Tuesday, November 16, 1999

At Iowa, an Experimental On-Line Course for 1,900 Students Runs Into Problems By JEFFREY R. YOUNG More than half of the 1,900 students in an experimental on-line course at the University of Iowa received F's on their midterm report cards. The failing students should not A barrage of F's seems to have sparked at least 300 additional students to start doing the course work, says a professor teaching an on-line orientation course. have been surprised, however, because none of them had even started the self-paced program. Some of the students blame the university for releasing material for the course late, though others simply haven't gotten around to the assignments, which don't have to be completed until next month. But problems the course has encountered illustrate some of the perils of running a non-traditional, large-scale course that relies heavily on technology. The course is called OnLine at Iowa, and it aims to teach students how to find their way around the campus and how to use the campus computer system. This is the second year the university has offered the elective course, for which students earn one credit if they pass. Students who are enrolled never enter a classroom. They do all of the course work on computers, using CD-ROMs and a Web site, and they submit assignments via e-mail. The course is divided into 12 lessons, each of which is estimated to take about an hour to complete. A single professor is charged with teaching the 1,900 students, with help from 20 undergraduate teaching assistants who are available if students have trouble. The professor, Bob Boynton, took on the course because he is interested in experimenting with on-line teaching. The idea to develop a one-credit orientation course arose from a library committee and other campus officials. Mr. Boynton, a professor of political science, says that for teaching such basic material, technology is better than traditional classroom lecturing. Students watch a series of short video clips in which Mr. Boynton explains various university processes -- such as how to search for information, and how to create a Web site -- and then the students get to try out what they've just learned. "What I do is set up a tutorial relationship with the 1,900 students," says Mr. Boynton. "They stick the CD in, I start talking to them and showing them how to do things, and then they turn around and do them." But the course has had some glitches. Last year, Mr. Boynton tried to grade the work of all 1,800 students in the course himself. He says he read about 17,000 e-mail messages during the semester. But grading so many students' work individually made it impossible for Mr. Boynton to also monitor whether everyone who had enrolled was keeping up with the course. "A couple of hundred students" failed last year because they didn't finish the course, or -- in some cases -- didn't even start, Mr. Boynton says. This year, Mr. Boynton helped set up a computer program that grades the assignments and keeps track of how the students are progressing. "I'm trying to do everything I can to keep [students] from putting it off," he says. The system made it possible to mail midterm grades. But at the start of the semester, the grading system wasn't up and running, and about half of the lessons were not on the Web site. Even now, with only four weeks left in the semester, four of the lessons are still not on line. Some students have complained about the delays, and say they'd like to finish the course early. "Why should they hand this down to us if they aren't organized?" Amy Peterson, a student in the course, said in an article in The Daily Iowan. "I'm sorry. I wish we hadn't had the delay," says Mr. Boynton. "Sometimes that happens, and it happens more when you're dealing with computers than when you're not." But Mr. Boynton says that all of the lessons will be available in time for students to finish the course by Thanksgiving, if they choose. Students have until the last day of classes -- December 10 -- to complete the work. "I don't believe that anybody could not finish the course by the end of the semester," says Mr. Boynton. "It would have been nicer if it had been ready earlier, but it wasn't." Meanwhile, the barrage of F's seems to have sparked at least 300 additional students to start doing the course work, says Mr. Boynton. "They got a mid-semester grade report that said, 'You're failing this course,' so that led to action." Easy-to-print version E-mail this article