the understanding that they would eventually
be migrated to the web. Today, 1200 undergraduates a semester enroll in at least
one of the 50 courses taught by faculty from 12 schools on campus offer through
CLN.
CLN maintains a distance
education investment fund. The fund earmarks courses to be developed that
complete the web-based bachelors degree curriculum development plan. A single
production manager manages the courses to be developed and acquires content
expertise or technical talent to design and develop a web-based course for
delivery. CLN provides the seed money and the academic unit replenishes the fund
from tuition income generated as a result of enrollments in the course. CLN
intends to develop the remaining eight courses necessary to deliver a bachelors
degree completely at a distance in the coming academic year.
In the spring of 2002,
UITS introduced Digital Media Services
(DMS) on the IUPUI campus. DMS offers a wide range of media services
including multimedia development, web technical services, access to digital
libraries, advanced visualization products, and advanced consulting. Faculty
seeking production of courses, programs or singular learning modules may
contract digital media production services from DMS.
Virtually every school
has the opportunity to participate in distance learning opportunity and all have
participated in some aspect of teaching and learning at a distance. Dominant
content providers include the IUPUI School of Liberal Arts, Purdue School of
Science, and the IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs; they continue to
generate undergraduate course content to help IU and Purdue degree-seeking
students complete degrees with greater learning effectiveness and increased
convenience. These academic units do not routinely maintain their own
instructional design or technical staff. However, at least six schools on the
IUPUI campus have invested in technical and instructional design staff to
support their individual distance education efforts. Serving a statewide
constituency, the IU School of Nursing maintains a staff of 3 professionals,
technicians and hourly employees to assist faculty and students in the distance
learning efforts. The IU Kelley School of Business launched an international
online MBA program deploying the services of 2 professionals and
technicians.
Other activities include distance education support people in the
The Purdue School of
Engineering and Technology and the Department of Computer Technology developed
content in cooperation with the Community Learning Network. In particular, they
have recently launched their own CPT online program with faculty, professionals
and technicians. The IU School of Music maintains a full-time design technician
to assist in content development and delivery. Both the IU School of Education
and the IU School of Library and Information Science conduct interactive courses
utilizing the system-wide Virtual Indiana Classroom and provide some technical
assistance to faculty in preparing or delivering course content. Through the
video conference or Virtual Indiana Classroom model, professional staff are shared between UITS, the
academic units, and the
IV. Student services
available for distance learners:
Enrollment Services:
IUPUI made a strategic
decision to develop telephone
registration, online
registration, online
admissions and advising to serve all students. Over the past decade,
this strategic investment in information systems and people has made it possible
for all students to benefit from services routinely adapted for distance
learners.
Campus based and
distance students benefit from online admissions, advising and financial aid
services through Insite.
Prospective and admitted
students can view a wide range of information including the current status of
undergraduate admissions applications, financial aid, and bursar statements from
the University. This process makes it easy for students to track the progression
of their admission and financial aid information.
Online, students can
view their class schedule including rooms and meeting times, grades, transcripts
or simply update their address changes and Personal Identification Numbers. They
can view future campus offerings online to assist them in their academic
planning. Through IUCare, students
can evaluate the status of their progress toward a degree add future courses or
measure how their academic work applies toward a new major.
Students can pay tuition
and fees by phone, by mail or in person and can pay by check or credit card.
Students can purchase books online
bookstore or register for noncredit continuing education courses.
Library Services:
University
Library
has a significant quantity of electronic resources that are available remotely
to authenticated IUPUI users including IUCat,
the library catalog for the IU system; indexes and abstracts to which the
library is subscribed; substantial reference works; and a large number of
electronic journals.
Additionally, more than 4,500 electronic books from netLibrary are available as part of the
Librarys participation in the Marion County Internet Library. IU libraries
system-wide have begun to build a collection of netLibrary titles with approximately 1,000 to date,
and the Library has purchased business and technology electronic book
collections form Books24x7 amounting to approximately 3,000 titles.
The
library uses e-mail as a means of requesting reference assistance and over the
past year has used a chat-based real time system in an experimental mode. The Library is
currently migrating to a new software solution and anticipates the service to be
fully operational shortly. In addition, the library has had a web-based reserve
system for over five years and upgraded their e-reserves system this summer.
Interlibrary loan requests can
be made by authenticated IUPUI users over the web from anywhere. Delivery of most
journal articles can be done over the web with e-mail notification of arrival.
At the current time the library does not have a system for delivery of books or
copies of articles from our collection. While this could be done, it would need to be
fee based in order to cover shipping and handling costs. The library is
currently doing this on a limited experimental basis for handicapped users.
The University
Library authenticates remote users and, through this system, can provide remote
access to nearly all of our electronic resources. SFX is a service that provides easy and direct linking from
indexes to full text.
SFX also provides other services such as checking the catalog for journal
holdings or checking citation indexes for cited references for authors. This service makes
navigation between web-based resources much easier.
Bibliographic software to assist users in managing
bibliographic files is available and the library is in the process of putting a
promotion and instruction program for this software in place.
Plagiarism
software from TurnItIn.com became
available on campus in August. The library hopes to integrate its use into
Oncourse.
V. 1999-2003 IUPUI Distance Education Activity
|
1999-2000 |
Summer II |
Fall |
Spring |
Summer I |
|
Courses |
13 |
58 |
59 |
23 |
|
Enrollments |
361 |
1472 |
1690 |
711 |
|
2000-2001 |
Summer II |
Fall |
Spring |
Summer I |
|
Courses |
9 |
88 |
52 |
43 |
|
Enrollments |
298 |
2417 |
2753 |
1119 |
|
2001-2002 |
Summer II |
Fall |
Spring |
Summer I |
|
Courses |
28 |
102 |
96 |
40 |
|
Enrollments |
711 |
3650 |
3073 |
1122 |
|
2002-2003 |
Summer II |
Fall |
Spring |
Summer I |
|
Courses |
25 |
|
|
|
|
Enrollments |
591 |
4030 |
5021 |
2519 |
|
Schools |
|
|
|
|
VI. Program Descriptions
Graduate Programs Available Completely at a Distance:
A. Master of Science in Adult Education
The program is designed for adults who are either already
working in the adult education field or looking to make a career change.
Students in the program come from diverse backgrounds and include training and
development personnel as well as human resource personnel in corporations,
higher education, government agencies, and not-for-profit organizations.
Contact: Henry Merrill
Department of Adult Education
Phone: (317) 274-3472
adulted@iupui.edu
B. Master of Science in Global Supply Chain Management
The Kelley Direct Online Master of Science in Global Supply Chain
Management Program is a new graduate degree program offered by the
Kelley School of Business at
Contact: Kathy Ruley
Phone: (317) 278-1566
kdirect@iupui.edu
C. The Kelley MS in Finance
The Kelley Master of Science in Finance is a graduate degree program offered by the Kelley School
of Business (KSB) at
Contact: Kathy Ruley
Indiana University Kelley Direct
801 W. Michigan
St., BS 4000
Indianapolis, Indiana 46204
Phone: (317) 278-1566
kdirect@iupui.edu
D. Master of Science in Music Technology
The program provides graduate students an academic
background in Digital Music Production, Instructional Design, and Multimedia
Development. Current graduates of this master's program have found employment in
a wide range of business and educational settings. This program is offered
on-campus and entirely over the Internet.
The Master of Science in Music Technology (MSMT) curriculum provides post-baccalaureate education in areas
of computer-based music technology, multimedia and interactive design and
multimedia production techniques. The primary objective of the program is to
bring new and emerging digital arts technologies to students as they relate to a
new discipline defined as music technology. The curriculum establishes the
creative application of multimedia technology to video, audio and graphic
production of arts and educational materials. Included in this field are
foundations, methods and theoretical courses which underpin the development of
production skills required in using technology in a creative environment.
Coursework for this degree includes
required
core courses and elective courses within a cognate field. Elective courses
allow students to explore business applications common to music, industry and
arts education. Students may select courses to fulfill the cognate field area
from an approved course list in the areas of business, communications, computer
science, education, fine arts, law or others with the approval of the department
and advisor. The degree program does not include technical training in sound
engineering, preparation in engineering nor scientific areas of computer science
or electrical engineering.
Contact: Fred Rees
IU
525 N. Blackford
Indianapolis, Indiana 46202
Phone: (317) 274-4610
E. Non-Profit Management Certificate IU
The program is
designed to serve students seeking to develop an understanding of nonprofit
management and are unable to pursue a residential program. The NMC Online is offered as a
collaboration among
The Center
on Philanthropy is recognized as one of the finest university-based resources
for philanthropy. It is home to the
The School
of Public and Environmental Affairs is ranked 3rd nationally by the U.S. News
and World Report.
SPEA's IUB and
IUPUI nonprofit management programs are ranked in the top 11 in the country by
U.S. News and World Report.
Students are required to enroll in 15 credit hours. The
program takes 20 months to complete, although students may extend the time they
take to complete the certificate. NMC Online uses Oncourse, an innovative teaching and learning
environment developed by
Persons who have completed a baccalaureate degree at an
accredited college or university may apply for admission to the NMC Online. The
application packet may be obtained online or by contacting Beth Conley.
Contact:
Beth Conley
Coordinator of
801 W. Michigan Street, BS 3027
Indianapolis, Indiana 46204
Phone: (317) 274-4656
eaconley@iupui.edu
VII.
Program Descriptions - Undergraduate Programs Available Completely at a
Distance
A. Associate of Arts in General Studies & Bachelor of
General Studies, IU School of Continuing Studies
The General Studies Degree programs provide students with a
path to an interdisciplinary plan of study that encompasses three areas of
learning:
arts and humanities
social and behavioral sciences
mathematics and natural sciences
Students use a variety of options for earning credit toward
their degree. These options include credit by examination, credit for
self-acquired competency, and military service credit. Most students have
already earned college credit from another university before admission to the
program. Students can take television, web-based or independent study programs
to complete their degree at a distance.
To receive a Bachelor of General Studies students
must earn 120 semester hours of credit; to receive the Associate of Arts in
General Studies students must earn 60 semester hours of credit. Both degrees
allow the student to use a variety of options to obtain the semester hours
needed for the degree of their choice.
Contact: Irv Levy
Director, General Studies
Phone: (317) 274-9840
The program is designed for the employed histologist, and
the professional course work is offered by distance education. General-education
courses may be completed at
Structure of Program Design of Professional Curriculum: Completion of the
certificate-level course work (24 credit hours) is required before pursuit of
the associate degree. Alternately, the previously-certified HT(ASCP) may apply for special credit in lieu of
completion of the certificate course work. Required general-education courses
may be transferred from any accredited college or university, in accordance with
university and school policy, or completed through
Contact: Glenda Hoye
Director of the Histotechnology Program
Coleman Hall 322
(317) 278-1599 or 278-1690
C. Undergraduate
Certificates Available Completely at a Distance:
Information Technology Certificate Program & E-Commerce
Development Certificate, Purdue School of Engineering and
Technology, IUPUI
The
Information Technology Certificate will focus on the principles and
techniques used to develop Web-based business applications. Courses will cover
the application development life cycle, including analysis, design, coding, and
implementation. Upon completion of the Information Technology Certificate
students will have the background to become a junior Web developer.
The
E-Commerce Development Certificate will enable students to upgrade their
current application development skills to Web-based platforms. Interested
students should have at least two to three years of application development
experience. Upon completion of the E-Commerce Development Certificate, students
will have the skills and knowledge to build and maintain data-driven e-commerce
sites. All courses may be applied toward a CPT bachelors degree.
Contact: Ed Sullivan
Computer Technology
Phone: (317) 274-9705
cpt@iupui.edu
Submitted by:
Amy Conrad Warner, Executive Director
IUPUI Community Learning Network
7.15.03