ECAR collaborated with 157 institutions to collect responses from 13,451 faculty respondents across 7 countries about their technology experiences. ECAR also collaborated with 124 institutions to collect responses from 43,559 undergraduate students across 10 countries about their technology experiences. Please see the 2017 student and faculty studies hub for more about this year’s research.
When it comes to meeting technological support needs, students’ default modality is DIY. Students are more than twice as likely to figure out solutions to technology problems on their own, to search online sources, or to ask a friend than they are to use their campus help desk. Contacting the vendor or company to fix a technology problem is the last resort.
Laptops are king, smartphones are queen, and tablets are on the way out.
Students’ experiences with their instructors’ use of and approach to technology in the classroom are a mixed bag. A majority of students said most of their instructors have adequate technology skills, use technology to enhance learning, and encourage the use of collaborative technology tools. However, students said fewer faculty use technology for sophisticated learning tasks (e.g., engagement, creative and critical thinking), and relatively few faculty ask students to use their own devices for in-class work.
Students are choosing sides in the online versus face-to-face debate. For the fourth year in a row, the number of students preferring a blended learning environment that includes some to mostly online components has increased. The number of students preferring completely face-to-face or completely online courses continues to dwindle. The number of students expressing no preference has been cut by more than half since 2014.
Students are satisfied with features of their LMS…except when they aren’t.Students have favorable opinions about the basic features and functionalities of their LMS. But, the more sophisticated the task and the more engagement required of students, the less happy they tend to be. This may be a function of the tools, the instructors who use them, or both.
Students would like their instructors to use more technology in their classes.Technologies that provide students with something (e.g., lecture capture, early-alert systems, LMS, search tools) are more desired than those that require students to give something (e.g., social media, use of their own devices, in-class polling tools). We speculate that sound pedagogy and technology use tied to specific learning outcomes and goals may improve the desirability of the latter.
Students reported that faculty are banning or discouraging the use of laptops, tablets, and (especially) smartphones more often than in previous years. Some students reported using their devices (especially their smartphones) for nonclass activities, which might explain the instructor policies they are experiencing. However, they also reported using their devices for productive classroom activities (e.g., taking notes, researching additional sources of information, and instructor-directed activities).
The Next 10 Years: Helping STEM Students Thrive series, on January 10th, from 12-1:30 PM ET. The topic will be learning spaces with the following guest speakers:
Jeanne L. Narum, Principal, Learning Spaces Collaboratory
Jeanne will discuss what she has learned about what works, why and how it works in achieving sustainable institutional transformation in the world of planning spaces for learning in the undergraduate setting.
Lisa Stephens, Sr. Strategist- SUNY Academic Innovation – University at Buffalo
Rebecca Rotundo, Instructional Technology Specialist, University at Buffalo
Lisa and Rebecca will share their experience in FLEXspace (Flexible Learning Environments eXchange) an open education repository project which has expanded to over 2,600+ users from 1,200+ educational institutions across 42 countries.
Xin Li, Associate University Librarian, Cornell
Xin will share information about the Library’s initiative to install a Portal on the Cornell campus in Sept. 2018, with the goal to engage faculty, students, and the community in live conversations with Portal users in different countries, cultures, or life circumstances, such as what others do for STEM education.
This collaboration between Cornell University and the University at Buffalo featuring the perspectives of national thought leaders and institutional representatives about expanding the participation of women in undergraduate STEM education at different scales.
This interactive, online series features a different topic per month. Each session kicks off with an introduction by our distinguished thought leaders followed by institutional representatives from Cornell University and the University at Buffalo who will share insights from their campuses. Participants may join the conversation, ask questions, share experiences, build networks and learn more about:
· Innovations that can expand female or underrepresented minority student participation and success in STEM undergraduate education.
· Effective evidence-based STEM teaching practices commonly adopted at research universities.
· Unique institutional and cultural challenges to achieving STEM diversity.
I heard back from Steam, with exactly the response I expected: Our service model (users reserve our own PC and VR headset, using our Steam software) needs to use their site license program. And even if it’s just on that one PC, we’d still have to run their site license server locally to manage it.
We did an inventory of what it would cost us to purchase a site license for our most popular games: Of our top 25 most played VR games, only 10 have site licenses available at all. Those 10 games would in total cost us slightly more than $3000 per year to license, which strikes me as ridiculous.
But Tara, thanks for pointing out Springboard VR! At a glance it looks really promising. I’m really glad to hear about another option.
-Chad
We ran into the same problem last year with Steam. However, we are now working with Springboard VR. Our head VR specialist says you can test run their interface on a machine for free and that they are putting together an academic package that should be available soon! https://springboardvr.com/
Tara
Amazing timing, Laura! I was just looking into the site license program this week. I wrote up what I’ve learned so far for someone else this morning, shared below. But to sum up, it’s not very promising either from a financial or practical view of the way we use Steam currently (one PC with Steam titles that we’ve purchased under our account, with an attached HTC Vive).
I originally thought this was just a different kind of license for each game, one which allows public use in a library, cafe, etc. But I got some clarification questions answered by Steam support – it’s actually designed for users to log into one of our computers using their own Steam account. They can then check out a game we’ve purchased a site license for, and play it under their account while they’re on our computer.
This also requires running some sort of server locally to handle the checkouts.
So I don’t think this is going to work for us. The pricing is also pretty wild. One of our most popular titles is Space Pirate Trainer – currently $10 paid one time to own individually, or $30/month/seat for a site license subscription. And I’ve seen at least one title that’s free for individual ownership, but somehow costs $20/month/seat for site license.
Much of their documentation is contradictory and out of date.
Even more annoying is that you can’t even see the site license prices until you sign up for a site license account and fill out some legal forms.
Last but not least, many titles, even free ones, do not have site licenses available at all.
I have one more request into Steam support asking how they prefer we purchase things as a library. I’ll let you know what I hear.
Oh, also – you can’t convert an existing Steam account or purchases. You need to create a new one and start from scratch.
-Chad
We’d also like to know if any other libraries had set up the Steam/Valve Site license, which we were just starting to look into ourselves: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=3303-QWRC-3436 – which sounds like it solves many of these problems. Our general counsel has a few issues with the license terms but are willing to consider especially if I can find examples of other institutions utilizing it!
Associate Director Library Information Technology and Digital Strategies
Echoing what Peter said there are no good solutions right now. It would be great if Steam or HTC or Oculus offered site licenses or group accounts, but they don’t. We have 2 HTC Vives that share an account. This causes problems occasionally as it doesn’t like it if two headsets are using the same program. Going offline usually takes care of it. Our 4 Oculus Rifts also share an account but the Oculus store is less problematic than Steam since it only contacts the mother ship when doing an update. If you have the option prepaid cards and individual accounts would be the best way to go but our purchasing department said no.
Edward Iglesias
In our library’s VR Studio, we have a separate library-owned Steam account for each of 7 VR workstation computers. Some have Vives, some have Oculus Rifts at them. We purchase content for each account. We also allow patrons to download free games/tools to those computers.
If a patron owns Steam content that we don’t, they may log in to their personal account and download the game to our computer. So far, this hasn’t posed a problem, except that the added game will show up in that workstation account’s game list, but will not be playable to other patrons. I occasionally delete personal games that are causing confusion to other patrons. Not too many patrons have downloaded content yet so if it gets to be too troublesome we may disallow it in the future.
For the Oculus Rift stations, there is a Steam account as mentioned above, plus the Oculus library. For Oculus, I’ve been able to use one account for all of the workstations. We purchase content once and it’s usable on all the computers from the one account. This has worked fine so far except for playing multi-player online. The single account will not support multiple instances of online play for the same game.
None of these is a perfect solution but they are mostly working as this is a continuous work in progress. Feel free to get in touch off list if you’d like more specific info, etc.
Thanks,
Pete
Hi all,
I was curious if any of your libraries have Steam from Valve installed on your public workstations to drive PC gaming and an HTC Vive? Any tips on how to set that up? Obviously the licensing issue with purchased programs/games through Steam is a problem when you are providing access for a large user base. There are multiple free games/programs available.
How do you handle providing each user with HDD/SSD space on your machines for downloaded games/programs through Steam?
Thanks,
Alex
—
Elisandro Cabada
Engineering and Innovation Liaison Librarian
Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering Librarian
Defining Online Education
The term “online education” has been used as a blanket phrase for a number of fundamentally different educational models. Phrases like distance education, e-Learning, massively open online courses (MOOCs), hybrid/blended learning, immersive learning, personalized and/or adaptive learning, master courses, computer based instruction/tutorials, digital literacy and even competency based learning have all colored the definitions the public uses to define “online education.”
online education” as having the following characteristics:
Students who enroll in online courses or programs may reside near or far from the campus(es) providing the course(s) or program.
A student’s course load may include offering where attendance is required in person or where an instructor/students are not required to be in the same geographic location.
Students may enroll in one or more individual online course offerings provided by one or more institutions to that may or may not satisfy degree/program requirements.
Student may pursue a certificate, program, or degree where a substantial number of courses, perhaps all, are taken without being in the same geographic location as others.
Organizational Effectiveness Research Group (OERG),
As the workgroup considered strategies that could advance online education, they were asked to use the primary and secondary sources listed above to support the fifteen (15) strategies that were developed
define a goal as a broad aspirational outcome that we strive to attain. Four goal areas guide this document. These goal areas include access, quality, affordability and collaboration. Below is a description of each goal area and the assumptions made for Minnesota State.
Access
Over twenty percent of existing Minnesota State students enroll in online courses as a way to satisfy course requirements. For some students, online education is a convenient option; for others, online is the only option available
Quality
The Higher Learning Commission (HLC) accreditation guidelines review the standards and processes institutions have in place to ensure quality in all of educational offerings, including online.
There are a number of ways in which institutions have demonstrated quality in individual courses and programs including the evaluation of course design, evaluation of instruction and assessment of student
Affordability
a differential tuition rate to courses that are offered online. If we intend to have online education continue to be an affordable solution for students, Minnesota State and its institutions must be good stewards of these funds and ensure these funds support online education.
Online education requires different or additional services that need to be funded
transparency is important in tuition setting
Collaboration
Distance Minnesota is comprised of four institutions Alexandria Technical & Community College, Bemidji State University, Northland Community & Technical College, and Northwest Technical College) which collaborate to offer student support services, outreach, e-advising, faculty support, and administrative assistance for online education offerings.
Strategies
strategies are defined as the overall plan used to identify how we can achieve each goal area.
Action Steps
Strategy 1: Ensure all student have online access to high quality support services
students enrolled in online education experiences should have access to “three areas of support including academic (such as tutoring, advising, and library); administrative (such as financial aid, and disability support); and technical (such as hardware reliability and uptime, and help desk).”
As a system, students have access to a handful of statewide services, include tutoring services through Smarthinking and test proctoring sites.
Strategy 2: Establish and maintain measures to assess and support student readiness for online education
A persistent issue for campuses has been to ensure that students who enroll in online course are aware of the expectations required to participate actively in an online course.
In addition to adhering to course expectations, students must have the technical competencies needed to perform the tasks required for online courses
Strategy 3: Ensure students have access to online and blended learning experiences in course and program offerings.
Strategy 4: These experiences should support and recognize diverse learning needs by applying a universal design for learning framework.
The OERG report included several references to efforts made by campuses related to the providing support and resources for universal design for learning, the workgroup did not offer any action steps.
Strategy 5: Expand access to professional development resources and services for faculty members
As online course are developed and while faculty members teach online courses, it is critical that faculty members have on-demand access to resources like technical support and course assistance.
5A. Statewide Faculty Support Services – Minnesota State provide its institutions and their faculty members with access to a centralized support center during extended hours with staff that can assist faculty members synchronously via phone, chat, text/SMS, or web conference
5C. Instructional Design and Technology Services – Establish a unit that will provide course design and instructional technology services to selected programs and courses from Minnesota State institutions.
Quality
Strategy 1: Establish and maintain a statewide approach for professional development for online education.
1B. Faculty Mentoring – Provide and sustain faculty mentoring programs that promote effective online pedagogy.
1C. Professional development for support staff – including instructional designers, D2L Brightspace site administrators and campus trainers, etc.)
Malware, Phishing, Hacking, Ransomware – oh my! Learn about the threats to you, your users and your library. During this session, we will explore the threats to online security and discuss solutions that can be implemented at any level. Most importantly, we will look at how we can educate our users on current threats and safety
PALS is housed in Mankato, 40+ years, shared by all MnSCU institutions. smaller libraries with smaller staff benefit.
Funding: Centrally from the Chancellor Office and privately.
Ex Libris. Alma (management software) discovery software is Primo. Implementation from Sept 2017 to 2019
value-added services? A value–added service (VAS) is a popular telecommunications industry term for non-coreservices, or, in short, all services beyond standard voice calls and fax transmissions. However, it can be used in any service industry, for services available at little or no cost, to promote their primary business.
one search point; phys + electr; integrated into central system; academic resources available in central index; analytics and reporting; library consortia
EZ Proxy – provides access to library resources off campus
Islandora – open source digital asset management solution tha preserves, manages, and provide access to docs, unique history (photos, publications); research, other resources
Islandora is considered for OER, link to course materials through D2L
Leganto – expensive ExLibris for D2L integration
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Thurs, Nov 30 – continuation from Tues, Nov 28
Islandora. open source digital assessment tool. STCC is using Islandora
Primo is the discovery tool for campus only w subscription. PALS does not fund Primo. PALS does it through state-wide dbases.
ILL of electronic resources among campuses; the new system is making it easier.
your comments about the new system making electronic resources more available : does it mean that I will not have to go through my campus ILL persona can “borrow” directly? or it is too optimistic to expect that?
Stephen Kelly: Tim Anderson has shared with me some thoughts on how Islandora can assist with archiving Open Educational Resources (OERs), but could you comment further on that for the benefit of everyone on the call? Answer: safe place to save OER. Drupal-based front end. Customizable. What is the connection to Primo
Stephen Kelly: Could it facilitate easier sharing of resources between institutions? For instance, if an OER was created at one institution and uploaded to Islandora, could it easily be populated for every other institution to access the materials as well?
Piggybacking on Stephen Kelly: are the account permissions similar to the average social media tool, where faculty can decide how “wide” the permission of h/er OER product is? E.g. a blog or YouTube / Kaltura can have: private / unlisted / public levels. Does Islandora function the same?
company or group who is doing online program evaluation?
this information is extracted from the Blend-Online discussion list
Colleagues,
Do you know any company or group who is doing online program evaluation? Our school is seeking a consulting group to come to review our online programs and identify areas relate to online learning that we need to improve.
Thanks,
Carrie Halpin, Ph.D. Professor/Instructional Designer & Technologist eLearning & Instructional Technology (eLIT) Virginia Western Community College 3095 Colonial Ave. SW, Roanoke, VA 24015 Office: Brown Library 102 Phone: 540-857-6636 Fax: 540-857-6138 Email: chalpin@virginiawestern.edu
iDesign will do both of those things using a fee-for-service model versus a revenue-sharing model like Academic Partnerships or 2U. I have no personal experience with any OPM, but iDesign is the only one I know of that offers that ala carte type service.
2018 Special Focus: Education in a Time of Austerity and Social Turbulence 21–23 June 2018 University of Athens, Athens, Greece http://thelearner.com/2018-conference
Theme 8: Technologies in Learning
Technology and human values: learning through and about technology
Crossing the digital divide: access to learning in, and about, the digital world
New tools for learning: online digitally mediated learning
Virtual worlds, virtual classrooms: interactive, self-paced and autonomous learning
Ubiquitous learning: using the affordances of the new mediaDistance learning: reducing the distance
Theme 9: Literacies Learning
Defining new literacies
Languages of power: literacy’s role in social access
Instructional responses to individual differences in literacy learning
The visual and the verbal: Multiliteracies and multimodal communications
Literacy in learning: language in learning across the subject areas
The changing role of libraries in literacies learning
Languages education and second language learning
Multilingual learning for a multicultural world
The arts and design in multimodal learning
The computer, internet, and digital media: educational challenges and responses
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PROPOSAL: Paper presentation in a Themed Session
Title
Virtual Reality and Gamification in the Educational Process: The Experience from an Academic Library
short description
VR, AR and Mixed Reality, as well as gaming and gamification are proposed as sandbox opportunity to transition from a lecture-type instruction to constructivist-based methods.
long description
The NMC New Horizon Report 2017 predicts a rapid application of Video360 in K12. Millennials are leaving college, Gen Z students are our next patrons. Higher Education needs to meet its new students on “their playground.” A collaboration by a librarian and VR specialist is testing the opportunities to apply 360 degree movies and VR in academic library orientation. The team seeks to bank on the inheriting interest of young patrons toward these technologies and their inextricable part of a rapidly becoming traditional gaming environment. A “low-end,” inexpensive and more mobile Google Cardboard solution was preferred to HTC Vive, Microsoft HoloLens or comparable hi-end VR, AR and mixed reality products.
The team relies on the constructivist theory of assisting students in building their knowledge in their own pace and on their own terms, rather than being lectured and/or being guided by a librarian during a traditional library orientation tour. Using inexpensive Google Cardboard goggles, students can explore a realistic set up of the actual library and familiarize themselves with its services. Students were polled on the effectiveness of such approach as well as on their inclination to entertain more comprehensive version of library orientation. Based on the lessons from this experiment, the team intends to pursue also a standardized approach to introducing VR to other campus services, thus bringing down further the cost of VR projects on campus. The project is considered a sandbox for academic instruction across campus. The same concept can be applied for [e.g., Chemistry, Physics, Biology) lab tours; for classes, which anticipate preliminary orientation process.
Following the VR orientation, the traditional students’ library instruction, usually conducted in a room, is replaced by a dynamic gamified library instruction. Students are split in groups of three and conduct a “scavenger hunt”; students use a jQuery-generated Web site on their mobile devices to advance through “hoops” of standard information literacy test. E.g., they need to walk to the Reference Desk, collect specific information and log their findings in the Web site. The idea follows the strong interest in the educational world toward gaming and gamification of the educational process. This library orientation approach applies the three principles for gamification: empowers learners; teaches problem solving and increases understanding.
Similarly to the experience with VR for library orientation, this library instruction process is used as a sandbox and has been successfully replicated by other instructors in their classes.
Libraries supporting social inclusion for refugees and immigrants
UNESCO emphasizes the importance of social inclusion for international
migrants and encourages cities and local governments to “ensure social rights
for migrants to adequate housing, education, health and social care, welfare
and decent standard of living according to basic needs such as food, energy
and water.” Libraries can play an important role in helping new arrivals
acclimate and thrive in a new community.
Do you have a story to share about how your library, on its own or in
collaboration with community organizations, is providing social services and
support for refugees and immigrants? Do you have advice on creating successful
programming to support refugees and immigrants?
Proposal to the SCSU library administration:
Good afternoon,
I will be submitting a proposal about my individual work in that area:
In the fall of 2015, I organized a campus-wide meeting, including St. Cloud community members, on refugees and migrants, by inviting one Syrian and one Somali refugees:
I also reached out across campus (e.g. Dan Wildeson with the Holocaust Center, Geoffrey Tabakin, Stephen Philion).
I organized also the online presence by delivering the personal stories of three refugees:
I also maintain a FB group for the class and in conjunction with the blog (you need to request permission to enter the FB group): https://www.facebook.com/groups/hons221
I am formally proposing / requesting to transition my individual efforts and offering the library to support me in expanding my acitivies on this topic
Here is my rational:
If not on campus, at least in the library, I am the only refugee and for that matter an immigrant. I have the understanding and the compassion of someone, who personally have experienced the hardship of being and immigrant and refugee.
I have amounted information and experience presenting the information and engaging the audience in a discussion regarding a rather controversial (for St. Cloud) issue
I have the experience and skills to conduct such discussions both F2F and online
Based on my rational, here are activities I am proposing:
The library supports a monthly F2F meetings, where I am taking the responsibility to host students with refugee and/or migrant status and facilitate a conversation among those students and other students, faculty, staff, who would like to learn more about the topic and discuss related issues.
Library support constitutes of: e.g. necessary information willingly and actively shared at Reference and Circulation desk. Library faculty and staff willingly and actively promoting the information regarding this opportunity when occasions arise.
The library supports my campus-wide efforts to engage faculty, staff and students. Engagement includes: e.g., proposals to faculty to present in their classes on including refugees and immigrants but related to their classes; assisting students with research and bibliography on their papers related to refugees and immigrants; assisting faculty and students with presentations including refugees and immigrants etc.
Library support constitutes of: e.g. necessary information willingly and actively shared at Reference and Circulation desk. Library faculty and staff willingly and actively promoting the information regarding this opportunity when occasions arise.
The term “digital humanities” can refer to research and instruction that is about information technology or that uses IT. By applying technologies in new ways, the tools and methodologies of digital humanities open new avenues of inquiry and scholarly production. Digital humanities applies computational capabilities to humanistic questions, offering new pathways for scholars to conduct research and to create and publish scholarship. Digital humanities provides promising new channels for learners and will continue to influence the ways in which we think about and evolve technology toward better and more humanistic ends.
As defined by Johanna Drucker and colleagues at UCLA, the digital humanities is “work at the intersection of digital technology and humanities disciplines.” An EDUCAUSE/CNI working group framed the digital humanities as “the application and/or development of digital tools and resources to enable researchers to address questions and perform new types of analyses in the humanities disciplines,” and the NEH Office of Digital Humanities says digital humanities “explore how to harness new technology for thumanities research as well as those that study digital culture from a humanistic perspective.” Beyond blending the digital with the humanities, there is an intentionality about combining the two that defines it.
digital humanities can include
creating digital texts or data sets;
cleaning, organizing, and tagging those data sets;
applying computer-based methodologies to analyze them;
and making claims and creating visualizations that explain new findings from those analyses.
Scholars might reflect on
how the digital form of the data is organized,
how analysis is conducted/reproduced, and
how claims visualized in digital form may embody assumptions or biases.
Digital humanities can enrich pedagogy as well, such as when a student uses visualized data to study voter patterns or conducts data-driven analyses of works of literature.
Digital humanities usually involves work by teams in collaborative spaces or centers. Team members might include
researchers and faculty from multiple disciplines,
graduate students,
librarians,
instructional technologists,
data scientists and preservation experts,
technologists with expertise in critical computing and computing methods, and undergraduates
some disciplinary associations, including the Modern Language Association and the American HistoricalAssociation, have developed guidelines for evaluating digital proj- ects, many institutions have yet to define how work in digital humanities fits into considerations for tenure and promotion
Because large projects are often developed with external funding that is not readily replaced by institutional funds when the grant ends sustainability is a concern. Doing digital humanities well requires access to expertise in methodologies and tools such as GIS, mod- eling, programming, and data visualization that can be expensive for a single institution to obtain
Resistance to learning new tech- nologies can be another roadblock, as can the propensity of many humanists to resist working in teams. While some institutions have recognized the need for institutional infrastructure (computation and storage, equipment, software, and expertise), many have not yet incorporated such support into ongoing budgets.
Opportunities for undergraduate involvement in research, provid ing students with workplace skills such as data management, visualization, coding, and modeling. Digital humanities provides new insights into policy-making in areas such as social media, demo- graphics, and new means of engaging with popular culture and understanding past cultures. Evolution in this area will continue to build connections between the humanities and other disci- plines, cross-pollinating research and education in areas like med- icine and environmental studies. Insights about digital humanities itself will drive innovation in pedagogy and expand our conceptualization of classrooms and labs