Virtual learning for Management education Dr. Jeyakesavan Veerasamy

Agenda Who am I? Virtual learning: what? why? how? Why did it become popular? How is it done? Technical Architecture Future of online education

Dr. V. Jeyakesavan: Academia, Industry & Personal Dad was a school teacher B.E. (ECE) in CEG Guindy, Anna University – UNIX System Software Engineer, HCL Limited, Chennai, MS Computer Science, University of Texas at Dallas (UTD),

Dr. V. Jeyakesavan: Academia, Industry & Personal … Telecom Software Engineer, Northern Telecom, Dallas, Ph.D. Computer Science (part-time), University of Texas at Dallas (UTD), Technical Lead, Samsung Telecom, Got married in 1998 Adjunct Faculty, UTD CS department, Online Adjunct Faculty in several online universities from 2000

Dr. V. Jeyakesavan: Academia, Industry & Personal … Adjunct Faculty, Southern Methodist University, 2010 Sr. Lecturer (full-time), UTD Computer Science, 2010-present 2 daughters: Nila (8) and Chinmayee (4) Passionate about teaching – happy to share ideas to improve teaching quality in colleges Challenging teaching environment in US

Dr. V. Jeyakesavan: Summary 18 years experience as Software Engineer 12 years of teaching experience (mostly online)

Virtual learning Other terms: Online courses, web-based courses Education through Internet Anywhere, any time, any device connected to internet Asynchronous learning Fixed # of weeks All the work is graded & final grade is assigned Student evaluation of faculty Degree certificate

Snippets from history First online course ~20 years ago, likely by for- profit university First online degree program? MBA. Why?

Snippets from history … How effective is it? Does it help to get a job? Online colleges got accreditation Turning point (my opinion): Traditional colleges started online degree programs Possibly “better than traditional classroom”? Did the student actually do the coursework? How a traditional university handled it.

Typical online course accessible only to students enrolled in that course within university OLS (Online Learning System). has an assignment due every week or every 2 weeks once Participation in Weekly discussion questions (DQs) is mandatory. Courses run for only 5-8 weeks. Has 10 to 15 students Has students from multiple time-zones, sometimes from other countries too.

Grading scale for typical on-ground course Class Participation: up to 5% Quizzes/Attendance: 10% Assignments/Projects: 40% Exams/Research paper: 50%

Typical Grading Scale for virtual course DQs/participation: 25% Quizzes: 10% Assignments: 30% Proposal/Paper: 25% Team assignments: 10%

Weekly DQs (Discussion Questions) Goal: Come up with most reasonable answers through discussion Set difficulty of DQs at 110% Focus is on discussions, NOT on perfect initial answers. Wrong answers are perfect discussion starters! Faculty should facilitate & shape the discussion little bit, but should NOT kill it. Goal: each post should add value to the course, requirement to count towards participation.

Team assignments Can it work online? Can it be better than on-ground? Potential for higher level of contribution from each student More details in separate presentation.

Compare with Self-paced learning distance learning

Future of virtual learning… Continuous improvement in action … Utilize relevant web resources in courses Develop multimedia lectures to explain tough concepts Increase academic rigor – test application of concepts using weekly quizzes Improved communication tools Augmenting traditional classrooms

Technical architecture Internet OLS server Security gateway Online University

Online Learning System (OLS) Lots of software applications out there. Popular ones: Blackboard, Sakai, Moodle, … In addition to courses, OLS provides network space accessible to faculty, courses, … Tons of functionality to run the course efficiently

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Thanks for listening! Dr. Jeyakesavan Veerasamy