TechTalks Event
Support Issues for Campus Web Sites
with guest experts Karie Masterson & Ruth Sabean
December 16, 1999
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What should your goals be? What do your "customers" expect? Who are your customers? Which are the primary elements of support? Are there unforeseen ramifications (both positive and negative)? What in general are the issues which concern instructors the most? How do you support students? How can you be sure you cover non-technological issues? Looking ahead, what changes in implementation should you prepare for due to technology issues?
Guest Experts
Karie
Masterson has been the Director of the UCLA
Humanities Computing Facility since 1992. She was the Network
Coordinator for the Humanities Network, HUMnet, since the founding
of the department in 1987. She was the designer and chief architect
of HUMnet in the late 80s and had the fun task of convincing the
administration and faculty that the Humanities really did need a
computer network. She finds parallels today in this process with
bringing the Web to instruction in the Humanities. She has a PhD
in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures with a particular interest
in computational linguistics.
Since
1993, Ruth Sabean has been the Assistant Director for Educational
Technology at the Office
of Instructional Development at UCLA,
following 10 prior years of directing and managing academic computing
services at Cornell University and UCLA, and 15 years of software
development. Sabean presents frequently at conferences on IT and
higher education. She is currently the section editor for Faculty
and Staff Development of the online journal The
Technology Source.
Co-Hosts
Howard Strauss, Manager of Academic Applications at Princeton
University, is TechTalk's Technology Anchor.
Co-Host Judith Boettcher is CREN's Executive Director.
Together, Howard and Judith will ask the really tough questions—and
relay the questions you email to them at expert@cren.net.
Background & Resources
Not too long ago, CREN broadcast a related Tech Talk on Tools for Teaching and Learning Online with Joan Getman and Nick Laudato. You might wish to review that audio archive and/or transcript here. Also:
- Our experts thought you might like to see some UCLA College of Letters and Science sample online courses.
- The Technology Source is a free online journal with lots of related articles and resources.
- WebDevShare provides a forum for sharing information and techniques on topics in Web-enabling higher education administration/support. The website features seven mailing lists with subjects ranging from general discussion to security issues. Through a simple online process, visitors can subscribe to any or all of these lists, which are well-run and professional in tone. WebDevShare's 1999 annual conference proceedings, and others, are online and provide a wealth of information.
- The World Wide Web Courseware Developers' Listserv Web Site, from The University of New Brunswick, is an international resource of interest to persons developing courseware that is to be delivered in part or totally over the Internet. Like the WebDevShare site, this group features a useful email list and a great annual conference - with some online proceedings.
- Another great, truly international organization is the Worldwide Association for Online Education. It has a number of listserves and the Journal of Online Education.
- The New Media Centers: This group's goal is helping institutions of higher education enhance teaching and learning through the use of new media. It has a special focus on corporate/institutional collaborations. This group currently is offering a Request for Participation and expects to add up to 25 accredited institutions of higher education as additional consortium members.
- TLT: The American Association of Higher Education (AAHE) created and "spun off" it's Teaching, Learning & Technology affiliate. TLT seeks to improve the ways in which information technology and resources can be used to improve teaching, learning, and research.
- To balance things out some, here's a provocative First Monday article about students' frustrations with online courses.
- And here's an interview with Jakob Nielsen, the Web's usability czar, about his new book, Designing Web Usability - a topic of interest on campuses as we finish off this penultimate year of the millennium.
