UW Educational Outreach

After researching alternatives, UW Educational Outreach decided to use the Catalyst Tools to support their distance learning courses. Here, the director of Distance Learning Design and two instructional designers talk about the challenges and rewards of transitioning into using the Catalyst Tools.

Transition by Fire

A few years ago, Bill Corrigan, Director of Distance Learning Design at UW Educational Outreach (UWEO), and his team were tired of relying on course management system vendors who had different priorities than his group. UWEO's goal of providing high-quality online programs with thoughtful input from instructors clashed with the vendors' priority of increasing their profits by providing pre-packaged course content from text book publishers. When their vendor stopped supporting their course management system, they looked elsewhere and ultimately decided to use the Catalyst Tools.

They laid out a careful plan to transition into using the Catalyst Tools and UW NetIDS gradually over an 18-month period. The conversion would not be trivial as Corrigan's group offers over 80 undergraduate credit courses, two graduate degree programs, and 25 certificate programs. Some of the courses spanned a whole year, so it made sense to change their technology the following year. The team planned to deal with small issues arising from the change as they dribbled in slowly. However, six months into the transition, their building burned down taking their computer system with it. Luckily, they did not lose their course content. They realized that it would be easier to rebuild using the new system. So, over a long weekend, they converted 150 (75%) of their courses to using UW NetID logins and the Catalyst Tools. Losing only two weekdays of online computer time, they pulled off the remaining year of their long plan in one weekend! In retrospect, Corrigan feels that the following few weeks of bumps and complaints about learning the new system were easier to work with than stretching out the process as originally planned.

"The Catalyst Team is Very Receptive and Responsive."

Previously, most of the products UWEO used provided support and documentation that did not fit their audience. The Catalyst team literally partnered with the UW Educational Outreach team by providing customized documentation and support. The communications between Educational Outreach and Catalyst have been mutually beneficial with Catalyst notifying UWEO about upgrades and outages, and UWEO providing input on the tools. For example, Catalyst added an attachment feature to EPost, and Educational Outreach users loved it.

"Overall, students are happy with the Catalyst tools used in our courses." Catalyst Tools allow UW Educational Outreach to provide a similar experience between courses. Catalyst is also cost effective (particularly compared to using their outside vendor) and has the tools they need, notably EPost, Portfolio, and E-submit. Corrigan finds WebQ works well for his instructors and is excited about the possibilities of using ShareSpaces for students to collaborate with writing, developing documents, and sharing their presentations.

Three Versions, One Experience

Linda Baker and Christi Ruscigno, instructional designers at UW Extension, wanted to create similar experiences for students taking three different versions of the Project Management certificate program. One version is totally classroom based, one is a "hybrid" of classroom and online learning, and the other is totally online. Students in all versions are put in project teams which jointly develop a set of deliverables, such as team operating rules, and project timelines, and budgets. Students in the first two versions of the program culminate the five course sequence by giving a live presentation summarizing their team work. Baker wanted to find ways to reproduce this experience for students who work only online.

Students previously used EPost and an audio conference bridge for team collaboration and discussion, supplemented by e-mail attachments and forum postings. These tools worked well for collaboration and some exchange of documents, but did not allow for building a central depository where all 15 team deliverables could be collected, commented on, and shared. In addition, each instructor only saw documents created in their own course, and never saw student work done outside their course.

The two decided to try the Portfolio tool because experience with other Catalyst tools gave them confidence, and they were impressed with the two-year history of Portfolio use on campus and usability tests done on it to iron out the inevitable bugs.

After Some Minor Stumbles, Using Portfolio Innovatively

The transition to using Portfolio required Baker and Ruscigno to train the entire faculty group, change the curriculum of each course to incorporate the tool's capabilities and format, and write more documentation. Unlike most portfolio projects on campus, the instructors wanted the students to work in groups to create a portfolio. Because the Portfolio documentation written by the Catalyst team is geared towards single instructors and assistants who create the portfolio framework and interact with individual students, Ruscigno rewrote the documentation to assist student working in teams.

Because instructors needed Portfolio access for teams rather than individuals, Baker acquired supplemental accounts for each team. While assisting them in their collaborative work, the additional account also created some confusion among students about when to use their own ID (to access the course materials) and when to use the team ID (for collaborative work).

Baker created the first version of the Portfolios so the faculty would not have to learn that part of the tool. However, this wound up creating some problems for instructors, who could not customize or edit the Portfolio structure without going through her. The instructor who oversaw the team process and mentored student teams eventually created his own version of the Portfolio, which students are now using instead. These false starts, mostly about access and viewing student submissions, discouraged some of the faculty, who returned to using e-mail and attachments for submission of team work.

Despite the challenges of the transition, Portfolio accomplished what they hoped—it created a mechanism for collecting, commenting on, and sharing student work in a way that is complementary to what is done in the classroom versions of the program. The team mentor is now able to see all the documents for each team in one place, and student feedback is positive. In future courses they will use the Portfolio tool in ways closer to what was intended in its original design—for individual users and single instructors—and they will provide thorough, customized documentation.

Advice for Instructors

• Make sure you leave enough time to practice with Portfolio before students have to use it in a course.
• Practice both what you will do and what students will do so you feel comfortable and can answer student concerns.
• Consider a practice session for students in a computer lab where they can see the tool demonstrated, practice what they will do, and ask questions.

Please note: EPost has been replaced by GoPost, which offers expanded features to support online discussion and collaboration.

E-Submit has been replaced by Collect It, which offers expanded features to gather files, provide feedback, and return assignments online.