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SELF ASSESSMENT: Determine your readiness to succeed in an online course by answering yes or no to the following statements.
If you answered "no" to any of these questions, you should consider enrolling in a traditional course on campus. If you are taking a class online, read on...
Online ManifestoThe purpose of this brief document is to outline reasonable expectations for your online GIS class experience. These expectations are aimed at the online student and teacher.
There are so many questions and so many more answers. We have all taken or taught classes in the campus classroom in a traditional environment. We have developed years of experiences and expectations and those experiences and expectations shape our behavior online and in the classroom. None of us grew up taking classes online. We don’t have a body of knowledge on what is reasonable behavior online, in the online class, or “in front of” the online class. We have much to learn about online learning besides the learning we hope to achieve online.
What do you know about your online teacher? Online classes in University College at the University of Denver are taught by adjunct faculty. University College prides itself on offering courses taught by working professionals, people that practice what they teach. Therefore, these people have real jobs by day and real families by night – not unlike the typical nontraditional student seeking to take classes online. Going online to teach a class is on top of the routine work and home activities; professional correspondence or paying the bills.
Personality… When in the classroom it doesn’t take long for students and instructors to communicate, demonstrate, or mask their personality. Demonstrating your personality is much more difficult online and there is a notion that one can maintain a certain degree of anonymity online. Staying anonymous is impossible in the classroom and remaining anonymous should be impossible in an online learning environment.
Therefore… Faculty will direct you to personal web pages about themselves that are either professional or informal in nature. Faculty will also share a little about themselves during the first week of class. Likewise, students will be required to share a little about themselves to their instructor and classmates. The Internet may be the physical classroom, but there is no reason not to make the “room” feel a bit smaller and cozier. Students and faculty should post a picture of themselves on their personal web page. Everyone attending, studying, and teaching at the University of Denver can create and maintain a personal web page at http://portfolio.du.edu.
Course materials… Faculty members do not work online or otherwise 24 hours per day, seven days per week. In fact they might not be online the first day of the academic quarter. Be assured that they are not absent. They have already invested countless hours preparing course material and uploading those materials so class is ready for you at the beginning of the quarter.
Therefore… The syllabus and at least one week’s worth of course material will be available on the first day of the academic term.
Email… How did we communicate before email? Did you write as many memos and letters before email as you do email messages now? Probably not. Because of instant messaging, sending, and receiving correspondence extensively via email, we seem to “communicate”, much more than we did in a paper-based environment. How much email do you receive? Ten, thirty, one hundred messages per day? How much of it is “important?” It is becoming increasingly more difficult to cull through the vast numbers of email messages separating the important from the spam.
Therefore… Faculty will respond to email inquiries within 48 hours of receipt. Sooner is better, but not always possible. If faculty will be out of reach for an extended period of time they will post an announcement to that effect.
Holidays… Need a day off? Online faculty members are teaching classes on top of their normal work and family obligations. Teaching is a calling, a choice, and a high priority for those who elect to do so. But no one with a life can be online all of the time. Everyone needs a break every now and then.
Therefore… Faculty will not be online seven days a week. They will pick a day or two to stay offline, rest, or do whatever they do that is not class-related.
Travel… Business people and natural born geographers travel. Some people have to; some people love to and travel in this day and age takes a physical and mental toll on the traveler. You can expect your instructor to engage in business and personal travel even while conducting an online class. However, online access is sometimes unpredictable at our final destinations, although it is usually available.
Therefore… Your instructors will alert you to their travel obligations if they think it might impact their ability to get and stay online or if days must be blocked out to accommodate travel.
Student travel… Lest we forget, typical University College students at the University of Denver are working professionals with work and family obligations of their own.
Therefore… Quid pro quo. Just as faculty members will alert students when travel may impact course delivery, students will alert their instructors when travel may impact their ability to fulfill course requirements in a timely fashion.
Assignments… Homework assignments are integral to assessing learning. Teachers create assignments and determine due dates allowing sufficient time for students to complete the required work.
Therefore… Faculty will announce or post due dates for assignments and students will deliver their assignments by the due date. Faculty will establish a timeframe for reviewing homework, usually one or two weeks depending on the size or complexity of the assignment and return homework assignments by an established date. Students turning in late assignments are not guaranteed that a late assignment will even, if ever, get reviewed and graded. Faculty members are under no obligation to go back in time and review late assignments. If professional, travel, family, or other reasons preclude faculty members or students from living up to this obligation, an agreement may be reached in writing between the teacher and student.
Talk, talk, talk… Some students like to sit quietly in the classroom and soak all the information in because they learn aurally and visually. Some students like to engage in classroom discussion, debate, and repartee. Discussion boards and chat rooms in an online learning environment are the same.
Therefore… Teachers will not expect students to respond to every discussion board thread. However, if participation is mandatory, the teacher will indicate that fact. Discussion board “rules” and/or expectations will be set with regards to content or reasonable length of responses. Students will adhere to discussion board “rules” and maintain reasonable discussion board etiquette as agreed upon between teachers and students. This usually means contributing meaningful information or opinions and respecting the contributions of others. Simple answers such as “I agree” and “ditto” are a waste of time.
But I need to speak to my teacher… Phone conversations are often the quickest and most direct way to communicate when an issue must be discussed between teacher and student. Online teachers and students have jobs and families and getting away to talk on the phone is often difficult resulting in an endless game of “phone tag.”
Therefore… Faculty members are not obligated to make and receive telephone calls from students. Faculty members may choose to converse via telephone. The nature of online classes lends itself to learning and conversing over an extended period of time making discussion boards and emails the preferred mode of communication. If necessary, faculty members will be provided a long distance code to call online students if that is the best communication option at the time.
Technical support… Many classes are very technical in nature. Online students are expected to be technically savvy with regards to computer maintenance, software installation, and use. One of the objectives of online learning may be to learn how to apply new technology. Regardless, the student is ultimately responsible to insure that they have the capability to make software applications work on their own computer. Students are also responsible for maintaining a computing environment that is similar to or exceeds the computer environment available in campus computer labs. A more complete list of computer technology skills is available at http://www.du.edu/gis/onlinemanifesto.html.
Geographic Information System (GIS), remote sensing/image processing, and Global Positioning System (GPS) technology and software…
GIS and other geospatial science software is not word processing or spreadsheet software, something you may have mastered by now. Geospatial software is complex and the software architecture and database structures will be new to you. If you knew this already you wouldn’t take GIS classes. Your instructors in an introductory class also recognize the software is new to you. Your instructors in follow-on and advanced classes know what kind of experience you have from your introductory classes and will expect you to demonstrate certain competencies with different software applications.
Therefore… Instructors will exercise a fair degree of patience with students in their first GIS class as they are exposed to new software and technology concepts. Instructors will assign chapters and lessons from adjunct texts as determined by the instructor and instructors will compose clear lab exercises with step by step instructions in the first two to five lab exercises.
Learning GIS and related geospatial software is a cumulative learning experience. Students can expect fewer step by step instructions in subsequent lab exercises as their software knowledge-base grows. Students will read chapters and accomplish the exercises in assigned texts such as Mastering ArcGIS, Getting to Know ArcGIS Desktop, or other tutorial documents to supplement their software skills. Finally, students will extend their skills learned in early classes to advanced classes taken later in their program of study.
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