Over the last few weeks I have been focusing my representational work on the issue of access and the issue of quality of provision. These two areas have the potential to affect many extramural students over the next few years.
Will extramurals find a place in the tertiary system?
The access issue has been discussed before (Limited Extramural Places) but there has been more discussion in the media. An article about our youth having nowhere to go for education and one about places for extramurals with comment about how minority groups such as Maori could be disadvantaged.
A document discussing the issue of academic quality has been presented to Massey. Here I outline areas where I feel the University needs to focus as it deals with the advance of blended learning. It is a wide ranging document that discusses the impact of blended delivery on the quality of provision as percieved by students. I have attached it below if you are interested in what I am saying to Massey’s policy makers.
Blended Learning Experience – Students Perspective May 2011 DRAFT
Hi Ralph,
I read your Blended Learning Experience paper and can’t decide whether to be amused or disappointed. I have been struggling with one of my recent papers and its complete lack of online support and I have been trying to find an avenue to get the whole thing overhauled (which led me here), but I didn’t think that the inability to submit assignments on-line was a luxury. And I didn’t think that lecturers considered answering queries on-line a burden on their time. The idea that “students perceiving themselves a (sic) customers” has come on since the introduction of fee paying might be valid (although I would argue that was the case long before then), but that would still leaves something ridiculous like 20 years for the university to respond to that. 20 years – and it is still worth mentioning because the faculty hasn’t got it?
Maybe I am tech-literate and expect too much, but I think Massey should be embarassed with their use of on-line resources. The library is functional, but I find little else adds any value to my courses (even the Massey website is a dog to navigate with dead links and obscure paths to information). I had one paper (152.200) which really used Stream to its advantage – and I think it allowed those without internet access to keep up. A great example. I am now doing 152.300 and I can’t submit assignments on-line, the paper coordinator won’t check on Stream, and hasn’t answered some e-mail queries, and when he does respond it is with confusing answers. Worst extramural paper I have ever done.
I have some suggestions.
I am paying $500+ for a paper (over roughly 12 weeks?). There are certainly dozens, possibly hundreds of others doing the same paper. The idea that the university cannot find someone to spend 10-20 hours a week to dedicate to answering website queries speaks volumes about the regard extramural students are held as customers. One of the first things often said in a training course is that if you ask a question, five other people are probably thinking it. So I would expect that answering queries to all on a web forum surely benefits the entire class?
So first suggestion is for paper coordinators to engage on-line with all students – this will reduce the dependence on contact courses (which people like me cannot attend) and remove the ridiculous one-on-one email conversations (which are probably chewing the paper coordinators time answering the same question over and over) unless it is for things like assignment extensions etc.
Other ideas:
Train staff.
Create some standards for Stream use and measure the coordinators on their use of the tool.
Tie it into paper coordinator performance agreements. Incentivise, reward or punish.
Make standards adherence a KPI of reporting units (is it schools at Massey?).
Do the little things so staff know it is important – offer rewards for new ideas, showcase the good stuff, put it on the agenda of all department meetings, learn from mistakes, management should talk about it, invite students to talk about it, have an avenue for students/lecturers to complain – and then respond to complaints etc etc.
I could go on-and-on, the truth is I am so dissillusioned I am thinking of tossing Massey in as a waste of my time and finding a university that values me as a student, that wants me to succeed and accepts that they have a role in my success. Telling me to buy a book, read it and show up for an exam is a cop-out.
Cheers
Kent
ps Sorry for the emotional rant, but this is really annoying me.
Can you suggest people on the faculty I can also whine to about this?
Kent,
Your comments have been received and discussed at Massey. The Director of Distance Learning, Mark Brown, was very interested in what you are saying. Currently being discussed is a list of standards for stream sites. I will now have better evidence to help me lobby successfully for these standards to be formalised and recourses made available to ensure they are implemented without putting more time-pressure on the lecturers. Thanks for your help.
I completely agree with Kent. This semester for the first time I have come across a situation where there is no online discussion forum for the paper. I didn’t realise how much I appreciated this as a resource until it wasn’t available. In my other papers, even if the coordinator didn’t respond straight away there was normally another student who understood the concept and could help. As an overseas extramural, the forums are the only way I get to engage with my peers and without them it is very isolating.
I have had to email the tutor about a couple of admin matters and the responses that I received were so rude that I will not contact him again.
With the assignment business I am lucky enough to be able to submit them online, but then the graded assignment is posted back via NSATs..? If I can upload the assignment electronically, why can they not upload a marked assignment so that I can receive it the same day the internal kids get theirs instead of a month later? Or why can they not post at least my grade. There is a grade section available but apparently the coordinator doesn’t use it.
I almost feel at times that they are trying to mangage out extramural students by providing sub-standard service.
I can confirm that the draft standards for Stream sites included a mandatory discussion forum as well as electronic assignment submission. Considering the University will be levying students for an additional $1.5 million next year (student services levy increase) I will be insisting that these draft standards are applied next year.
What other services need improving? Please let me know as I am going into a round of negotiation/engagement with Massey on this subject.
Hi Ralph,
Again, I agree with Kent.
I have a comment to make about an experience where a tutor posted to WebCt a message to the internal students doing the paper, pointing out a very interesting and relevant reading that could be accessed via the library. Of course, for extra-murals that was not so simple. The paper co-ordinator then posted a message asking the tutor to scan and post the information so that the extra-mural students could also view the material. That didn’t happen, and it wasn’t good for morale. I also had the experience recently where we had no idea who was taking the paper, the numbers of students, and we could not make contact with one another. I really feel that this is essential.
Also – where a paper co-ordinator gives out important information online, that information should also be made available via e-mail immediately. Furthermore, I have had experiences where the lecturer is approached online with requests that the student may go over the word limit – very considerably, for an assignment, just a few days before the assignment is due. The paper co-ordinator has agreed, but of course, that in fact may disadvantage other students. There really ought to be some policy concerning word limits, i.e. that whatever the word limit is as per the study guide, that is it (of course, the study guide may state that give or take 10% etc). On the otherhand students have approached paper co-ordinators online for huge extensions for their assignments, and been granted them – putting the paper co-ordinator in a difficult spot. So, protocol is an issue.
Finally, paper co-ordinators are in the habit of posting up extra materials in documents that I am not able to open because my software is quite old – but, I dare say that quite a few of us are in that position. I think that it should be made standard that the task of posting extra materials is given to administration staff who have more time to ensure that these documents are in versions that most students software will be able to deal with, an so that students don’t have to then waste paper co-ordinators time trying to get them to convert the document.