vol. 29 no. 6 campustechnology.com June 2016 Empowering the World of Higher Education IN THIS ISSUE 6 | TAKING COMPETENCY-BASED CREDENTIALS SERIOUSLY IN THE WORKFORCE Companies and online education providers are creating new educational pathways to real jobs.
9 | REDEFINING STUDENT SUCCESS IN A DIGITAL ECOSYSTEM Retention and graduation rates have little to do FAC U LTY INNOVATION with student learning. 17 | DEVELOPING THE BIG PICTURE FOR CLASSROOM AV PROJECTS When designing classroom audiovisual systems, 23 it’s important to clearly define the project’s overall goals and requirements. Here’s how. From interactive 20 | 3 KEYS TO CREATING AN IT TOOLKIT video to digital STRATEGIC PLAN IT leaders share three things to keep in mind when textbooks, these tips formulating an information technology strategy that aligns with the university mission. and tricks will help instructors innovate 23 | FACULTY INNOVATION TOOLKIT with technology in These tips and tricks will help instructors innovate with technology in the classroom. the classroom.
37 | 7 THINGS HIGHER EDUCATION INNOVATORS WANT YOU TO KNOW Experts weigh in on the challenges of student success and the need for innovation in higher ed.
DEPARTMENTS 2 | LOGIN What to See at Campus Technology 2016 3 | CAMPUS & INDUSTRY Digital Learning Resource and More 41 | C-LEVEL VIEW Mixing It Up in the Design Lab 44 | ABOUT US 45 | INDEX LOGI N What to See at Campus Technology 2016 At this year’s Campus Technology Conference in Boston, learn about wearables, gamification, solutions-based IT and the future of technology in higher education.
WE ARE ABOUT two months away from the annual Campus future of higher education. Always an entertaining and enlight- in demographics, technologies and educational models are Technology Conference (Aug. 1–4 in Boston), and there’s a ening speaker, Alexander is also creator and host of the Future fundamentally altering the possibilities of higher ed. lot to look forward to this year. My personal list of highlights: Trends Forum, a weekly video chat with ed tech thinkers that has delved into topics such as credentialing, venture capital in Confessions of a Solutions-Based IT Organization Problem-Solving Through Gamification higher ed, open education resources and more. (Don’t miss Thomas Hoover, associate vice chancellor and chief in Higher Education this issue’s “Redefining Student Success in a Digital Eco- information officer at the University of Tennessee at Chat- Scott Reinke, coordinator for the Ball State Achievements system,” our recap of Alexander’s recent forum chat with Vir- tanooga, is not one to shy way from challenges. His institu- program at Ball State University (which received a 2015 ginia Commonwealth University’s Gardner Campbell.) tion’s IT department has been through multiple reorganiza- Campus Technology Innovators award), is conducting a tions over the last three years, all in an effort to become a Whands-on workshop on the elements of game design — a Wearable Technology Innovations solutions-based operation. Hoover will share his team’s fail- terrific opportunity for anyone interested in gamification as a For years, Emory Craig, director of e-learning and instruc- ures and successes along the way — and the takeaways tool for teaching, guiding and encouraging student success. tional technologies at The College of New Rochelle, and ed that every IT shop can learn from. He will also touch on gamified models outside of the games tech strategist Maya Georgieva have followed the cutting industry, such as loyalty programs, donation drives, crowd- edge of wearable technology in the learning environment. I would be remiss not to mention the CT2016 keynotes — funding, social media and more. Prepare to be amazed as you learn about the latest improve- Georgia Tech’s Richard DeMillo, MOOC pioneer Stephen ments in wearables, including more accurate physical and Downes and digital learning expert Amy Collier — sure to Assessing Emerging Technology mental tracking, wearable jewelry tech and new ways of set an inspiring tone for the whole event. Plus, in a ceremo- and Futures Capacity for Your communicating with technology. ny on Aug. 3, we will recognize this year’s recipients of the Organization Campus Technology Innovators awards: 11 higher educa- Consultant and futurist Bryan Alexander Future Learning in Higher Education tion technology leaders whose innovative work is making a will reveal the tools of his trade, present- Get some insight into Google’s attitude toward technology difference at their institutions. Don’t miss it! ing methods to help identify and assess and education in the 21st century: Jamie Casap, the com- Rhea Kelly, Continue the conversation. Executive Editor the current trends most likely to shape the pany’s chief education evangelist, will explain how changes E-mail me at [email protected].
2 CAMPUS TECHNOLOGY | June 2016 Campus+Industry TECHNOLOGY HAPPENINGS IN HIGHER EDUCATION
DIGITAL LEARNING RESOURCE. learning spaces on campus; links to the between students and teachers.” Read artificial intelligence system has already Northwestern University (IL) has university’s massive open online courses; the full story online. begun “learning” security research re- launched a new Digital Learning website and more. Read the full story online. lated to spam and phishing attacks and to showcase the innovative practices of OUTSOURCED NETWORK documented vulnerabilities compiled over campus faculty and provide information MAKING MOOCS SOCIAL. Students SERVICES. Faced with the need for a the last two decades by the company. for those who want to implement digital may be more likely to stick with massive robust network infrastructure to accom- Students at the institutions will help teach learning. Resources on the site include: open online courses if they use Facebook, modate the variety of connected devices Watson the “language” of cybersecurity information about getting started with on- according to a study from Pennsylvania students bring to campus, as well as by annotating security reports and data line and blended learning; training events State University. Researchers found that the demands of new digital learning and and loading those into the system. Among on specific topics related to digital learn- open course students were more en- administrative applications, Ranger Col- the universities participating are Califor- ing; information about requesting active gaged on Facebook groups and preferred lege (TX) has implemented an advanced nia State Polytechnic University, Po- interacting more on the social digital learning environment using cloud- mona; the University of Waterloo; and media site than through the managed wired and wireless network ser- the University of Maryland, Baltimore course tools. “Social media vices. The rural community college turned County. Read the full story online. may provide another com- to outsourcing to solve the problem, munication channel for the choosing Adtran ProCloud Services for IN-PERSON SUPPORT. Udacity’s students,” said Saijing Zheng, its wireless and local area network servic- Nanodegree and Nanodegree Plus stu- a former doctoral student es, as well as the company’s professional dents can now access in-person study at Penn State and current services for initial site surveys, installation, sessions through Udacity Connect. research scientist at Micro- student and staff help desk, alert monitor- UConnect students in Los Angeles, New soft, who led the study. “Cur- ing and full system management. Read York City and San Francisco will have rent MOOC platforms do not the full story online. access to physical learning centers where include collaborative features they can network, interact and collaborate Northwestern’s Digital Learning website for students to work together SCHOOLING WATSON. Eight North with others. They will meet once a week provides a variety of resources and best or good conversation chan- American universities will be working with with a mentor and receive “face-to-face practices for educational innovation. nels between students and IBM to train Watson on cybersecurity. The guidance with goal setting and hitting key
3 CAMPUS TECHNOLOGY | June 2016 Campus+Industry
milestones,” according to a news a company that authenticates digital release. Read the full story online. credentials through its program True- Cred. The majority of those surveyed DIGITAL CRED. Only a quarter of still rely primarily on “high stakes” hiring professionals in a recent study credentials, including a college or uni- use digital credentials in their recruit- versity degree, a professional certifi- ment or hiring processes. And just cate or license and work history on a over a third (36 percent) have any resume. Read the full story online. knowledge of the topic. The survey was done among 130 HR, recruit- ANALYTICS SUCCESS. A Strayer ment and talent management profes- University pilot testing out the use of sionals by Accreditrust Technologies, an analytics infrastructure to improve PRODUCT ROUNDUP
Dropbox Education The latest version of Turnitin has introduced allows faculty, staff Smart Technolo- Turnitin Feedback and graduate students gies’ Smart kapp Studio, the latest to collaborate on files iQ display board has version of its anti- while IT administrators software built into the plagiarism product control security — all interactive display, so that will emphasize at a reduced price for that users have no feedback, ease of use education institutions. need for an external and accessibility. Read Read the full story computer. Read the the full story online. online. full story online.
4 CAMPUS TECHNOLOGY | June 2016
Untitled-8 1 4/1/16 4:04 PM Campus+Industry
student outcomes has reported posi- future risk experiences,” the research- tive results. The institution is working ers wrote. Read the full story online. with analytics software from Civitas Learning to monitor student behavior Webinars on Demand and engagement; pinpoint struggling Register for the latest Campus students; and target outreach. In one Technology webinars online. 11-week experiment, compared to a Where you need us most. control group, the students most at Today’s Public Sector Data Center: risk experienced a 5 percent increase Enabling Modern Service Delivery in attendance, an 8 percent decrease Through Innovation and Efficiency in course drop rate and a 12 percent Learn how to build a robust data and improvement in course success. compute infrastructure to meet the Read the full story online. demands of technological change. Sponsored by Lenovo RISKY BUSINESS. In order for teenagers to learn how to handle the Optimizing IT on Campus big risks of internet usage, they need Three universities share tips for to face a small amount of online risk, maintaining a positive learning according to a study from Penn State. environment, an efficient back-office Researchers had teens keep a diary platform and streamlined process for on the types of online risks they en- updates and resolving IT issues. countered, and then asked follow-up Sponsored by TeamDynamix questions to gauge their perceptions of the experience. “Resilience theory Why Moodle Matters suggests that lower level risk experi- Explore the history of the LMS ences may actually help inoculate market, the importance of open teens from higher risk situations by source and what Moodle has to offer. teaching them to avoid or cope with Sponsored by eThink Education CampusTechnology.com
5 CAMPUS TECHNOLOGY | June 2016
Untitled-1 1 5/25/16 10:54 AM ONLINE EDUCATION john k. waters
Taking Competency-Based Credentials Seriously in the Workforce Companies like AT&T and Google are expanding their partnerships with online education providers, creating new educational pathways to real jobs.
IT SOUNDS cutting-edge, but the concept of a knew exactly how to build a curricu- competency-based education that results in an institution- lum to generate those competen- agnostic microcredential isn’t new. For well over a century, cies,” he said in an earlier interview. industries have worked with colleges and universities Together the two companies creat- through various types of extension programs to salt the ed the Front-End Web Developer workforce with better-qualified candidates. But in the Age Nanodegree program, Udacity’s
of the Internet, for-profit online education providers such first branded microcredential. shutterstock.com as Udacity and Coursera have tweaked that model by col- (“Nanodegree” is trademarked.) laborating with companies to develop programs tailored to “We worked with Udacity to devel- their specific needs. op curriculum based on tangible hir- AT&T was one of the first companies to work with the ing and training needs,” said John new generation of online education providers to develop Palmer, senior vice president and chief learning officer at will help AT&T and other companies “widen, develop and a credentialing program designed to fill a specific staffing AT&T, in an e-mail. “Our teams collaborated on determining diversify the talent pipeline to address the shortage of cur- gap. In 2014, the telecom company was in the market for what skills we needed now to address the needs of our busi- rent and future employees with technology skills.” “a ton” of entry-level front-end web developers, according ness, but also what skills would be needed five to 10 years Udacity currently offers 16 tech-focused Nanode- to Udacity’s then COO (now CEO) Vish Makhijani. “They from now — not just at AT&T, but at other tech companies.” grees ranging from a basic introduction to program- knew exactly what kind of person they needed, so we Palmer believes that such competency-based programs ming to an advanced program in machine learning engi-
6 CAMPUS TECHNOLOGY | June 2016 ONLINE EDUCATION VSLIVE.COM/REDMOND
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neering. The list of companies and these programs provide an effec- collaborating to develop and main- tive and efficient way to do that.” tain those programs includes Face- About three years ago, Google book, MongoDB, GitHub, Amazon launched its own experimental online and Google, among others. AT&T course designed to teach the HTML5 collaborated with Udacity to devel- markup language to web developers. op three of those programs, but It was a hot topic, Lubbers recalled, Google has been the most frequent and the free course drew 50,000 collaborator to date. The company students within the first two months. MICROSOFT HQ has worked on seven programs, The company continued to experi- AUGUST 8-12, 2016 REDMOND, WA including the enormously popular ment with online courses, but even- Android Developer Nanodegree. tually concluded that it needed “a While the Front-End Web Develop- more holistic narrative” that would er Nanodegree created with AT&T is leave students with the ability to do an example of a program originally tai- an actual job. lored to a specific staffing need, the “We felt we needed a curated, well- VISUAL STUDIO LIVE! is on a Campaign for Code in 2016, DEVELOPMENT TOPICS INCLUDE: and we’re taking a swing through our home state, rallying @ Android developer program was, from lit path through all this great training ➤ ALM / DevOps ➤ Software Practices Microsoft Headquarters in beautiful Redmond, WA. From August the start, more broadly aimed at material we had developed,” Lubbers 8 – 12, developers, software architects, engineers, designers and ➤ Cloud Computing ➤ Visual Studio / PRUHZLOOFRQYHQHIRUÀYHGD\VRIXQELDVHGDQGFXWWLQJHGJH .NET Framework ➤ Database & Analytics expanding an ecosystem, explained said. “About the same time, Udacity education on the Microsoft Platform. Plus, you’ll be at the heart ➤ Web Client of it all: eating lunch with the Blue Badges, rubbing elbows with ➤ 0LFURVRIWOHG Sessions ➤ Web Server Peter Lubbers, senior manager on was developing their Nanodegrees, Microsoft insiders, exploring the campus, all while expanding ➤ ➤ Google’s Developer Relations Team. and we just came together.” your development skills and the ability to create better apps! Mobile Client Windows Client
“My team’s mission is to educate Google unveiled the Android Devel- and inspire developers, globally, oper Nanodegree program at its annu- REGISTER BY around our platform,” Lubbers told al I/O conference in May 2015. “It was JUNE 8 & SAVE $400! Campus Technology. “We want to designed to get people to use the best Scan the QR code to register or for more event details. USE PROMO CODE VSLRED1 reach as many developers as we can, practices — the tips and tricks and
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Untitled-1 1 5/19/16 11:34 AM ONLINE EDUCATION
battle-tested procedures — we need them to know to build of the candidate on that specific day, which may not be a gram meet AT&T educational requirements for certain entry- high-quality apps,” Lubbers said, “but not necessarily so true reflection of their skills and temperament.” level technical positions. Where AT&T has openings for that they can work at Google. Our main goal is to get high- To maintain such a high credibility level, the collaborating those skills, applicants will compete with other candidates quality Android apps into the ecosystem.” companies are putting significant resources into develop- with comparable education for those positions.” About 10 graduates of the one-year-old Android Devel- ing and updating these programs. Google has invested AT&T has also collaborated with Georgia Tech and oper Nanodegree program are currently working at approximately $4 million in the development of three core Udacity to develop the first Master of Science in Com- Google, Lubbers said. Nanodegree programs (Android Developer, Senior Web puter Science delivered completely online through the Evidence that the enterprise at large is embracing these Developer and Tech Entrepreneur). Lubbers said that 1.2 massive open online course (MOOC) format. More than kinds of competency-based programs is mounting. One million students have enrolled in these courses, with new 3,000 students are enrolled as of the Spring 2016 semes- dramatic example is Flipkart, India’s largest online market- students enrolling at a rate of 2,500 daily. The company ter, compared to about 400 at the start of the program in place, which announced in January 2016 that it would has also contributed its expertise to the development of January 2014, Palmer said. This past December, the pro- begin hiring students based on their Nanodegree projects four other Udacity programs. gram produced its first graduating class of 18 students, alone. No resumes. No in-person interviews. According to AT&T’s Palmer, approximately 11,000 stu- including three AT&T employees. “They did a detailed review of what our students were dents, including more than 1,000 AT&T employees, have AT&T has high hopes for the future of competency-based learning in the Android Developer program and got very enrolled in microdegree programs co-developed by the com- education in the hands of this generation of online provid- excited about those skills,” Makhijani said. “And they said, pany. AT&T is currently working with Udacity to provide 1,200 ers, primarily as a complement to — but not a substitute interviewing isn’t really a great way to evaluate people Nanodegree scholarships, he noted, through organizations for — traditional education, Palmer said. anyway, so we might as well just look at the work they did such as Year Up. To date, more than 200 scholarships have “The Nanodegree program and others like it are new edu- and take it from there.” been awarded, he said. cational pathways for learners to further their education and Flipkart has partnered with Udacity to gain access to AT&T has reserved up to 100 internships for graduates get high-quality post-secondary training that prepares them student projects and profiles. of these programs, Palmer said, and the company began for the jobs of the future,” he said. “We’re leveraging tech- “The kind of disruptive work that we do at Flipkart demands hiring for those internships last summer. Several of the nology, relationships and social innovation to help all stu- a world-class talent pool and we are constantly on the look- interns started full-time positions at AT&T this year. dents make their biggest dreams a reality.” out for experts who can solve the problems of Indian con- “Learners earning Nanodegree credentials will be strong- sumers,” said Flipkart CTO Peeyush Ranjan. “The conven- ly considered when there is a potential job match [at AT&T],” John K. Waters is a freelance writer based in Mountain tional hiring process often comes down to the performance Palmer said. “Skills obtained through the Nanodegree pro- View, CA.
8 CAMPUS TECHNOLOGY | June 2016 BACK TO TOC ED TECH TRENDS david raths
Redefining Student Success in a Digital Ecosystem Retention and graduation rates may be good indicators of a college or university’s success, but they have little to do with students’ personal development as connected learners and contributors to the digital commons.
WHAT DOES STUDENT success mean in a drives the definition of what suc- digital ecosystem? The most prevalent measures involve cess is for students, the mea- retention and graduation rates — students pass their sures of success can become classes, move through the curriculum and ideally graduate corrupted, Campbell noted. in four years — but those “institutional outputs” are the There are many ways to ensure lowest-common-denominator definition, according to people are successful in their Gardner Campbell, special assistant to the provost and coursework, he added, including associate professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth grade inflation. “It leads to teach- University. Campbell took part in a recent Future Trends ers who are deathly afraid of giv- shutterstock.com Forum video chat hosted by consultant and futurist Bryan ing anything lower than a ‘B’ or Alexander to share his thoughts about how higher educa- ‘C’ because that gums up the tion might rethink ideas of student success in a digital age. student success works.” While graduation rates are the type of success that reg- “In a digital ecosystem, we are isters on university dashboards, their influence is perni- talking about shared private goods that contribute to a commons or in the largest commons of all, civilization.” cious, said Campbell. “Whenever you are in a system in public good,” Campbell continued. “That is what we need Campbell described his conception of learning in a dig- which institutional outputs and the single individual private to emphasize if we mean to have meaningful civic engage- ital commons as open, participatory and connected learn- goods (the degree you earn) become fatally interwoven, ment in this medium in the years to come. If we don’t, we ing. “It is different from just all the apps on my smart- you get into a very strange situation in which success of are not going to be in good shape as a polis, as a democ- phone,” he said. “It is something we all have a stake in and the individual is defined in terms of institutional outputs,” racy. We won’t have what I think of as truly lasting student should all recognize we have a stake in. We should all be he explained. And when the need for institutional outputs success, which is effective participation in this digital contributors to that digital commons as well as consumers
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of what is open now and what may increasingly be behind The digital ecosystem is rejected by much of higher edu- to see evidence of results. “Inevitably we try to find indica- paywalls in the future,” he said. “It is a digital commons we cation in part because we can’t just mint our own money tors that can be understood very quickly by a group of are all nourished by and must contribute to.” in that medium, he said. “In an open, connected, participa- concerned yet busy people who need to know within 45 tory culture, we have a whole host of voices out there who minutes four times a year how we are doing. That inevitably Institutional vs. Student Success may not give a tinker’s cuss for the comma splice because leads to certain oversimplifications, sometimes engaged When asked if higher education is subsuming the needs of it was an interesting blog post. And they may not be at all in with the best of intentions. But you begin to debase the the students to the good of the institutions, Campbell interested in a very well polished five-paragraph essay currency because the complexity goes down.” responded with an analogy. Americans used to believe that posted as if it is a blog post that would nevertheless get a It used to be that a certain kind of personal formation was if it is good for General Motors, it is good for the country, he good-student certification from a writing teacher.” considered part of the duty of higher education, Campbell said. Similarly, we might think that if the retention and grad- noted. By abandoning that idea of personal formation in favor uation markers in the particular institution are high, that A Problem of Scale of a polytechnical approach — focused on specific kinds of must therefore mean we are doing something right as far as Campbell talked about many of the challenges higher edu- workforce preparation skills or competencies — we end up the students’ own good. “And I hasten to add that that may cation has faced in its attempts to scale up over time. “We with something quantified in ways that will lead to a devaluing be true,” he pointed out. “No doubt, often it is true. But I do have had to scale up massively over the last century and of the experience, he said. “And when that has happened, it think institutions, and not just in higher education, tend to we have no good way within higher education as a closed is not clear to me we can sustain any of the things that most define their success as an institution in terms of the fact that community to scale up,” he said. “The expert guiding the of us who work in higher education continue to treasure,” he they have been sustained as an institution.” learner becomes more detached from that essential rela- stressed. “We are in some respects a little sequestered, a He described a chain of mutual dependencies around this tionship; more of the assessment becomes transactional little abstracted from the daily press of business. We are idea of success: “The problem in higher education becomes that, like the U.S. Mint, we make our own currency. We’re the “The problem in higher education becomes that, like the U.S. Mint, we make ones who assign these grades; we are the ones who define our own currency. We’re the ones who assign these grades; we are the ones what success means; and we are the ones who can double who define what success means.” down on various measures of success that may have very little to do with deep learning, the transfer across domains, and we begin to speak of dashboards. Also, external audi- afforded an opportunity to consider who we are and what and nothing at all to do with the digital ecosystem, which by ences begin to intrude, probably because we have started type of world we would like to build. There is no other sector and large higher education has turned its back on.” to lose some trust.” For example, boards of regents want in society that affords that opportunity. And I fear that higher
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education just can’t find a way to articulate or justify that kind Personal Outcomes have a lot of talk about knowledge and skills, but there is of public good anymore, a public good that arises out of per- Alexander asked what personal formation might mean as a certain disposition toward the world we can encourage sonal experience. I fear where that will take us.” a success measure if we imagine an academia deeply and that would be fairly non-controversial.” But Campbell pointed to the web as an exhilarating, involved with the internet. Asked what should go into a learning portfolio, Camp- thrilling and successful counterexample of scaling that Campbell said he doesn’t like to think in terms of learning bell said that among other things, it is vital that there be brings greater personal involvement and engagement. For outcomes because he sees most of the language as some indication of unscripted connections across the some reason, though, the scaling strategies of the internet reductive, which drives reductive assessments. But the work included in that e-portfolio. Many students may not — innovations from the edges, decentralization, common types of outcomes he is looking for involve personal inter- be disposed to reflection, but giving specific instructions protocols, a certain kind of personally motivated activity that can nevertheless be shaped for good or ill by various “One of the outcomes I would seek is an increase in the capacity for kinds of community — seems to have been of little interest interest, both in breadth and depth. There are certain dispositional to higher education, he noted. “Instead we have sold our birthright for a mess of pottage.” markers we can see, and there are profound opportunities for learners “One of the things that really does keeps me up at night to demonstrate that increase.” is the tragic irony that we cannot see our own highest principles in the digital world at its best,” Campbell said. est, curiosity, awe and confusion. “One of the outcomes I about reflection is going to produce compliance, not true “We helped be the model for that world. I am aware that would seek is an increase in the capacity for interest, both reflection. “I want room for things that are not simply there are many problems with the web — security, for in breadth and depth. There are certain dispositional mark- complying,” he said. “I think it is important to encourage instance. I am aware that there are nasty places in Reddit. ers we can see, and there are profound opportunities for students to make connections — by that I mean hyper- However, without our strong and self-recognizing pres- learners to demonstrate that increase.” links on the web across the courses they are taking. The ence in those areas, we do our students a grave disser- Campbell said he is not talking about an e-portfolio, per interaction is not defined as just the student interacting vice, and we turn our backs on a model of scaling we could se, but a realization of e-portfolio practices. “I say prac- with the teacher, but the students as a community of adopt, adapt and be creative within in a way that would tices instead of e-portfolio because as soon as I say learners indicating their interest and the relevance of what benefit our learners. I think there are certain aspects of e-portfolio, people will say, ‘Are you using Digication or they are learning.” privilege that have gotten in the way of recognizing our this product or that product?’ The key to the kind of per- own strengths, and it makes me very sad.” sonal formation I am talking about is dispositional. We David Raths is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia.
11 CAMPUS TECHNOLOGY | June 2016 BACK TO TOC Untitled-3 1 shutterstock.com
GAME IF YOU’RE ASSESSING IS AMUST-READIS FOR PROPERLY SECURING YOUR NETWORK. PROTOCOLS PRACTICES AND THIS TOP-SHELF OF SECURITY LIST time, ithasbeenrevisedandupdatedbyaconsortiumof this listof20topsecurityrecommendationsin2008.Over created rity Controls.The NationalSecurityAgency(NSA) CriticalSecu- CIS isthe curity profile,agoodplacetostart LOCK DOWN YOUR NETWORK CHANGER andtighteningyourinstitution’s se- unauthorized andunprotectedsystems. tofindandexploitgreatly reducestheability ofattackers ity managementtools commonlyusedforthisstep.This There are ahandfulofassetdiscoveryandvulnerabil mitigation.foundational andranks“veryhigh”forattack and unauthorizeddevicesonyournetworks. This stepis all authorizedyour securityposture.Doafullinventory of toimprovetrol. This isclearlytheNo.1step youcantake security con The with this important prioritizedlist starts 1: InventoryallDevices of thefirstfiveitemsonlist: more information.Hereareshortdescriptions plete listfor rate securityprogramscanbemeasured.”Seethecom curity Controlslist “the defactoyardstick by which corpo currently managesthelistanditscontents. and privateindustry. The CenterforInternetSecurity(CIS) U.S. andinternationalagencies,includingbothgovernment The Cybersecurity Law Institute calls the CIS CriticalSe The CybersecurityLawInstitutecallstheCIS RETHINKING HOW TECHNOLOGYRETHINKING EDUCATION USEDIN IS SPONSORED REPORT | REPORT SPONSORED - - - - - devices at once. College campuses are inundated with new devices at once. Collegecampuses areinundatedwith new the ruleofland.And moststudentstendtocarrymultiple The Bring Your OwnDevice (BYOD) movementhasbecome This isa challenging securitycontrolon collegecampuses. 3: Secure Configurationsfor MobileDevices sion number, andpatch level. applications,includingsoftwaretype,ver well asinstalled track theunderlyingversionof theoperatingsystem;as and laptops.”The softwareshouldalsoers, workstations each oftheoperatingsystemtypesinuse,includingserv should“cover says, Softwareinventorytools,CIS data. along withtoolsthatcancalculateanychanges inthe availabletosecuritypractitioners,Then makethatdata softwareandpatches.first gatherinformationoninstalled Ifnot,thisisagoodtimetodoso.The idea istoinstalled. agement, whitelistingandvulnerabilitymanagementtools Your institutionmayalreadyhavesoftwarechange man 2: InventoryallSoftware 5/19/16 11:43 AM - - - SPONSORED REPORT |
GAMECHANGER RETHINKING HOW TECHNOLOGY IS USED IN EDUCATION
devices at the beginning of each semester. To prevent such regularly running automated vulnerability scanning tools abuses as installing unauthorized software, the CIS recom- against all systems, and quickly moving to fix vulnerabili- mends limiting installations and limiting administrative privi- ties. Software that compares data from vulnerability scans Go to the Source leges to “a very few users who have both the knowledge to outside threat lists can help by generating an alert when The Center for Internet Security’s Critical Security Con- necessary to administer the operating system, and a busi- it uncovers items on the threat list, such as malicious reg- trols provides specific actions you can take to imme- ness need to modify [the underlying configuration.]” istry keys, IP addresses and domain names. diately reduce the risk of security attacks. These con- trols are highly effective because they’re built around 4: Continually Assess and Remediate Vulnerabilities 5: Control Admin Privileges the most common attack patterns, drawn from leading For institutions of higher education, this control entails Two common types of attacks begin with enticing users to threat reports. The list is well-written, and easy to un- open a malicious e-mail, attachment or file or to visit a ma- derstand and implement. licious web site. Then the attackers are often able to crack For the complete list, go to: an administrative password to gain access to a target ma- https://www.sans.org/critical-security-controls/ chine. To guard against this, CIS recommends, minimizing administrative privileges. Focus auditing on administrative Find more information on the history of the controls at: privileged functions, the report further recommends, “and http://www.sans.org/critical-security-controls/history
monitor for anomalous behavior.” For more information and analysis on each control, go to: http://www.sans.org/critical-security-controls/guidelines To help implement and integrate the 20 security controls on the CIS list, consider a single integrated platform for overall security that can ingest, organize and analyze the activities of your IT security team. When all the data in data from silos across campus. Set up the software to your organization is indexed and available, security teams verify incoming data from various programs, execute ad- can instantly compare and analyze disparate data sources,
shutterstock.com ditional security requirements as needed, and support the making it easier to protect your organization.
Untitled-3 2 5/19/16 11:44 AM SPONSORED REPORT |
GAMECHANGER RETHINKING HOW TECHNOLOGY IS USED IN EDUCATION
LEVERAGE MACHINE DATA FOR SECURITY
BECAUSE OF ITS OPEN nature, campus networks and infra- disparate sources, including the financial system, the student dents across 14 colleges. To help reach into the many data silos structure are at a high risk for attack. Recent statistics show information and registration systems, the LMS, campus net- within its datacenter, the institution is using software that helps the potential for abuse is growing. Higher education is no works and web servers, remote sensors, mobile and online analyze complex events from many software systems across its longer immune to serious attacks. A security incident strains learning applications, legacy applications, application serv- campuses. In the process, it is not only keeping university data network resources, consumes large amounts of the IT staff ers and structured databases. Centralizing all this data into a safe, but also improving network performance. time, and can be embarrassing and costly to your institution. single console will provide unparalleled insight into the entire At a medical college in upstate New York, using a soft- Security experts counsel that good security doesn’t hap- infrastructure and help expose any potential problems. ware platform to index and analyze different data types has pen in one place and through one tool. A secure network reduced the university’s incident investigation to minutes in- employs layers of protection across the system, and uses dif- Monitor the Machine stead of hours. Proactive searches of incoming data head off ferent approaches to block attackers where possible, detect This includes collecting and monitoring “machine data.” This any issues on a routine basis. This also reduces downtime. intrusions quickly, and encrypt data to prevent loss if attack- term refers to the large volumes of data generated automatical- The security solution has had a direct impact on the bottom ers do gain entry. ly across campus via sources such as log files, web site moni- line, making incident response an order of magnitude faster Given that, an essential component of your security strategy toring tools, mobile devices, and embedded sensors located and more effective. is an overall platform to help implement and organize security on campus. Because of its sheer volume, it can be a challenge Using machine data and a software solution that can read policies throughout the system. Your security teams need the to monitor machine data. However, it is immensely valuable in and interpret that data, along with the metrics, reports and ability to index, search and analyze data from across campus. revealing security and compliance breeches because you can dashboards to present the findings, your IT department can By combining IT data with data from other departments, col- continually scan for anomalies across the entire institution. harness that data to ensure security and compliance, detect leges, and “silos,” you can gain deeper insights into software For example, in order to break down traditional data silos within and manage network abuse, and enhance campus services. and hardware distribution, events, policies and performance. its data center, a large university in Ohio is correlating data from Correlating machine data across a wide variety of sources You can also significantly improve your security posture. multiple systems. The university’s network infrastructure gener- can help detect patterns of abusive activity as they occur, That sort of sophisticated platform must collect data from ates huge amounts of machine data from more than 55,000 stu- instead of after the fact.
Untitled-3 3 5/19/16 11:44 AM SPONSORED REPORT |
GAMECHANGER RETHINKING HOW TECHNOLOGY IS USED IN EDUCATION
RAISE YOUR SECURITY PROFILE VISIBILITY AND REAL-TIME INSIGHTS ARE KEYS TO ENSURING A ROBUST SECURITY POSTURE.
TODAY’S HIGHER EDUCATION landscape is changing. Uni- standardization in university IT departments. Some institu- is for the security group, or any other network management versities and colleges remain focused on enrollment and tions have a centralized IT department, while others have or operations center. Real-time analysis of this data will not retention, but face increased competition and tightening individual IT groups for each department or school. These only improve security, it can also give schools insights into budgets. Many universities have essentially become small departmental IT silos often are more difficult to manage. The student behavior, so they can provide better services to cities that aim to provide their students with a fully con- constant flow of new users and unregulated devices makes them moving forward. nected and secure experience. As each semester begins, securing campus networks increasingly thousands of students converge on campus carrying mul- difficult. Universities need to give stu- tiple devices ranging from laptops to tablets to mobile dents easy access to the network, create phones. With this reality, ensuring the security of campus a positive user experience, and ensure networks is one of the critical challenges faced by higher their campus environment is secure. education institutions. While commercial entities can limit access to their net- What Campus Networks works and control how those networks are used, colleges Need Today and universities don’t have that luxury. Schools must adhere Campuses need a comprehensive solu- to the needs of their students, making it much more difficult tion that provides visibility into their com- shutterstock.com to educate and manage users, set and enforce universal plex environment to maintain network se- policies, and keep diverse networks secure. curity. Every user, device and activities on Despite growing awareness on college campuses about the network generate data. This machine security issues, huge challenges remain including a lack of data offers tremendous value, whether it
Untitled-3 4 5/19/16 11:44 AM SPONSORED REPORT |
GAMECHANGER RETHINKING HOW TECHNOLOGY IS USED IN EDUCATION
Splunk software offers higher education a comprehen- centralizes data collection and aggrega- sive platform that can deliver powerful insights by com- tion without the overhead of traditional bining and analyzing university data from every imaginable data stores. Providing university security source – registration software, financial systems, student and IT leaders with this “single pane-of- information and learning management systems, web ser- glass” perspective enables usage pat- vices, mobile apps, remote sensors and network activ- terns, potential vulnerabilities, malicious ity. Rather than dealing with silos of information, Splunk threats, and general trends to be detect- ed in real time so university leaders can shutterstock.com make informed decisions. Splunk offers the capabilities univer- sities need to break down what’s hap- pening across their “small city” environ- ments to better protect and serve students. Collecting protecting campus systems and networks, thereby creat- machine data and correlating it across a wide variety of ing an enhanced environment for recruiting and retaining sources is critical to reliable network security. Intelligent today’s fully connected student. analytics can shed light on who is accessing campus net- works, what and how they are accessing, as well as help institutions identify unauthorized or ‘hidden’ devices. Imagine an institution-wide system that can ensure se- curity and compliance throughout the campus, detect For more information and to download network abuse instantly, and reveal ways to enhance the Splunk Enterprise for free, visit institution’s IT services to better serve students. Universi- explore.splunk.com/highered
shutterstock.com ties can achieve this by better managing, analyzing and
Untitled-3 5 5/19/16 11:44 AM AV SMARTS mike tomei
Developing the Big Picture for Classroom AV Projects When designing classroom audiovisual systems, it’s important to clearly define the project’s overall goals, requirements and direction. Here’s how.
THIS IS THE second article in a monthly series When a college or university focusing on the design and construction process surround- department (the client) decides it ing audiovisual systems in higher education classrooms. In would like to initiate a construction my first article, I outlined the various stakeholders that can project, its first step is usually be involved in classroom AV installation projects. I also contacting the facilities planning described the differences between design-bid-build and department. A project manager design-build projects. Now we’re ready to move on to the from this department is typically various phases of construction projects and how they relate assigned to the project, and to AV design and support. As we examine each phase, I’ll begins guiding the client through shutterstock.com describe the major milestones and deliverables that make the process. He or she will meet up each phase. (To keep up with the AV Smarts series, with the client to establish a gen- subscribe to CT’s 21st Century Campus newsletter.) eral idea of the client’s wants, needs, goals, timeline and budget. Administrative Phase Sometimes this information is compiled to create a program assemble their design team subcontractors to be a part of It’s much more exciting to jump right to the schematic report during this phase, but I’m going to focus on the pro- their bid proposal; these typically comprise engineering firms design phase, but I feel like it’s important to discuss the gram report later in the schematic design phase. that focus on electrical, mechanical (HVAC) and plumbing, process at the very beginning of a construction project: After the inevitable red tape has cleared and the project is as well as a team of consultants, including an independent the administrative phase. This phase can take many differ- approved, the project manager begins assembling the design audiovisual design consultant. Including an AV consultant on ent forms, depending on the complexity of the project, so team. The project manager sends out a request for proposals the design team at this stage is often overlooked, but ideally I’ll present a big-picture view. that architectural firms bid on. Those architectural firms then that individual is a part of the project from this point on.4
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Before a contract is awarded to an architect, the project sequent design and construction administration phases. Tak- before the AV system design folks get involved in the proj- manager should engage the school’s AV support depart- ing the time to properly execute the schematic design phase ect, but that’s no excuse to rush through (or eliminate) the ment to evaluate the AV consultant’s qualifications on each individual architect’s proposal. Unfortunately, it’s very rare Quite often, the client and architect get near the end of their schematic design that anyone within the institution’s audiovisual support phase, and even into their design development phase, before realizing that department is involved in this stage of the project. It would they’ve neglected the audiovisual component of the project. be great if the AV design folks were working on the project from day 1, but it usually doesn’t happen until later (and is the key to setting the stage for a successful project. AV schematic design phase. The architects will be anxious sometimes way too late in the project). From the AV standpoint, hopefully the institution’s AV sup- to quickly integrate the AV system infrastructure require- After the architectural contract has been awarded, the port department is engaged in the schematic design phase, ments into their construction documents (CAD drawings project moves on to the schematic design phase. and hopefully an independent AV design consultant is part and specifications) so they can put them out to bid to gen- of the design team right at the start of the project. As many eral contractors. As someone involved in the AV system Schematic Design Phase of us have experienced, unfortunately this isn’t usually the design, you need to stress the fact that nothing gets spec- Now that the design team has been assembled, the sche- case. Quite often, the client and architect get near the end ified until the AV schematic design phase takes its course. matic design phase can begin. The purpose of this phase is of their schematic design phase, and even into their design The AV schematic design phase should always kick off with to clearly define the project’s goals, requirements and direc- development phase, before realizing that they’ve neglected a review of all project documentation, followed by a complete tion. A big-picture outline of the project needs to be devel- the audiovisual component of the project. Speaking from a needs analysis process. The AV design consultant reviews oped before starting to focus on the nitty-gritty details. Needs consultant’s standpoint, I’m very glad to be part of the proj- all documents (drawings, the architectural program report, analysis meetings with the client and end users begin to ect from the architectural proposal stage, but very often I’m etc.) that have already been prepared by the client or the uncover the desired goals for the project. Typically, an archi- hired by the architect or directly by the client well after the architect/engineers. The AV consultant will then schedule tectural program report is written at this point, which defines project is up and running. meetings with the project leaders, the design team, clients the needs of the client, offers a preliminary opinion of prob- If the audiovisual system design begins after the client and and end users to discuss their AV-related needs and goals. able cost estimate, and provides a narrative description of the architects are well into their design process, it’s important The project’s AV consultant should include the campus’s AV spaces and infrastructure requirements, as well as basic for the AV design process to take a step back and start with and IT support staffs in this needs analysis process, even facility plan CAD drawings and renderings. Once approved a thorough schematic design phase. The architects and though those individuals may not yet have a direct interest in by the client, these documents act as the foundation for sub- engineers may be up to their infrastructure design stage the AV design for the project. The AV consultant then begins
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a review process to study existing AV design documentation, to their scope, but without a clearly written program report guess estimates determined by the AV consultant using past AV systems, standards and facilities to get a better under- to refer to — and a properly defined change process — projects and industry experience. standing of the direction of AV design and support on cam- you’re setting yourself up for a scope creep mess. This document is used for project budgeting purposes, pus. This is a commonly overlooked part of the design pro- Typical components of the AV program report are: a proj- and I’m guessing that most clients will admit they immedi- cess, resulting in non-standard equipment being specified ect summary, list of project stakeholders, summary of the ately flip to the OPC when they receive the program report. and installed. If the construction project is taking place in client’s AV needs, descriptions of the AV-equipped spac- As the project makes its way through the schematic and existing facilities, the AV consultant should perform a site es, narrative descriptions of the AV system’s capabilities design development phases, this OPC will be revised survey to better understand the spaces involved. and equipment, and architectural/infrastructure consider- numerous times. When the project is finally up to the bid- After all of this information is gathered, the AV consultant ations. The program report shouldn’t dive too deep into ding phase, the OPC will be used as a benchmark to can then write the AV program report. Unfortunately, this specific equipment makes, models, cables, connectors, review and compare AV integrator proposals. is another often-overlooked item, since many AV designers want to jump right into developing the small details of the Projects will inevitably experience changes to their scope, but without design. Without a program report, the AV system design a clearly written AV program report to refer to — and a properly defined process isn’t starting with a clearly defined and agreed change process — you’re setting yourself up for a scope creep mess. upon foundation. As important as it is for the program report to define the overall direction that the AV system etc. It should rather take a big-picture approach to defin- After the program report and opinion of probable cost design will take, it also serves as a key cross-check to ing the project’s AV systems. An exception to this will be documents are approved by the client, the AV program make sure all of the client’s AV needs have been heard, if there are clearly defined equipment standards on cam- report should be distributed to all project stakeholders, no documented and will be addressed. pus that need to be incorporated into the AV design. matter how small their involvement may be with the AV sys- After the program report is approved by the client, it can Attached to the program report is an opinion of probable tem design and installation. The project now leaves the be used later in the project to control scope creep — the cost (OPC) document created by the AV consultant. This schematic design phase and the design development phase uncontrolled expansion of a project’s scope as the project is a preliminary AV system cost estimate that includes begins, which I’ll discuss in part 3 of this series. progresses. When scope creep is left unchecked, project equipment/material costs as well as AV integrator labor costs. stakeholders may start adding to the AV system’s scope The cost for AV system-related infrastructure may also be Mike Tomei is an AV design and management consultant until the project’s overall size and direction become bloat- included. These equipment and labor costs aren’t sourced based out of Central New York, and the owner of Tomei ed and blurred. Projects will inevitably experience changes from an AV integrator at this point in the project. They’re best- AV Consulting.
19 CAMPUS TECHNOLOGY | June 2016 BACK TO TOC IT MANAGEMENT frank dimaria
3 Keys to Creating an IT Strategic Plan An information technology strategic plan provides tech workers with guidance and ensures that all personnel are working in alignment with the university mission. Here are three things to keep in mind when formulating an IT strategy.
WOE IS THE IT shop operating without a strategic the institution’s strategic plan and then plan. Staffers may be tasked with supporting the overall you develop your plan and items spe- university mission, but without a specific strategy they are cifically geared to supporting that or working with little or no guidance. On these campuses being in alignment with that.” unofficial strategic plans often hatch organically— or per- Darcy Turner, project director with the haps haphazardly — as tech workers do what comes nat- Office of the CIO at the University of Mich- urally and makes sense to them, said Christopher Eagle, igan, used the school’s mission as a jump- IT strategist and enterprise architect at the University of ing off point when she worked as a member
Michigan. A formal IT strategic plan helps ensure all per- of the IT strategy and planning team to cre- shutterstock.com sonnel are moving in the same direction. ate Michigan’s first IT strategy in 2012. The Formulating an IT strategic plan all starts with identify- team identified, understood and clarified ing an institution’s goals and objectives, aligning IT with the mission, then determined how technol- that mission and providing all university personnel with ogy could enable it. “We see the mission of the tools necessary to fulfill it. In other words, “Looking the university as separate. IT doesn’t drive the business or gic plan is as critical as the document the process at what the institution wants to accomplish and then the mission of the university. We’re here to enable it.” yields. “The strategic plan is not about what you write, identifying the ways in which your technology services, but about the process used to create it,” he asserted. operations and or solutions align with that,” said Mario 1) The Process Is the Product When charged with creating a strategic plan, one must: Berry, associate vice chancellor for enterprise applica- Mark Hoit, vice chancellor and CIO at North Carolina consider the real business of education; solicit input tions, Lone Star College System (TX). “You begin with State University, said the process of creating a strate- from and collaborate with stakeholders; and secure
20 CAMPUS TECHNOLOGY | June 2016 IT MANAGEMENT
CT News Update Covers new technology tools and programs, policy updates, science and engineering news, technology buy-in from those who perform the necessary to ensure buy-in. trends, social issues, funding/ grants and research. functions. Once this is accom- When Michigan’s IT strategy team plished, IT must convince stakehold- created its most recent plan, which IT Trends ers that it has the tools and knowl- was released in April, its success Packed with the latest information edge to improve their processes. “It grew out of the way in which it orga- about networking, databases, hardware, developer tools, data should not be just a bunch of IT nized IT governance, said Cathy Cur- security, wireless, virtualization and people creating a plan. It’s the peo- ley, executive director for strategy and cloud computing.
When the Michigan IT strategy and planning team Get daily news 21st Century Campus Brings readers the latest developed its first IT strategy, it quickly realized that from Campus developments, techniques, tips, RTQLGEVRTQƂNGUCPFGZCORNGUQH the conversations it was having with the stakeholders Technology best practices in AV, interactive were almost more important than the final deliverable. and collaborative classroom in your inbox technologies. ple who need to get the work done planning in the Office of the CIO. “We – subscribe C-Level View and the IT people working together have senior faculty leaders who rep- Offers information sharing, figuring out how to make that resent the mission across the univer- interviews, opinion, news and to one of our career moves for top-level campus enabled,” said Hoit. sity. We have someone who repre- GZGEWVKXGU Darcy agrees. When the Michigan IT sents teaching and learning across all newsletters! strategy and planning team developed the schools and colleges. It’s not a Strategic Directions in Higher Ed its first IT strategy, it quickly realized job, but it’s a role they fill,” said Cur- News, trends and analysis on that the conversations it was having ley. This approach helped the team what’s happening in the business of higher education. with the stakeholders were almost more understand teaching and learning’s
important than the final deliverable. The strategic trajectory. Then it partnered Campus Mobile Computing act of creating the plan allowed the with these domain stewards and dis- Keeps campus IT professionals team to cultivate those partnerships cussed with them technology’s role in in the loop of the fast-changing CampusTechnology.com/newsletters industry of mobile tech. 21 CAMPUS TECHNOLOGY | June 2016
Untitled-8 1 1/13/16 2:53 PM IT MANAGEMENT
enabling and supporting the department’s strategy. what became the final document. 3) Brevity Rules To ensure all stakeholders on the NC State campus had But conversations with stakeholders and crowdsourcing Three or four years ago, IT departments typically cre- the opportunity to voice their opinion about the contents are not enough. It’s important to get the strategy down on ated tactical strategic plans complete with procedures, of the university’s IT strategic plan, Hoit created a steering paper so those involved can execute on the plan, said appendices and indexes. Today, IT strategic plans may team, which managed the creation of the plan but did not Turner. The physical document becomes a valuable artifact contain nothing more than a summarization of the core have a hand in creating it. The team solicited input from when the team shares it with the University of Michigan values and strategies that align with organizational val- individuals across the entire campus. The 500-plus indi- community. ues. At one point Berry’s strategic plan at Lone Star was viduals in IT, administration and those with business con- To make that final document valid, it’s crucial that key about 30 pages. Now it’s two pages of the most crucial trol all had a voice. players buy into the goals and strategy and know their elements. The team gathered information using a variety of meth- roles. At NC State Hoit created an implementation team, The IT strategic plan that Michigan created in 2012 was ods like focus groups, surveys and a gallery walk. The narrowed his plan down to six important implementations 44 pages long. When the team set out to create its latest steering team organized the information into themes and and appointed a leader for each. “[Three of the six] were plan, input from high-level governance groups suggested tied them to university goals. An outside consultant then linked the themes to the goals and created a table so Today, IT strategic plans may contain nothing more than a summarization of everyone could see that they had not been ignored. the core values and strategies that align with organizational values.
2) Engage the Crowd led by non-IT people. By the time you get into some of that the team present just a handful of goals. Sharpening In The Wisdom of Crowds, business journalist James Sur- these implementations, it’s more about process change the focus allowed the team to be bolder and the plan to owiecki posited the idea that large groups of people are and culture than the actual technology,” said Hoit. be more actionable and visionary. “We wanted it to be smarter than an elite few. The University of Michigan’s IT IT at the University of Michigan is decentralized, with more easily communicated, easily understandable, easy to strategy and planning team applied this theory to develop than 70 IT departments across the campus. Eagle didn’t remember … five pages or less,” said Turner. its IT strategic plan. “(We had) literally hundreds of meet- view the release of Michigan’s plan as an implementation so Hoit’s plan at NC State is just eight pages with a two- ings, with IT folks, non-IT folks, faculty, staff, teachers and much as a way to reduce the randomness that often occurs page summary. “Nobody’s going to read anything longer students trying to get that input,” said Eagle. Then the in the absence of a plan. “If you get everybody thinking the than that,” he said. team created a Google Doc and invited anyone to share same way and we can provide some guidance, then [people ideas in the document. Ultimately 200 individuals typed in will think more strategically],” said Eagle. Frank DiMaria is a writer based in Fort Mill, SC.
22 CAMPUS TECHNOLOGY | June 2016 BACK TO TOC From interactive video to digital textbooks, these tips and tricks will help instructors innovate with technology in the classroom. FACULTY INNOVATION TOOLKIT BY LEILA MEYER AND DIAN SCHAFFHAUSER
15 Sites for Free Digital Textbooks p. 24 12 Tips for Gamifying a Course p. 27 10 Tools for More Interactive Videos p. 30 4 Ways to Use Social Media for Learning p. 33
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surveyed the top sources for free digital textbooks, the OER Global Text Project 15 SITES FOR world seemed a quieter, less tweeted place. What hasn’t Started when a group of educators created a Wikibook, this changed, though, is that faculty and students still want to English and Spanish language collection includes some FREE DIGITAL know where to go to find the goods. unique titles under-represented by other sources, such as The following list offers 15 sources of quality digital CIO Handbook, Data Mining for the Masses, Game Pro- TEXTBOOKS content to use in your courses without worrying about the gramming and Practical Plastic Surgery for Nonsurgeons. We’ve collected an up-to-date roster of resources price tag. that offer quality learning content without the high Lumen Learning price tag of traditional texts. BCcampus OpenEd Overseen by influential OER activist David Wiley,Lumen’s By Dian Schaffhauser In 2012, the province of British Columbia announced the Candela Learning catalog offers links to its own content as “BC Open Textbook Project” and designated BCcampus well as the content developed by institutions it has worked “Open” has gone mainstream. The world now celebrates to create a collection of open textbooks that could be used with on OER initiatives, such as Tidewater Community Col- Open Education Week. The U.S. Department of Educa- in the top 40 highest-enrollment subject areas. While many lege (VA) and Washington State Community and Techni- tion announced an “Open Education” or #GoOpen initia- of the books and their ancillary resources have been ad- cal Colleges. The content isn’t technically downloaded as tive and ran its first “@GoOpen Exchange” to get schools opted from other sites, the initiative has also produced its and educators committed to the use of open educational own OER textbooks. In many of the categories, BC faculty resources (OER). Students at Ithaca College (NY), The have reviewed the resources to give the local perspective. College of William & Mary (VA) and Santa Barbara City College (CA) are all pushing their schools to adopt OER. College Open Textbooks Multiple colleges and universities are trying out no/low-cost This collaborative effort among education, nonprofit and OER degree programs. Amazon looks to be getting into for-profit organizations affiliated with 200 colleges has set the OER business with “Inspire.” And a bipartisan group of out to build OER awareness within two-year colleges. The Congressional staffers recently held a briefing to learn from site has peer-reviewed more than 100 OER textbooks and experts why they should care about OER. provides links for hundreds more. COT isn’t a repository, The demand for free learning content may be loud and but its links to free textbooks by subject run from anthropol- clear now, but back in 2013 when Campus Technology first ogy to statistics. The Lumen Learning catalog
24 CAMPUS TECHNOLOGY | June 2016 FACULTY INNOVATION TOOLKIT
a file; it’s made available in HTML format, which can be ac- ing course materials in areas where OER is sparse: civil, Open SUNY Textbooks cessed through a school’s learning management system. electrical, environmental and mechanical engineering; ma- The latest publication in this pilot effort by the State Uni- terial and nuclear sciences; and aeronautics and astronau- versity of New York libraries is Writing in College: From MERLOT II tics, among other subjects. Competence to Excellence, which joins 14 other titles writ- The granddaddy of OER, managed through the California ten by faculty and published by the libraries. State University System, is looking mighty sprightly. The OER Commons current catalog offers nearly 29,000 science and technol- The nonprofitInstitute for the Study of Knowledge Man- Open Textbook Library ogy resources, 4,600 resources for math and statistics, agement in Education, based in Monterey, CA, launched A consortium of higher ed institutions and systems has net- 8,300 results for humanities and 9,400 for education. That the OER Commons in 2007 to share content “from worked to support the use of OER within their programs. doesn’t count the arts, social sciences or workforce devel- around the world.” The 64,000-item collection covers Supported by the University of Minnesota Center for opment. It should be noted that these aren’t all textbooks. curricula from preschool through adult education. Us- Open Education within the College of Education and Hu- You’ll also find plenty of case studies, assessment tools, ers can filter based on education level, subject, material man Development, the library of textbooks pulls titles from online course modules, journal articles, quizzes, simula- type, conditions of use, content source and other criteria. multiple sources, including many others in this list. tions and tutorials. Look for the “MERLOT Classics” icon Within the college level, resources tagged as “textbook” for particularly exemplary models. top out at just under 600 results, many culled from the OpenStax College The California Open Online Library for Education other collections referenced here. When we first looked at this organization, which launched from (COOL4Ed) is a MERLOT service to help colleges and Rice University (TX), it had 13 titles. That has grown to 22, universities in the California State University, California Open Culture covering topics from anatomy to sociology. Its stated goal: to Community Colleges and University of California sys- Started by an associate dean at Stanford’s (CA) continuing provide free textbooks to 10 million students. In addition, its tems identify and evaluate open textbooks for general ed- studies program, this site brings together a curated “meta col- parent organization OpenStax CNX is an open library of learn- ucation courses. lection” of free textbooks taken from many of the other sites in- ing objects that are both organized into books and available as cluded in this article as well as other pockets of the web where “pages” for compiling and mixing into custom curricula. MIT OpenCourseWare a faculty member has put digital textbooks together for his or While this university site is known for its open courses, it her courses and made them openly available. Open Culture Project Gutenberg also includes an online textbook page with links to the text- also provides collections of free online courses, movies, audio This effort to digitize cultural works has been plugging away book files used in the courses. It’s especially useful for find- books and other forms of education content. at its mission since 1971, when it undertook the creation of
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SMALL PRESSES students and instructors to develop content such as labs, Some sites provide textbooks by the handful, some on a homework and worksheets, which is then shared with every- single subject and others just single titles. We’d be re- body in an open manner as a textbook replacement or “wiki- miss not to mention at least some of the smaller players: text.” Specific instructors may maintain their own mashups Bay College Library (MI) currently has three faculty- of the wiki content for use in their courses with links through written OER textbooks: one on career exploration and the site. Currently, wikis cover chemistry, biology, geology, two on U.S. history. statistics, physics, math and solar. The work is directed by Green Tea Press is a collection of free textbooks on pro- chemistry prof Delmar Larsen. gramming by Allen Downey. This professor of computer science at Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts proclaims in a manifesto on his site, “Students: You should go on strike. If your textbook costs more than $50, don’t buy it. If it has more than 500 pages, don’t read it. There’s OpenStax CNX just no excuse for bad books.” an electronic version of the Declaration of Independence, The first edition of Introductory Financial Accounting by item No. 1 in its collection. Most of the contents are public accounting professor Anthony Cataldo II at West Ches- domain books — both the obscure and the beloved. On any ter University (PA) was written while Cataldo took a sab- given day nearly 100,000 copies of books are downloaded batical. Now he’s publicly asking for help in correcting from the site. typos and making improvements. Noba focuses solely on psychology topics. The brainchild Saylor Academy UC Davis ChemWiki of two educators, Ed and Carol Diener, who founded a Although better known for its free courses, this online nonprofit expressly for the purpose of building Noba, of- education organization also makes the curriculum from Wikibooks fers “ready-made textbooks” as well as 93 learning mod- each course available in downloadable textbook form by Promising “open books for an open world,” this site, which ules that can be pulled together for a specific educa- anybody. is hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, offers 2,900 text- tional use. books, categorized by subject, completion status and Scottsdale Community College Math Department (AZ) UC Davis STEMWiki Hyperlibrary reading level. Many of the books are available for down- faculty have written four math textbooks and final exam reviews and made them available for download. This collaborative project focused on STEM topics invites load as PDF files.4
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veloping custom ones. We asked three game-savvy educa- the development of Ball State Achievements, a mobile app tors and technologists for their advice on introducing gami- designed to improve student retention by gamifying posi- fication to the college or university classroom. tive activity outside the classroom (and winner of a 2015 Campus Technology Innovators award). He advocates a 1) Begin by Defining Goals and Objectives “fail fast” mentality when gamifying a course. As with any endeavor, the first step should always be to “Use an iterative process and don’t necessarily try to build figure out exactly what you want to achieve by gamifying a everything all at once,” he said. “See if it works — and if it course. Is the objective to boost student engagement, im- doesn’t then immediately throw it away. I guess that’s kind prove knowledge retention, promote communication and of the essence of a fail fast mentality. Just try it, even if it’s collaboration, or something else? just an assignment in your larger class.” shutterstock.com Edwin Lindsay is a teaching assistant professor of sport management at North Carolina State University who has 3) Network With Other Educators Using Games 12 TIPS FOR gamified his Introduction to Sport Management course. While Communication and collaboration are key components of his project was a massive two-year undertaking that involved 21st-century education, and they’re applicable to profes- GAMIFYING developing a plug-in for Moodle to create a personalized sional development, too. Educators interested in gamifica- A COURSE game experience within the LMS, he recommends figuring tion are not alone, and they can benefit from sharing knowl- out the end goal before beginning a gamification project of edge and ideas with each other. Experts share their best advice for incorporating any size because it can help determine the path forward. Reinke participates in just such a group at Ball State. “I digital games in the college classroom. “If my goals and objectives are simply to review for my mid- meet with a group called the Serious Games Knowledge By Leila Meyer term or my exam, then there are some external features out Group. There are eight or 12 of us, and we have lunch once there, tools that you can utilize to put your content in, that will a month and talk. They’re all just people who take gaming Digital games can be powerful learning tools, helping en- allow students to basically review for anything,” he said. and gamification seriously in education,” he said. gage students and improve learning outcomes. And while adoption in higher education has been slow, a growing 2) Start Small and Develop Iteratively 4) Use Simple Game-Creation Tools number of college and university instructors are gamifying Scott Reinke is the coordinator for the BSU Achievements Drag-and-drop game development tools such as Game- their courses, either by incorporating existing games or de- Program at Ball State University (IN). He was involved in Salad and GameMaker: Studio make it possible for non-
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programmers to create simple, visually appealing digital more invested in the game and their users,” said Reinke. “probably the stickiest piece that has come out of gamifi- games. “There still may be a learning curve involved, but cation for higher ed.” a lot of those are WYSIWYG [what you see is what you 6) Take Advantage of Existing Games get] platforms that let you click around and figure stuff out While K-12 may have a broader selection of digital games 7) Use K-12 Games for Remedial through logic rather than coding,” said Reinke. available on the market, higher education can take advantage Education Courses An even simpler way to create digital games is to use a of a number of existing boutique games and digital simulations. Instructors teaching remedial or introductory level academic tool such as Microsoft PowerPoint to create digital versions One example of a well established boutique game is Darfur courses can take advantage of the wider selection of exist- of board games. “It allows for moveable pieces on a back- is Dying, an online game that challenges students to keep a ing games developed for middle or high school students. ground image that is essentially your board,” said Joseph Bisz, refugee camp functioning while they learn about genocide in Bisz began using games with his remedial level classes in an associate professor of English at Borough of Manhattan Community College in New York and an educational game Rather than creating a game for students, some instructors are getting designer. He has created Concentration-type memory match- ing games using PowerPoint. The instructor can project the their students to design their own games as a way of deepening or game on the screen for the whole class to participate or allow demonstrating their understanding of course concepts. students to play in small groups around a computer. the Darfur region of Sudan. “It helps people understand and an effort to increase student engagement. 5) Get Students to Develop Games get a better feel for what’s going on,” said Bryan Fendley, di- “The BBC in Great Britain designed specific digital games Rather than creating a game for students, some instructors rector of instructional technology and web services at the Uni- to teach English and math, and although they weren’t tar- are getting their students to design their own games as a way versity of Arkansas at Monticello. “I think that’s one of those geting higher education, our remedial students generally of deepening or demonstrating their understanding of course games that helps teach the social aspect of current events. are about 7th grade level, and so we found these things concepts. One of Reinke’s colleagues at Ball State used Penn State’s Educational Gaming Commons also offers a very useful for getting the students to suddenly become en- GameSalad in his landscape architecture class. Students cre- few boutique games, as well as general information about gaged,” said Bisz. ated games related to developing urban landscapes, gamify- gamification in higher education. ing placement of elements such as trees and roads. “Having Technical trades and subjects with practical applications 8) Make It Fun them design games forces them into a role to really think more such as chemistry and biology present opportunities to in- Both Lindsay and Fendley emphasized the importance of deeply about whatever subject it is because they become corporate digital simulations, which Fendley describes as making digital games fun for the students. “It can be well
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conceived from a faculty member’s perspective, but if it’s do in a real class? What would be my mindset and how simply providing those students with alternate assignments not fun it’ll fall flat on its face,” said Lindsay. would that translate to the gaming world? And I was able or activities may not be a solution. “If we truly believe that Throughout the game development process for his Intro- to match those up pretty closely.” gamification is that much better, then the alternate assign- duction to Sport Management course, Lindsay invited peo- ment is going to be an inferior way of learning. We’re offer- ple outside of the project to try the game and give him their 10) Collect Data ing somebody with a disability a lesser version of the les- honest opinions, either through forum posts or anonymous Ideally, instructors should have the ability to collect data son” said Fendley. reports, and whenever possible he applied those recom- about students’ progress and achievement in the games Fortunately, resources exist to help developers address mendations to later versions of the game. they’re playing for a course. “Look for games that can trans- the issue of accessibility in digital games. AbleGamers has “If somebody doesn’t want to play a game, they don’t fer data back to a spreadsheet or a learning management developed “a 50-page living document to assist developers enjoy it and then the whole reason for gamification falls system,” said Fendley. in the process called Includification,” according to informa- tion on the site. And Twine is a free, open source game de- Just as a person has to be a reader before he or she can become a velopment tool that lets anybody create simple, accessible interactive storytelling games. good writer, a person has to be a gamer before being able to develop or implement gamification effectively. 12) Play Games Educators who want to use gamification successfully in apart because it doesn’t by definition really become a The SCORM standard or Tin Can API (application pro- the classroom need to play games themselves, according game at that point,” said Fendley. gramming interface) both provide ways to collect data to Reinke. Just as a person has to be a reader before he or from games. SCORM is a standard for communication she can become a good writer, a person has to be a gamer 9) Don’t Forget About the Pedagogy between e-learning software products, and the Tin Can before being able to develop or implement gamification While fun is a key element of gamification, Lindsay re- API enables software to collect and share data about effectively. minds instructors not to forget about the pedagogy in the digital experiences. “Just find games that interest you or ask people about it,” process. “When we think about our teaching, we think said Reinke. “That’s the best part of the group that I’m in at about the theories that are involved in our teaching, and 11) Consider Accessibility Ball State: Most of what we do is just tell each other about gaming sets itself up really well to be connected to those Digital games may not be accessible to individuals with dis- new and exciting games that we’ve found and that really theories,” he said. “I found myself thinking, what would I abilities, particularly those who are visually impaired — and helps us figure out what we want to do with our games.”4
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gaging for students than just attending class in person. Zaption for Active Media So why not add some interactivity to your videos and have It used to be that students watched videos and then headed some fun? According to Phylise Banner, director of online to the learning management system to enter their comments teaching and learning at Clarkson University (NY), your in a discussion forum. Now, they can do both in one place. students will thank you. “Video does not have to be static anymore,” said Banner. Banner and her colleague Frank Tomsic, director of the For example, Zaption lets an instructor add text, questions McCormick Educational Technology Center at Rush Uni- and images to existing online videos, allowing students to versity Medical Center (IL), are the original masterminds reflect on what they’re watching. Students can also add behind the “Technology Test Kitchen,” a phenomenon in- comments, thereby “building more content around a video.”
shutterstock.com troduced at an Online Learning Consortium (OLC) event Those extras allow the teacher to act as a bridge between that has since cropped up at multiple conferences where what’s being shown in the video and what he or she is hoping 10 TOOLS faculty, instructional technologists and instructional design- the student takes away from the viewing experience. Likewise, ers congregate. The idea: to provide an interactive space the instructor can give an assignment to students to make a FOR MORE “where people can come and play with the [technologies] video and create a lesson around it as an assessment format. we’re talking about.” Every event features a different roster On top of that, Banner added, the online program “has INTERACTIVE of experts sharing their favorite tools and showing others good analytics” that are “easy to use and valid.” The instruc- how to use them. tor can see not only the students’ answers to questions, VIDEOS Last year, OLC “master chefs” published an ever- Forget about PowerPoints with voice-over — that’s changing Creative Commons-licensed “recipe book” old school. These “new school” apps can help you with brief descriptions of almost three dozen tools and engage your students while they’re learning from applications for use in the lecture hall to “foster creativ- your lectures. ity in learning.” By Dian Schaffhauser Banner shared seven of her favorite tools with Campus Technology, specifically for making video content more If all your recorded lectures are no more than PowerPoints interactive — and the Test Kitchen recipe book offers with audio, a flipped classroom is no more thrilling or en- three more. Zaption
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but also how many rewinds or fast-forwards there are and share any kind of files— documents, presentations, imag- vices that allows the user to record video with switched to which spots in the video. Viewer data like that can help es, audio files and videos— and then let others comment backgrounds using any photo or movie on the device. the instructor know what parts of the video are boring, too through the appropriate medium — text, audio or webcam. (Green screen technology is what’s used to place your lo- complex or really get the conversation going. cal weather person in front of a dynamic map of your re- “If we’re using any video content, we think that that’s it. Echo360 to Capture Moments gion while showing the forecast.) Combined with a green It’s done. That’s content consumption. But it isn’t,” Banner Banner likes how Echo360 allows the instructor to integrate screen, blue screen or even plain white wall, the program insisted. “Now we have content creation in the video space. video into courses through an institution’s learning manage- “enables you to key out the background,” explained Banner. That’s what makes Zaption so great and so much fun.” ment system. Originally gaining traction as a lecture capture “Let’s say you’re teaching disaster management and you The basic version is free; an $89 annual subscription application, the software has expanded “to allow you to cre- want to put yourself at FEMA headquarters,” she suggest- “pro” version allows the instructor to add multiple video ate a whole channel right within your course,” she noted. ed. “You get a photo of FEMA headquarters. You put it on clips to a unit, include more interactive elements such “You can have a video and a forum with discussion ques- your iPad. You take your video. You key out the wall be- as discussions and integrate Zaption within the learning tions right there.” The teacher can pick specific spots within hind. Then you’re standing there in FEMA’s headquarters. management system. the video to open the discussion. I love Veescope.” Another option that Banner has used is Vialogues, an ear- The idea of the channel is to simplify student access to the ly entrant into the education space, which allows instruc- videos. Like any playlist feature, she explained, it allows for a Adobe Voice to Explain Concepts With Pizazz tors to open up their videos for student commentary. The “consolidated space — whether closed or open.” This free app for the iPhone and iPad helps the user cre- “vialogue” may be shared in a group or made private. Voi- In the vein of simplifying access to video content, Banner ate animated videos with no actual filming. You create your cethread, a twist on Vialogues, allows users to upload and emphasized the importance of providing not just video files video by picking images from an extensive, searchable in MP4 format, but also audio files in MP3 format. “We can’t set or your own collection, add your presentation slides, forget about that,” she said. “I think that anytime we’re feed- then record your voice and let the app take it from there. ing our students video, [we need to] give them audio too.” Adobe Voice cleans up the quality of the audio and even That will enable them to listen to lectures while they’re do- adds background music. The program is integrated with the ing other activities, such as exercising or commuting. Noun Project, a fee-based library of icon images, which can be individually dragged into the presentation. Veescope to Situate You Somewhere Else Banner finds Adobe Voice useful for simple development Vialogues Veescope Live is a simple “green screen” app for iOS de- of video. “Let’s say you want to talk about what to do when
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a tornado is coming. You been photographed in panoramic form and made available like to walk down the stairs and turn around and look up can press the icon but- on Round.me, an online service where photographers share and see a chandelier or look around,” said Banner. Using ton, search for ‘tornado’ their images. Google Cardboard, “when you’re talking about spaces like and get these great im- “Everything is carved out of salt. So you can show pic- that, you can have that immersive experience. You can even ages to bring in, sim- tures of it, but [with pictures] you can’t really feel what it’s walk through that space. It’s crazy!”4 plifying visualization of your information as an 3 MORE TOOLS FROM THE instructor and creating a stunning visual,” she ex- TECHNOLOGY TEST KITCHEN plained. The app records The Online Learning Consortium’s “Technology Test Kitchen Recipe Book” includes brief your audio with the push how-to articles for using dozens of classroom tools. Here are three worth noting for lec- of a button. If the audio ture recordings: for a given image goes Like to walk around while you’re lecturing? Get yourself a Swivl robot, set it up on a Adobe Voice past a certain amount of desk or a tripod and place your recording device loaded with the Swivl Capture app into time, say 30 or 40 seconds, the app reminds you to keep it the robot’s base. Attach an infrared marker to yourself and get moving. The robot will track short. “You don’t want to be rambling on,” Banner added. your movements to keep the recording focused on you. If you’re traveling farther afield than Swivl can keep track of, consider Periscope, an Google Cardboard to Immerse Your Students Swivl app that allows you to stream live experiences to your students. A private setting allows Banner said she always shows up to the OLC Test Kitchen you to broadcast only to specific people, or you can share your broadcasts via Twitter through with Google Cardboard, inexpensive virtual reality glass- a tweet that directs your followers to a specified link. es that work with smartphones to provide immersive 3D Ever seen an video showing a hand drawing an anima- environments. tion and writing out text on a whiteboard background? VideoScribe from Sparkol is one of the tools that can do Although these technically don’t fall into the category of the same for your presentations. This subscription service videos, they do provide a new way for students to experi- is $29 per month or $200 per year, though education ence visual content. At a recent event, for example, Banner licensing is available. VideoScribe shared images from Poland’s historic salt mines. These have
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Wikipedia into a graduate class, he sparked a track of dents didn’t seem nearly as excited. So a year later he part- 4 WAYS TO coursework that is still fondly remembered by his former nered with a biology professor to bring two undergraduate students. It started when Sharky happened to attend a classes together for collaborative work. In teams of two, the USE SOCIAL meeting where representatives of Wikipedia were attempt- biology students would contribute to the text of Wikipedia ing to persuade faculty to get their students involved in im- articles while Sharky’s students would create graphics for MEDIA FOR proving the content quality on the site as part of a new grant those same articles. LEARNING program. His idea was to have students develop and add “That didn’t work out very well,” Sharky acknowledged. new graphic images. Students were challenged to meet because the schedules These four uses for social media in STEM courses The regional planning class he had in mind for the project of the two classes were so different. “We tried it twice and focus on deepening student learning through bet- was studying the coast of Louisiana. So Sharky developed we were just not happy.” ter communication. a list of “about 15 or 16 subjects, such as global warming, While that spelled the end of the Wikipedia experiment, By Dian Schaffhauser ground subsidence, saltwater intrusion [and] reduction of Sharky is considering bringing it back into his classes in the biodiversity,” he recalled. The students could pick whatever original format. The exercise forced his students to “learn Much of the social media usage in college and university topic they wanted, find articles related to it in Wikipedia and how to read Wikipedia,” he pointed out. “Particularly in the courses emphasizes collaborative activities, such as sharing then develop a graphic that would explain the concepts or sciences, you realize just how rich those articles are, be- ideas and building community — the social half of the term. content in that particular article. yond just the words that you read. There are backups, refer- But sites like Wikipedia, Twitter and YouTube are useful plat- “The students liked doing it,” said Sharky. “And they were ences and things that can really help you explore the depth forms for the media side too, enhancing communication and quite blown away by the fact that they would put their of the topic that you’re looking at.” content delivery. Here, we look at how educators in science, graphic up for people to see and then they got comments technology, engineering and math (STEM) are tapping into from around the world: ‘You could improve this by doing Technology: Social Programming both aspects of social media for learning. Of course, many of this.’ ‘This is wrong.’ ‘Change that.’ They got feedback that for Persistence their methods can benefit students in any subject. they found phenomenal.” A project underway since 2007 to improve retention in Along the way, the exercise also “improved the graphic computer science programs recently took a new twist. Science: Wikipedia for Graphic Communication communication of my students related to landscape archi- Chris Hundhausen, a professor in the Washington State When Bruce Sharky, a professor at Louisiana State Uni- tecture,” he said. University School of Electrical Engineering and Computer versity’s School of Landscape Architecture, incorporated He repeated the exercise the following year, but the stu- Science, received National Science Foundation funding to
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develop a social media platform for students in introductory specifically with Microsoft Visual Studio to provide “social OBSIDE is being released as an open source project. computer science classes. The original thinking with the programming” features. “That plug-in brings into the pro- Already a university in Germany has undertaken the work Online Studio-Based Learning Environment (OSBLE) was gramming environment a Facebook-style activity feed,” ex- of making a version of the plug-in available for Eclipse, an to create a way for students to participate in a community plained Hundhausen. However, the overall goal is the same: open source programming environment that may have more with shared programming activities; students would tackle “to make programming less isolating and more social using traction in higher ed introductory computer science cours- their assignments within a special online environment oc- the same kinds of technologies students are using to so- es than Visual Studio, Hundhausen suggested. cupied by other students as well as instructors and industry cialize online.” So far, he noted, OBSIDE has been used by “Traditionally computer science has been seen as a dis- professionals. People could evaluate each other’s coding 1,000 to 2,000 students at Washington State over the last cipline where students work in a very isolated manner, in- efforts, answer questions and encourage persistence. four semesters. dividually on problems. What we’re trying to do is build this Now, the project is releasing Online Studio-Based In- Normally, a student would have to go into another sys- learning support community,” said Hundhausen. “According tegrated Development Environment (OBSIDE), a plug-in tem — a discussion forum, Facebook or something else to social scientists, the persistence factor happens through that provides similar functionality, but without the weight of — to ask questions online. “Our environment makes it re- the friends that you have, that you’re part of a community, the whole learning platform behind it. The extension works ally easy for students to ask those kinds of questions in the that you’re not in it alone. What is going to keep people in very context in which they arise,” Hundhausen said. “We’re the discipline is that sense of community that could be built erasing the barriers. It’s making a huge difference. We have through this kind of technology.” data to show that the participation in these conversations increases tremendously because of that integration with the Engineering: YouTube for Assessments programming environment.” Students are asking a lot more A lot of engineering coursework tends to be done on pen questions, he said. and paper, including the tests, according to Jeffrey Erochko, Hundhausen and doctoral student Adam Carter have assistant professor in Carleton University’s Department of found “a strong correlation between social behavior and Civil and Environmental Engineering (Canada). Oftentimes, course performance”: Students who are more active so- during office hours, Erochko would hear from students that cially do better in the course. The research project has col- they’d done poorly on exams because they “blanked out or lected evidence to show that the very act of students ask- got stressed or didn’t have enough time to finish it or forgot The Online Studio-Based Integrated Development Environment socializes the programming experi- ing questions and reading the answers helps them “make something.” Yet, they could face him in his office and “at ence with a Facebook-style activity feed. quicker progress toward the solution.” least explain the concept.” He could see that they had some
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level of understanding about what was going on, “but they they can simply use a smartphone to capture the recording. he explained. “Using the class Storify to answer e-mails weren’t able to demonstrate that at all on the test.” And they don’t even have to memorize what they’re going to from students was a natural extension of using Storify as Because Erochko’s classes tend to be on the large side say — they can simply read it. Nor are the videos expected a place to capture tweets, and to allow me to expand on — 150 or 180 students — it isn’t possible for him “to sit to be made public. “I encourage the students to make their responses to the tweets where appropriate. After all, a down with every student and get an idea that they under- videos unlisted so that they will feel more comfortable cre- question that one student e-mails to me is a question that stand the content or not,” he said. So he decided to try to ating their video without feeling that a lot of people will po- I’m sure other students have — and even if they don’t, replicate that experience online, asking students to create tentially watch it,” he said. they should still be able to see the answer. The volume of a minute-long video and post it to YouTube to demonstrate This isn’t the only use for YouTube that the Canadian pro- e-mailed questions tends to pick up as we get close to their understanding. “The idea was that it’s a stand-in for fessor has found. He has also set up his own channel, “The exam time, and then I think it’s very important to allow ev- oral assessment,” he explained. Civil Professor,” where he posts examples for his students. eryone to share in the answers.” As he noted in a paper delivered at the 2015 Canadian “I basically go through sample questions related to the ma- At the beginning of class, Anderson logs into Twitter and Engineering Education Association Conference, “The short terial, because I don’t have as much time in class to cover timeframe of the videos requires students to think criti- as many examples as I’d like to.” cally about the concept and to explain it concisely.” There was also the advantage that Erochko’s teaching assistants Math: Twitter and Storify for Class Q&A could grade the videos “quickly, even in a large class,” he When students in James Anderson’s courses have ques- pointed out. tions, they can raise their hands or take to Twitter. Ander- During the semester, the video assessment is required son, a mathematics professor at the University of South- twice. Students are given the choice of “opting out” of ampton (England), began offering the Twitter option when the activity; but they have to replace it with an in-person he realized that some students weren’t comfortable ask- presentation given directly to Erochko in his office. In the ing questions in a large group. Later, he added Storify to three years that he has been running the alternate as- the mix as a way to maintain a record of those digital com- sessment, only one student has chosen to opt out for munications and included questions that were e-mailed to “philosophical” reasons. him as well. Storify gives math students at the University of Erochko chooses to use YouTube because “it’s very conve- “I realized that Twitter is not a permanent medium and Southampton a place to ask questions without the nient.” Students aren’t evaluated on the quality of the video; that tweets disappear over the space of days or weeks,” pressure of speaking in front of a large class.
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then during his lectures he attempts to tions during lecture, and not to replace respond to Twitter questions as soon as the oral questions.” Not a they come through. He said he was ini- While he’s never done a formal eval- tially “concerned that the volume might uation of the use of Twitter and Storify, Campus Technology get too large to be able to respond in Anderson is confident he’s on the right real time, but in practice this has never track. “The overall impact is best seen subscriber? been an issue.” Sometimes, he added, through the number of views and the he’ll provide a short oral answer and number of questions asked, either by then an expanded response in Storify. e-mail or by Twitter,” he noted. But he Sign Up Today... It’s Free! “Like many others, I struggle to get calls it very much a work in progress. real-time interaction with the students “I’m sure, for instance, there are ways through the lecture, and I feel that be- of using Twitter differently and more ing able to answer questions on the actively, to engage with the students. spot, whether oral questions or via And Storify — as good a place as it is Twitter, allows for the correction of mis- for capturing tweets and e-mails and conceptions right away.” disseminating answers and additional Anderson tends to see more Twitter commentary to all of the students in action in his large first-year courses the class — is not an interactive dis- with 200 students, but more hand- cussion forum. But it’s good for what raising in a final-year course with I’m using it for.” some 45 students. “My theory is that the final-year students are more confi- Leila Meyer is a technology writer based in British Columbia. dent in asking questions in class than the first-year students,” he said. “The Dian Schaffhauser is a senior contributing editor for Campus whole point was to provide an addi- Technology. tional route for students to ask ques- CampusTechnology.com/subscribe 36 CAMPUS TECHNOLOGY | June 2016 BACK TO TOC
Untitled-1 1 1/21/16 11:16 AM EDUCATION TRENDS
Experts weigh in on the challenges of student success and the need for innovation THINGS in higher ed. HIGHER BY RHEA KELLY IN ORDER TO close the tices. And most important, leaders grappling with the growing achievement gap, institutions need to com- challenges of student suc- EDUCATION higher education institutions municate about what works cess. In the vein of shar- need to focus on innovation, and what doesn’t. “Other- ing ideas, each panelist scale and diffusion, accord- wise we are sentencing oth- weighed in on the need for INNOVATORS ing to Bridget Burns, ex- er universities to repeat our innovation, speaking for sev- ecutive director for the Uni- mistakes and our failures — en minutes or less — about versity Innovation Alliance, and students deserve bet- the same amount of time, WANT YOU a coalition of 11 public re- ter,” she exhorted. Burns noted, that a busy search universities commit- Burns spoke this past university administrator can ted to improving graduation March at SXSWedu as part spare in a typical workday. TO KNOW rates and sharing best prac- of a panel of eight higher ed Here are their insights.4 737 CAMPUS TECHNOLOGY | June 2016 EDUCATION TRENDS
1) Learning is becoming measurable — “If you can measure student learning and mastery of to measure the cost of college — sticker price, net price, and more flexible. competencies, if that can happen independent of time and return on investment, student loan debt — but none of those “We are right on the cusp of being able to measure student space, then let’s certify that learning in chunks that are things really mean anything if we can’t come to a common learning for the first time,” said Ted Mitchell, under secretary small,” Mitchell continued. “Let’s look at micro-credentialing understanding of what college affordability means, she said. of education for the U.S. Department of Education. “And as a way of building up skills for students of all ages — of The Lumina Foundation has worked to develop a standard this isn’t just about new tests — this is about new environ- building them up in such a way that they get credit for the language around affordability, drawing from fields such as ments for learning” that help teachers and mentors better work that they’ve done, what they’ve mastered, while at the housing, retirement and healthcare — other social sectors understand what makes students successful. same time they’re building a stack of certificates and micro- that have struggled with the question of affordability. “There Mitchell gave the example of flight simulators, which not only provide students with a way to engage in the activ- “Politicians, policymakers, higher education administrators — everybody wants ity that they want to learn, but also have data systems that monitor students’ learning over time, providing them with to make college more affordable. But what does that really mean? How do we structured feedback at just the right moment. This sort of gauge whether or not college is affordable?” — Zakiya Smith, Lumina Foundation data-centric assessment of learning is happening in more and more disciplines — and that opens the door to more credentials that then would enable them to move into the are things that we can learn from other sectors about how innovation, he argued. labor market, to move on to further higher education.” That they’ve tackled their challenges of affordability,” Smith said. “As we approach the measurement of student learning innovation, he said, is what will change students’ lives — “One of the main things that we learned from all these dif- through competencies and masteries, it unlocks a lot of in- and our nation — forever. ferent sectors is that it’s really difficult to do this work if you novative practice,” Mitchell noted. “Once one has identified don’t have a standard that you’re working from.” In housing, the skills that students need to master, and accomplished 2) We need a common definition of for example, the rule of thumb for planning and policymak- the task of being able to measure those, you can make college affordability. ing purposes is that about 30 percent of a person’s income the learning exercise itself far more flexible.” For instance, “Politicians, policymakers, higher education administrators — should go toward housing expenses, she explained. Higher competency-based education now makes it possible to everyone wants to make college more affordable. But what education needs a similar benchmark. learn from anywhere, any time — which is particularly im- does that really mean? How do we gauge whether or not To address that gap, the foundation introduced the “Rule portant for today’s non-traditional students balancing edu- college is affordable?” asked Zakiya Smith, strategy director of 10”: Students should be able to pay for higher education cation, work and family, he said. for the Lumina Foundation. There are a lot of different ways with savings generated from 10 percent of their discretion-
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ary income, over 10 years, and working no more than 10 of learners, all operating at the same time.” assistant professor at the Stanford Graduate School of hours a week while attending college. In this model, college Crow outlined a framework for innovation wherein knowl- Education (CA). On top of that, she said, there is diversity affordability is defined based on a student’s individual cir- edge is emphatically at the center of every educational enter- in terms of students’ prior knowledge and the skills that they cumstances, acknowledging that the cost of college should prise, “like a black hole of unbelievable intense energy.” Built have coming into the classroom. be an investment over time. around that, he said, are immersive, technology-enhanced According to Thille, such diversity calls for a new ap- “This is still under development,” said Smith. “We’re hop- learning (both on-campus and online), massive-scale learn- proach to teaching and learning. “We need innovation,” ing to get more feedback on this over the next year or so, ing, and the concept of education through exploration. “Now she said, adding, “I believe very strongly that innovation will and we really want to engage in a conversation with the there are no more teachers, no more professors at the front come from inside not-for-profit higher education,” rather community about whether it seems like this makes sense.” of the stage — they are engaged in the creation of learn- than from external sources or markets. ing environments that allow people to learn at scales and in A promising example, said Thille, is the use of educational 3) The waves of change in higher ways that have previously been not possible.” technology to create personalized and adaptive instruction. education are far from over. Only then, he said, can institutions embark on the next wave As students interact with adaptive technology, the system “If you think the great colleges and universities of the past of innovation. “Institutions must be driven by public value at- collects large amounts of data, models the data and then will be the only great colleges and universities in the future, tainment,” said Crow. “They must be driven by the desire to makes predictions about each student based on those in- then you’ve forgotten everything you knew about evolution see people to become natural learners. They must be scalable, teractions, she explained. Those predictions are then used and you need to up your game,” asserted Michael Crow, they must be innovative, they must be adaptive. They must have for pedagogical decision-making — either feeding informa- president of Arizona State University. knowledge — the production of knowledge, the synthesis of tion back into the system to give the student a personalized “Our society is evolving much more rapidly than any insti- knowledge, the storage of knowledge — at the core.” learning path, or providing insights to faculty to help them tution of higher education,” Crow said, pointing out that the give students individualized support. current production of college degrees in the U.S. is woefully 4) Traditional instruction no longer works “The challenge is that it’s all still active research,” noted Thille. behind population growth. To achieve its goals in gradu- for today’s diverse learners. And there’s a problem: Many of the predictive models are pro- ation rates, higher education needs a new wave of inno- “One of the great things about higher education is that prietary, with vendors unwilling to share the inner workings of vation, he said, citing his own university’s efforts to create we’re not only getting a greater number of learners, but also the technology. “That is alchemy, not science,” she said. “We a new model of education where “full immersion and digi- a greater diversity of learners — diversity in terms of age, need the models and the data to be open, transparent, peer- tal immersion are possible, costs are constrained and the sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, culture, ethnicity, reviewable and subject to academic scrutiny.” scale is all scales, from individual learner to massive groups work status, and on and on and on,” said Candace Thille, Models are not neutral, added Thille. They reflect the val-
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ues of the people who designed them as well as the be- raise our graduation rate through getting better students, learning for introductory math courses, “microgrants” that haviors of the population from whom the data were collect- but through getting better — and that gain meant looking in help students with end-of-semester financial shortfalls, and ed. When models are built on our existing norms, “we very the mirror and making some significant changes.” predictive analytics for student advising. much risk tooling the norms into the technology and then One area where data helped identify a need for change “What is the collective impact of this approach to taking reproducing inequality,” she warned. was in the way students choose their major, said Renick. data seriously? We’re graduating 1,700 more students ev- “When we looked at the data, one problem we found was ery year,” said Renick. “In fact, we moved our graduation 5) It’s time to take data seriously. that even the students who graduated from Georgia State ceremonies from campus to the Georgia Dome, where the Ten years ago, Georgia State University faced serious were going through two-and-a-half majors before they Falcons play, because we ran out of room.” achievement gaps, with graduation rates hovering around graduated,” he explained. “Low-income students can’t af- 30 percent. But thanks to a campuswide commitment to ford to go through two-and-a-half majors before reaching 6) A 21st-century learning culture starts with student success and a focus on data, said Timothy Renick, the finish line. They rack up wasted credit hours, they add digital content. vice president for enrollment and student services, the in- time to their degree.” With 90 majors available to them and In 2010, Jackson State University (MS) was looking for stitution has made a dramatic turnaround, raising its overall no context to help in the selection process, students strug- ways that technology could better address the needs of to- graduation rate by 22 points. gled to find the right fit. day’s learner. “We put together what we call our cyberlearn- “We began to actually examine what we could do differ- The university has now introduced “meta majors”: broad ing ecosystem,” said Robert Blaine, dean of undergraduate ently — based not upon hunches and traditions, but upon categories like STEM, business or education that allow studies and cyberlearning. “What that means is that we’re what the data told us the problems were for the students students to explore a field before committing to something building a 21st-century learning culture for all of our stu- we enroll,” said Renick. “We made a commitment not to more specific. During their freshman year, students take dents, writ large across campus.” classes around those topic areas, attend lecture series, At the core of that ecosystem is digital content, delivered meet with faculty and go through diagnostics to help nar- via university-supplied iPads. “We produced digital text- RELATED READING row down their interests. “By the time they pick their first books for students and we were able to do some amazing Connecting Learners With a Digital Ecosystem major, it’s going to be the thing that sticks,” said Renick, things right off the bat,” said Blaine. “First of all, we lowered Tales From the Front Lines of Adaptive Learning adding, “In a two-year period, we’ve lowered the number of the cost for students by over 90 percent. The traditional text-
How Data From Your LMS Can Impact Student Success major changes at Georgia State by 30 percent.” books that they were using would cost between $100 and Paying attention to data led to a host of other changes $300 a book. These books cost $9.99.” Laying the Groundwork for Big Data at Georgia State, including the implementation of adaptive The benefits of digital textbooks go beyond cost savings,
40 CAMPUS TECHNOLOGY | June 2016 EDUCATION TRENDS C-Level View
noted Blaine. Jackson State is able to ogy,” he asserted. Mixing It Up in the align its learning content with the spe- That is the philosophy behind Project cific outcomes that the institution wants 2021, a UT-Austin initiative focused on Design Lab to achieve. “We’re able to coordinate the reinventing undergraduate education. The Mixed Reality Lab at Oklahoma State curriculum and focus on the skills that The project aims to “change the nature University provides a range of AR, VR and students need,” he said. “And we’re able of teaching, the nature of how we do to bring new relevance to the curriculum curriculum, and rethink how we think of 3D printing tools so that students and faculty by bringing voices into the conversation a course calendar,” said Pennebaker. A researchers in design disciplines can work that have been historically left out.” key part of the revamp is finding ways to in virtual, physical and augmented reality measure what works. environments. By Mary Grush 7) We need to change the way “We’re building a research infrastruc- students think. ture that will go through and analyze not Established in 2015, the Mixed Real- of Design, Housing and Merchandising Developing the skills to think and work just how [students] do in their classes and ity Lab at Oklahoma State Univer- at OSU, about the Mixed Reality Lab’s through problems is every bit as impor- future classes,” said Pennebaker, “but sity focuses on research and instruc- goals for research and instruction. tant as mastery of the material in a par- also, how do they change in terms of their tion in augmented reality, virtual reality and digital prototyping for design. It CT: How did the Mixed Reality Lab ticular subject, according to James Pen- connection with others? Do they become provides space and infrastructure for at OSU come about? nebaker, a professor in the Department of more connected with the university?” both students and faculty research- Psychology at the University of Texas at The university is also working to engage ers to work on design-related proj- Chandrasekera: The Mixed Reality Austin. When students learn to change students with a sense of community. “As ects that incorporate AR, VR and 3D Lab is an initiative of the Department of their fundamental thinking, he said, they we develop various classes, including on- printing tools. The lab helps students, Design, Housing and Merchandising carry those skills over to other subjects. line classes, one of our biggest fears is researchers and, through outreach in the College of Human Sciences at “If individuals take a class and do well, that students become more disengaged, activities, the broader community OSU that allows students, faculty and they should do better in their next cours- less connected with others,” Pennebaker learn how to apply these technologies researchers to work with AR, VR and es. If they take my class, I hope they do explained. “One of the best predictors of in design. 3D printers. Students can explore and better in future classes, and I don’t care dropping out of college is the failure to CT asked Tilanka Chandrasekera, an experience the use of these tools in assistant professor in the Department the design process; faculty can exam- if they have anything to do with psychol- feel a sense of belonging.”
41 CAMPUS TECHNOLOGY | June 2016 BACK TO TOC C-Level View
ine the impact the tools have on teaching course, but the lab will help prepare our VR displays, students can try out their CT: Can you explain the term “mixed and learning; and the broader community design students in this important aspect designs in a fully immersive environment. reality”? What mode do the students can benefit from the output of our re- of their profession. 3D printers are used by interior design typically work in? searchers. students for prototyping furniture and But perhaps the key reason for estab- CT: What, in general, are the types of other design elements, while apparel Chandrasekera: The term mixed real- lishing a lab was for students to learn technologies in the lab today? design students prototype garments and ity comes from a paper by Milgram and how to communicate their designs. We fashion accessories. Kishino, published back in 1994. The au- recognize, of course, that designers ex- Chandrasekera: Primarily, as I men- The lab not only provides a growing thors talk about the virtuality-reality con- press things visually, and they try to com- tioned, we have AR, VR and 3D printing array of technologies that prepare design tinuum, where on one side of the continu- municate their design ideas through vi- tools. Augmented reality is a relatively students for their profession; ultimately it um you have the virtual space, and at the sual media. Fifty years ago, a hand sketch new technology for designers that allows will also help researchers understand and opposite end you have the real, physical might have worked. But today, we have them to experiment with virtual design communicate new, seamless workflows world. In the middle range, they identify different digital tools to help us commu- elements by overlaying them onto real, for this important constellation of tools augmented reality and augmented virtu- nicate our designs more effectively. Tools physical environments or representa- — AR, VR and 3D printing — as these ality — which is what they term “mixed and practices are evolving around us, of tions of the real world. Using the lab’s technologies become more mainstream in reality.” Today, the combination of virtual the design world. and real-world spaces may also be called mixed reality. CT: What’s the difference between At the Mixed Reality Lab we try to have virtual reality and augmented reality? students work across the continuum — in the real, virtual and mixed spaces — ex- Chandrasekera: VR puts you inside a periencing them all. computer-generated environment that is not connected to the “real,” physical CT: What are some of the tools in the lab world at the time you are experienc- that support work along the virtuality- ing it. It’s entirely virtual. AR, however, reality continuum? allows you to overlay virtual elements onto a physical environment — in effect, Chandrasekera: If you look at tools in A variety of prototyping tools allow students to try out their designs in both virtual you are mixing virtual elements into your the lab in the context of the virtuality- and real-world spaces. physical reality. reality continuum, we have different
42 CAMPUS TECHNOLOGY | June 2016 C-Level View
modes of VR provided. For example, we is the Augmented Reality Model Exchange from a design standpoint, we often see for divergent thinking, thus supporting the have the passive 3D stereoscopic pro- (ARMeX), where we are trying to explore a trial-and-error process. For example, creative process. jector, multiple HMDs [head-mounted how a 3D, augmented reality model can when we are designing a house, we While there are no prescribed workflows, displays] for VR and multiple HMDs for be exchanged between two locations; start from a conceptual statement, add- our research allows us to examine work- augmented reality. We also have both in another project we are looking at how ing and changing as we consider and flow in various project examples to try to PC and mobile AR capabilities. And to people perceive spaces with regard to reconsider our ideas. We look at many discover how these workflows affect de- address the physical component, we color, using VR; and one of our latest proj- have, of course, the 3D printers. We ects is a virtual museum collection. “Our digital tools afford us great opportunities for divergent have many tools in the lab — other tools thinking, thus supporting the creative process.” for use along the continuum include CT: Given the notion of a continuum, body scanners, motion capture systems and all the different tools that a designer “what if?” scenarios. This is called di- sign and design education. And, along the and more. And not to be overlooked, im- might use in different phases of a proj- vergent thinking. We are trying to have virtuality-reality continuum, the students portantly, we have a collaborative design ect — and in collaboration with others several potential solutions to draw from will find appropriate tools for different console that allows designers to col- — are you examining workflow issues? in our creative process. stages of their process. As they mature as laborate on design projects. Are students picking up on workflow as It’s useful here to note an important as- designers, they will understand and appre- they use the Mixed Reality Lab? pect of our digital design tools — if we ciate how their workflow moves through CT: Do the collaborative design tools were to try to experience all our solutions the virtuality-reality continuum. in effect place you at different points Chandrasekera: An example might help in a physical model, it would never be cost along the continuum based on the to answer your question. In some of our effective or practical. Even a scaled physi- CT: The Mixed Reality Lab is still fairly tools you and your collaborators use? research on mixed reality for teaching and cal prototype (rather than a 1:1 physical new — opened in 2015. Do you have learning, we are studying how students model) might be impractical, causing us to plans to expand it? Chandrasekera: You might look at it that perceive 3D printing. As a part of that re- fixate on a given iteration simply to pause way. At least you would always be some- search, when our students design furniture the process and quit using so much expen- Chandrasekera: Yes, and soon. We are where along that continuum. pieces, we look at how they perceived that sive material. In the digital space, you can building a new wing to our existing Human process, especially from the perspective of do a lot of modeling without much chance Sciences Building, and on the top floor in CT: Can you talk about some of the workflow: from digital modeling to proto- of economic or similar repercussions or a that building there is going to be an ad- lab’s projects? typing of the model, with an augmented perception of waste. So our digital tools — ditional lab at a much larger scale. We’re reality phase in between. and our work toward the virtuality end of the looking forward to more exciting work — Chandrasekera: There are several. One And in general, in looking at workflow continuum — afford us great opportunities and change — in mixed reality.
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