[LON-CAPA-dev] Suggestions from conference
Helen Keefe
lon-capa-dev@mail.lon-capa.org
Wed, 06 Feb 2002 11:42:36 -0500
Hi Everyone!
This is a long, unedited list in 4 sections. These lists will be
distilled and posted to the web as part of the conference proceedings.
(NOTE: Helen's lists focussed on questions rather than on specific
content of the presenter.)
Feel free to add clarification to any of the items :-0
Here is the list of Suggestions from Guy's session from Friday's workshop:
It possible to have the students log in themselves?
Can class roll be automatically generated by administration?
Can you use ldap for authentication?
Do you have an account synchronization system?
Time is not synchronized. System clock placed on the remote control.
Automatic header and footer on each set like in CAPA.
Server site include (SSI) capability.
Awkward transition between coordinator and co-author
Extend copy function
Test engine built in like webCT
Test banks with randomized problems
Peer reviewed question pool
Is this just for math and science?
Should include simpler interface for humanities.
Make system easier to use, not dumb down
How would you use animation or powerpoint slides within L-C?
How do you translate CAPA problems into L-C?
User friendly interface needed for buy-in
Will text book publishers switch to L-c?
Editing a problem – submit button be moved to upper window?
Export on the statistics page for import to Excel
Parameters and statistics pages – lock and scroll like Excel
One ID for each student
Continuous enrollment for students
Look at only active students
Can you use Chime within L-C?
Yes
Students able to change their own password.
Sort by the last name
Mark Lucas offered to add a layer to parameter setting
Problem peer review by instructors
Plagiarism check for essay questions
These notes from the Friday workshop:
Domains
Roles
Guy Albertelli - Overview
Problem editors
Can students view their previous answers? (on the to do list)
Are options preset?
Is there radio response?
Can you use required options in foil selection?
How many random seeds are available? (Analyze problem button on to do list)
Can you make an image map? (image response type problem)
Publication
Can you view the problem as a student – what are the rights?
Before you publish it.
Default set of key words?
Anyone has access to these resources? Depends on privileges.
Problem sequence
Is the sequence order number the same that shows up on the chart or
spread sheet?
Where does the number come from?
Wait until we look at chart.
Can you insert a page between problems?
Blank page option – web page inside the system like Netscape Composer?
Can you link resources from other institutions? Yes
Don’t have access to source of other people’s problems?
Specify a certain version of a problem.
Author space must be separated – coauthor privileges
Notification to users and authors – when problem is broken
Should be able to copy problems – need to look at permissions functions
Specify version to freeze the problem for my course
Metadata that describes requirements, not only descriptions.
Could branching be conditioned by % of number of problems correct –
proficiency test
Problem with writing program language for such a condition
Students
Local time displayed – system is GMT time – converted to local time.
Feedback can be shut down on an individual student.
Mathematical formulas in discussion
Is this a means to rank the problems?
Look at metadata of course/problem – aggregated data is displayed but
not stored in that way.
Can this information be moved
Matthew Hall – Mathematics
Plots
How is new plot coming in?
Randomized for each student
Residing on server
Not built in
Automatically installed
Plot is not saved, only data file saved for each student, dynamically rendered
Can you change the grid? Still needs to be worked on
3-d plotting not set up yet.
Size of disk – should be ample data space
Is the image being cached?
3d rendering – not high on priority list
Behrouz – Data Mining
Lon chart
Lon statistics
What is meant by time of submission relative to the due date? (unix time)
Closer to due date = bigger number
Hope to find predictors of student achievement
Attendance and time of submission used as predictors
Alex – Printing Resources
XML files – style files
Creates PDF files – different names and information
Will create different page layouts in the future, including name and timestamps
Will you have CAPA type output with all the problems on 1 or 2 pages?
Can the instructor print the entire class – currently, only individual student
What about branching maps and conditional printing? May print columns.
Scott - Installation
Will you allow for CVS updates? Yes
About security – what are the issues? Nfs or samba or specific rpms
with network
Guy –Planned Features
Navigate course screen
Search metadata
Assessment chart
Problem evaluation
Which foils are students getting wrong?
What resources are good?
What metadata is useful for searching
Communication features
Essay response style – grading needs to be realized – keyword
highlighting, peer grading
Formula response is too simple, esp. for math
Symbolic math kernal – moopad
Image response problems – java script needs to be written
Is there ability to do general callouts?
Expensive operation due to apache children (optimization problem)
Write a cgi script
It is possible to upload graphics onto the system. (David Pang)
Have different resource assembly tools available
Publishing – add review step
Stricter control mechanism – domain/license
CAPA templates – ranking, drop down box
Why is solution showing? Instructor set up problem to show solution
after due date
Can solution be out into pdf file? Yes
How can we stop students from sharing solution sets?
Grades & Parameters
These are notes from the Saturday workshop:
Guy - recap
Discussion area needed online for l-c
Documentation needed – quickstart manual
Like the capa manual format
Not a lot of info, but quick bits to get through
Take Feliciaís intro into an outline and a discussion pages
Create l-c tutorial on cd or web – videotaping an actual user like Felicia
Introductions by each presenter – Jerry Feldman – chair
Mark Lucas – Physlets
how well documented are physlets – there is a booklet
website:Webphysics.Davidson
updates: part of l-c install (check with Gerd)
physlet builder – wisiwig assembler
Browser compatibility – doesnít work on Mac and flaky on Linux
Can answer be communicated back to l-c from physlet?
Hon-Kie has worked with applets - yes
Is there anything like physlets for biology or chemistry?
Version of Java: Java 1.1 or 1.0
Paul Rubin application s/w and CAPA
Do students cut and paste answers? yes
Auditable units – how can it be integrated into l-c? not looked into,
verification of completion from outside, lots of standards
IMS standards not as strict as CAPA
User should be able to set the key for receipts – validating
application, not on student’s computer
www.aldnet.org
Can shockwave applet give a receipt for an answer? Yes, but not secure
Ongoing issues with security and cheating by students (sexy llama story)
Lars Jensen – LON-CAPA experience at TMCC
Did you collect data on student improvement?
Small students classroom
More word of mouth from University
At Hope College, we don't have a good diagnostic.
What sorts of rewards are given to students for using l-c?
High grades given for homework – 40-50% of grade
No more than 1 letter grade more than final exam. (2 exams)
Are LOL pages static? Includes videos and applets and quick time movies
Are guest student accounts available? Yes
Chaden Djalali – CAPA at USC
How do you test large classes – bubble sheets
HS outreach – why limit to hs or middle school.
Tried with elementary schools and math – was received well.
Kaplan and MCAT classes
Talk to Dick Caron about pre-calc capa problems that he devised
Felicia Berryman – surveys
John Merrill – Biology
Get logins from John
Homework points - 50 out of 500 total
Chime : pdb files
David Pang CAPAset
Time not allocated for questions
Thom Robertson – CAPA and Astronomy
Do you use other content libraries? No, due to variety of students.
Do you plan to go to L-C?
Not much choice - yes
Considerations for converting
What kind of multiple choice questions?
It causes a lot of frustration for students
Have you done any correlation studies? No
Cheri Speier – Sustainability
Incoming Metrics – gender, learning styles, etc.
Adaptive or customized learning
Reservations about sustainability
Implementation efforts
University support
User friendliness
Time investment (faculty)
Long time users for large intro courses – very smooth experience
Small investment for a person (system admin) and the equipment
Faster central use of institutions/users
Training support – ongoing
Is self-sustaining depending on resources (course materials)
Cheaper than home grown, WebCT, etc.
Offer author only servers to publish their work at a low cost level
Pop in a CD, so I don’t need a systems admin
Server should be at MSU, so they don’t need system overhead.
Hurdle to learn l-c on my own – need faculty development workshop
This offloads expenses to MSU, does not alleviate the problem of resources.
Institutions that buy into l-c – set up an area for publishers – share resources
How do I disseminate my content
How de we teach them (ccli) about l-c?
Conversion of capa for lon-capa – only for your own course, if
publishers’ textbook
Turn it around on the publishers – we offer the space and if it’s used,
they get royalties.
Humanities – Blackboard is easier to use.
Should focus on strengths –STEM, not humanities
Collaboration among users
Computer science students working on real projects
Business students creating marketing strategies
L-C is not free, but we need to do cost benefit analysis to sell L-C
Tom Russell – Evaluation Board
Why are we doing evaluation?
Satisfy nsf
Improve L-C
To convince
External validation – could be next dept. or outside of college or university
Personal - Big time investment – are students doing better
Who is it for?
Deans, bean counters, journal article, governments
Potential grant providers
What do you, specifically, want to show or demonstrate?
Irreplacibility
Educational effectiveness
Cost effectiveness, efficiency
Certain characteristics of successful students
Implementation differences among institutions
Characteristics of best results
What data exist now?
Doesn’t have to be hard data
Both good and bad
What kinds of studies would you find most useful?
Comparative – what are you comparing?
Completion rates, student failure, faculty gains and losses
Parent satisfaction
System not only for learning in classrooms
Hawthorn effect - novelty
Complete programs
RET Teachers
Ways to recruit HS teachers
Get continuing ed credits
State benchmarks in curriculum
Akos Horvath – CAPA in Hungarian
No questions were asked.
Helen had to leave after this session.
Jeremy's notes from Saturday rountable:
Gerd Kortemeyer
Status of LC
At home labs or experiments
Can they integrate well with LC applets?
Any way to combine virtual and in class labs?
e.g. fruit fly (virtual fly) combined with in class lab
Paul Rubin
Round Table
Collaborative Proposal
Relative strengths (by insititution)
Cross _____ hooks
Institution
Discipling
Proselytizing (Visual marketing)
Evangelism
Facilitating installation
Future workshops
CURRENTLY:
Guts of LC Workshop
For those interested in programming for LC
User Workshop
Breakout sessions (viewing different types of problems, etc.)
Segment degree of difficulty
How to set up a class
How to start
PROPOSED:
Focus workshop for 1 or 2 users on MSU campus (Ed Kashy)
User comes onto campus to set up course
Only admin support when they are stuck
Problem development workshop
ASCS Exam workshop
Peer review of problem development
Content development workshop
Felicia presented idea of focus workshop and content development by discipline
Week long workshop? Is it resasonable?
Comment made that one day workshop for “how to” training
Course Design 1, 2, etc.
Problem Design 1, 2, etc.
Content Development 1, 2, etc.
John Merrill commented that future meetings will not be like Friday’s workshop
1 year from now… all will have experience.
Purpose of next years winter workshop?
Basics put on CD for initial training
LC unit of LC (Bootstrap)
Problem writing
For those who don’t know JAVA (e.g.)
Getting quality problems from CAPA into LC
(Ed commented almost all will be in LC this year)
Who’s working on similar subject/content?
Synergy cross-institutional
Interest area?
Guy advised can create any type of mailing list we would like.
Can users self-select mailing lists to be included on?
Yes – currently in place
Can change membership at list
Felicia advised of RET solution
e-mail list that ALL correspondence is sent to
RET stated was very helpful
“If you haven’t had the problem… you will.”
Next Winter Workshop?
Ed suggested each institution check with their administration
E-mail Gerd if they would like to host next LC conference
Collaboration across…
LC Newsletter?
In process
Manual
Being worked on (John Williamson)
Other institutional buy-in
How can we get another institution to use this for Physics
(as largest % population e.g.)
Break down barriers – evangelism
How do we diversify the gene-pool
Content collaborations
3 types: Funding (multi-institutions)
Programming
Content
most interesting
6-7 member groups covering pre-noted topics
Collaborate through students
Student informs other professors of use of LC
High School:
Money for providing method of improving GED, etc.
Is State funding available for course development in H.S.?
RET teachers noted:
No money is available
Funding is available but need to research further
H.S. don’t know what to do to get this type of funding
Principles may be very supportive
Helen Keefe may know of something avail through MSU
Continuing Ed Credits for LC Workshop or Content Development
Working groups to congregate and look into specific areas
Even following LC workshop
Threaded collection of discussions – covering various topics
What are specifics goals?
Needed to apply for additional grants
Keep it in reality
Guest account for workshop users
Can utilize to “sell” LC to department
Gerd offered to add account if he receives an e-mail
Guy commented:
Astronomy, physlettes, etc.
Things an instructor didn’t know - that other institutions are doing
Internal search engine to look for specific items
Collaboration group forming inside of LC using internal communication
Hooks
Quality
Content Development
Dealing with publisher cannibalism
Decreased competition
Harder to compete – However errors in textbooks
What are the unique features of LC (Jan Eberhardt)
One page - written by each user
Add to homepage so that other instructors can point their admin to
view it
Several listed on there
Can provide head-to-head comparison with BB, WebCT, etc.
“Here is why I use LC…”
Share that with other users
Provide hooks to move into next steps…
Cross-Institutional Standards
If we like them… We elevate all of them…
Develop a pool of materials, freely avail (even outside of collaboration)
Could provide hook for additional funds from NSF or other similar orgnizations
How does it apply to K-12 education?
Will it drive better content cross-grade levels
Peer review material
Number of hits will provide “peer review”
Felicia Berryman wrote:
>
> Helen Keefe wrote:
> >
> > Hi Felicia,
> > Thanks for the feedback. I always appreciate your ideas :-)
> >
> > I will include these with the notes Jeremy and I have taken. Let me
> > know if you want copies.
>
> I would like a copy. Posting it to the list would work just as well.
>
> Felicia
>
> >
> > Helen
> >
> > Felicia Berryman wrote:
> > >
> > > Hello,
> > >
> > > I finally went over my notes from the conference. Certain things might
> > > not be possible or warmly accepted requests. I'm just delivering the
> > > notes. Helen and Jeremy might want to review their notes and compare it
> > > to what I have below.
> > >
> > > System additions:
> > >
> > > - have forced foils in radio and option-responce
> > > - send email in LON-CAPA like CAPA
> > > - copy other people's problem code (somehow have the ability to tweak
> > > things to your likin')
> > > - version change notification
> > > - coordinate order of stats, chart, and spreadsheet
> > > - attendence in class (that's all I had written down)
> > > - put name, etc. on printout
> > > - something about "discussion time frame" versus "question time frame
> > > (crappy notes)
> > >
> > > Documentation/help:
> > >
> > > - lon-capa cdrom tutorial by video-taping, video taped workshop
> > > - lon-capa user's discussion page, FAQ-o-matic
> > >
> > > PR:
> > >
> > > - user's list, announce list, development list (done)
> > > - possibly divide lon-capa-users into lon-capa-physics, lon-capa-chem,
> > > etc. if traffic gets to large OR just have subject specific lists for
> > > content sharing.
> > > - put link to listserv on main webpage
> > > - lon-capa newsletter
> > > - one-page "hook" for lon-capa (on homepage?) [Maybe include link with
> > > lon-capa testimonials about how system helped with course coordination?
> > > - my own suggestion]
> > >
> > > New Workshops:
> > >
> > > - week long content workshop, i.e. creating physics content on LON-CAPA.
> > >
> > > My Own Brainstorming:
> > >
> > > Next year's workshop could be about resource sharing and exploring
> > > resources. For this to be possible, we will need to have the ability to
> > > preview sequences and have evaluation notes readable.
> > >
> > > Felicia
> > > --
> > > Felicia Berryman
> > > LON-CAPA Coordinator
> > > Michigan State University
> > > Email: felicia@lon-capa.org
> > > Phone: (517)432-9866
> > > http://www.lon-capa.org
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > LON-CAPA-dev mailing list
> > > LON-CAPA-dev@mail.lon-capa.org
> > > http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-dev
> >
> > --
> > Helen Keefe
> > LON-CAPA/ ITR Project Manager
> > Laboratory for Instructional Technology in Education
> > 111 North Kedzie Labs
> > East Lansing, MI 48824
> >
> > E-mail: helen@lon-capa.org
> > Web: http://www.lite.msu.edu/
> > Phone: 517-432-9867
> > Fax: 517-432-5653
> > _______________________________________________
> > LON-CAPA-dev mailing list
> > LON-CAPA-dev@mail.lon-capa.org
> > http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-dev
>
> --
> Felicia Berryman
> LON-CAPA Coordinator
> Michigan State University
> Email: felicia@lon-capa.org
> Phone: (517)432-9866
> http://www.lon-capa.org
> _______________________________________________
> LON-CAPA-dev mailing list
> LON-CAPA-dev@mail.lon-capa.org
> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-dev
--
Helen Keefe
LON-CAPA/ ITR Project Manager
Laboratory for Instructional Technology in Education
111 North Kedzie Labs
East Lansing, MI 48824
E-mail: helen@lon-capa.org
Web: http://www.lite.msu.edu/
Phone: 517-432-9867
Fax: 517-432-5653