March 25, 2006
Majority of Iowa State Enrollments are Delivered by Digital Media in FY06
Iowa State is Iowa’s leader in digital distance education
Iowa State’s use of digital media reflects national trends in delivery of distance education. Fully-online post-secondary education since 2000 has grown at a relatively constant rate of 35% per year (Eduventures*). In a recent Board of Regents study of Iowa’s three state institutions ISU offered more than 2/3rds of the predominantly-digital distance education courses; in 2004-2005 Iowa State had 327 courses compared to 149 courses offered by the other two institutions combined.
In FY04 Iowa State’s Internet delivery of distance education exceeded face-to-face delivery for the first time. Combined with “other” (predominantly CD and DVD delivery), digital media has rapidly overtaken other delivery modes. The combination of accessibility and convenience for students and, in many cases, the reduction of impacts on faculty, continue to motivate these changes.
Iowa State faculty and administrators judge when digital delivery is appropriate and develop criteria to make these decisions.
The Regents institutions’ continuing and distance education units have reported the following factors are considered in selecting delivery mode and technology for distance education:
• Student access. The institution selects the media that will provide students the best access to education content considering geographic proximity and students’ technological resources and skills.
• Pedagogical requirements. The institution determines the best match among the content to be delivered, the teaching and learning experiences, and the devices that will best communicate the content.
• Market requirements. The institution considers the expectations of students for quality, cost, convenience, interaction, and other competitive factors.
• Institutional capacity. The institution considers the availability of the knowledge, technical resources, and skills to the academic unit, the instructor, and the content developer.
• Cost/value. The institution considers the value of more expensive modes of delivery and the budget constraints of the course to use a particular technology.
• Technology characteristics. The institution considers capacity for asynchronous/synchronous delivery, allocation of capital cost, remote site cost, production cost, per-unit delivery, support cost, video quality, audio quality, presentation quality (digital materials), interactivity, reach, convenience, and use limitations.
* Eduventures is a research service that helps universities and other education providers identify new revenue and growth opportunities, improve organizational and operational performance, and integrate leading management practices. Iowa State University is a charter member of Eduventures Continuing and Professional Education Learning Collaborative.
Geoffroy Places Renewed Focus on Distance Education
President Geoffroy has directed Iowa State University’s new Vice Provost for Extension and Outreach, Jack Payne, to “significantly grow the university’s overall continuing and distance education program.”
This charge reflects the Board of Regents’ recent emphasis on distance education. The board adopted a distance education strategic plan in spring 2005 and requested two follow-up reports, one on DE technologies and a cost study. Board members are commited to making Regents institution education more widely available and accessible to place-bound and other non-traditional students.
The Provost’s Distance Education Council at Iowa State is currently implementing strategic initiatives to improve distance education. Key initiatives are
• Develop a shared vision of continuing and distance education (C&DE)
• Develop networks and improve communications among those engaged in C&DE
• Improve marketing and promotion of C&DE, especially Internet-based marketing
• Stimulate the development of C&DE products, especially in areas of high demand and Iowa State expertise
• Develop technological capacity and efficiency for conversion and development of C&DE content to digital delivery
The president’s full charge on continuing and distance education.
Significantly grow the university’s overall continuing and distance education (C&DE) program; establish specific growth targets and a timeline for achieving them. Develop ways to create C&DE offerings in areas with high market demand. Disentangle the C&DE budgets from the rest of extension and set C&DE up as a completely separate business enterprise with the goal of making C&DE completely self supporting, without subsidy from state appropriations or tuition revenues other than those generated by C&DE.
DE Pedagogy and Technology: Microstudio, Breeze and Captivate
Microstudio. In FY04 Engineering Distance Education launched its low-cost, portable lecture capture system, Microstudio. The use of Microstudio has grown rapidly under the efforts of one of its inventors and chief advocate, Joe Monahan, media production specialist. In FY06 Continuing Education and Communication Services (CECS) obtained an ISU Computation Advisory Committee (CAC) grant to make six of the studio units available throughout campus. This spring semester these systems will capture and deliver several hundred lectures and presentations, a number expected to more than double for fall term 2006.
The rapid acceptance of this technology is motivated by two forces:
1) Low impact on faculty. Faculty members arrive at their regularly assigned classroom with a portable drive of digital content for the class – usually PowerPoint slides. The lecture, digital content, and “whiteboard” are captured with the assistance of a student employee, a tablet PC, and a wireless microphone. It requires no additional faculty time for the content to be converted to digital and delivered.
2) Popularity with students. The lectures are converted to a video stream and made available to on-campus students within an hour of delivery. The same lectures can be used for distance education delivery. Students rave about the ability to review lecture content and “make-up” missed sessions.
(photograph by Joe Monahan)
Read on for more on Microstudio and Breeze technologies.
If you are interested in exploring Microstudio use, contact
Engineering: Engineering Distance Education 294-7470 ede@iastate.edu
Agriculture: Brenton Center 294-1862 brentoncontact.iastate.edu brentoncontact@iastate.edu
Other Colleges: David Anderson, CECS 294-1234 dmander@iastate.edu
Breeze and Captivate. Since ISU Extension first purchased the Breeze system in 2004 it has evolved from an Internet conferencing resource to a integrated learning content development and delivery tool capable of creating complex learning objects and organizing them into classes, classes into courses, and courses into curriculums.
Breeze can
• capture content live or “studio” produce content on a desktop
• be interactive, including video and voice of all participants
• record live the presentations and conversations for subsequent replay
• give each participant the ability to present his or her own content and access to others’ applications creating a shared workspace
• be stored on a server for reuse
Captivate is a more sophisticated tool using Breeze features and other Macromedia tools for the creation of content that can be delivered in Breeze. Because Breeze uses Flash Technology it has relatively small file sizes and can be adapted for low-bandwidth users.
Contact Extension IT 294-1725 eit@iastate.edu or Mykola Sarazhynskky 294-8961 msarazh@extension.iastate.edu
“Macrostudio”. As Microstudio’s popularity grows, the campus has sought ways to increase the efficiency of the system and to increase the quality and content-richness of the product. Ten signatories from seven campus units have proposed the launch of an installed system in 10 Iowa State classrooms that would
∙ Automate the scheduling and capture of classroom content
∙ Capture all elements of ISU’s digital classroom
∙ Record a video of the lecturer and improve audio quality
∙ Automate the conversion to digital stream and load that stream onto a server for access
∙ Permit remote management by a technician
CECS, Facilities, and ITS joined with three colleges to submit a proposal to CAC for summer installation of this system and a fall launch. For more information contact David Anderson, CECS 294-1234 dmander@iastate.edu.
ISU Academic Calendar Dates to Note
March 20 -Registration for summer and fall is open-
Are your Fall and Summer off-campus courses submitted?
There is still time, go to:
www.http://www.lifelearner.iastate.edu/courses/courseinit/
April 3, 2006 - Submit your Library Summer Reserve requests
May 5, 2006 - Spring Semester ends
May 6, 2006 - Undergraduate Commencement
May 8, 2006 - Final grades due in the Office of the Registrar
May 12, 2006 - Grade reports available on AccessPlus
May 15, 2006 - Summer Session begins
Upcoming Distance Education Events
April 9-12, 2006 - University Continuing Education Association Annual Conference - Making Waves - Shaping the Future of Higher Education, San Diego, CA
Go to: http://www.ucea.edu/pages/2006confmain.html
April 10-14, 2006 - The 17th International Conference on College Teaching and Learning, Vedra Beach, FL
Go to: http://www.teachlearn.org
April 27-28, 2006 - Iowa Distance Learning Association Conference, Cedar Rapids, IA
Go to: http://www.idla.org/conferen.htm for more information
June 10-12, 2006 - National University Telecommunications Network, Managing and Maintaining Quality in Distance Learning, Minneapolis, MN
Go to: www.nutn.org