Designing Distance Delivery Courses

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Designing Distance Delivery Courses

• Arlyn R. Rubash

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What is the objective?

• What do we want to accomplish with
• Distance delivery?
• Computer aided delivery?
• Internet delivery?
• CD Delivery?
• Interactive delivery?
• Blackboard system?

Whatever we call it
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How do we get there

• If you dont know where you are going, you may
  not get there.

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Potential Objectives

• Save money
• Extend offerings
• Introduce creativity
• Remain competitive
• Reduce effort
• Improve quality

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Experience with change

• Presently experiencing a revolution in education
  delivery
• The industrial revolution is recognized as an
  earlier era of rapid and dramatic changes.
  Elements from the past persisted in that
  revolution until suitable replacements were
  found.

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Significance

• The builders of the world's first iron bridge
  across the Severn Gorge in Shropshire, England
  constructed it in 1779 with the technology
  previously employed for building wooden bridges.
  
• Their choice of iron as a building material
  stemmed from the overabundance of iron in the
  bridge's immediate vicinity.
• Constructing this bridge was a seminal event in
  the industrial revolution.
• It took years before the technological advantages
  of this new material, iron, were appropriately
  integrated into bridge construction.

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Professor Rebholz
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Professor Rebholz with his class at the Severn
Gorge in Shropshire, England
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Close up look at bridge construction
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ATM Machine Locations

• Originally inside banks
• Still some locked inside buildings in Europe
• Today placing them accessible 24 hrs/day
• Problem with robbery

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Current standing with distance delivery

• How far have we progressed in developing modern
  tools appropriately suited for the task?

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Distance delivery assessment

• Many studies attempt to show distance delivery to
  be as good as regular classes.

Russell, Thomas L. The No Significant Difference
Phenomenon 1999
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Need to move beyond being Just as good as.

• Be creative

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Creative possibilities

• Understand logical connections
• Visit unusual locations during course
• Schedule lectures by executives

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Explaining trading at the temple of Mithras
Connection between trading and locations where
people live
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Understanding trading room configuration
Line of site needs
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Need for proximity

• Financial services
• Legal services
• Technical skills

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Getting about in London
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Significant speakers in all areas

• International finance
• World center
• Chemistry
• Vast number of advances near London

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Bradley chemistry students visit Oxford Professor
Peter Atkins officeto Learn physical chemistry
from popular author.
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Historic significance

• Visit locations where things originate

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Visiting worlds oldest structures
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Temples in Malta predate pyramids and Stonehenge
First location on earth where people built
structures.
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Students visit Stubai glacier
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Innsbruck Universitys Professor Göertner
explains Alpine habitat to Bradley students
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American Secretary of State observed vacationing
in Austria
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Opportunity to encounter others

• Dignitary visitors to Peoria can be scheduled
• Sometimes easier to encounter them abroad

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Secret Service Agent pauses to photograph
Madeline Albright with Bradley students and
faculty members
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Notable financial institutions

• Bank of England
• Over 300 years old
• Located on Threadneedle St.

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Visiting The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street
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Creative course structure

• General questions from text loaded into
  Blackboard in Peoria
• Preliminary quizzes taken from the US - online at
  any Internet accessible location
• Lectures, discussion and visits to major
  financial institutions in London
• Reports submitted through digital drop box from
  London Cyber café
• Questions from visits added to Blackboard in
  London
• Final supervised exam taken in London Cyber café

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Fundamentals for a better courseImproving Quality

• Basic factors relevant to education
• What should be done
• What should be avoided

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Considerations for structure

• Audience
• Place bound people
• Time constrained people
• Knowledge constrained people
• Content
• Logical topical sequence
• Uniformity of pace
• Remediation possibilities
• Reading, Lectures, Problems

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More on structure

• Research
• Historically great search effort
• Overwhelming information access
• Sustaining interest
• Encouraging class attendance
• Encouraging class participation
• Reducing withdrawals

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Additional structure considerations

• Rigor
• Insuring exacting achievements
• Difficulty unnecessary
• Assessment
• Reliability consistency with other devices
• Validity measure of understanding produced
• Tests
• Full assortment of capabilities

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More on structure

• Research reports and essays
• Delivered through digital drop box
• Comment with post-it and audio
• Problem solving
• Targeted areas
• Simple answers common
• Multiple similar calculations
• Explain reason for identified errors

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Integrity

• Inappropriate collaboration
• Advance exam copies
• Sharing experience
• Limit available time
• Personalize experience Random questions
• Buried HTML code to prevent printing copying
• Cracking into the system
• Constant worry with computers
• Experience with office break in

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Integrity continued

• Plagiarism
• Detection
• Quality anomaly
• Simple search
• Bibliography
• Previous reports
• File descriptive information
• Buried HTML in text
• Services
• mydropbox.com

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Schedule

• Open
• Fixed deadlines
• Blend
• Keeping people on track
• Accomplished with frequently due tasks

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Outlook

• Need to introduce more creativity
• Need to emphasize fundamentals
• Need to move beyond Just as good as.