Designing database courses for distance learning An Open University view

1
Designing database courses for distance learning
An Open University view

• Kevin WaughDepartment of Computing
• Faculty of Computing and Mathematics
• The Open University

2
Introduction
3
The Open UniversityTeaching and learning context
4
Courses offered by the computing department
The department has around 5 central academics and
2 staff tutors directly involved in database
courses.
5
Teaching and learning model

• Supported distance learning
• personal tutor
  (phone, e-mail)
• face-to-face and on-line tutorials
  (optional)
• residential schools (none in
  u/g computing)
• in reality lt20 of the students make effective
  use of these mechanisms
• Supported distance teaching
• associate lecturers (ALs, tutors) supported by
  staff tutors and the course team
• (tutor notes, teaching summaries,
  assessment guidance, phone, e-mail)

6
Course development model

• Production
• course materials, support and assessment
  strategies for a course are designed by a small
  number of academic and educational specialists
• Presentation
• course materials supported by large number of
  associate lecturers
• to teach and assess very large number of students

7
Production overview

• Timescale 2 - 5 years before first presentation
• Course team
• 3-12 academic members ,course manager, industrial
  and external academic advisors, consultants,
  academic editors experts from specialist
  departments (IET, LTS, Graphic designers,
  Assessment office, )
• responsible for the planning, design and
  implementation of all aspects of the course, inc.
  fitness for purpose
• Need to get it right cannot depend on tutors or
  presentation team to overcome course deficiencies
  and the production team will not be available to
  patch
• Need to communicate within the course team and to
  the tutors and students (the end-users).

8
Production documents generated

• Course design documentation
• for production team and presentation teams
• Teaching texts
• for students and associate lecturers
• support texts for associate lecturers
• Assessment guidance
• for assessment authors and associate lecturers
• Administrative documents
• for presentation team, university, .

9
Course design documentation?

• What is this course? (analysis)
• Draft zero (Overview narrative outline)
• Content description (topic detail)
• topic scope style
  narrative detail
• teaching and learning aims and objectives
• assessment objectives description
• AL guidance documents
• Student (and AL) workload planning
• Case studies and scenarios
• Unit zero (style sheets), dictionary, standard
  form of words, notations, etc.

10
Presentation overview

• Course team
• course manager, 2-3 academics, external examiner,
  industrial consultant, staff tutor
• Day-to-day activities to run the course
• (light) maintenance
• assessment
• evaluation of feedback
• examination and assessment board
• follows the production teams strategies, plans
  and direction (nothing to design)

11
Presentation documents generated

• Assessment materials
• TMAs
• TMA question booklet
• tutor notes
• sample solutions
• Examination papers
• exam paper/solutions
• special paper/solutions
• marking guides for tutors

• Annual admin
• Study timetable
• Standard course web site
• Routes - library managed web links
• Stop Press
• Errata
• University reports
• Examination board
• e.g. monitoring reports

12
Production or where the design happens The
M359 experience
13
M359?

• An update/replacement of M358
• u/g, 30 credit, 9 months, 60 new material
• due for first presentation in Feb 2007
• Analysis complete (we know what M359 is going
  be!) and business appraisal complete
• course team chair and course manager working
  since April 2003
• Curriculum and resource planning complete.
• Draft zero 5 course team members since Jan
  2004

14
Design issues in M359
supports design choices regarding..
Awareness of

• Course aims and objectives
• Student learning issues
• Maintenance schedule
• (feedback from students, tutors and course teams
  on previous course)

• Narrative
• Teaching strategy
• Practical activities
• Assessment strategy
• Delivery mechanisms
• Support mechanisms

15
Student learning issues

• Isolated
• Poor workload management skills
• Diversity of cohort
• academic backgrounds, ages, learning styles,
  confidence, study skills, reasons for studying
• Varied access to support mechanisms
• M358 (2003 intake)
• New to OU study 8 Registered before
  1990 5
• Age lt25 7 gt50 9
• Educational achievement ltA-level 22
  gt1st degree 20
• BFPO 1 (low in recent years)

16
Practical activity meets isolated learner

• Having done battle with this question most of
  yesterday to no avail, your email this morning
  gave me hope.
• But after battling again all day from 9.00 this
  morning till now (5.10), and holding my head in
  my hands, banging it against the wall, and
  kicking the cat into next week, I finally got
  something to happen but the tables are
  empty!!!!!
• (conference note from M358 student)
• (The rest of this message made it clear the
  student was well aware the question was worth 4
  marks in the 100 mark TMA)

17
Supplied scenario meets assumed knowledge

• In the domains list, what does the acronym ISBN
  mean? It must be really obvious but I just cant
  see it.
• It stands for International Standard Book Number
  and is a reference code used to identify books
  individually (see . for more details).
• Where about in the coursework is it explained
  what 'ISBN' is?
• Its probably assumed to be common knowledge.
  Doesn't help if you didn't know it i can see
  that...you must have been wondering what the hell
  page was missing from your book..
• (8 hours between 1st message 1st reply)
• I can find out how many of each book have been
  bought and what each one cost but I dont see how
  to work out the total amount spent by each
  customer.

18
Teaching strategies

• Clear narrative (and a clear place in the
  overall course narrative)
• Appropriately chunked
• Clear learning objectives, stated and re-stated
  
• Flexible
• Consistent
• OU Production also requires
• Student support documents
• study guides, course guides,
• workload planning support
• Tutor guidance documents
• learning and assessment objectives

19
On-line comments - M358 students
(oh dear!)

• I read the course work and the more you read the
  more you are confused by pointless techno babble.
  All you want is 3 words to explain and you get
  3000.
• I have worked on databases for some years, and
  can set up a database as a set of related tables
  fairly easily. Why oh why, does the text (block
  4) make me think I am reading some totally alien
  subject.
• As for what we are learning I was talking to a
  friend of mine (who has a MA in computing applied
  to archeology/specializing in databases) and hes
  never heard of half of it!!

20
Conference comments from M358
(is this the same course?)

• I have found M358 to be very interesting and
  fulfilling. The one thing I did notice was that
  it is definitely a level 3 course and noticeably
  more in depth than any level 2 courses I have
  taken. That said, if you are interested in
  databases, this is the course to do.
• From personal experience (list of commercial
  database and technical authorship roles deleted)
  and 15 years' previous experience in the
  industry, I say the course is very relevant, very
  thorough, and of great relevance to modern
  practice in the serious software industry.

21
Practical activities

• Problems
• interruptions inevitable - support is far away,
  equipment may fail, what if the student is
  unable to do the activities?
• students without support will hack
• exercises must be repeatable and non-blocking
• chosen software must support the narrative
• examples must be inclusive and documented in
  detail
• M359
• practical style show, explain, try, review
  -
  embedded in the course text
• limited number of teaching and assessment
  scenarios
• larger activities workload planning support
  (essential, necessary, handy, optional), timing
  advice
• and yes it is problematic!

22
Isolated student complex software

• The main problem, for me is not knowing whether
  I am getting it very wrong or the software is
  playing up again.
• Please forget my message. I resorted to
  speaking to the tutor and found I had done it
  correctly. Just couldn't understand what the
  instruction was supposed to do. Also I
  understand we learnt in block 1 where to see
  references - now back to the database to look for
  this information.
• yesterday I opened up InfoMaker as I do
  everyday and had lost all the study.db files as
  well. I had to reinstall from the CD and then
  re-enter all my tables again not having a clue as
  to why they disappeared. Interesting.

23
Delivery mechanisms

• Available to production teams
• paper, e-book, CD-ROM, Web PDFs, Workbooks
  electronic, audio, DVD, animation, simulation,
  (TV)
• need to be appropriate for student cohort,
  flexible to varying learning patterns, support
  chosen teaching style, enables study any where
  and any when?
• M359
• main texts paper (with copies available on
  the web)
• study guides, course guides, assessment booklets,
  glossaries, etc web
• practical exercise in-line in the main texts (no
  workbooks)

24
Summary
25
Is the OU different?

• OU course production teams develop
• supported learning materials
• supported teaching materials
• and assessment and support strategies
• for students and tutors to use at times, in
  places and in ways over which they have no
  control
• at a scale that makes impractical any direct
  contact with the end-users.

26
Documented design is essential

• The separation of
• production and presentation teams,
• central academics, associate lecturers and
  students
• and the long lifetime of an OU course
• (5 years production for 8 years presentation)
• requires a clear communication of design
  intentions regarding teaching, learning and
  assessment strategies.

27
Students will find distractions everywhere

• I cant help wondering, why does the entity type
  LawnMower have a capital M.
• (28 conference messages
  resulted!)
• Thank you.