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Evaluating a Course Management System |
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SCENARIO: Three residential institutions of higher education received outside funding to study the benefits of their Web-based course management technology. One campus used Blackboard, one used WebCT, and one used both. All three had other Web-based technology for supporting instruction. None of the campuses engaged significantly in distance learning, so their technology was used almost exclusively to support classroom based instruction. One institution wanted to use the results of the study to assess its year-old program, whereas the other two were considering selecting new technology in the future.
Evaluating the benefits of course management technology required a framework that could be applied uniformly across all three campuses and that could later be used as part of a technology selection process. The evaluation was required to get at the real benefits of the technology for teaching and learning. In addition, the project itself required management. SOLUTION: Eduworks was engaged to develop, document and apply an evaluative framework. Eduworks was also engaged to manage the project. RESULT: Eduworks developed the required framework. Eduworks then proposed and carried out a study that included collecting data using surveys, focus groups, laboratory observations and data from server logs. Results were analyzed and reported. A series of research bulletins have reported on this study. FOLLOW-UP: The lead institution received further funding to refine the survey instrument used and to make it freely available to other institutions. Eduworks has been engaged to carry this out. |
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