For a history of educational technology at UC Davis (presented in DVD format) you can visit Mediaworks in Surge II where DVD may be viewed or borrowed for faculty and staff use.

In 1993, IT Times reported on the pioneering and evangelizing work of a few visionary faculty members exemplified by Geoffrey Wandesforde-Smith (now an Associate Professor of Political Science). The articles identified important pioneers and highlighted their efforts to adopt and adapt information technology for educational purposes.

Ten years later, this article explores the path leading from these pioneering efforts to our current recognition that technology, even as it continues to evolve and present new challenges, is an essential teaching tool.

Emergence of Pioneers

Previous Issues Writing Class Ventures Onto the Internet Another View: Emailing a Large Class Evolution of Educational Technology Special Edition of Educational Technology at UC Davis Instuctional Technology Stories The realities of Instructional Technology in Education Summer Institute for Technology in Teaching Mellon Project Mellon Foundation AC4 Mediaworks Teaching Resources Center

The pioneers are those who first developed ways to use technology in teaching. They were highly independent people acting outside of institutional norms to develop a vision that was its own reward. UC Davis was fortunate to have had several such individuals in the early 1990s.

The pioneers had diverse goals related to student learning or access to courses, and many of the pioneers' projects flowered in a variety of forms. One projected to the creation of a new online journal. In another, faculty were allowed and encouraged to make unrestricted use of server space at the Teaching Resources Center for the development of online course materials. And in a third case, course structures were changed to add computer labs to traditional lecture courses, so that students could learn how to make and manage Web sites. However, the effects of these experimental projects were necessarily isolated and, for some, fleeting. Certainly, students drew some benefit from these projects but, without incorporation into the fabric of the institution, these nice demonstrations would not have lasting impacts.

Community Involvement

In 1994, three faculty pioneers, Art Huntley, Dick Walters, and Geoffrey Wandesforde-Smith, along with Frank Samaniego, a visionary Director of the Teaching Resources Center, created the Summer Institute for Technology in Teaching (SITT). This program has run annually since then and has been used as a model for similar programs at other institutions. SITT brought together an eclectic collection of pioneers and early adopters from all over campus, many of whom had no like-minded colleagues in their local or subject areas. The Summer Institute created a cross-campus community in which best practices were shared and fostered. Before the Summer Institute, the pioneers were mostly “lone rangers” striking out on their own. The community created by the Summer Institute reinforced the vision and helped to focus it, leading to institutional recognition.

Selective Institutional Support

Institutional recognition of a community's interest and early involvement in educational technology, along with the aid of appropriate staff members, can lead to the development of a small number of well-supported projects, sometimes called "boutique" projects. At UC Davis, a faculty support unit headed by Margaret Byrne, from IT, provided significant institutional resources for the development of three such projects. One of these was an online communication tool and the other two were online courses. In 1997, the redesign of the Cell & Molecular Biology course was described on a Microsoft CD called "Technology Tools for Today's Campuses." Later, all three projects were included in the book, "Interactive Learning," edited by David Brown of Wake Forest University. Brown's book and the associated conference led to further interaction with the national and international community (http://moby.ucdavis.edu/Mellon/publications.html). UC Davis had now found its place on the international educational technology map. Two of these projects are now deployed and undergoing continued development at UC Davis.

Researching Cost-Effectiveness

Although "boutique" projects tend to be better developed and more visible than "lone ranger" projects, they don't often enter the mainstream of institutional life. It was unclear whether their replication across the institution would be cost-effective. So, while the three "boutique" projects at UC Davis were successful, only anecdotal evidence could attest to their value, and their impact remained limited. Scaling up a "boutique" project or approach requires showing that it can be both effective and financially viable. On a small scale, financial viability is not so crucial if the institution finds the project effective enough to warrant its cost. However, on a large scale, the approach must be cost-effective over a variety of disciplinary areas or the institution will not be able to afford it.

In 1999, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation solicited grant applications from universities interested in researching the cost-effectiveness of online education. A multi-disciplinary team of investigators secured a grant for UC Davis. The UC Davis Mellon research program studied 10 different general education courses in areas as diverse as Agricultural Economics and Asian Art History. The Mellon program compared the costs of online courses with those for traditional face-to-face courses. Most of the UC Davis courses in the study were hybrids, in which part of the course, typically the lecture material, was placed online, while other parts such as office hours and discussion sections, remained face-to-face. Usually, each course was offered simultaneously in both formats – traditional and hybrid – and students chose one or the other. The research team then measured educational effectiveness and costs for both offerings and compared them. Educational effectiveness was measured using the grades on the in-class examinations, written questionnaires, and focus groups. The team also took into account the amount of faculty time spent on the hybrid courses.

The results of the study revealed that student performance was found to be almost the same for both delivery methods, with the traditional method only slightly better. the life of the course for the online version. Costs for online and traditional courses scale differently: the costs for the online method increases more slowly than those for the traditional version. The net result from the research is that online content delivery can be a cost-effective alternative to a traditional lecture in the UC Davis undergraduate environment.

Meeting Institutional Challenges

Institutionalization develops out of addressing important institutional problems. At Davis, the main institutional challenge has been maintaining educational quality in the face of rising enrollments and limited physical resources.

Developing an Institutional Structure

In 1998, UC Davis created a new advisory structure for information technology, which included an advisory coordinating committee for academic computing, known as the AC4 (http://ac4.ucdavis.edu/). This committee brought together senior administrators, faculty, students, and staff from across the campus. The AC4 also facilitated the creation of the team that submitted the Mellon grant application. More recently, it has provided a forum and served as a catalyst for the dissemination of the Mellon research results and the adoption of online technology at the institutional level.

Creating Dedicated Champions

Institutionalization of educational technology also requires champions, and in particular champions who are respected on technical, administrative and pedagogical issues, and can integrate these points of view. The new institutional structure and the Mellon program provided the basis for the formation of an effective champion at UC Davis. In July 2000, John Bruno, the Vice-Provost for Information and Educational Technology, created a new unit, now called Mediaworks. An educational technology group was formed as part of the unit. This group developed the educational technology used in the Mellon project and have also applied it to a major chemistry course and a major psychology course, thus benefiting most students on campus. Working in collaboration with the deans, Mediaworks provides the infrastructure for widespread cost-effective use of educational technology at UC Davis.

Fostering Future Progress...

Ten years ago, the campus was starting to emerge from a period of major budget reductions. Today, we are entering another similar period. For some, being the "new kid on the block" might make educational technology a particularly vulnerable target for cuts. On the other hand, educational technology provides a cost-effective solution to a number of problems the campus needs to address, including waiting lists for classes, summer session classes, limited number of classrooms, large (impersonal) classes, and student expectations for technology use.

Whether educational technology fares well or badly in the current climate, it is surely destined to become a greater part of the teaching, learning, and assessment landscape at Davis over the next ten years. The educational subcommittee of the AC4 is debating the vision for 2013 and while there are differences of opinion over the rates of change, there is agreement that educational technology will grow. As we face competition in the offering of courses, our own courses will continue to improve, but more fundamentally we need to think about "the Davis experience," those factors that make a Davis education unique and valuable, an experience not yet captured on a transcript but that will last a lifetime.

The next ten years will force us to articulate, assess and improve these intangible contributions that we make to students' lives. Perhaps it is in these areas that the current crop of pioneers will emerge. We must strive to recognize them and encourage them, as was done ten years ago in IT Times, in this Special Edition, and in new ways to come.

Acknowledgements

Much of this material is taken from the script for a DVD that explains the seven stages of educational technology transformation in more detail. Freja Koch narrated this DVD and wrote some of the script that is quoted here. The DVD is available from Harry Matthews, IET Mediaworks. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation also made the DVD possible. You can visit the UC Davis Mellon Web site at http://moby.ucdavis.edu/mellon/index.html. For consultation with your educational technology projects, contact Mediaworks at 752-2133 or mediaworks@ucdavis.edu.

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