UW Online Environment Project Project Overview Project Start: March 2001 University of Waterloo -- Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

Background

In this project we focus on the online course environment, an increasingly important area for the University of Waterloo. The UWOnE project will put in place a university-wide, stable, UW-specific online course activity environment based on an online learning model created at UW.

Many course materials and some course activities have moved online as online instructional tools evolve to assist instructors and students in the learning process. These aids offer ways to supplement and improve the classroom time: improving communications between instructors and student groups, providing ways for students and instructors to assess progress in a more timely manner, diversifying the ways groups can collaborate, and easing administrative tasks such as homework collection and marks distribution.

While these and other course aids can potentially benefit many courses across campus, they are not equally supported in all campus areas and different solutions are implemented towards the same end. "Pockets" of support have some negative side effects.

• Duplication of effort as campus groups implement multiple course tools to perform the same online activity,
• Inequality as some Faculties and departments do not have access to the tools,
• Confusion as students need to learn several ways to do the same online activity, depending on who administers it,
• Diluted campus expertise and experience.

In addition to the technology issues, there is uneven support for rethinking pedagogy as instructors make use of the tools. Sharing stories and research about "best practises", that is, what works, what doesn't and why, is also critical to a successful online environment.

Project Objective

We will create a prototype for a University of Waterloo Online Environment, for now called UWonE (pronounced "UW 1"). UWOnE will provide the entry point to participating UW online courses and to online instructional support. Reasons for creating such an online entrance can be extrapolated from the negative side effects of support pockets listed above, in addition to other benefits.

1. Create a unifying look and feel to identify UW's online presence ("branding"),
2. Add a "buffer zone" between the course material and the aids that help deliver it (so that when the course aids and tools change, there is less impact on the course itself),
3. Create a place to bring together relevant information for the instructor and student ("gateway"):
   • for the instructor, instructional support for moving online such as exemplars, case studies, tips for teaching online, links to content of interest, etc.
   • for the student, courses, extracurricular activities, etc.
   • for the alumni, free and pay-for modules to upgrade their skills and knowledge.
4. Provide a building framework for new online courses with equal support across campus,
5. Provide support for adapting pedagogy and rethinking courses as instructors move materials and activities online.

Participants in the project, headed by LT3, include:

• the Centre for Learning and Teaching Through Technology (LT3),
• Distance and Continuing Education (DCE),
• Information Systems and Technology (IST).