Impact of Open Source

The Impact of Open Source                                                                                                               

          In many circles, distance learning is being popularized by the proliferation of Open Courseware (OCW) that is being made readily available online by an increasing number of universities.  In many cases, courses available via this medium do not necessarily lead to university credits, but are available for personal knowledge or training purposes.  But just exactly how are such courses designed?  Do they adhere to the standards for designing online instruction? This entry reviews a free Open Course and evaluates it against standards for designing and building distance learning programs.

Course Reviewed: Psyc 110: Introduction to Psychology

Source: Open Yale Courses

URL: http://oyc.yale.edu/psychology/psyc-110#sessions

Overview of course format

This course was originally taught in a face-to-face setting in two seventy-five minute slots per week.  In that setting, it covered a total of twenty-two lectures and was assessed through two examinations, along with reading and book review assignments.  It is presented on an interface with four sections; two pertaining to course content (Syllabus and Sessions) and the remaining two as accessory sites (Course Survey and book purchasing).

Is the Course Designed and Prepared for a Distance Learning Environment?

As previously mentioned, the original ‘Introduction to Psychology’ course was delivered in a face-to-face classroom.  The online version is simply a collection of multimedia pieces of content and lecture notes that were delivered in class.  Many of the videos are clippings of actual class lectures.  Simonson, Smaldino, Albright & Zvacek (2012) caution against “dumping a face-to-face course onto the web” when creating an online course (p.134). They advocate rather, that the online course should have activities that are geared specifically for the online environment. This is not the case with our Psyc 110 course; it rather seems initially to be a good example of ‘shovelware’ (Simonson et al.). Further, if we assess the course based on the Masie Center’s five abilities that should be present if instruction meets online standards (Simonson et al., 2012), this course would score low on its ability to run with other systems, high on its reusability, low on the capability of the courseware to be able to track user information, high on accessibility and moderately on durability. Reusability and accessibility get high scores simply because of its viral hosting.  Our video resource on ‘Developing an Online Course’ outlines a process that includes moving from Storyboarding to Site Mapping to selecting course assets to the presentation shell to course testing.  This course does not seem to have been subjected to any aspect of this process.  These factors seem to indicate that the course was not prepared for the distance learning environment.

Does the course follow recommendations for online instruction?

Simonson et al. (2012) offer several recommendations for online instruction.  These include the following considerations.

·         Knowing your learners – Because an online course will more than likely attract a wider cross section of learners, it is critical that the online course caters for learners from various backgrounds and with varying learning styles and experiences.  Course content should reflect this consideration;

·         Maximize Communication – Learner interaction (learner with learner and learner with instructor) is critical to success in the online environment.  Due to the absence of face-to-face contact, more care must be taken to ensure that provision for this is made in the online environment.  Also essential is the provision of an avenue for communicating personal concerns and getting feedback from instructors;

·         Relevant content – The average online learner is an adult with work and family commitments.  Such a learner has little tolerance for irrelevant content.  Further, content for these learners is deemed useful when it meets their needs.

·         Appropriate format – Online courses should be organized in units, broken down into modules and then topics, each topic representing a particular learning outcome.

Regarding the first three points, this course does not seem to make particular provision to ensure that these ‘standards’ are attained.  There is no evidence that effort was put into knowing learners’ backgrounds or ensuring that irrelevant content is omitted.  There is no clear avenue for communicating with the instructor or fellow students and the course format is a simple arrangement of lectures, intermixed with guest lectures and two examinations.  If judging against the above list, then this Open Course does not follow the mentioned guidelines for an online course.

Did the course designer implement course activities that maximize active learning for the students?

High usage of visual content and a variety of media is critical to distance learning (Simonson et al., 2012).  The organizers of this course have made content available via video, slideshows, readings and audio clips.  However these media do not enhance delivery but are merely the means of viewing what took place in the face-to-face sessions.  The main course activities in the original setting were textbook readings, class tests, a book review and take-home assignments.  No class activities seem to have been added in the online OCW version.  Little or no emphasis therefore was placed on maximize active learning for students in the online environment.

Conclusion

This particular Open Course did not meet general standards of an online program, nor did it follow the principles for developing such. However, before writing this course off as ill-structured or inappropriate for online learning, it may be useful to investigate the institution’s objectives for moving this face-to-face course online.  My guess is that the aim was not to create an effective online course, but rather to make this course available to persons outside of the traditional classroom.  This is often the case with OCWs.  Rather than viewing this OCW as ‘shovelware’, the nobility of the objective and not the effectiveness of the course’s online status is what are to be appreciated.

 

References:

Laureate Education, Inc. (n.d). The technology of distance education [DVD]. In EDUC 6135

Distance Learning. Baltimore, MD.

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a

distance: Foundations of distance education (5th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.