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Faculty Handbook, Georgia Southern University

Faculty Handbooks

Faculty Handbook for Georgia Southern University for the 2022-2023 academic year. The Faculty Handbook is published online by the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs and archived in Digital Commons@Georgia Southern.

Facilitating Conditions That Increase Faculty Perceived Usefulness Of Learning Management Systems: A Multiple-Case Study, Darnell S. Kemp

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this research study designed as a multiple-case study was to discover the facilitating conditions that led faculty at the higher education level to create activities using student-centered learning tools in the learning management systems (LMSs). The theories guiding this study were Davis’ technology acceptance model and two versions of the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology. Both theories looked at how perceived ease of use (PEU) and perceived usefulness (PU) determine a user’s use of a technology. The unified theory of acceptance and use of technology added facilitating conditions as a primary determiner of technology …

Providing Information Resources To Remote Clients During The Covid-19 Pandemic: The Perspective Of The Distance Education Academic Libraries, Tinyiko Vivian Dube

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The study aimed to determine the information resources provided to remote clients by the distance education academic libraries in Gauteng Province of South Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic. The positivism research paradigm anchored this paper and used the quantitative research approach. Microsoft Form was used to design the questionnaire to collect data from the academic library staff. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was used for data analysis. Cluster sampling was adopted as the actual number of the target population was not known. The findings revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic brought changes in the provision of information resources to …

Survey Says--How To Engage Law Students In The Online Learning Environment, Andrele Brutus St. Val

Articles

The pandemic experience has made it clear that not everyone loves teaching or learning remotely. Many professors and students alike are eager to return to the classroom. However, our experiences over the last year and a half have also demonstrated the potentials and possibilities of learning online and have caused many professors to recalibrate their approaches to digital learning. While the tools for online learning were available well before March of 2020, many instructors are only now beginning to capitalize on their potential. The author of this article worked in online legal education before the pandemic, utilizing these tools and …

And Finally... Systems And Instructional Design, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

A system is a set of interrelated parts, all working together toward a defined goal. The parts of the system depend on each other for input and output. The entire system uses feedback to determine if its desired goal has been reached. If not, then the system is modified until it reaches its goal (Dick et al., 2015).

And Finally... A New Era..., Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

Some have written that the modern era of distance education began with the widespread availability of the internet. Others move the date back to when it was possible to communicate quickly, such as with the telephone.

And Finally... Crisis Planning, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

The time to plan is now. If you do not have a plan to move to online teaching and learning, develop one. If you do have a plan, review it, update it, and train everyone.

And Finally … It’Ll Never Happen …, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

Educational contingency planning is the process of developing in advance what will be done if there is an event that impacts the school or training organization. Contingency planning for distance education is a subset of general contingency planning.

And Finally … The Night Is Dark …, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

For many, the previous 18 months have been dark and uncertain. Jobs have been changed, friends are different, and future events seem threatening— the playing field of doomsayers and charlatans preaching negativity.

"Letters", James V. Koch, Seth Forman

Economics Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Remote Learning Experience At Portland State University In Spring 2020, Liana Bernard, Phoebe Brown, Peter Chaille, Brenden Clenaghen, Joshua Eastin, Andrea Garrity, Sherril B. Gelmon, Carolina Gomez-Montoya, Laura E. Jacobson, Susan Lindsay, Maya Mcgill, Nate Midgley, Stephen Percy, Judith A. Ramaley, Risto Rushford, Gayle Y. Thieman, Luis Balderas Villagrana

Office of the President Publications and Presentations

It is an endeavor to understand what we have and will learn about the impact of remote instruction on faculty, students and relevant academic support teams. Simply put: We want to learn from an experiment foisted upon us by a health crisis. We have engaged in an incredibly innovative response. And now, we ask what have we learned? How might we improve? And, most importantly, are there implications from this experiment for the future of instruction at PSU and throughout higher education?

The project was organized around two stages in the Spring 2020 term.

• Stage One: Out of the Gate: …

Impact Of Oer In Teacher Education, Denise Cummings-Clay

Publications and Research

The purpose of this research study, which employed a quantitative research design, was to determine if there was a difference in the grades achieved by students who were enrolled in an entry-level Foundations of Education course using Open Educational Resources (OER) versus the grades achieved by students who used textbooks in other course sections. The goal was to find out whether OER was of the same or higher quality as textbooks in our minority-serving higher education institution. The outcomes revealed that there was no significant difference in grades for course sections that used OER when compared to course sections that …

Teaching Remotely In The Time Of Covid-19: Answering Frequently Asked Questions: A Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion Coordinator Perspective, Óscar Fernández

University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

FAQ about teaching online in the time of COVID-19. My FAQ is based on three experiences:

1. my role as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Coordinator (2017-2020) in University Studies;
2. I teach a fully online SINQ course, Healthy People/Healthy Places; and
3. for the past year (AY 2019-2020), I have been interviewing University Studies faculty about online teaching and learning. Why? I am hoping to propose an online Immigration, Migration, and Belonging FRINQ in the near future.

And Finally A Baker’S Dozen Ideas For Creating An Online Course, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

Most likely, everyone reading this column in Distance Learning journal has been asked how to quickly develop an online course, or tasked to actually redesign a course for online delivery. For those who have taught and learned in the world of distance education this process is easy, straightforward, even if time-consuming. One issue for new online designers or instructors is that much of the process for converting a traditional course to an online one is not intuitive, and in some respects is counterintuitive. For example, the idea of chunking instruction into single concept building blocks is an example of …

And Finally... Blending In All The News That’S Fit To Print, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

Even the New York Times agrees. In a recent Business section article about success in online courses, the Times wrote that “The instructional ingredients of success include … short videos of 6 minutes or less, interspersed with interactive drills and texts; online forums where students share problems and suggestions; and online mentoring and tutoring” (“Online Courses,” 2020). The Times got it right.

And Finally … What’S In A Name?, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

Call me Ishmael” is the first line of the classic novel, Moby Dick. Most high school students do not realize the importance of Ishmael’s name when they start reading. However, if they wanted an A on the final essay they wrote about the novel, they should have mentioned how this first line of three words set the intellectual tone for Herman Melville’s masterpiece.

Design And Investigation Of Cooperative, Scaffolded Wiki Learning Activities In An Online Graduate-Level Course, Kun Huang

Curriculum and Instruction Faculty Publications

Informed by the literature on community of inquiry, wikis in education, and scaffolding in technology-supported learning environments, this study reports the design, implementation, and investigation of wiki-supported cooperative learning activities in an online graduate-level theories class. The investigation of emerging research questions revealed students’ participation patterns in the wiki learning activities, the relationship between their participation and course performance, and the students’ experiences with the scaffolding strategies designed to support their cooperative activities. The study offers implications for designing and scaffolding wiki-based cooperative learning.

Auditing Quality: A Critical Exploration Of Faculty Members' Experiences With Quality Matters, Matthew M. Acevedo

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Online education has become a pervasive and embedded instructional modality in American higher education, with nearly one-third of all students taking at least one course at a distance and another 15% enrolled exclusively in online courses. Concomitant with the growth in online education has been increased pressure from institutions, administrations, lawmakers, accreditors, and the public to regulate the quality of online courses. Some institutions have responded to this pressure by pursuing quality assurance certification programs. Quality Matters (QM) is a non-profit organization that facilitates a peer-reviewed quality assurance program for online courses and is the predominant mechanism of online course …

And Finally... Course Quality Or Instructional Quality, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

Quality has become a popular word in distance education literature. Quality this, and quality that, all demanding that distance education, online learning, or virtual schooling must “have” something called quality— most often course quality.

And Finally … Open Access, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

Open Access—the idea that scholarly literature should be free and easily available to read online to anyone with an interest. We distance educators naturally embrace the idea of having readily available content that can be used in courses in a format that is easy to use and access. According to the web location Opensource.com there are two different versions of open access—libre and gratis.

And Finally … Telepresence—New Or ?, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

Telepresence is most simply defined as the virtual presence of a speaker who is at a distance. More sophisticated definitions emphasize the use of technologies that allow a videoconference viewer to feel as if distant participants are present.

Undergraduate Research For Online Students, Emily K. Faulconer, Amy B. Gruss

Publications

Since the term “high impact educational prac-tices” (HIPs) was coined in 2008, it comes up often in SoTL research and professional devel-opment. Undergraduate research is one of the commonly listed HIPs. The profes sional and personal benefits to studentsP are numerous, including increased perAsistence, self-confi-dence, career preparation, enhanced mentori©ng relationships, development of transferable skills, networking opportunities, and balancing of intellectual independence and collaboration skills (Council on Undergraduate Research, 2017; Lopatto, 2006, 2010; Madan & Teitge, 2013).

The Relationship Between Mobile Learning And Academic Achievement In A Community College System Online Environment, Daniel Grenier

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This study poses the question: Is there a relationship between student use of mobile technology in an online environment and student achievement expressed by final grades? The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between mobile learning (m-learning) using mobile technology and academic achievement in terms of final grades in an online environment. The literature on m-learning indicates the freedom and flexibility of the m-learner constitutes a new paradigm in education. The untethered nature of m-learning means students can access course content anywhere, anytime. Studies have focused on the use of specific technologies in learning environments; this study …

Integration Of Doctoral Students In Distance Programs: An Instrument Validation Study Of Educational Doctorate Students, Joseph Holmes

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Doctoral attrition rates range between 40%-60%. Attrition rates increase 10%-20% in the distance education (DE) environment. Academic integration and social integration are key elements of doctoral student integration and predictors of student persistence at any program stage. Instruments exist to measure academic integration and social integration for undergraduate students; however, no instruments exist that specifically measure both academic integration and social integration of doctoral students in DE programs at any program stage. The purpose of this research was to develop and analyze the structure, validity, and reliability of the Distance Doctoral Integration Scale (DDIS). Instrument development followed a multi-step process. …

And Finally... Engagement, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

Engagement of a learner is defined as emotional and intellectual involvement or commitment—the participation in learning activities via interaction with others in meaningful ways. Engagement theory considers engagement as the process of involving learners in groups or teams working collaboratively on project-based and authentic activities.

And Finally... Doing It Wrong—Who Says?, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

Several years ago there was considerable discussion among leaders of schools, colleges, universities, and organizations who wanted to offer instruction at a distance. In response, Distance Learning published a column titled “Designing the Perfect Online Program” hoping that the set of guidelines provided would assist organizations in their planning, and to reduce the likelihood that illconceived plans would be implemented.

And Finally … Let’S Go Deeply Digital?, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

The origination of the term “deeply digital” is widely credited to a Report to the President made in 2010 by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. The core of this report was that technology, deeply digital technology, should not replace teachers but support them. Properly used, technology can extend the reach of teachers by giving them access to the best instructional and professional development tools that can create customized learning environments and assessments for students, and to capture rich information about individual performance. (p. 80)

Using World Of Warcraft To Teach Research Methods In Online Doctoral Education: A Student-Instructor Duoethnography, Chareen Snelson, Christopher I. Wertz, Kimberly Onstott, Jason Bader

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The educational potential of games has captured the ongoing interest of scholars and educators who have sought to understand when, how, and under what conditions games support the teaching and learning process. General knowledge of how games support literacy, scientific thinking, or social learning has been theorized and researched, but some applications of game-based learning remain unexplored. One area where much remains to be learned is within online doctoral education and particularly in the poorly understood area of research methods education. In this study, three doctoral students and an instructor collaboratively fieldtested a set of instructional activities within World of …

Quality Of Faculty Feedback And Its Effects On Learning And Educational Effectiveness Of Online Master Degree Programs, Yoram Neumann, Edith F. Neumann, Shelia Lewis

Touro University Worldwide Publications and Research

This study assessed the unique contribution of quality of faculty feedback in the first course of online master degree programs, by itself, on a wide range of student educational effectiveness indicators: retention, degree completion, performance in the integrative capstone course, overall program GPA, and overall program time-to-degree while statistically controlling for the effects of student academic performance in the same first course. This assessment was conducted in the context of the Robust Learning Model with Spiral Curriculum. Using logistic regression and multiple regression models, the results of this study confirmed that not only the quality of faculty feedback was crucial …

And Finally ... Online Courses Have Three Critical Components (And Learning Management Systems Are Not One Of Them), Michael R. Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

It is happening again. Vendors—and some well-meaning educational administrators—are talking about the power of course/learning management systems and claiming that the technology used to deliver online courses has an impact on student achievement.