A Browser-based System to Support & Deliver DE Wendy Doube Faculty of Computing and Information Technology Monash University Gippsland Campus Switchback Road, Churchill, Victoria, Australia 3842
[email protected] Ph 61 3 990 26851 Fax 61 3 990 26842
Abstract - This paper describes the development and implementation of a Web-based system to support staff and students in the delivery of Distance Education. An electronic assignment sub system assists course advisers in the management of marking and ensures prompt, secure assignment submission and return. A newsgroup sub system allows students to participate in the dialogue of a "virtual classroom" and receive prompt feedback to queries.
1. Distance Education Systems Distance education (DE) operates within an administrative framework. Rumble [2] proposed a systems model consisting of a materials subsystem and a student subsystem. This model, which is neither a curriculum nor a program development model, can be further simplified [1]. The events involved in the production and distribution of materials, and the processes in student support services are shown in Figure 1. This paper will concentrate on academic and social support of the learner and assessment events. However, the other events and processes will have some bearing on the discussion because all components of the system are related. Particular reference will be made to the DE process in computing subjects.
Materials subsystem
Planning
Student subsystem
Establishment of services
Writing Enrolment Production
Despatch
Study
Learner support
Assessment
2. DE at Monash Gippsland A Distance Education Centre (DEC) manages most of the events in the system, catering to approximately 8,000 students in accredited undergraduate, graduate and post graduate courses. Some Open Learning subjects are also supported. Mainly print-based study materials are produced and despatched to students in time for each study cycle (usually a semester). Enrolment details are provided to the DEC by Administration. The DEC is assisted in learner support by the library, the computer centre and by individual faculty administrative and academic staff.
Awards
Figure 1: Model of a distance education system [1]
Assessment sub system Subject advisers supply assignment details such as subject, assignment code, name and due date to the DEC which prints bar coded cover sheets to be sent to students. Completed assignments are attached to the cover sheets and mailed to the DEC for registration. The assignments are delivered to the subject advisers who may then pass them on to markers. The marked assignments are returned to the DEC, re-registered and then mailed back to students. STUDENT
External Mail 2-10 days
Internal Mail 1 - 3 days
DEC 1 - 3 days
Internal Mail 1- 3 days
Subject Adviser 1-5 days
Marker 1 week Figure 2: Assignment turnaround Although the system is robust and efficient, the average turnaround time from initial mailing to return to a student's address would be three to four weeks. As seen in Figure 2, over two weeks of the turnaround may result from mail and processing overhead. Student support sub system The basic system, in which materials are sent to students and students return assessment work, operates well with mature, motivated students, until they strike a problem too difficult to solve unassisted. For example, computer science subjects require the configuration of home PC's to course requirements , which can be extremely difficult for a novice. In a first level programming subject, the simple tasks of downloading and configuring the most recent stable version of the JDK, learning to use a text editor, compiling and executing a simple program, may overwhelm a novice. DE students can contact their lecturers by telephone and FAX. However, staff may not be in their offices and several
attempts may be made by both parties before contact is made. Some subjects offer occasional on-campus classes, but otherwise contact with fellow students is rare. Academic staff find they are frequently interrupted by students making the same query. On occasion, if time permits, staff can send additional memos mid-semester to answer bulk queries or broadcast important notices.
3. The role of technology in changing DE practices Some computing subjects require submission of electronic assignment files. Originally these were on floppy disks which were frequently damaged or infected with viruses and came from a variety of incompatible systems. The consequence was a great deal of unproductive and frustrating work for markers. Advances in technology were taken up by some computing academic staff, in particular Douglas Thomson and Lindsay Smith. Their initiatives were based on their experience and understanding of the impact of distance on the education of computing students. This was fuelled by their frustration with the inadequacies of the existing communication and marking systems. Progress was hampered to some degree by equity considerations. Costly standard PC configurations for DE students were not feasible. Local internet access was unavailable in many areas of Australia and off-shore. In spite of these considerations, modems became compulsory for computing students in 1991. Up till then, communication between students had been rare. Communication with subject advisors and fellow students now became readily available with: •
e-mail using standard UNIX mail agents such as elm.
•
USENET newsgroups, created one-per-subject by the Monash Computer Centre, and fully accessible by all Monash staff and students using news readers such as rn, trn and nn.
Assignments could now be e-mailed to markers. Douglas Thomson also constructed a primitive electronic assignment submission system from UNIX shell scripts to make the process a bit easier than e-mailing files directly. The DEC assignment system, with its checks and balances, was therefore bypassed to some degree. The result was fewer technical problems and faster turnaround.
4. Introduction of Web-based support and assignment submission In order to supply the facilities enjoyed by computing staff and students to all faculties, a joint DEC/Gippsland School
of Computing project created a menu-based support and assignment submission system, then upgraded it to be webbased.
•
Any assignment extensions that have been granted can be confirmed.
•
Assignments can be submitted via e-mail.
The system, which is called WebFace, now services in excess of 1000 students at any time. In addition to WebFace, students also access subject Web pages for study materials to complement the materials sent to them from the DEC. Faculties other than computing have been slow to adopt WebFace.
•
The current state of a submission can be interrogated to check that submitted files have reached Monash successfully and also to check if the submission has started to be marked yet, and if so by whom.
•
Grading statistics for the assignment can be progressively monitored, including graphical grade distribution information.
5. WebFace functions WebFace is written in CGI Perl scripts using any standard Web browser as its user interface. The WebFace student database for each subject is automatically updated when student registration details are entered into the university's central administration system. The development of WebFace was therefore considerably simplified by the utilisation of existing structures. Currently WebFace provides: WWW Pages •
WebFace controls access to its web pages by verifying student and staff passwords e-mail
•
Standard e-mail facilities of the user's choice are utilised by WebFace. No extra WebFace code was required. Figure 3: Assignment grading statistics
News •
Each subject has a set of newsgroups, such as important notices, assignment discussion and general discussion.
Subject advisor access •
Student lists, including assignment grades, can be viewed in a form that can be imported directly into a spreadsheet.
Reading access to postings is controlled. Usually any user with an account on the server can read postings, but readership can be restricted to students enrolled in a subject, or to any arbitrary group of students .
•
Assignments can be defined (name, code, due date, cutoff date, legal marks, required and desired filenames, when to return marked assignments to students etc).
Any standard news reader client can be used because WebFace is .compatible with USENET news standards
•
Markers, groups of markers, and sequences of markers to mark each assignment can be defined.
•
The marking process can be monitored.
•
Extensions can be recorded.
•
Posting access is controlled (e.g. only subject advisors can post to an important notices groups).
•
•
Assignment Submission System Student access •
The Student Administration database is automatically interrogated to find enrolled subjects for each student.
•
Subjects can be manually added or removed where the Student Administration database is inaccurate.
•
Any preferred e-mail address for communication with the system (e.g. a private ISP address) can be defined.
Subject tutor access •
Read-only access is provided to subject advisor pages. Marker access
•
Markers can allocate submissions to themselves for marking either manually or automatically as the assignments arrive.
•
Submissions can be marked using either a WWW interface or a UNIX text menu interface which is more appropriate for programs that run on a UNIX system. General
•
Security against lost submissions is provided so that a disk failure cannot result in losing any duly accepted student submissions.
•
Security against accessing or modifying recorded grades is provided (apart from authorised users of the course).
6. Using WebFace Guide A WebFace user guide and accompanying CD-ROM are sent to students who can then connect to the internet and configure their e-mail and news to the Monash Gippsland Unix server. The user guide includes instructions for conferencing and assignment submission. A Helpdesk is available to assist with problems by telephone and e-mail.
Staff only can post important messages and assignment definition into the Notices newsgroup. Once subscribed, students are advised to regularly read the newsgroups as all important communications from staff are found there. If they are experiencing a problem, another student may have posted a query and received a solution. Students volunteer their solutions to non-assessable (and unfortunately on occasions assessable) exercises, and this encourages other students to also attempt the exercises and post their own solutions. Staff, of course, provide directive feedback. Approximately 200 students took GCO1811, the example subject used to illustrate this paper. By the end of the semester, students had made over 1000 postings to the GCO1811 newsgroups and staff had made approximately 450. Staff encourage students to answer the queries of their fellow students and therefore promote a sense of a virtual classroom. Assignment Submission The student interface Students are guided through a series of hyperlinks to request electronic "cover sheets" which are sent to their email addresses. Figure 5 displays a cover sheet for the first GCO1811 assignment. Subject:
GCO1811
Year:
1998
Period:
First Semester
Assignment: A first Java program Due:
Friday January 23, 1998 at 23:59:59 (local
time at Monash) Figure 4: Main WebFace entry point
Student:
wendyd
E-mail:
[email protected]
Entry to WebFace Many students are already familiar with Web browsers and so do not have to learn a new interface to become familiar with WebFace. Depending on the browser and the required WebFace function, entry to WebFace can be by URL, hyperlink or newsgroup. In the first option, the user follows hyperlinks through a succession of menu pages in order to perform the functions of their choice. Entry via the main menus is shown in Figure 4.
You must reply to this message to submit your assignment. Attach the files you wish to submit as MIME attachments to your reply. Note that Pegasus mail does not support MIME attachments; use a mailer such as the one included in Netscape. The following file(s) MUST be submitted: A1.txt
Newsgroups
Figure 5: Part of an assignment cover sheet
The newsgroups can be accessed via a standard browser newsgroup interface, usually by menu selection or URL. Students can subscribe to groups for the subjects in which they are enrolled. Subjects are usually divided into discussion sub groups of General, Assignment, and Notices.
This assignment was automatically marked by a Unix script written by Douglas Thomson. Figure 6 shows the marking response which was returned to the student's mail box within 30 seconds of submission. Obviously it was a simple initial assignment requiring very little feedback.
Subject:
GCO1811
Year:
1998
Study period: First Semester Assignment:
A first Java program
Student ID:
wendyd
Marker(s):
Douglas Thomson
Maximum mark: 100 Pass mark:
50
individual requirements of each assignment. Markers can insert comments anywhere in each assignment. Marks are automatically passed from the pro forma to be registered in the student grade list. As the example assignment demonstrates, WebFace is particularly useful for programming assignments which can be run on the WebFace Unix server. Markers can utilise a text-based menu in the Unix environment to edit, compile and run assignment programs, using scripts if preferred. The subject adviser can decide when assignments are to be returned to students. At every stage of the process, the progress of each assignment can be monitored.
Final grade: 0 Oops! Something is wrong here. Did you try to edit A1.txt manually? If you can't solve
7. Evaluation
the problem then please feel free to post
WebFace has been adopted with enthusiasm by staff and students alike before formal evaluation could be completed. Students report that they appreciate the convenience of emailing assignments, in contrast with printing and then regular mailing them. And they appreciate the rapid turnaround of assignments.
questions to the gco1811 assignments newsgroup.
Figure 6: Automatic marking response Students report that the rapid turnaround is extremely motivating. They also demonstrate a strong interest in monitoring the assignment statistics, another form of motivating feedback. The staff interface
Figure 7: Fragment of a student grade list
The asynchronous and isolated nature of distance education may leave students unsure that their level of understanding and progress is appropriate. Newsgroup discussion tends to be extremely relevant to each stage of a subject and alleviates these concerns.
Subject management of student records is handled by WebFace. Figure 7 displays the student grade list which incorporates administrative and assignment details. The grade list can be exported to a spreadsheet if required. Subject advisers can define assignment submission requirements including marker details and can grant extensions. Any relevant information automatically updates the grade list.
Approximately one third of the students in the example subject, GCO1811, were graduates from other disciplines who were studying computing at an undergraduate level. They therefore were able to compare distance with oncampus learning environments. Many considered that the "virtual" classrooms of the subject discussion groups promoted a closer sense of community and were more beneficial to their learning than the on-campus classes of their previous experiences.
A grading pro forma for the provision of assessment feedback to students is supplied when an assignment is defined and then inserted at the start of each student's assignment submission file. In this way, markers are provided with a standard format to guide their marking. The subject adviser can customise the pro forma to the
However students who fall behind in reading the newsgroups can be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of unread messages and fail to continue. Some students, intimidated by the more technical postings, prefer e-mail which is considerably more time consuming for staff. The tone of staff newsgroup postings is therefore carefully
moderated to encourage less confident students to contribute. The major problem experienced with WebFace stems from registrations which have been delayed in the administrative system. These students will not be allocated computer
Figure 8: A newsgroup posting
WebFace was developed because Monash University Gippsland School of Computing academic staff possessed an understanding of DE requirements and the technical skills to take advantage of advances in technology.
9. Acknowledgements
centre passwords and will not be visible to WebFace. Also students who experience hardware or internet connection problems can be at a severe disadvantage, especially if the problems occur while they are setting up their systems. Paradoxically, another negative effect stems from the enthusiasm with which students post e-mail and newsgroup queries in some subjects. An increase in staff workload can be the result.
Thanks to Douglas Thomson and Simon Strack for providing information on the development of WebFace.
8. Conclusion
[2] Rumble, G. Activity costing in mixed mode institutions. A report based on a study of Deakin University. Deakin Open Education Monograph No 2, Deakin University, Geelong, Victoria, 1986b.
WebFace is a web-based sub system which enhances a strong existing materials and student support system for DE. Compared with its manual system counterparts, WebFace provides equivalent or better security and controls, superior communication facilities and vastly decreased assignment turnaround times. In the process, it automates the maintenance of student records for subject advisers.
10. References [1] National Board of Employment, Education and Training. Costs and quality in resource-based learning on- and off-campus. Australian Government Publishing Services, 1994.
[3] Verduin, J. and Clark, T. Distance education: the foundation of effective practice. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 1991.
