Successful Practices for Online Computing, Engineering, and ...

Session T1C

Successful Practices for Online Computing, Engineering, and Technology Courses Carol J. Romanowski, Rajendra K. Raj, and S. Manian Ramkumar Rochester Institute of Technology, [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] Abstract – Distance learning has been one vehicle of course delivery at the Rochester Institute of Technology since the early 1990s. Building on the authors’ experience in teaching completely online and blended (partly on-campus and partly online) courses to both undergraduate and graduate students, in diverse areas of computing, engineering, and technology, this paper explores issues in delivering online classes in these disciplines. One particular focus is on conveying the traditional in-class laboratory experience to a similar one in the online world while another focus is to leverage the modalities available in online to create newer and richer experiences for students and instructor. The paper presents the challenges and pitfalls in totally asynchronous learning, from assessment to assignments, from lectures to labs, and from participation to plagiarism. For each challenge, the authors provide examples of practices that succeeded, building on experience with those that did not. To place this work in perspective, the paper also examines related work in online computing and engineering education. Index Terms – Assessment, Distance Learning, Online Courses. INTRODUCTION Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) has a long history in the field of distance learning, from videotaped lectures in the early 1990s to the completely asynchronous classes of today. Despite this prodigious institutional experience and background, many professors have difficulty developing and delivering online classes, especially in technical subjects. In addition, the presence of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) on our campus creates unique challenges and opportunities in content delivery. In addition to traditional classroom teaching, the authors have extensive experience teaching completely online and blended (on-campus and online) courses to both undergraduate and graduate students. The courses taught have been fairly diverse including Design of Experiments; Introduction to Asset Management; History and Manufacture of Siege Weapons; Secure Coding; Secure Database Systems; Cloud and Large-scale Data Management; Quality Data Analysis; Statistical Quality Tools; Data Cleaning and Preparation; and Controls for Manufacturing Automation. The classes are often a mix of traditional students (on-campus and distance) and working adults (local and distance), which results in an interesting,

sometimes difficult dynamic as learning styles and work habits collide. This heterogeneity of the student population, NTID students, and the current 10-week quarter system add to the challenge. Given these issues, we have found that a successful online course is not simply a traditional classroom delivered over the Internet via video and audio. Certain components of the face-to-face experience are difficult or impossible to replicate asynchronously, so other techniques must be employed to establish both student-professor and studentstudent relationships. However, we believe that welldesigned online classes can be as rich and rewarding as oncampus offerings, for both the student and the teacher. Another challenge with online learning, especially when many of the students are on-campus, is preventing plagiarism. While unsanctioned ―group work‖ certainly occurs in traditional courses, there is additional temptation and opportunity in the online world. We will discuss ways to discourage cheating, and practical techniques to minimize collaboration where individual effort is the goal. In engineering classes, the lab is often an important part of learning. How do we translate the lab experience to the online environment? How can students become familiar with equipment from afar? These questions often stymie instructors of technical subjects and prevent them from attempting to develop their courses for online delivery. This paper first outlines the different kinds of blended and online courses offered at RIT. It then describes several courses in greater depth to highlight challenges and concerns that come up with online courses. We then discuss challenges in online courses and successful practices in ensuring a quality experience for our students. Finally, we discuss related work in online courses in engineering and computing, and summarize the current status of our work. TYPES OF ONLINE COURSES At our institution, we have two main types of online courses. One is completely online, either completely asynchronous or with synchronous online elements such as chats or office hours; the other is blended, with at least one on-campus session and several online elements. A blended course at RIT incorporates the following: (1) some online learning activities are added to complement face-to-face work, (2) about half the classroom time is replaced with instructor-guided learning activities in asynchronous or synchronous interaction online, and (3) the online and face-to-face components of the course are

978-1-61284-469-5/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE October 12 - 15, 2011, Rapid City, SD 41st ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference T1C-1

Session T1C integrated in a pedagogically-valuable manner to ensure the best use of in-classroom and online aspects [1]. Both the totally online and blended sections of the course are integrated online, with the major difference being that the blended course has a weekly physical classroom meeting. The physical classroom ―lecture‖ has tended to be student-demanded mini-lectures by the instructor and sometimes by other students or teams. Table 1 lists the three types of online courses and benefits and drawbacks of each type in terms of managing the course. By access flexibility we mean the ability of students to view course materials on their own schedule.

part of the discussions. Exams are a combination of online quiz (a ―lightning round‖ of 50 questions in 25 minutes) and a written portion. Assignments are increasingly difficult data preparation and cleaning tasks, culminating in a group project merging, cleaning, and preparing several large data files. Students also write a term paper on a particular domain or technique. Most of the students in this class are local and oncampus. This class is often the first fully online course for this group of students, so they tend to prefer face-to-face interaction over virtual communication.

TABLE I ONLINE COURSE TYPES, PROS AND CONS OF COURSE MANAGEMENT Type Pros Cons Fully asynchronous High access flexibility Can be difficult to get full and timely participation. Mixed Good access flexibility Must find a mutually synchronous/ agreeable time for asynchronous synchronous activities. Blended (one inModerate access Not available for distance class meeting, other flexibility learners. online activities)

The Controls for Manufacturing Automation course involves study of the principles and application of Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC). PLCs are devices used for automated monitoring, controlling, and integration of manufacturing systems. Topics include PLC hardware, PLC programming (ladder-logic), PLC troubleshooting, installation, and applications in an automated manufacturing environment. The course also introduces students to human machine interfacing and PLC networking. Laboratory sessions require the students to develop and test programs that read sensors, controls actuators, and monitors automation equipment performance. After executing the program on the PLC system, it is important that students check the program’s conformity to specifications, by observing system response and troubleshoot the program if required. The laboratory aspects of this course were discussed in an earlier paper [2]. This course was adapted for online delivery because students in this course are typically either distance learners or local students who must travel during the week for work.

RIT’s course management system (hosted at myCourses.rit.edu) is a customized implementation of the Desire2Learn learning management system. Although this paper refers to features available in this system, other course management systems commonly used in higher education, for example, those based on Blackboard and moodle, offer comparable features that can be used. EXAMPLE COURSES This section describes a set of course, each representing a distinct course type. We describe the course and the basic philosophy adopted in making this course work. I. Course 1: Quality Data Analysis This undergraduate course covers basic statistics and hypothesis testing with a quality focus. The course consists of weekly online lectures, discussions, and includes practice problems and step-by-step tutorials in Minitab and Excel as needed. In discussions, students are asked to comment on the relevance of the current topic to their home or work life, or find ways they can use statistics. For example, when the course is offered in the winter quarter, students use their statistical knowledge to predict that year’s Super Bowl winner. Since many students in this class are working adults, they often share quality data-related problems and solutions they have encountered in their jobs. The target audience is adults working in some aspect of the quality field. For many of these students, this course is their first introduction to both online learning and statistics. II. Course 2: Data Cleaning and Prep, 700-level course This graduate course in computer science is structured very much like Quality Data Analysis; however, as this is a graduate class, students are asked to do paper reviews as

III. Course 3: Controls for Manufacturing Automation

IV. Course 4: Secure Database Systems This class is a graduate course in computer science that was originally developed for a traditional on-classroom setting, then converted to a blended setting, and subsequently offered in a purely online format. The course topics and content course, along with measurements of student learning, and other experiences with the course were presented earlier [3]; we focus here on how the blended and online formats differ from the traditional classroom format. In the blended and online formats, the course leverages collaborative learning tools such as web-based discussion forums. In addition to discussions and research paper reviews, this course has two major grading components: a course project and an online ―take-home‖ final exam. The course project does require a certain degree of synchrony but only within each project team (typically of size 3); note students still need not meet in-person. The final exam is based on the course project, and specific topics and discussions covered during the term. V. Course 5: Cloud and Large-scale Data Management This blended course is similar to the previous one, but students learn a variety of advanced research topics in this

978-1-61284-469-5/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE October 12 - 15, 2011, Rapid City, SD 41st ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference T1C-2

Session T1C emerging area of computing. The two initial offerings of the course emphasized blended aspects, i.e., close personal interaction among the students on a team as it was felt that successful course projects would not be possible otherwise. However, after these two offerings of the course, we realize that this was not a valid assumption, and a fully online version of the course would be viable. After all, the projects are conducted on cloud services such as Amazon Web Services, only available via the web. CHALLENGES AND SUCCESSFUL PRACTICES Most of the challenges posed by online education are the same we encounter in face-to-face classrooms. In this section we discuss some of the major challenges, and present ideas that we have used to overcome them.

incompletes, and where to find technical assistance with the course management system. Students are also provided with practical advice on how to succeed in the course, including recommendations for study aids.

Remote User

Ethernet PLC Controller Real Video Streaming Host

I. Technology issues Technology issues can derail an online course’s success. Incredibly, the occasional student is still on a dialup computer connection. Students and professors may have incompatible versions of common software, such as PowerPoint or Excel. Students on Mac platforms cannot use Minitab, a statistical software tool needed for quality management courses. Students (and sometimes professors) may have difficulties with the course management software. Our institution lets students test their equipment before registering for conformance with the course management software. Therefore, the professor does not have to take on the burden of dealing with hardware incompatibilities. Workarounds for productivity tools such as MS Office are possible using open source programs such as Open Office, or by converting materials to PDF format. While local students can access computer labs to use Minitab, distance students cannot; therefore, the instructor needs to be flexible regarding software use in completing assignments. For lab courses, a remote setup such as Figure 1, used in the Controls and Manufacturing Automation course, gives students access to physical laboratory setups, often a major concern in engineering and other technical courses. The laboratory hardware consists of an Ethernet PLC connected to the experiment, with a unique IP address. Four identical systems, each with a unique IP address, provide students the flexibility to access an available system to try their logic programs. The laboratory setup is available 24/7 providing anytime, anywhere access to students. Students develop their program and test it by communicating with the PLC hardware in the laboratory over the web (see Figure 1). Students can lock the hardware system when in use to prevent being accidentally thrown offline by another user. II. Novice online students For many students, these courses are their first experience with online learning. Therefore, the first week’s material is critically important to start them off on the right foot. In Quality Data Analysis, the first week’s lecture starts with a detailed explanation of the course elements, policies and expectations, along with information on extra credit,

Experiment Setup

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FIGURE 1 LABORATORY SETUP FOR DISTANCE LEARNING

Students new to the online environment typically appreciate its asynchronous nature, but want to know exactly what is required of them and when. Occasionally, students request access to all lectures and homework for the entire term, all at once, to facilitate finishing the work early. However, this approach—while followed by some professors—completely decouples the student from classmates and any discussion-based learning activities. The requirements and description for laboratory sessions in the Controls for Manufacturing Automation course are posted in MyCourses, RIT’s course management software. To assist students further in understanding the requirements, a real video demonstration of the expected final outcome is also provided through MyCourses. For laboratory experiments to be performed online, students purchase the software toolkit as part of their course packet. III. Deaf and hard-of-hearing students The National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) is one of RIT’s colleges, and NTID students take courses across campus, including computing, engineering and technology courses. The presence of NTID students mandates that any used audio materials be captioned. Captioning is a timeconsuming process, and materials must be submitted months in advance to have this work done. In courses where NTID students are likely to be present, text-based or slide-based lectures level the playing field, allowing them to participate fully in asynchronous discussions, although any Adobe Connect or other voicebased activities requires accommodation. The cost and time lag in captioning services is a non-trivial concern that limits revision of previously captioned course materials and adoption of audio-based synchronous approaches such as

978-1-61284-469-5/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE October 12 - 15, 2011, Rapid City, SD 41st ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference T1C-3

Session T1C teleconferences. For level-playing field and captioning, instructors find it simpler to reduce their reliance on audio. IV. Lecture delivery

times each week; once with their own answer to the discussion question, and twice more in response to their classmates’ posts. Response posts must be substantive; ―I agree‖ does not count toward participation points.

Several options are available for lecture material delivery. The simplest method is PowerPoint slides (often the option of choice when hard-of-hearing students are in the class). Lectures can be provided to the students as flash movies, streamed on-demand, through RIT’s on-line learning web portal. Some instructors pre-record audio for the lectures, using Adobe Presenter, Adobe Captivate or Camtasia Studio, enabling them to update lecture materials, seamlessly, as and when needed. However, as stated earlier, when deaf or hard-of-hearing students are present, as is often the case at RIT, all these materials must be captioned. The use of tablet PCs has also enhanced the lecture recordings, by providing faculty the ability to illustrate concepts while recording the lectures, thereby enhancing student learning. V. Plagiarism

VI. Discussions and participation The hallmark of effective online courses is the discussion function, which is the analog of in-class participation. For example, Figure 2 shows a typical set of discussions for the Quality Data Analysis course (a completely online class). The Main discussion forum provides students with a place to ask questions about course management issues, such as exam formats, or to report problems, such as a missing dropbox. An ―open line‖ forum provides a space for discussion on current events related to course topics. In the first week’s discussion forum, students and professor introduce themselves; this practice begins to build relationships among the class. Subsequent weeks follow the pattern of a topical discussion question and the ―Clear as mud‖ forum for help with homework or understanding concepts. Students are required to post a minimum of three

FIGURE 2 DISCUSSION FORUMS IN AN ONLINE COURSE

Discussions work best when students participate throughout the discussion period. To get a good grade, each student must post in the discussion forum, but some students wait until the last day to post their comments, making it difficult—if not impossible—for their classmates to respond and hold any semblance of a discussion. As participation is often assessed by the quantity and quality of posts, late posting is a problem. Reminders to ―post early, post often‖ have limited success. A good practice is to require students to post within two days of a new lecture upload; this requirement, however, may be difficult for working students who may only be able to access courses on weekends.

Discussion participation Data Preparation and Cleaning 20.00

Posts per student

Plagiarism is a concern no matter how a course is delivered. However, in online courses the major concern is exam administration, since there is no way to effectively proctor an online exam. In some courses, students are local to the university; that means we cannot be sure they are not taking an exam ―collaboratively‖ even if the exam itself is online. Plagiarism prevention requires different approaches. Individualized exams can be offered, but if the class is large, this method is not feasible. Take-home exams are possible if questions are carefully constructed. Course management software can also be used to (a) randomly choose questions from a test bank so no exam is alike, (b) change quiz settings to prevent students from returning to earlier questions, and (c) limit the duration of the exam so students do not have time to consult others (i.e., a ―lightning round‖). Populating the test banks in course management software is a tedious and time-consuming chore. Lightning round questions also need to be multiple choice or fill-in-the blank, which limits the depth of the examination.

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FIGURE 3 PARTICIPATION IN ONLINE FORUMS

Figure 3 shows posts per student for one course, Data Preparation and Cleaning, over a three year period. The

978-1-61284-469-5/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE October 12 - 15, 2011, Rapid City, SD 41st ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference T1C-4

Session T1C bathtub pattern (many posts at first, fewer in the middle, and more at the end of the course) is typical in our experience; unlike [14], we do not see a saw tooth effect in the number of posts. This result may be because we usually require a minimum of three posts per week (although the chart shows that in this particular course, students regularly exceeded that minimum), and posting more often—or with better quality—does not equal a higher discussion grade. The same course and grade distribution reveals the interesting effects of class participation on overall grade. Table II shows overall grade (based on homework, exams, and discussions) versus the grade excluding discussions. While most A students did not need discussions to raise their overall grade, 29% of B students did. Half of the students who earned a C lost a letter grade that accounts for the low discussion average for C students shown in Table III. TABLE II EFFECT OF PARTICIPATION GRADES ON OVERALL GRADES Overall Excluding discussion A B C D A 84.62 15.38 0.00 0.00 B 16.67 54.17 25.00 4.17 C 0.00 50.00 16.67 33.33 TABLE III AVERAGES FOR GRADING ELEMENTS Overall grade Average grade Discussion Homework A 97.83 90.22 B 92.73 85.65 C 74.81 85.46

Exams 93.72 81.12 72.94

Blended courses such as Secure Database Systems use appropriately modified versions of traditional in-class active learning components such as discussions among students and faculty. As these elements move from the classroom to online, the two obvious benefits are that the change (1) allows in depth discussion over an extended period of time, instead of limiting it to the duration of a class period, and (2) all students are compelled to discuss, i.e., the loud students can neither drown out nor time-out the silent ones. To further improve interactions, chats and teleconferences are an option, where students can discuss problems and share ideas. With enhanced web-based teleconferencing capability, white board features, and tablet PCs, faculty can enhance the live session by sharing their tablet screens to the remote student computers, while responding to questions. This ability provides a virtual white board to the students that the faculty uses to illustrate concepts during the teleconference sessions. The teleconference sessions are also recorded and provided as flash movies, on the web portal, for the students to watch at a later time, if they happen to miss the live sessions. VII. Asynchronous and Synchronous Elements Achieving a balance between asynchronous and synchronous course activities also needs to be considered.

For distance students who are not in local time zone, synchronous activities are particularly problematic—as are group assignments, where students make use of chat or a dedicated team discussion forum. Class makeup should dictate which elements are used in course activities. VIII. The role of email, texting, and office hours Students often need to be weaned away from their reliance on email or texting to the instructor when they have questions about concepts or the course itself, and to employ areas of the course specifically designed for communication. Many students often have the same questions, and capturing them—and the professor’s answers—in a public area is important so that all benefit from the conversation. Chats within the course management software are useful for this purpose, as are dedicated discussion forums. Online office hours can be held using the chat function, teleconferences, or Adobe Connect. We find that on-campus students often prefer office hours rather than use e-mail, chat, or the course management system’s pager function. IX. Other successful practices Here are additional practices we have found useful in making blended and online courses run successfully.  Clear as mud: This forum should be one of the first sections in the layout of an online course, as it allows students to know that they can gripe about any aspect of the course and realize they will get prompt feedback.  Anonymous feedback: This forum is similar to Clear As Mud, but allows students to complain without feeling exposed or to worry about their own grades. Students have used this area to refine the running of the courses, e.g., to correct the focus of a discussion or to point out course elements that are not functioning well.  Personal blog: Requiring students to maintain a personal blog viewable only by the instructor, say with three postings distributed over a week, is also useful. Students find it comforting that they can have a conversation with the instructor, which allows them to communicate on issues impacting their learning or their team projects. Instructors find this practice useful because they can engage with students on a one-on-one basis, and remove roadblocks in a timely manner. This blog also leads to closer instructor-student relationship often missing in online courses.  Open line or off-topic: The open line forum encourages students to relate current events to the course. In an Off-topic forum, students typically discuss sporting events or other activities not directly related to the course content. This forum promotes a feeling of community among the class.  Dedicated team forums: Grading individual effort in team projects is difficult in face-to-face classes. In distance learning classes, where students may be spread across the globe, instructors may be tempted to avoid team projects. However, if teams are required to use a dedicated team discussion forum for all communication

978-1-61284-469-5/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE October 12 - 15, 2011, Rapid City, SD 41st ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference T1C-5

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relating to the project, the instructor has a record of who has done what in completing the assignment. Syllabus confirmation: This forum is useful when conflicts arise over course policies; the instructor has a statement from the student that he or she has read and understood the syllabus. Frequently asked questions: This forum is helpful to anticipate some of the more common student questions. RELATED WORK

In this section, we examine some of the related work in online courses in computing, engineering, and technology. Little-Wiles et al. are exploring the development of an effective online earning environment to enhance and promote student engagement [4]. An ongoing work [5] is examining how recent advances in information technology can make it possible to offer substantive, interactive online courses. Another ongoing study [6] focuses on the relationship between critical thinking skills and the amount of information provided to students in an online setup. Ellis and Cohen [7] explore the role of wikis, blogs, and forums for communication, organization and information process in online courses. To improve accessibility in courseware authoring, several attempts are being made to automate the process of courseware development [8][9]. Abler et al. [11] take a different approach to distance learning and focus on recreating a virtual classroom online via HDTV support so that instructors and students feel that they are completely in the same classroom. Dark et al. [12] propose the creation of a realistic virtualization of a physical classroom to capture remote students’ facial expressions and general body language to allow for better integration of the virtual classroom into the physical one. Our work, however, accepts the limitations of the online environment but uses it effectively to create new richer experiences for our students. Moudgalya et al. [13] outline the implementation of distance learning via the use of video conferencing, satellite service, webcasting, live and offline classrooms via prerecorded lectures. Our focus, however, is on instructor practices that lead to successful courses offered online. Organero and Kloos [14] also focus on the use of forums as a major avenue for student assessment, but we emphasize practices needed to make online courses succeed. FINAL WORDS

REFERENCES [1]

RIT Online Learning, Blended Courses. Available: http://online.rit.edu/faculty/blended/overview.cfm.

[2]

Kandasamy, S., and R. S. Manian, ―Distance delivery of a laboratory based controls for manufacturing automation course—a success story,‖ Frontiers in Education (FIE 2004), Savannah, GA, Oct 2004.

[3]

Raj, R. K., and R. Savacool, ―Experiences with Teaching Secure Data Management,‖ Frontiers in Education (FIE 2010), Washington, D.C., Oct 2010.

[4]

Little-Wiles, J. M., S. P. Hundley and A. Koehler, ―Work in progress - maximizing student engagement in a learning management system,‖ Frontiers in Education (FIE 2010), Washington, D.C., Oct 2010.

[5]

Groves, J. F., S. A. Caraballo, R. S. Hobson, G. R. Scales and L. Vahala, ―Work in progress – transitioning an established engineering distance learning program infrastructure to an on-line instructional setting,‖ Frontiers in Education (FIE 2010), Washington,., Oct 2010.

[6]

Trekles, A., and S. Nakayama, ―Work in progress: identifying adequate level of instruction without hindering deeper learning in distance learning,‖ Frontiers in Education (FIE 2010), Washington, D.C., Oct 2010.

[7]

Ellis, T. J. and M.S. Cohen, ―Forums and wikis and blogs, oh my: building a foundation for social computing in education,‖ Frontiers in Education (FIE 2009), San Antonio, TX, Oct 2009.

[8]

L. Harrison, ―Inclusion in an Electronic Classroom - 2000: the Role of the Courseware Authoring Tool Developer‖, Adaptive Technology Resource Centre, University of Toronto, 2000.

[9]

Hadian, S., and B. Wadge, ―Work in progress - development of an environment for diverse learners and accessible learning,‖ Frontiers in Education (FIE 2009), San Antonio, TX, Oct 2009.

[10] Vitela, L. N., V. Robledo-Rella, E. Espinosa and J. Noguez, ―Design of questions and distracters for a dynamic, algorithm-based suite of physics problems for engineering students,‖ Frontiers in Education (FIE 2008), Saratoga Springs, NY, Oct 2008. [11] Abler, R., S. Brennan and J. Jackson, ―High definition video support for natural interaction through distance learning,‖ Frontiers in Education (FIE 2008), Saratoga Springs, NY, Oct 2008. [12] Dark, M. J., C. S. York, V. Popescu and C. Nita-Rotaru, ―Evaluating interactivity and presence in an online distance learning system,‖ Frontiers in Education (FIE 2007), Milwaukee, WI, Oct 2007. [13] Moudgalya, K. M., D. B. Phatak and R. K. Shevgaonkar, ―Engineering education for everyone a distance education experiment at IIT Bombay,‖ Frontiers in Education (FIE 2008), Saratoga Springs, NY, Oct 2008. [14] Organero, M. M. and C. D. Kloos, ―Using forums and assessments as motivational tools in e-learning courses: a case study,‖ Frontiers in Education (FIE 2007), Milwaukee, WI, Oct 2007.

AUTHOR INFORMATION This paper focused on creating useful features of traditional Carol J. Romanowski, Associate Professor, Center for in-class laboratory experience to a similar one online and on Multidisciplinary Studies, Rochester Institute of utilizing the modalities available online to create newer and Technology, [email protected]. richer experiences for students and instructor. Online courses can be effective when instructors and students Rajendra K. Raj, Professor, Department of Computer approach them with the right mindset. Running them Science, Rochester Institute of Technology, [email protected] successfully requires intense commitment from the instructor, but successful practices can be followed on to S. Manian Ramkumar, Professor, Department of make the courses relevant and useful to the students. Mechanical/Manufacturing Engineering Technology and As ongoing work, we are developing metrics to Packaging Science, Rochester Institute of Technology, quantify the effectiveness of different practices used in [email protected] online course development and delivery. 978-1-61284-469-5/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE October 12 - 15, 2011, Rapid City, SD 41st ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference T1C-6