Incorporating WebCT into the Construction Curriculum

Introduction

Web-based instruction is a form of education where instruction is conveyed using the World Wide Web as the medium.  Using the web for distance education has several advantages.  Course material can be accessed at any time, and several students from anywhere in the world can be taught at the same time.  It also gives a department, school, and/or university prestige in the educational and professional communities.

For the instructor, web-based courses are the same as traditional courses except for the method of instruction.  For the students, learning through the World Wide Web is not complicated or difficult, but it is somewhat different from meeting professors and classmates in the traditional classroom.

Developing a web-based course for distance education is somewhat similar to developing a traditional face-to-face instructional course.  The instructor still needs to analyze the students; state course objectives; select methods, media, and materials; utilize media and material; and require student participation, as well as evaluate and revise the course (Heinich, Molenda, Russell, & Smaldino, 1999).  The only difference is that the instructor and student are going to be separated by distance and possibly even time.

It seems that whenever web-based instruction is mentioned, faculty seem to frown and list a variety of reasons for not developing web-based courses.  This is mainly because web-based instruction is an area of unfamiliarity, and most faculty believe that that web-based instruction could replace them.  In reality, faculty will always be needed because they are the content experts, and as researchers, they are constantly creating new knowledge. However, in distance education, the role of the faculty may change. By necessity, there is less lecturing and more mentoring.  Also, faculty will need to become more up-to-date with technology and be comfortable creating, editing, and modifying video and media files.  A couple of challenges for distance education include being costly (digital filming, ect.) and time consuming to create.  Another is that instruction is mostly given in text form which allows little interaction.

Software programs such as WebCT, Page Out, Black Board, eCollege, and Top Class are vehicles for offering web-based courses.  These software programs provide an educational tool that facilitates the creation of sophisticated World-Wide-Web-based educational environments that allow students to receive education and training from a distance (MIDC, 2000).  These programs can be used to create entire on-line courses or to simply publish materials that supplement existing courses.  On the Purdue University campus, WebCT is the software program used for creating and maintaining distance education courses.  It was our intention to use WebCT to supplement traditional face-to-face courses.

 Because developing a web-based course is time consuming, it is helpful to develop a portion of the traditional face-to-face course into web material every semester.  If a grant is received, development could proceed more quickly.  In order to develop a web-based course and to become familiar with it, BCM faculty began using WebCT to supplement face-to-face instruction in three courses:  Mechanical Construction (BCM 215), Mechanical Construction Estimating (BCM 315), and Mechanical Construction Management (BCM 415).  The lecture size for BCM 215 is approximately 60 students each semester, and for BCM 315 and BCM 415, the lecture size is approximately 24 students during opposite semesters.

Each of the courses maintains a separate WebCT web site because there are different students in each of the classes.  In order for the instructor to become familiar with WebCT during the first semester, only the students’ course grades were maintained on the web site.  The following semester, course content such as the course syllabus, email, and bulletin board were added to each of the web sites.  Every semester, new course content such as course calendar, graphics, and course handouts were added to the course web site to continually improve the web content, and to enable the course to be considered for possible future distance education, or to act as a model for the department in offering distance education courses.

Adding Course Content

 An advantage of using WebCT is that the course instructor does not need to know any HTML coding.  Adding course content such as a syllabus, calendar, bulletin board, chat room, and/or organizer takes only minutes.  When adding a page or tool, WebCT allows the instructor to choose the type of page or tool to be added such as a bulletin board, syllabus, or single page.  WebCT then allows the instructor to name the tool or page, and asks where to store the item being added.  WebCT allows the instructor to upload a document from Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Adobe, or any other software program to be stored as a single page.  WebCT is so instructor friendly, that the only thing the instructor really needs to know in order to use WebCT is file management, i.e., storing and deleting files (Multimedia, et al., 2000).

Populating a WebCT Course

 There are three ways to populate and add students to a WebCT course.  The first way is to import student data from a text file.  When importing student data from a text file, a student list can be created from scratch, or a text file can be created from an existing application, such as a spreadsheet program.  For example, if a class list already exists in a spreadsheet program, the entire class can be added from the text file, instead of typing in the information for each student.  However, the text file does need to be formatted a particular way and contain the student’s correct user ID in order for it to work (MIDC, 2000).

The second way to populate a WebCT course is to import student records from the university’s global database.  This feature allows the instructor to add one student, add multiple students, or to update an existing WebCT student list.  Purdue University’s WebCT administrator, and not the course instructor, creates and maintains the global database.  The global database contains a record for each user on the WebCT server.  The global database changes each time a student registers and drops a course.  To ensure that the web-based course list contains the most current list of students, the instructor needs to mark the web-based list to be automatically updated (synchronized) by the global database as registrations change (MIDC, 2000).

The third way to populate is to allow students to self-register.  This appears to be the simplest way for this instructor to populate a course for WebCT (MIDC, 2000).  If this method is used, additional information can be requested from the student such as telephone numbers and outside email addresses.  This information is particularly helpful for contacting students when the need arises.

Pitfalls to Avoid

When developing a WebCT course, it is important that the instructor be highly organized, punctual, and committed.  If these three traits are not a strength, then it may be wise to not create, or to limit the use of, a WebCT course.  For example, the bulletin board can be a very useful tool to cause students to participate in class discussion, but it can also be a downfall to the course through sheer numbers.  Throughout the semester, the BCM 215, BCM 315, and BCM 415 students are to reply to approximately 10 bulletin board postings.  Other announcements and questions about assignments and projects are also posted on the bulletin board.  During the semester of a course of 60 students, when the math is done, it is very easy to see that over 600 responses could accumulate from these 10 bulletin board postings.  If all those responses were posted under one folder, it could become overwhelming and confusing for the instructor as well as for the students.  Therefore, when creating an assignment for the bulletin board, it is advised to create a separate folder for each assignment, and to delete each folder a few weeks after it was due.  This helps with keeping the bulletin board organized, and it helps those students with 56K modems to download more quickly without hundreds of messages.

Not being punctual or committed to WebCT can also cause another problem.  There needs to be a routine set for when assignments will appear on the WebCT, such as once per week or once every two weeks.  Then, the instructor needs to ensure the assignments are posted on time.  If the students are told to find weekly assignments on the WebCT, and then the assignments are posted inconsistently (one week, then three weeks, and so forth), the students will become discouraged.  In addition to providing consistent course materials, a set routine demands that students check regularly, and helps them not to miss an assignment due to inconsistency. Therefore, it is important to make sure an assignment is posted as stated on the course syllabus.

WebCT Helpful Hints

If using WebCT or another software program such as Page Out, Black Board, eCollege, or Top Class to create a web-based course, there are a few suggestions that should be followed, in addition to the ones mentioned in other areas of this paper.  Because a web-based course is time consuming and can be overwhelming, it is recommended that an instructor start out small and gradually add information each semester.  Begin with adding something such as course grades.  Students’ grades must be posted anonymously and WebCT has an excellent way of doing this.  This first step will help the instructor and the students become familiar with using WebCT without overwhelming anyone.

The method used to convert traditional course material into web-based material depends on the content.  One suggestion is to take a portion of the course material that is easily adaptable to the Web, placing that portion online, and then having the students access that material prior to attending class.  By doing this, the instructor obtains a feeling for using the Web for instruction, the students become more familiar with accessing information from the Web, and it can be a further starting point for putting the entire course online.  In addition, creating a habit where students access lecture outlines and materials before each lecture can be beneficial, for students can prepare for class beforehand.  Students can print out lecture outlines, and then take notes directly on them during lecture.  Additionally, after viewing the materials before class, students can be ready to seek answers during lecture, and so forth.

Other helpful hints include ensuring that the students are oriented on how to use WebCT.  Take them through an exercise where they use all of the course tools that will be used.  This provides the students an opportunity to ask questions, and provides them with information about WebCT that removes any chance of making excuses for late or missed work.

 Require active student participation.  Create course activities that are relevant to the students’ needs and requirements in terms of their career goals.  This will help the students to retain and incorporate the information being presented.

 Always assign points to a course activity posted on WebCT.  If there are no points assigned to a course activity posted on WebCT, the majority of students will not respond.  Typically, the only students who do reply when no points are assigned are the over-achievers. 

Remind the students that spelling and grammar do count.  Otherwise, the instructor could have a difficult time reading some messages due to spelling and grammar errors.

Create a folder under the bulletin board where students can make anonymous comments about the course.  Encourage the students to do this at the beginning of the semester and throughout the semester.  This is a great method of receiving feedback about how the course is proceeding.  Once the students see that the instructor really does care about them and their comments, a majority of the students will post some very helpful and constructive feedback as the use of WebCT progresses.

WebCT Improvements

After experimenting with WebCT, it was learned that there are some improvements that need to be made to this particular software program.  For example, when using the glossary content tool, there can only be one glossary in any WebCT class.  There is no method to separate and categorize the terms.  BCM 215 needs to maintain a separate glossary of terms for HVAC, plumbing, and fire protection.  One remedy to this shortcoming was to create three plain html pages containing a glossary in each, and then creating a link to each from WebCT.

Another improvement that needs to be made concerns entering course grades.  The course grades tool needs to be modified so that it works more like a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, or so that it can communicate better with Microsoft Excel.  Once several columns are created, the student names can no longer be seen when entering grades.  One solution to this problem is to enter the grades in Microsoft Excel and then upload them to WebCT.  It is relatively easy, except the spreadsheet has to be in a certain format, and contain the student’s user ID.  However, when the grades are uploaded onto WebCT, the course instructor still needs to enter the total points possible for the assignment on WebCT.  Additionally, the instructor needs to ensure that the assignment points are being added to the total points column.  If a letter grade column is being used, the instructor also needs to ensure that the total points column is the one selected for calculating the letter grade, since WebCT by default will use the first column created for calculating the letter grade.

Student Comments

 The students really liked using WebCT, and voiced several reasons.  The Number One reason students like using WebCT was the fact that they had access to their grades (and assignments) 24-hours a day, 7-days a week.  A second benefit the students saw in using WebCT is that they had email addresses for everyone in class.   This was good method for students to communicate with each other when working on a course project.  A third benefit observed in using WebCT is that the students could use the bulletin board after-hours to continue the class discussion if there was not enough class time.  This really generated some good questions and discussion.  The fourth benefit is that the students were allowed to post course comments anonymously throughout the semester on the WebCT bulletin board.  The students liked being able to post comments about the course because their advice was often incorporated.

Conclusion

 WebCT is an excellent educational tool that facilitates the creation of sophisticated World-Wide-Web-based educational environments.  It allows the instructor to incorporate the web into the classroom without knowing HTML coding.  The only thing the instructor really needs to know in order to use WebCT is file management.  Adding course content such as a syllabus, calendar, bulletin board, chat room, and/or organizer takes only minutes.  When using WebCT, Page Out, Black Board, eCollege, or Top Class, the instructor discovers which tools to take advantage of, and what improvements of their own need to be made to the software's built-in tools.

Although there have been problems along the way with web-based courses, the success of them can be phenomenal.  Web-based educational tools can greatly enhance a traditional face-to-face instructional course, as well as create distance learning courses.  As distance learning becomes more acceptable in academic circles, the importance of these early courses will become apparent. Getting online now is a way to be prepared for the future of higher education (Serwatka, 1999).

References

Heinich, R., Molenda, M., Russell, J. D., & Smaldino, S. E.  (1999).  Instructional media and technologies for learning (6^th ed.).  Upper Saddle River, New Jersey:  Prentice-Hall, Inc.

 Multimedia Instructional Development Center (MIDC).  (2000).  Introduction to WebCT.  [Brochure].  West Lafayette, IN:  Purdue University, Author.

 Serwatka, J. A.  (May 1999).  Internet distance learning: How do I put my course on the web?  Retrieved September 3, 2001 from the World Wide Web.  [On-line].  Available:  http://www.thejournal.com/magazine/vault/A2109.cfm