DESIGNING AND IMPLEMENTING AN ONLINE TECHNOLOGY COURSE: AN ADVANCED GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS (GIS) ONLINE COURSE Rosanna G. Rivero1, Michael Flint Buchanan 2 1

University of Georgia, College of Environment and Design (USA) 2 University of Georgia, Office of Online Learning (USA)

Abstract Teaching Geographic Information Systems (GIS) courses online offers certain unique challenges. Faculty is tasked with transitioning a traditional lecture with lab sessions to the online environment, with all its affordances and limitations. The labs, integral to student success, require access to specialized software; large amounts of data with which to work; a variety of media and techniques; and a significant amount of supervision, feedback, and engagement from the instructor while moving from one module to another. The student final project integrates their learning from the semester into a single set of problems and solutions. This paper presents experiences and observations from transitioning a lab-intensive face-to-face course to a fully online course. The course, entitled “Advanced Geographic Information Systems”, was selected for development as part of a competitive fellowship offered through the Office of Online Learning, University of Georgia, US. Since the course was offered before on-campus, in a traditional face-to-face setting, the course design was modified to be offered online and implemented through the UGA Learning Management System, elcNEW powered by Desire2Learn. The software for the GIS course is ArcGIS 10.0, with student licenses provided by ESRI (Environmental System Research Institute). Recent experiences from other universities offering introductory GIS courses (e.g. Penn State University) have been successful, and indicate that not only are these courses attractive to the online learner, but also, and perhaps surprisingly, that the online learner can benefit from affordances of the environment. This paper is intended to provide a summary of methods that proved to be effective in the design and implementation of the course, along with the student’s perspective, from a course evaluation conducted at the end of the course. Keywords: Geographic Information Systems (GIS), technology, online teaching.

1

INTRODUCTION

Student participation in higher education online courses continues to increase. Recent surveys show that the number of students across the US taking at least one online course increased by over 570,000 in 2013 to a total of 6.7 million [1]. Additionally, the proportion of students taking at least one online course in their academic career now ranges from 32% to 45% [2]. In an effort to centralize and support distance education efforts across their campus, the University of Georgia (UGA) established in 2012 the Office of Online Learning (OOL). One of the first efforts was a competitive, university-wide call. Faculty teaching existing face-to-face, high-impact courses that were suited for online-only delivery were encouraged to apply. The recipients, known as Online Learning Fellows (OLF), were charged with developing and offering a fully online version of their on-campus (OC) course. The course was fully developed prior to the beginning of summer session 2013 [3]. Thirty-six faculty and their courses were selected for the initial cohort. One of the selected courses was on geographic information systems (GIS), offered by the College of Environment and Design. This paper is intended to provide a reflection on the methods and principles applied in the development and design of this course, as well as a summary of student’s experience, as gleaned from an end-of-course survey and other evaluation resources. As there was an accelerated time frame in development there were processes that proved to be effective in the design and implementation of the course, and those that could be improved.

2

BACKGROUND

The College of Environment and Design at UGA offers GIS courses at the introductory and advanced level, in order to teach students from three programs: landscape architecture, environmental planning and design, and historic preservation. With this type of courses, students learn the use of spatial technologies that improve their understanding, analysis, and representation of spatially-related landscape data and information. These courses are also offered in a variety of disciplines (environmental sciences, ecology, forestry, soil and water sciences, business, real state) with geography taking the lead because of the variety of applications and also for being this, in essence, the traditional dominion of geographers. The selected course for online delivery is called Advanced GIS, and it was previously taught oncampus by the same instructor, with a similar content and structure. Therefore, the objective of the Office of Online Learning, by selecting this course, was to transfer the content of this on-campus version into a fully online version. The affordances of technology, particularly the ability of the student to “learn by doing” [4] while engaging with large data-sets of material on their own schedule, in repeated instances with low risk, was one of the reasons GIS is well suited for online delivery [5]. An orientation session for faculty was held on 12/05/12. The courses were slated to begin on 06/05/13, leaving only 6 months development time. Coupled with this compressed timeline was the knowledge that although support for online courses in higher education is very strong, that support faces an uphill battle in many areas. Currently, up to 66% of faculty have indicated a belief that online education results in inferior learning outcomes when compared to face-to-face courses [9]. Therefore, was, and remains, of particular interest to UGA that both the rigour and depth expected of a face-toface course was maintained in these fully online courses. Furthermore, faculty were challenged with mastering a new learning management system (LMS) that was to be launched across the university in the summer, eLearning Commons (eLC), an implementation of Desire to Learn (D2L 9.4.1). The role of the OOL was: • • •

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Assisting faculty to modify and, if needed, develop additional course materials suitable for delivery online Creating or identifying training and development opportunities for faculty in support of tools and techniques (lecture capture, screen-casting, LMS, legal regulations, and others) Support faculty during the transition from face-to-face instruction to online instruction

TEACHING TECHNOLOGY: THE CASE OF TEACHING GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS (GIS) ONLINE

Geographic Information Systems is a computer-based system with a set of tools for solving spatialrelated problems that integrates information to help us manage, analyze, display, understand and find solutions to those problems or challenges. Data about real-world objects is stored in a database and dynamically linked to an onscreen map, which displays graphics representing real-world objects. As the availability of geographically-based datasets grows, as well as awareness about geospatial technologies (from GPS to free applications such as Google Earth) the interest for these technologies for a variety of applications is growing too and therefore the offer of courses by universities (both online and on-campus), and other organizations. Geographic information systems are ideal tools to manage, analyze, and display geospatial data [10]. There are two approaches to teach the functionality of computer software in the areas of computer aided drafting, desktop publishing, and GIS: a) the traditional approach is focused on teaching how to use the software (learners are given step-by-step or prescriptive instructions for laboratory of homework exercises), and b) a less traditional way is focused on helping a learner understand a process or system (expanding the learners capabilities by providing a problem-based exercise that requires them to recall from lectures and demonstrations and/or explore the usage of new software functionality) [11] [12]. An alternative or hybrid approach, that is the one used in designing our course, is combining combination of both approaches. In a GIS course, students are challenged to develop abstract geographic thinking skills to comprehend the spatial and temporal distribution of land resources, their interrelationships with other environmental factors and processes, and the impact of human activities on land resources [13]. Because of the

technological nature of GIS, learning is not limited to understand geospatial terms and basic software functionality (producing maps). Teaching GIS goes beyond showing how to operate the GIS software and solve specific geospatial problems; teaching GIS is about how to integrate scientific and creative and abstract thinking into solving geospatial problems, to comprehend and integrate huge amounts of geospatial data, and facilitate understanding of both large-scale and small-scale landscapes. “Students are encouraged to immerse themselves into a virtual geographic world that consists of 2D and 3D geographic objects.” [13] “Investigations with GIS allow students to identify physical and spatial relationships by constructing multiple representations of data in the form of maps, tables, charts, and layouts. The analytical tools allow students to quantify those relationships using database functions for sorting, database searches, simple calculations, and statistics. They can even develop new data for their own investigative research.” [12] A successful GIS course will allow students to accomplish all of this, by using a combination of lectures (power point or similar), labs in class, and home assignments. During lab hours, students learn how to use the software (ESRI ArcGIS or similar), or to interact with other GIS or graphic software (Google Earth, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Autocad). Evaluation can occur through the use of different evaluation methods, from tests and exams, to graded labs and assignments, midterm and final projects, where student is responsible of gathering manipulating/processing, and analyzing his/her own data, and report methods, and results. About content and other resources, a variety of resources are needed, including: software (proprietary or open source content), data, videos, demonstrations, and others.

3.1

The UGA Experience: Course Design and Implementation

The course was designed between January and May 2013, with launching of the course in June 2013 (summer class).The course design is based on a progression of individual modules that start with refreshing basic concepts in GIS (what is GIS, the database and graphic/mapping arrangement, the GIS components, GIS data formats, vector and raster), and evolves into more complex concepts and functions, supported by labs tasks, combined with theory and exercises, and careful selection of supporting material from the course textbook (Bolstad, Paul. 2012. GIS Fundamentals: A first text on Geographic Information Systems) and other resources. Traditionally, online education has been defined as courses in which at least 80% of course content is delivered online (Allen & Seaman, 2013). However, the definition within the University System of Georgia is higher, at 95% [6]. This requirement was a guiding principle in the design of the course being designed for asynchronous learning, with opportunity for office hours (through email, phone calls, online forum, and skype sessions) and occasional group virtual meetings and chats throughout the semester. During a face-to-face course, students have direct access to the instructor’s input during class and lab hours that are distributed in a 6-hour weekly course delivery. In an online summer course, it is expected that students work 12 hours. Transitioning a course from a face-to-face offering to one solely online is not simply a matter of recording lectures and making them available to students at a distance. Doing so is pedagogically undesirable as the methods of interaction are quite unique unto themselves [7] and doing so often results in both poor student performance and satisfaction [8]. The lab component in this type of courses is extremely important. It requires the solving of traditional and topical GIS problems and is aimed at stimulating higher order problem solving skills [14]. Each of the GIS labs addresses specific GIS topics or techniques (e.g. raster-based operations, modeling, and others) using real-world GIS datasets and addressing spatial-related / environmental issues (e.g. land use suitability, habitat modeling, etc.). In our case, the course interface is designed to offer several functionalities: a calendar; a checklist for each module; course content, with lectures in several formats (PDF slides, videos), and readings; an assignment dropbox; and a section with links to relevant outside information. In addition to this, the instructor’s interface offers a section for grading and other functionalities. The content of each learning module is very graphical and structured in nature [15] to take advantage of the likely learning styles of students interested in GIS, but also trying to provide a self-guided course that students can follow easily without “getting lost” in the variety of media offered by the course.

The fact that this course was offered in summer means that it is more intensive because the course is offered in half the time of a regular semester (8 weeks rather than 16). To better self-guide students in the course, a checklist of activities to perform (reading, watching video(s), complete assignment, post questions in forum, and others) is offered for each module [16]. This checklist was not an assessed item, and served purely as a guide for the students. The typical structure of a module includes: -

Module at a Glance: Brief description and a graphic that conveys module’s content.

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Checklist: A list of activities with embedded links to each of them. This could include readings from book chapters and other resources; a video of instructor lecture and/or videos from textbooks with specific tasks; textbook’s exercises to complete, and labs with instructions, data, and an area to submit the completed lab; and all other activities in this module.

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Lecture content: offered in both PDF slides and recorded video from instructor.

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Discussion Forum: an area for students to post questions, submit comments, share solutions and responses to specific problems, or even have options to submit screenshots of specific problems.

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Lab: a dropbox with instructions, lab GIS data, and other supporting material necessary to complete the lab.

Students need to install the GIS software (Environmental Systems Research Institute's (ESRI) ArcGIS v. 10.0 and related extensions (Spatial Analyst and 3D Analyst) to complete the labs. There are three options offered to follow the course material, and complete lab assignments: a) the course content, b) the checklist (with links to each section of the course content), and c) the dropbox (where students have a centralized location for everything needed to complete the labs (lab instructions, GIS data, demonstration videos, and others, plus submission area and feedback for their assignments). Figure 1 shows a sample of the course content navigation and the dropbox alternatives.

Figure 1 - Sample of a module content navigation (to the left) with options to access lab data, videos, and other material. To the right, a similar option of accessing data, lab description, and videos, with an additional screenshot of expected results. This is an alternative option for students to have in a centralized place everything needed to complete their labs.

Fig. 2 shows the general structure of the course, with three initial modules (shown in blue) that include: a welcome module, an introduction and tutorial of the online system (elcNew), and an introduction to the software, instructions about installation, data management practices, standards for submission, file naming conventions, and other procedures to follow throughout the semester. In GIS courses, data management and standard procedures become very important not only for the course management itself, but also to teach students how to manage GIS projects in a more efficient way.

Welcome Module

Intro - eLC-New Student tutorials and info

Course Intro: software, data management

Module 1. Review of spatial data models and formats Module 2. Raster / Spatial Analysis Module 3. Raster / Spatial Analysis part 2 Module 4. Terrain and Watershed Analysis

Module 5. Modeling

Midterm Project

Module 6. Making Spatial Decisions Module 7. Spatial Interpolation, & Prediction Module 8. Intro to Remote Sensing and Imagery

Final Project

Figure 2 - General Structure of the Course

Module 9. Time and Change

Grading and evaluation involve a low stake grade (less than 10% of their grade for labs and book exercises) for weekly assignments, and more weight for midterm and final term projects that involve the application of concepts and methods learned in their own projects with their own data. Some of the challenges that students experience when doing this are: challenges of selecting a topic and appropriate method for their mid and final term project; challenges with the use of their own data, limitations and problems with the use of the software; and finally, final execution of their project. Overall, students were able to overcome these challenges, and all of them were able to submit satisfactory projects. As the semester progresses the student is challenged with more complex tasks that require not only the understanding of concepts but also the application of these concepts in solving problems in a variety of contexts. In reality, we prepared them (with this combination of labs, book exercises, readings, and others) for a better “transfer” or application of learning into new problems that are different from the ones the student have experienced, also getting him ready for their own midterm and final term projects. [17]

3.2

Course Evaluation and Results

A student evaluation was conducted at the end of the semester. Although a similar course was taught the previous semester (Spring 2012) the student evaluation form from that face-to-face course didn’t include the same questions as the online version. Between the two surveys, the only questions to compare both courses include: a) number of hours per week devoted to the course outside of class, b) assignments and activities were useful?, c) did this course challenged me to think and learn? Beyond these metrics, it is difficult to directly compare both courses using these tools. Instead, we decided to focus on the student evaluation given for the online course, and perform a qualitative assessment, based on their answers. The total number of students that completed evaluation was eight, with 87.5% of these taking an online course for the first time. All students were at the graduate levels from various colleges and departments at the University of Georgia, registering the course as an elective. The first response (Question: The format and structure of the online course were easy to navigate) indicated that 75% of students agreed or strongly agreed with the format. Eighty five percent of students answered the following question (Sufficient instructions were given for me to complete all the assignments) with agreement. To the question about clarity in the standards for evaluation (Standards for evaluation of assignments were made clear) 75% of students agreed or strongly agreed. The timely response (I received feedback on my assignments in a timely manner as outlined in the syllabus) was agreed by 87.5 % of students. A hundred percent of students agreed that instructor was actively engaged in the online course, and 75% recognized that the course provided many experiences for interaction with other students and with the instructor. About the answers from students regarding the opportunities to interact with classmates in the course (students could check all that applied), these were the ones that students used the most: discussion forums (50%), email (21.4%), chats (14.3%), online classroom synchronous tools (google hangout) (7.1%), and others (7.1%). Among the reasons to take this course online (students checking all that apply) were: 75.0% Convenience, 62.5% - Only available in this format, 12.5% Wanted to take from this instructor, 12.5% Working, on internship, or on study abroad, and 12.5% Other. Interesting enough, 75.0% of the students were taking the course in Athens, where the University of Georgia is (either on campus or offcampus), and only 12.5 % reported being outside the state of Georgia. Technical issues related to the implementation of the course were answered in the following way: 12.5% (Internet connection), 25.0% (Internet speed), 37.5% -- Computer issues, and 37.5%, other issues described as software and user interface not intuitive. In the open comment section of the survey students had the opportunity to describe elements of the course that were useful and should be kept in future offerings. Their answers included:

a) the detailed tutorials, including video tutorials (“there should be more of this”) b) the diversity of materials and media available ( one suggestion was to provide a better c)

organization or consistency of names – according to the respective modules, and better organization of deadlines) the course site (at elcNew) was useful to track progress

d) the content table as the best way to follow the lessons, with links to tabs “It linked to all tabs and helped me avoid getting lost with all the different tabs that exist on ELC.” e) fusion of enough theory and labs exercises Limitation expressed by students included:

a) b) c) d)

need in the future for more video tutorials better organization of sections (labeling according to the module number) more and better online meetings alternatives for both on-campus and off-campus final submission for final projects

Overall, students rated the course as very good (75%) and excellent (25%).

4

CONCLUSIONS: LESSONS LEARNED AND FUTURE IMPROVEMENT

It was anticipated that major challenges of transitioning the on-campus to a distance education course in the area of GIS would include: issues related to the specialized software to be installed and managed directly by students; managing large data files and other lab-related issues normally handled on-site in a face-to-face class; maintaining communication; promoting a variety of ways to maintain interaction; compressing a 16-week semester into an 8-week semester; and finally, related to the compressed schedule, how to maintain a balanced student workload throughout the term. From this list, and based on student’s feedback at the end of the course, compressing a 16-week regular course into an 8-week summer course remains the most challenging. Concerns related to software, data (software installation and issues delivering and managing data), and maintaining communication between classmates and instructor were not perceived as critical in student’s course evaluations. An additional challenge, as presented in section 3, is to design a course that maintains the original approach of the on-campus course – a hybrid approach – where students learn both the functionality of the computer software, and also become self-sufficient in developing a process or system that works in their own topic of interest. Hall-Wallace & McAuliffe [12] refer to this as learning with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) rather than about GIS (emphasis added), and they provide support information about its potential for improving students’ skills in problem solving, analysis, and spatial visualization. Grunwald et al [13] expand on this by stating that spatial information technology, per se, does not determine learning outcomes. Rather, learning outcomes are influenced by the choices instructors make about the organization of teaching and learning tools, choices about content, and the motivation of students to go beyond provided course material. In their view, the role of information technology is to expand the available choices. Our experience derives and confirms this view about the role of technology in education for online environments, particularly applicable when teaching technology itself. It was our experience that students recognized the challenge, dedication, and time investment required to navigate the online course structure and organization; which are inherently different from an on-campus course given the combination of resources, methods, and design needed. Also, it is of particular interest, that when proposing their own final project, was the intrinsic motivation of the student, by selecting a topic of significance (their thesis or dissertation, their final project, or a course project), that seemed to drive the success of their final results, and in certain instance, of the course itself. This is further born out in the analogy from Chapter 4 of Bowen’s book “Teaching naked: how moving technology out of your college classroom will improve student learning” [18]. By using real world cases, in combination with techniques that allow for incremental challenges, students learn in a different, more contemporary setting, where they can adjust better, based on their learning style. Bowen [18] states: “If college were designed like a video game, everything in the environment would be designed to promote change (i.e. learning). “ Promoting change and empowering students with new technological tools is a powerful motivator in a course like this. Constantly challenging students, with adequate and timely feedback and promoting peer-to-peer interaction, as another way to obtain feedback or assistance is another powerful venue. Instructors and designers should always strive to improve course design to better facilitate positive learning outcomes. In an online environment this is all the more crucial as the course design and the course structure are instrumental in facilitating learning and challenging students. The appropriate

use, and the diversity, of asynchronous communication tools is a key factor in the success of an online course. Finally, because face-to-face interaction is lacking in the virtual lab environment, when compared to a traditional classroom setting, questions from students must be addressed using asynchronous communication tools and in a timely manner. Overall, we consider that transitioning the on-campus course to the online format, for this particular type of technology, was successful, and with adjustments this could serve as model for similar courses.

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