# Presentation: 518853

## Saint Louis University

- Master of Science in Biosecurity and
- Disaster Management

## A Year in  Review

- The Inaugural Year of an Online Program

## Saint Louis University

- Oldest University West of the Mississippi
- Founded in 1818
- Fully accredited Jesuit University
- Biosecurity Institute (formerly CSB&EI)
- Active BT website since 2000

- Institute for Biosecurity

**Notes:**
Accreditation and the Graduate school guide many of our decisions.  We are online, but have to meet traditional guidelines from the North Central accreditation of Higher Education.

We started by producing CD-ROM  and other products for Public Health training and reference.  Had a CD-ROM on biological agents for APIC’s national convention in June 2001.  Greg and I were at a meeting Sept. 11th in Athens GA. with the CDC.  Phone lines were impossible to get much less data from the internet.  I still believe a library of CD’s is the way to go.  But somebody has to know where they are and how to use them.

## Development of Curriculum

- What do we want students to do?
- Choosing course topics
- Developing the syllabus
- Instructors
- Discussion of Pedagogy (high value in collaboration)

- Institute for Biosecurity

**Notes:**
CDC calls them “competencies” we want to make sure our graduates can “do something” when they graduate.

We want to assure graduates that this degree will be relevant to advancing their career.

The syllabus is everything.  We have become more involved in early planning with instructors so they don’t have to “start all over”
Is it the contract with the student?  For the most part it is.

Instructors:	Are they tech savvy?  (Really?) 
		Rob Thomas expectations of students (multiple multiple choice Medical board exams)
	 	Content expert is often used to appearing as a guest lecturer
		Remember, we need good evaluations for the North Central Accreditation Board

I am working on my masters in Instructional Design / Curriculum Development as we progress.  Others will be talking a lot about this.  I said I would stick to examples and anecdotes.  We have found that a lot of learning goes on in the discussion of the topics because a lot of our students bring very relevant and useful real world experience to the discussion.  That can be an issue.  More on that later.

## Managing Instructors Expectations

- What is so different about teaching online?
- Budgeting time for preparation
- How can I lecture?
- Copyright and Intellectual property issues
- Using LMS (WebCT)

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**Notes:**
When we started I repeatedly warned over and over that this would actually take more time than a “land based” course.

Bill spent 135 hours developing the Summer course for a 45 (contact hours) course.

Lecture  some instructors choose not to.
Powerpoint?  Is that really teaching?  How about flash?  Powerconverter Pro  or Mac Keynote w/ flash output
We chose to present “talking Powerpoints” with flash

Copyright and Intellectual property is covered largely by the library, however, we did get into issues with some photographs.
We use the library’s e-reserve to post pdf’s of articles and short pieces of books.  The library has a log in that controls access to this data for students only.

Some may say Blackboard is better or some other learning management system is better, this year I participated in an exhaustive review of many systems including Moodle, Blackboard, WebCT, SAKAI, Angel, and Desire2Learn.  My thought is this:  It is not the system that is going to make or break the course (although it can help) the more important issue is how clear is the idea the instructor has of  what they want to do.  The tool cannot help you imagine what you want to do.  It can only help deliver your ideas.

## Helping students at a distance

- This is the first totally online program at SLU
- Confidentiality
- Registration, ID’s and Passwords
- Vaccinations
- Books and bookstore discounts
- Recreation center fees and other oddities

- Institute for Biosecurity

**Notes:**
Our research with LMS systems found that still most of the courses are still “blended”  Half classroom based and half online.  We are totally online so our students only meet us through the computer.  When students have any issue with any part of the process it reflects on us.

It is my opinion that it is not the students problem to figure out what is the role of the Bursar's office, the registrar’s office, the financial aid office etc. although we have no control over those offices.  We need to provide a portal to all of these offices and instructions for students to make sure they have the information they need to successfully participate.

A big difference with on line students is there is no camaraderie like you get on campus where students can ask “how did you do that”.

Confidentiality as I mentioned before, there is one issue with collaboration that needs to be addressed. re: I am on a special response team.

Back to the single portal, we are working on consolidating the process of obtaining passwords and ID’s.  There are way too many ITS, the library, the e-mail system, WebCT, Banner ID, Gateway (SLU Portal)

We had an interesting time getting the requirements for vaccinations dropped.  It was hard to explain that these people were not coming together on campus.

Books and book discounts are based on ID’s and passwords.  The only way to get an ID badge was to come and get your parking permit.  We have fixed that.  They send us a picture.

Finally, my best one.  We have a student in Barrow Alaska and one in Australia.  Do you think they are coming to use the gym and the pool?

## Every Picture Tells a Story

- Institute for Biosecurity

## Adapting “on the fly”

- Recording and posting lectures
- Providing content to military personnel
- Adding content related to Katrina
- Adding articles to e-reserves (library)
- Mid course corrections

- Institute for Biosecurity

**Notes:**
The semester started and not all of the lectures were produced.  We had to get instructors to record Powerpoint with audio and convert it to flash.  Then put it on our server and link to it.

We had a student who was National Guard called up to respond to Katrina.  I put stuff on a CD-ROM for him.  (I like CD-ROMS) .................

In some courses we added content relative to Katrina 

As articles were found, new requests had to be made to the library to add to e-reserves.  This covers us for copyright liability.

Students found one course extremely difficult (medical board tests)  We adapted but still kept with the syllabus.  Once again proving the importance of the syllabus. 

## Choices for content delivery

- Reducing the choices from the tool
- Technology looking for an application
- K.I.S.S. for teachers
- Video

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**Notes:**
WebCT comes with a lot of tools.  So many that we (I) strongly recommended our instructors not use most of them.  That was easy because I did not introduce them to all of the buttons.
Also, there was training that nobody (instructors) attended so we were driving at that point.  It was our decision to concentrate on lectures, discussions, readings, and assignment

Technology looking for an application:   Nursing school has Real Server.  Everything is presented on that, even if it does not need it.

Counter point:  Students are going to be more and more savvy so eye candy is going to start to be expected

Keep It Simple Stupid    Don’t ask me to do something you saw on CSI as if it is something all computer guys can do.  A simple example:  “clean up this picture so I can see it better” but they downloaded a .gif from an internet site.

Video eats bandwidth for breakfast
Video needs codecs and support
	WMV / .avi
	Quicktime
	Mpeg
	Flash

## Technical Issues

- Server capacity
- Late registration
- Registration / Banner / grading
- E-commerce

- Institute for Biosecurity

**Notes:**
The WebCT server was at capacity so posting lectures and hosting collaborative groups were not allowed.  We posted larger files on our server and linked to it.

Late registration could be dealt with, but my “Radar O’Reilly calls Sparky” fix had its drawbacks:
	1 it used up favors
	2 If we started the class with a temporary ID, then everything had to be changed to the real one in mid course.

At the administrative level there is a new system called Banner which is supposed to help streamline and allow for more self serve options for students.  It is tied in with the registrar’s office and also with grades and transcripts.  This is becoming a single system, but right now we have to help students hold all of this together.

It is my goal to make technology and administration as transparent as possible.  Some people like the experience of “the system”  I believe our adult learners are really much more concerned about learning the content than getting a campus experience.

Remember the picture.  We are still working on trying to accept credit card transactions.

## Lessons Learned

- Prepare more
- Refine course names and descriptions
- 1-800 number
- Expand toolset for teachers
- Keep instructors close at hand
- Ask students “how is it going”
- Smaller “bite sized chunks”
- Prerequisite “Orientation and Reference” course

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**Notes:**
Prepare the syllabus and book list as early as possible

Make the names of the courses such that you get it at a glance.

A student on hold with ITS for 90 minutes on their nickel is unacceptable

Teach instructors about the other cool things WebCT will do, but wait till they have taught or taken a course using that feature.  This is one of the reasons for a Zero hour student orientation course which we will talk about in a minute.

Keep instructors close= get them a T.A.
The further away you are, the more you need a contact person
Content experts don’t always make computer experts

Ask students how they are doing and if they are having difficulty with any aspect of the class.  Make sure each new student understands that this online stuff is going to take more time than a “regular” course

These students are busy professionals.  If possible make smaller chunks of learning modules so they can get up and leave, put the kids to bed, answer a call, go on a fire run, whatever and come back and pick up without having to watch an hour and ten minutes over again to get to the last 20 minutes.

We decided to create a Zero hour course to cover common issues each instructor was having without making them put the same training in each course.  Once a student has seen this stuff, they don’t need to see it again in every course.

## Student Orientation Program

- Guidelines and Criteria for PowerPoint presentations
- Introduction to the University
- Writing Seminar
- Literature Searches
- APA style guide
- Photo directory of students
- Handbook
- Introduction to Statistics
- Technology tips

- Institute for Biosecurity

**Notes:**
A Zero hour course to cover basic but essential requirements.  We talk about best practices for Powerpoint as we want our students to use their presentations right away back at work.  (Christen Schmidt) Sigma Aldrich used her course work right away to show her boss who now uses it.

I believe it is our responsibility to help students navigate the university as much as we can.  At an undergrad level dealing with the “system” is kind of a challenge but also something that legendary tales are made of.  However, the adult learner has had enough of that and needs as little friction as possible.  Not that I want students to actually waste brain space understanding the university, I am more interested in them knowing this is here as a reference. 

Many of our professors assign papers as assignments.  Many of our students need to brush up on writing skills.

In our preparedness planning course there is a requirement for students to do a literature search.  It was decided that this part of the course was not teaching the subject matter, but was something students should learn outside of the course.  So now if students need to know how to do a lit search, it is here and every instructor will refer to these instructions so there is only one “right way” that we are preaching.

APA Style guide.  Same as above, but for papers.

Photo directory and bio of students if they want to participate.  That way they don’t have to introduce themselves in each course. Also we can pull the photo from here for badges and to put in the courses to make them a little more personable.

We have a handbook that we mail to students, but in case they lost it........

Introduction to statistics.  This is tricky as we don’t know how much people know, but our epidemiologist needs to know that students can at least get the basics on their own.

Technology tips This is mine. Where I get to talk about everything from long file names (don’t do it) to definitions of terms for different things in WebCT and even advice about using Word as a spell check tool before you post things.  This list is informal, but helpful.

## Shameless Plugs

- Bioterrorism.slu.edu
- Sign up for newsletter
- Consider enrolling in our program
- Look for book
- On preparing K-12 schools to go online for pandemic or bioterrorism attack (e.g.smallpox)
- By Jan Hinson & Kimberly LaPrarie  LSU and myself

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## Thank You

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