Presentations

Panel presentation at MOOC Research Initiative Conference, December 5

Massive Open Online Communities (MOOCs) are seen as an opportunity to gain an education; to gain new skills to prepare for high-paying jobs; and to gain upward mobility without incurring the increasingly crushing debt that comes with a university degree. Although MOOCs are seen as one possible path toward upward mobility, few studies have examined whether and/or how the populations with the most to gain leverage these resources. This presentation includes preliminary results of our analysis of students taking Model Thinking that cannot afford a formal education (as stated in their motivations for taking the course). We show three key findings: 1) While the majority of students taking the course have master's and bachelor's degrees, the majority of those in our target group (i.e., cannot afford a formal education) have less than a bachelor's degree; 2) Our target group have similar percentages of completing the course than the comparison group, and 3) Our target group are more likely to be non-students while others taking the course are students.

Panel presentation at UM's 2011 Enriching Scholarship. Ann Arbor, MI, May 3.

Four faculty members from the University of Michigan, representing different disciplines and course types, discussed how they use various interactive tools within CTools (UM's Learning Management System) to enhance their pedagogy and improve student learning.

Presentation at the 12th Sakai Conference. Los Angeles, CA, June 15.

For the past two academic years, the ePortfolio team at the University of Michigan has administered pre- and post-surveys to students that were using ePortfolios for the purpose of fostering integrative, lifelong, and lifewide learning. This session will present results from this longitudinal research, focusing on specific trends, significant findings and implications of this research for conducting integrative assessments of students? academic and co-curricular learning.

The presentation will focus on the six factors identified by students participating in the portfolio process. The first three factors represent major concepts in integrative learning: capacity to demonstrate various types of knowledge, application of knowledge & adaptive expertise across settings and reflection on the processes of learning. The other three factors represent growth in students capacity for learning by making ethical decisions, working with others and developing a sense of one?s professional identity.

Presentation at the 12th Sakai Conference. Los Angeles, CA, June 16.

It is well known that the "typical" instructor uses online management systems to distribute course materials and make announcements. What has not been explored is how instructors use these systems to link to the vast array of educational content and resources available through the Internet. Which types of websites are most common? For which disciplines? How does an instructor choose which content is the "best" or most relevant for their course?

This session will present how instructors at residential and commuter campuses of the University of Michigan used the Web Content and Resources tools in Sakai to link to Internet resources. The different categories of resources as well as differences between campuses, disciplines, and departments will be discussed. Session participants will be asked to reflect on these findings and discuss implications for connecting instructors to "reliable" resources, and how to potentially scaffold instructors' selections of external resources in Sakai OAE.

Presentation at the 12th Sakai Conference. Los Angeles, CA, June 16.

Academic Analytics is a hot topic in Higher Education. Institutions are seeking to use analytics to understand student success and academic performance, maximize retention. Increasingly, regulatory and accreditation bodies require this information to help measure effectiveness. This block session will report on a number of analytics initiatives within the Sakai Community, and higher education generally. Opportunities will be provided to interact with individual presenters, and to synthesise information available across the session.

Presentation at the Educause Learning Initiative Conference. Washington, DC, February 15.

How are learning management systems impacting teaching and learning at my institution? Twenty different institutions have collaboratively constructed a survey instrument to answer that question not only for their local implementations but also for comparison across institutions. In this session, we will discuss the power of leveraging the Sakai community for a shared data collection effort and the lessons learned about instructor and student use of technology. We will share examples about using data to promote local innovations and talk about the power of open data sharing across academic technologies and open communities.

Panel Presentation at the 11th Sakai Conference. Denver, CO, June 16.

The Sakai Multi-Institutional Survey Initiative (MISI) is a collaboration between 31 institutions using Sakai. Together we have created a user survey consisting of "core" questions that capture faculty and students' opinions about activities and tools within Sakai, as well as other information technologies. Individual institutions also designed questions that were specific to their own needs and interests. Surveys will be administered during the spring, 2010.

This session will present aggregated overview of "core" survey questions using data from contributing MISI participants. Initial trends, similarities, and differences between institutions regarding instructor and student responses will be presented.

Individual perspectives and lessons learned will be presented from institutions represented on the panel. This session is intended to A) share information from the 2010 surveys, B) demonstrate the power of the Sakai community for research about user experience, C) compare the 2010 survey effort with last year's data, and D) invite other Sakai institutions to participate in future MISI efforts.

Presentation at the 11th Sakai Conference. Denver, CO, June 16.

Out of the box, Sakai generates a whole host of information and data logs detailing user activity and actions, database usage, client information, etc. At face value, this information would appear to have only cursory informational significance. However, as we will demonstrate in this session, this data is critical for understanding how users interact with Sakai and can provide information that can help improve the overall user experience.

Beginning with an overview of the kinds of data Sakai collects, we will generally describe the different kinds of data accessible from Sakai administrators and support staff. We will also describe how this information can be used to monitor overall system usage through summary reports and real-time graphing. These monitoring activities are not only valuable for addressing alarming situations (e.g., database usage shooting up 300%) but also understanding what "normal" use is for the local implementation which can, in turn, inform development and load testing.

We will also focus on how the data generated by Sakai can be used to inform institutional research efforts and day-to-day user support efforts. We will discuss how to aggregate and analyze thousands of users and site-level activity into understandable and actionable analyses that can inform a variety of different stakeholders. We will also discuss simple log queries to search for "lost" submissions of student assignments and how many students accessed particular files.

Our final portion of our session will focus on how end-users can take advantage of user logs and inform their Sakai use for teaching and learning. Tools such as SiteStats and CANS will be discussed for their utility in informing how the information gleaned from the logs can act as a catalyst for improving instruction and student learning.

Panel Presentation at the 10th Sakai Conference. Boston, MA, July 10.

This panel session will present an overview of preliminary data from the Sakai Multi-Institutional Survey Initiative (MISI) including perspectives and lessons learned from individual participating institutions. Initial trends, similarities, and differences between institutions regarding instructor and student responses will be discussed.

Presentation at the 10th Sakai Conference. Boston, MA, July 10.

This session will present a case study of how 21 groups of undergraduate biology students used Sakai project sites to collaborate within the context of a course-related group project: a mock NIH grant proposal. Results from peer message analysis, event logs, online surveys, and interviews will be discussed.

Presentation at the Sakai Regional Conference. Blacksburg, VA, November 11.

We explored differences between instructors and students at a large residential campus with instructors and students at a smaller commuter campus who all used Sakai as their primary Learning Management System (LMS). We examined users' survey responses, focusing on items related to their beliefs about materials management and about interactive teaching and learning. We also investigated the Sakai event logs to see if actual system use was consistent with preferences expressed in the survey data.

The presentation will highlight findings that show that users from both campuses rate highly all activities and tools available within the project site capability of Sakai. The results suggest, however, that residential students value activities and tools for materials management more than commuter students, while commuter students value activities and tools fostering interactive teaching and learning more than residential students. Instructors at both campuses tend to rate the tools and activities similarly. The log data indicated that while tool activation was consistent across campuses, the average percentage of total events for interactive teaching and learning tools (e.g., Discussion, Forums) was significantly higher on the commuter campus. The implications of these findings for suggestions about improvements in Sakai will also be discussed.

Presentation at the 8th Sakai Conference, Newport Beach, CA, December.

Participants will present experiences from their institutions' use of project sites to address a number of questions: Who sets up project sites & why? How are sites being used? Presentations will include summary use data and user feedback, and will provide a wide variety of examples showing how Sakai is being used beyond its course site capabilities.

Presentation at the 8th Sakai Conference, Newport Beach, CA, December.

During this session, we will present how we use Google Analytics and user log data to track the usage of the Help tool in Michigan's implementation of Sakai. We will also present how we use this data to continually improve the Help documentation for our users.

Presentation at the 6th Sakai Conference, Atlanta, GA, December.

This session will present results from three different surveys that asked instructors, students, and staff at Michigan's Ann Arbor and Dearborn campuses to comment on their use and perceptions of the Michigan instance of Sakai (CTools). Similarities and differences between these populations will be discussed as well as how to use surveys to influence development.

Presentation at the 6th Sakai Conference, Atlanta, GA, December.

This session will introduce participants to podcasting, how they are created and how they can be delivered and accessed through Sakai. Participants will demonstrate the Sakai podcasting tool, the RSS Resources plugin, and the iTunes U portal tool. Panelists will also present user data from their Fall 2006 experiences at their institutions.

Presentation at the 6th Sakai Conference, Atlanta, GA, December.

This session will review several technically advanced scenarios in Sakai customer support. Based on real cases gathered over the past year at the University of Michigan, we will introduce progressively more difficult-to-resolve support requests, encourage audience discussion, and ultimately present a solution. Go from Novice to Advanced support troubleshooter in one easy session!

Presentation at the 5th Sakai Conference, Vancouver, BC, Canada, May.

Panelists from several schools in pilot or large-scale production use of Sakai will present their evaluation goals and survey questions, and discuss existing survey results. We will propose a common set of survey questions that Sakai schools can use to enable cross-campus comparisons of usage and user satisfaction.

Presentation at the 5th Sakai Conference, Vancouver, BC, Canada, May.

Many people are coming to Sakai for the course site capability without being aware of the potential of project sites. Using data from existing project sites at the University of Michigan, this session is designed for those who want to know more about project sites: who uses them and why.

Presentation at the 5th Sakai Conference, Vancouver, BC, Canada, May.

This demonstration workshop will introduce participants to Podcasting, how they are created, how they can be accessed, and how to deliver podcasting through Sakai. The majority of the workshop will cover how to create podcasts using a variety of different applications and supporting faculty who use podcasts.

Poster Presentation at the 4th Sakai Conference, Austin, TX, December 6.

Presentation at the 4th Sakai Conference, Austin, TX, December.

Presentation at the 4th Sakai Conference, Austin, TX, December.

Presentation at the 3rd Sakai Conference, Baltimore, MD, June.

Presentation at the 2nd Sakai Conference, New Orleans, LA, December.