Distance: Article Report #3

As I re-examined the articles I have been studying, specifically looking at data collection and analysis methods, I noticed some interesting themes. Five of the eleven articles I have been reading had no data collection. These articles focused on historical or theoretical issues dealing with distance education. Three of the articles used questionnaires to survey student opinions or outcomes and then used various statistical techniques to analyze the data looking for correlations. I noticed that two of these studies had a 33% response rate and the other had a 50% response rate. Three of the articles used a more qualitative approach. One article discussed an analysis of eight blogs and interviews the authors of the blogs; another reported on interviews with twenty women regarding distance education. The third described a professional development program in detail (case study).

I thought it was particularly interesting that of these eleven articles only one compared students who were in a F2F setting with students learning at a distance to compare their learning outcomes.

Below is a table that outlines specific methods used in each of the articles. Blogger would not let me copy/past from Word so I had to upload it as an image file. I spent some time researching a better way, but could not find one. Should you have insights as to how to do this, they are welcome.

Distance Ed: Articles Report #2

As part of an ongoing report in Distance Education, I have selected twelve articles from the International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning to study. I will be looking for trends within these articles and reporting on various aspects of them each week. Today I examine the context of each of these articles.

1. Annand, D. (2007). Re-organizing Universities for the Information Age. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 8(3), 1-9.

Research Question(s):

Will universities need to make significant changes because of external forces in the world today? Digitization of information and the Internet make different forms of education (such as distance education) increasingly feasible. If universities need to change, what sorts of changes might those be? [theory based.]

Context:

This paper focuses on the university as a whole. There is no physical setting nor experimental unit of analysis per se; instead, the authors give a brief history of the university, focusing on the industrialization of education and its implications for learning. They also suggest that distance education is a disruptive innovation that has the potential to help educate the large numbers of individuals in areas without access to face to face education.

2. Barnard, L., Paton, V., & Lan, W. (2008). Online Self-Regulatory Learning Behaviors as a Mediator in the Relationship between Online Course Perceptions with Achievement. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(2).

Research Question(s):

Do self-regulatory learning behaviors mediate the relationship between student perceptions of online course communication and their academic achievement?

Context:

The context of this study was a public university in the Southwestern United States. An email survey sent to 628 students enrolled in online (these students are the unit of analysis) . The purpose of the survey was to determine the level of self-regulation that the students had (using a pre-made/validated questionnaire), and how this related to their GPA and feelings about distance learning. The students are the unit of analysis.

3. Bray, E., Aoki, K., & Dlugosh, L. (2008). Predictors of Learning Satisfaction in Japanese Online Distance Learners. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(3).

Research Question(s):

Are Japanese students in a specific online distance university satisfied with their experiences in distance education? What factors (if any) affect their satisfaction with distance education?

Context:

This study focuses on student enrolled in one of Japan’s online distance universities. Students at this schools are the unit of analysis.

4. Caswell, T., Henson, S., Jensen, M., & Wiley, D. (2008). Open Educational Resources: Enabling universal education. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(1).

Research Question(s):

In what ways do open educational resources have the potential to transform distance education? [theory based.]

Context:

This article does not have a clear physical context. It is more of an historical overview of open educational resources and a discussion of their benefits and challenges.

5. Deka, T. S., & McMurry, P. (2006). Student Success in Face-To-Face and Distance Teleclass Environments: A matter of contact? International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 7(1).

Research Question(s):

Can students succeed in a low-contact distance (versus face to face) environment? What factors might predict a student’s success in distance education?

Context:

The physical location of this study is a mid-sized Midwestern university. Research was conducted with both face to face and distance students. One interesting facet of this study was the face to face students saw the lecture live, while the distance students saw the exact same lecture, but either saw it via distance live, or watched it later. Students were the unit of analysis and were given surveys to measure them in a variety of ways.

6. Eib, B. J., & Miller, P. (2006). Faculty Development as Community Building. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 7(2).

Research Question(s):

How can faculty development increase community building, regardless of the physical distances separating faculty members? [theory based.]

Context:

The setting for this article is a higher educational organization in Western Canada. This article is a case study of sorts as the authors describe how faculty members in this organization developed a strong community of practice, and how this helped their faculty development.


7. Grandzol, C. J., & PhD, J. R. G. (2006). Best Practices for Online Business Education. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 7(1).

Research Question(s):

What does the literature say are the best practices for online business education?

Context:

This article synthesizes several articles on distance-based education in the field of business. The units of analysis are articles on various aspects of distance education.

8. Leslie, P. H., & Murphy, E. (2008). Post-Secondary Students' Purposes For Blogging. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(3).

Research Question(s):

What purposes do post-secondary students have for blogging?

Context:

The setting for this study was in the Foundations Department of the Dubai Women’s College. Eight women, along with the blogs they studied, were the units of analysis.

9. Müller, T. (2008). Persistence of Women in Online Degree-Completion Programs. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(2).

Research Question(s):

Why do women persist, or fail to persist in distance education, and what are the factors that support or hinder women in completing distance education courses?

Context:

The context of this qualitative study was a college in northeastern United States. This is an “open-admissions” college and offer both undergraduate and graduate degrees. Twenty women were interviewed about their abilities to persist in their education; these women are the units of analysis.

10. Pan, G., & Bonk, C. J. (2007). The Emergence of Open-Source Software in North America. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 8(3).

Research Question(s):

What are the educational implications of open-source software? [theory based.]

Context:

This article does not have a clear physical context nor unit of analysis. It is an historical overview of open software and its educational implications.

11. Shachar, M. (2008). Meta-Analysis: The preferred method of choice for the assessment of distance learning quality factors. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(3).

Research Question(s):

What are the advantages of meta-analysis in distance education? [theory based.]

Context:

This article also lacks a clear physical context or unit of analysis. It is rather a treatise on the importance of meta-analysis, and suggestions for how to do meta-analysis.

Open: CC Licenses

I started out my research on Creative Commons with this question in mind: Suppose I have a book that is published in print. The publisher has exclusive print rights to the book, but I have exclusive digital distribution rights. Can I/should I put a creative commons license on my digital version. What effect (if any) would it have on the publisher’s copy?

As I explored the CC site, I found some very helpful information. From the video on their front page, I learned that whenever you create anything you are automatically given 100% copyright over whatever you created. If you want your work to be freely shared it technically is illegal without your permission.

A basic question that many have is: [quoting from creative commons:] “What are the terms of a Creative Commons license?

The key terms of the core suite of Creative Commons licenses are: Attribution, NonCommercial, NoDerivatives and ShareAlike. These license elements are succinctly described as follows:

Attribution. You let people copy, distribute, display, perform, and remix your copyrighted work, as long as they give you credit the way you request. All CC licenses contain this property.

NonCommercial. You let people copy, distribute, display, perform, and remix your work for non-commercial purposes only. If they want to use your work for commercial purposes, they must contact you for permission.

ShareAlike. You let people create remixes and derivative works based on your creative work, as long as they only distribute them under the same Creative Commons license that your original work was published under.

NoDerivatives. You let people copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work — not make derivative works based on it. If they want to alter, transform, build upon, or remix your work, they must contact you for permission.”

These elements can be “remixed” into six difference licenses. The key acronyms are:

BY—meaning attribution is required.
SA—meaning that users are required to put the same CC license that you used on any remix or redistribution of your work.
NC—meaning that there can be no commercial uses of your work.
ND—No derivatives allowed. The whole work can be copied, but no remixes.

The associated symbols are:

Attribution

Share Alike

Noncommercial

No Derivative Works


Their definitions of licenses are here:

My short version follows:

BY—least restrictive. Only attribution is required.

BY-SA—people can remix as long as they attribute you and use your same CC license.

BY-ND—people can share your work in its entirety, (commercially or not) as long as you are given full credit.

BY-NC—people can remix your work, but can’t make commercial uses of it, though they can relicense it however they want. I have a hard time seeing why people would choose this license.

BY-NC-SA—like BY-NC, except people have to use the same license you did.

BY-NC-ND—Like BY-ND, except no commercial uses. Most restrictive license.

Another question that comes up is, “If I use a photo that has been CC licensed, am I guaranteed that I won’t have any legal issues with it?” Sadly, the answer is NO!

From the CC website:
“You should learn about what rights need to be cleared and when a fair use or fair dealing defense may be available. It could be that the licensor is relying on the fair use or fair dealing doctrine, but depending on the circumstances, that legal defense may or may not actually protect her (or you). You should educate yourself about the various rights that may be implicated in a copyrighted work, because creative works often incorporate multiple elements such as, for example, underlying stories and characters, recorded sound and song lyrics. If the work contains recognizable third-party content, it may be advisable to independently verify that it has been authorized for reuse under a Creative Commons license. If the work contains images, voices, or likenesses of people, educate yourself about publicity rights. The result of this is that you should always use your informed good judgment, and you may want to obtain legal advice.”

To me this is very disappointing—it somewhat negates the positives of using CC images on Flickr. The story of Virgin Mobile getting sued for using a CC licensed photo gives one pause.

So back to my original question--can I relicense my digital version without affecting the rights of the print version? I believe the answer is yes, if I put a BY-NC-ND license on it. With such a restrictive license, one asks, "What is the point of even using it?" From what I understand the purpose would be so that people could email the e-book to each other freely which they technically could not do if the regular copyright restrictions were in effect.

Distance: Conversational Theory

In Holmberg's article, "Course development—fundamental considerations" I was surprised by the strong constructivist bent. I have always thought of distance education as simply dispensing information. But Holmberg believes that distance education cannot be simply content delivery. Helping students connect with prior knowledge and create their own knowledge is of paramount importance. One thing I did not understand was on page 48 Holmberg states that students who do “too much elaboration seem to risk having difficulties in retracing the text information in the multitude of connections they have established.” I can understand the danger in too little elaboration, but I am not certain of the dangers of “too much elaboration.”

One of his key points was that students will be more likely to engage if there is a conversational feeling to what they read. He gives specific ideas about how to write texts—not too dense, a personal tone, attempts to engage the student in conversation so to speak, and engage the student emotionally. Using personal pronouns.

Another suggested idea was to imagine that you are tutoring and individual and then write down that conversation as though you were having it with an individual

One specific suggestion I found interesting was regarding the insertion of questions into the text to increase the conversation-like quality. Holmberg states, “To the extent they make students aware of how they learn and direct their attention to reflection, inserted questions are likely to support learning” (66).

I particularly found the following valuable from a practioner’s standpoint. :

1. 7 points of guided didactic conversation (p.47).
2. 6 points of creating a conversation text (p. 48).
3. 9 suggestions of making a tutorial in print (p. 52).
4. Gagne’s 9 events of instruction (p.66).

In the article “A theory of distance education based on Empathy,” Holmberg presents information that is largely similar to the previous article. He states that the first part of his theory of distance education is that it serves people who cannot or do not want to have face to face instruction, assuming it seems that f2f is the de-facto method of teaching.

Holmberg also states that having students feel an empathy and belonging will help students want to learn—thus the reason for “conversation-like presentations of the subject matter” (82).

In each of these readings Holmberg talks about how “three empirical studies” tested his conversation theory “to rigorous falsification attempts” but admits that although his theory has not been proved false, neither is their evidence that assures us it is true. I would like to learn more about the research that was done and if other research has validated his theory.

Holmberg cites Baath as doing research that shows that the frequency with which assignments were turned in did not seem to affect the course completion or test results of students. Did it affect their empathic feelings towards the course or subject matter?

To me, the tenets of the conversational approach are somewhat at odds with the industrialization approach. The "empathy" idea does not seem to be in harmony with the "get as many students in and out" approach. I do believe that as long as one is going to write text that is intended to be used as a way to dessminate information using the principles espoused by Holmberg could help make the material more palatable.

Friday Review

One of the goals I set for myself this semester was to reflect on my learning each Friday. I have four core courses that I am taking and each week I plan to review my class and reading notes and write a paragraph about what has impressed me in each class.

1. Distance Education.

One thing that has stayed with me is an insight from a Robyn Williams article in which once she learned about a "Joshua Tree" she saw it everywhere she looked, though previously she thought she had never seen it before. Williams states, "Once you can name something you have power over it." This quote was used (I believe) to illustrate the power of theories. Once we see and understand certain theories we can then use them in various frameworks. The main framework we discussed this past week was the industrialization (mass production and delivery) of education. I appreciated Dr. Graham's comment pointing out that with the technological tools that we have, mass production/delivery do not necessarily need to be in conflict with personalization. I'm interested in learning more about these tools.

2. Open Education

The SLAM analysis of openness had an impact on me. In my efforts to be "open" thus far I have been sort of a "closed open person." Meaning that I am not doing everything I can do to make things easy to revise and remix. My openness has been to post .pdf files which may not be as easily editable as other formats. As I hope to take part in encouraging others to be more open with the materials they have authored I need to help them see that there are levels to openness. I also want to record that I was touched by a prayer offered in this class and believe that because of my publishing with Deseret Book I may be able to help influence openness in certain LDS markets that may be beneficial for others.

3. Assessment

This class really intrigues me because I believe the topic is so important. This week we discussed Bloom's Taxonomy, which I have studied before, but not analyzed in terms of measurement. I am chagrined to see that a lot of what I test for is fact-recall and look forward to the assignments that will help me to tweak this. Also in this class I have used I-Clickers for the first time and I really see the power of these as teaching tools. Perhaps BYU should raise tuition $8.00 for student and provide all freshmen with one.

4. Research and Statistics

I really like the textbook for this class. The writers give clear examples that are both interesting and easy to follow. The assignment for this class to conduct research is exciting and I have already started working on my IRB proposal. This class in fact starts in a few minutes and so I must pass on the opportunity of writing more about it at the moment.

Open: Comparing MIT and OLI open courses

Comparing MIT and OLI open courses


For those not interested in reading the specifics (likely everybody who reads this post) here is my short version of a comparison between the MIT and OLI courses.

1. In general the OLI courses pass the "SLAM" test better, meaning they would be easier to revise and repurpose.

2. In general the OLI courses seemed more like courses that I could "take" on my own and really get a lot from the course.

3. I really liked the quiz features on OLI and felt that they were very helpful for learning.

4. The breadth of courses offered by MIT is amazing.

In general, forced to choose between the two, I would rather take all OLI courses.


OLI course #1: Economics

—I could tell that there was some good things happening in this course; however, the layout was a little confusing. I went through three modules and it frequently referred to an experiment with X numbers of traders and I was not sure how that related to the course. I’m sure that there is a strong logic behind it, and perhaps I entered the course at the wrong place; however, trying to act as an interested but not totally committed user, I think I would back out of the course since the structure wasn’t making perfect sense to me. It also appeared from the course description that parts of the course were in fact closed.


OLI course #2: Causal Reasoning and Statistics



One thing that is cool about this course is that at the end of each module there is a quiz that one can take to check your understanding. Another interesting feature was that they invited you to offer contributions to the course by emailing them if you found an online causality example that could add to the course. There were cool simulations and then quizzes to see if you understood them (I got 100% on the one I took J). I thought that all quizzes were open, but the one at the end of the module said: Quiz > Causation: Preliminaries Quiz (Not available in Open and Free courses.) Some other quizzes were available. It wasn’t readily apparent to me why some were included and others were not. On one of the quizzes I took it gave you feedback to let you know whether your answer was wrong or right and why. Cool and helpful!



OLI Course #3: Logic and Proofs

Another good course. One thing I noticed this time when I took the quiz was that if you get the answer wrong it does not explain why you were right, it just says, “correct!” Some times I guessed correctly but would have appreciated a short explanation saying, this is why you are right.


In class today we talked about SLAM analysis, meaning that to tell how open a course is check the following measures are helpful.


* Self-sourced?
* Level of expertise?
* Access to editing tools
* Meaningfully editable?


With this in mind, on this course I noticed there was a video that one could watch; in addition, you could read a text that went along with the video. However, the video was in a format such that with my (decent) skills I could not edit as easily as I could an .mpg file. Similarly the quiz questions came up one at a time, and the process of copying and pasting them was much more laborious than it otherwise could have been.


OLI Course #4: Empirical Research Methods. I’m starting to feel like I have a feel for what an OLI course looks like. I appreciate the standardization and think that is helpful. I don’t think I have any new critiques to make of this course that are greatly different from my thoughts on courses #1-3.


OLI Course #5: Introduction to Statistics (Excel version).


This was another great course! It had more text (which I like) and in this course the quizzes gave you feedback whether you got an answer right or wrong (see course #3).


MIT Course #1: Chinese


Had lots of .pdf files, a “flashcube” (similar to electronic flashcards). In addition there were audio and video resources so that I could hear the Chinese tones. It seems like I could gain a lot from taking this course. As far as SLAM, it did seem that the .mp3 files could be easily repurposed and the text didn’t seem too bad either on the SLAM test, if one can manipulate .pdfs (which I cannot).


MIT Course #2: History of Philosophy This course was listed at the top of most-visited courses and it was a bit of a disappointment to me. It seemed to be full of .pdf lecture notes of the professor but I had a hard time following them (probably because I had not read the texts). It would be harder for me to use the materials from this course than one of the OLI courses for remixing. They had an “assignments” section which explained papers that a person is supposed to write, but no quizzes like OLI.



MIT Course #3: How to Develop "Breakthrough" Products and Services.

I found this course by navigating through the OCW site. There site is very well organized and the depth of content is amazing. I selected this site based by browsing through their courses specific looking at ones tagged as audio/video. I like how they have a variety of formats so that if my goal is to learn on the go, that is an option that is presented to me. Unfortunately with this course less than half of the lectures had video, and those that did used REAL media, which I don’t have. L



MIT Course #4: Comedy



I got to this course by browsing their new courses (thinking that the newer courses might have new approaches). I’ve been do a better job of creating humor so I was excited to check this course out. Sadly, I discovered that the syllabus said, “This class will not help you recognize, understand, or produce comedy more adeptly than you do now.” Oh well. I still perused the course. One of the things I don’t like about this (and other MIT courses) is that the readings are not available. The syllabus gives a list of dates and reading, but those readings aren’t easily accessible so I would have to go out and buy all the books if I really wanted to participate. A few of the readings were linked to Project Gutenberg sites, but some that I am pretty are in the public domain (e.g. Jane Austen) were still linked to Amazon to buy a copy. Furthermore there was this warning: “Note: All downloadable texts linked here are not the versions used in the course. Be aware that they may contain errors.” Kind of like the threatening notice David Wiley said they had in relation to the discussion board.


MIT Course #5: Economy and Business in Modern China and India

Same story as course #4. Texts all needed to be purchased separately and “lecture notes” were included for only one lecture. Looked like a fun course, but it was pretty sparse and there seemed to me almost no way that students could get value from this course (not to be overly critical) aside from benefiting from the organization of readings that the professor had put together.

Great resource for those in the BYU community

Peter Rich pointed out a great tool that is free for those in the BYU community. It's called Cabells and shows a wide variety of academic journals. It gives information such as the acceptance rate for articles in that journal and other information. Happy publishing!