Teaching Statistics and Operations Research Online

This chapter presents a case study of online teaching in Statistics and Operations Research (OR) at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC). UOC is a purely online university with headquarters in Barcelona, Spain, with students from many countries. As common to most math-related knowledge areas, teaching and learning Statistics and OR present difficult challenges in traditional higher education. These issues are exacerbated in online environments where face-to-face interactions between students and instructors as well as among students themselves are limited or non-existent. Despite these difficulties, as evidenced in the global growth of online course offerings, Web-based instruction offers comparative benefits to traditional face-to-face instruction. While there exists a plethora of literature covering experiences and best practices in traditional face-to-face instruction in mathematics, there is a lack of research describing long-term successful experiences in Statistics and OR online courses. Based on the authors’ experiences during the last decade, this chapter aims to share some insights on how to design and develop successful online courses in these knowledge areas.

Using Activity Theory to Guide E-Learning Initiatives

This case documents how activity theory can be used as a tool to help educators understand the issues behind deploying online learning programs. Faculty members in higher education are accustomed to teaching online, but are new to the development of online academic programs. This case chapter provides a background to the academic setting and a discussion of activity theory. The specific context of an academic department is described, followed by how activity theory was used to represent the overlapping goals of faculty, students, and administrators, and to understand the contextual issues of roles, community of practice, and division of labor to reach the desired goal, which was to implement their academic programs online. Guidelines for using activity theory are provided.

Addressing Online Student Learning Environments and Socialization Through Developmental Research

The chapter looks at the online learners in the course to distinguish whether interactivity and an online community was established. This case study also considers the shift that took place in the learners’ focus from simply participating in an online course to reframing their understanding of the course content and whether this holistic approach reflects both the students’ and instructor’s learning objectives and anticipated outcomes. Design, development and implementation of online learning environments have predominated distance education research over the past fifteen years. Since 2006, dynamic communities of learning have begun to emerge that encompass a more expansive learning environment, addressing the needs of adult learners and their sociocultural environments as well as content materials. This study employs developmental research to examine online learners engaged within a dynamic learning community and provides detailed feedback on the strengths and potential weaknesses of the online course employed in the study.

"Cross Talk"

Asynchronous online discussions can be complex and fruitful, mimicking their face-to-face counterparts in undergraduate college classes. However, some researchers note a discrepancy in substance and interest levels between online and face-to-face discussions. This chapter describes the interactions of one thriving student in an asynchronous online course. It analyzes the student’s interactions with his peers, and uses these interactions to provide ways that online instructors can structure courses to optimize genuine and engaging online discourse. Additionally, it suggests that students and instructors who assume a Connected Stance show a depth of learning within the computer-mediated framework. Finally, it provides a unique format for analyzing online discussion boards.

The Effects of E-learning on African American Males

The chapter examines the experiences of three African American males who were placed in an electronic learning (e-learning) classroom in a rural secondary school. The three case studies provide detailed descriptions of the young men’s backgrounds, educational experiences, and academic achievement results before the implementation of e-learning. Furthermore, the case studies detail their academic achievement results and dispositions during the e-learning process, pitfalls of their e-learning program, and lessons learned from the implementation of the program. It is the authors’ hope that educators and business professionals will utilize the information and lessons learned in this chapter when planning and implementing e-learning classes and trainings in order to enhance e-learning experiences for African American males.

Case Study of the CUForum @ CUHK

In contrast to the formal school setting where learning is often linear, structured and controlled (be it online or face-to-face), for the ‘net generation,’ (Google, MySpace, MSN, YouTube and Yahoo) learning is often incidental and a sense of ‘fun’ is frequently of great importance. Such students’ learning is often non-linear, unstructured and explained well by the tenets of Anderson’s theory of online learning. This research discusses the benefits of fostering non-linearity in an online learning environment. A case study of an online business communication course at a university in Hong Kong is used to illustrate the importance of non-linear online learning by demonstrating how participants in this course adopted learning approaches that are consistent with, and a reflection of, the theory of online learning. Qualitative data from complete sets of online communication (including focus group interviews) collected over a one-semester, tertiary level course conducted at a university in Hong Kong are analyzed. The findings show that Chinese-speaking learners’ online interactions, categorized into three broad areas (cognitive, affective and social), demonstrate that interactivity is a key feature of an online learning environment. Its nature is exposed and discussed, not least the finding that for the participants in this study, learning was incidental and a sense of ‘fun’ was important. The study suggests ways in which online theory can contribute to, as well as help in, understanding this phenomenon and makes recommendations for future research.

Users' Satisfaction with e-Learning

This chapter examines a case study of the user’s satisfaction with e-learning at the University of Botswana. The study drawn on 415 undergraduate students who are users of e-learning from across six faculties and 39 departments of the university. Data was collected through an adapted and validated questionnaire. The result reveals generally that students were satisfied with e-learning system at the University of Botswana. Overall, 87.3% were adequately satisfied, satisfied, and moderately satisfied; while on the other hand, 11.8% were less satisfied and not satisfied. Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, system quality, content quality teaching and learning effectiveness dimensions were indicated to have the capacity to determine users’ satisfaction with e-learning. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that the entire user satisfaction dimension positively and significantly correlate with and adequately predict and determine satisfaction with e-learning. Challenges indicated facing use of e-learning system are log on problems, loss/forgotten password, network/ server failure, access, and long download time for large adobe and PPT files. Upon these findings recommendations such as increase in the number of access and bandwidth of the system to allow it to work faster than before were suggested.

A Case Study Analysis of the Use of Online vs. Proctored Final Exams in Online Classes

This case study examines the results of an effort by a large regionally accredited institution to assure the integrity of its online final examination process. The question of whether the student outcomes achieved when administering an entirely online final exam are comparable to the outcomes achieved when administering proctored final exams for online (elearning) university classes is the primary focus of this study. The results of an analysis of over 100 online courses and 1800 students indicate that it is possible to establish processes and procedures that allow the results achieved by students on their final exam to be comparable irrespective of whether the final exam is proctored or is a fully online examination.

The e-Learning Puzzle in Turkey

This chapter aims to share Turkey’s ICT integration experiences from a country-wide perspective rather than a school or classroom case. Many experiences in different countries indicate that successful ICT integration requires interlocking components, such as purchasing hardware, in-service training for principals and teachers, curriculum integration, financial resources for maintenance, technical, and pedagogical support, and an adequate amount and quality of digital learning material. Lack of one of the components may cause the failure of the whole integration process. The employment of ICT in education is a complex process comprising intricate components, much like the pieces of a puzzle. Sharing the experiences gained from national initiatives is especially important for developing countries, which should make an effort to learn from the experiences of other countries because loans granted by foreign sources make up a majority of the e-learning investment.

Virtual Structures and Collaborative Processes to Enhance Teaching and Learning Across Dispersed Sites

This case outlines the development of a pre-internet education initiative in New Zealand that linked eight rural schools, each with declining enrollments, to collaborate through audio technology in sharing specialist high school teachers. The collaborative structure that was formed enabled senior high school students in the intranet to access courses not available on-site, thereby expanding their range of curriculum options. Replication of the New Zealand model in rural Atlantic Canada, enhanced by the Internet, enabled senior students in an intranet to access four Advanced Placement (AP) science subjects, each taught from a participating site. Within the New Zealand and Canadian intranets collaborative teaching and learning has developed. The creation of virtual educational structures that support and enhance traditional classes has expanded the capacity of participating rural schools and reduced the significance of their physical locations. The New Zealand and Canadian initiatives highlight the possibilities of inter-school collaboration to sustain education in small rural communities.