What is student authentication? Why is it important?

As a result of new regulations stemming from the federal reauthorization of the Higher Education Act in 2008, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) has requested its member institutions to address student authentication for all distance and correspondence courses. The regulation requires an institution accredited by an accrediting body that is recognized by the U.S. Secretary of Education to “demonstrate that the student who registers in a distance or correspondence education course or program is the same student who participates in and completes the course or program and receives the credit by verifying the identity of a student who participates in class or coursework.”

What does UL Lafayette policy require?

UL Lafayette policy about student authentication requires that faculty authenticate students using additional measures:

• The syllabus prepared for hybrid and online courses will identify additional student authentication measures.
• Additional authentication measures must be implemented by course instructors and professors.

One additional authentication measure you might explore is the use of exam proctoring. A number of faculty teaching online are strategically implementing proctored events throughout the course. To assist you with discerning among proctoring strategies, a task force of faculty helped create the Faculty Guidelines for Proctoring in Distance Learning Courses. The purpose of the guidelines is to outline different approaches to proctoring – virtual, on campus, and off site.

Frequently Asked Questions by Faculty Teaching Online

Am I required to give proctored exams if I teach an online course at UL?

No. You are required to implement additional measures, but not necessarily select proctoring.

If I select proctoring, am I required to proctor every test, exam, and/or quiz? 

No. You can strategically select how often you implement proctoring. You are encouraged to proctor high stakes tests or exams (mid-terms or finals) or periodically proctor to verify identity and ensure academic integrity.

Can I implement more than one proctoring method? 

Yes. One best practice uncovered by a faculty member teaching a course with over 100 students enrolled each semester involves the use of dual proctoring approaches.  Through Moodle, students are given a choice to come to campus and take the exam on one night or they may sign up for a virtual proctoring session for an additional fee. About 60% of the students select the face-to-face option with the remaining 40% opting for the virtual proctoring option.

The Office of Distance and Electronic Learning Policies and Procedures provides the following parameters for determining electronic course size:

• Each Department Head with the Dean’s approval will determine the appropriate class size for hybrid and online courses. University established course size minimums apply.
• Course sizes may vary by discipline, course by course within a discipline, major by major within a department, and department by department within a college.
• Variations are allowed to consider the vast differences in instructional delivery across and within disciplines while also allowing distance learning to achieve the appropriate economies of scale.
• Course sizes must be published in the schedule of classes and demonstrate alignment with published best practices for delivering electronic courses.

While these parameters are helpful, at least one question remains. “How can each department practically determine course sizes? “

This blog post discusses one College’s approach to electronic course size decisions and some principles for Deans and Department Heads to consider when making course size determinations.

First, faculty and academic administrators should consider the type of assessments and engagement activities in a particular course’s design when determining what that course’s maximum enrollment should be.  The term “engagement” used in the context of this blog post references the need and expectations of faculty time spent on grading and reviewing assessments and the amount of time and effort of students to complete the set of assignments designed for the course.  There are minimum engagement expectations for faculty to monitor the course, respond to questions, and complete the regular duties associated with teaching any course, regardless of delivery format.

One Model

In one UL Lafayette College, a significant number of hybrid and online courses sections are offered each semester.  The decision-making process about course sizes follows a method based on answering the following questions:

1. What are our peers doing?
   • The Associate Dean of the College researches how many students in a particular course or set of courses are being taught in an electronic format by a predetermined set of competitors? This information is then used in the equation.
2. What is the scope of the course? Is it a core course or common body of knowledge course needed for future success in other courses? Where is the course in the sequence?
   • Foundation courses and technical courses may sometimes have lower faculty to student ratios.
3. What is the ability level of the faculty members teaching the course? Expertise with content and electronic instructional formats is weighed heavily in this UL Lafayette College when considering course size.
   • For example, a new faculty member may have a lower number of students than the person who has experience teaching online. The goal is to create an ideal environment for the faculty member and students with some expectation that the number of students that can be taught online increases to some maximum point as the faculty member gains experience in the online environment.
4. Is the course size responding to quality and need for this semester? This College continually reviews course sizes on a semester by semester basis to decide if the size for that semester is responding to the  needs of students and re-assessing how the course size may or may not have affected student achievement of learning outcomes.  For example, course A may enroll 20 students in the fall semester based on the factors above, but may enroll 25 or 30 in the following spring semester based on a shift in one or more of the factors used to calculate the initial size. The reverse of this example is also true.

Complex Challenges Remain

There are complex challenges to answering the course size questions for these reasons:

1. There is no formula for determining the proper class size or at least none exists in the research literature. The discussion on pages 98-100 of this journal article may interest this blog entry’s readers – http://www.ncolr.org/jiol/issues/PDF/4.2.3.pdf.
2. Course size decisions must consider the quality of the experience for the student while at the same time weighing the cost (economy of scale) of the course to the College and University. What is the return on investment for a small class size, a larger class size, or varying class sizes among a set of courses?
3. Determining the right course size may take some trial and error. In the short run, your Department might agree on a number, conduct your own studies of students’ and faculty members’ experiences, and present results. Then, make adjustments as needed based on data, not anecdotal evidence.
4. More often, UL Lafayette faculty are showing an increased interest in developing and teaching a hybrid or  online course(s).  We must remember that good designs and more experienced faculty (in terms of content knowledge and practice with the electronic instructional format) can produce environments where more students can be taught to some limit.  My recommendation to faculty is to discuss the course sizes for each course under question or that may be under question in the next academic year with your Department Head, and possibly your Dean.  Be sure to explain the course demands and engagement requirements for faculty and students.
5. At this time and based on recent study of course size research, it is not advisable to select a hard fast number for all courses in your department. This approach may not be appropriate as each course has different learning outcomes with varying instructional strategies employed to assess the achievement of those learning outcomes. The instructional and assessment strategies may require more or less effort across courses in a department because of the nature of the specific course content.
6. Having broad ranges among course sizes within a set of sequenced courses is that your Department may unintentionally create bottlenecks where students cannot get X course because it only enrolls 15 students so they discontinue their enrollment in favor of another institution.

Until we have a formula or each department has its own research about the best course sizes by course type, level (freshmen, junior, senior or undergraduate or graduate), and/or courses within the sequence of a major, it is best to consider the elements suggested by the College in the example above. Also, determining course sizes should be an ongoing, not one time, event where careful consideration is made as the course is taught more often hybrid or online or in some other instructional format.

In response to these questions and growing interest in this topic, this blog’s author has reviewed and assembled some helpful resources for faculty to better understand fair use in regards to distance and electronic courses.

Resource 1: Urban Copyright Legends by Brandon Butler

Mr. Butler, an attorney, concisely dispels a number of myths in his attempt to reduce the “proliferation of misinformation and misstatements about copyright” and fair use. Download his five-page article by clicking here.

Resource 2: Introduction to the TEACH Act

John Harwood and Becky Albitz from Penn State University offer a 46 minute recorded Webinar overview of the TEACH Act and its impact on distance learning. This captured voice-over-PowerPoint, which is available here,  is a great primer for those researching fair use and wanting to understand the TEACH Act.

Resource 3: Measuring Fair Use

Stanford University’s Libraries provides a clear discussion on the factors federal judges use to decide if fair use is applicable in copyright infringement cases. The factors include:

1. the purpose and character of your use
2. the nature of the copyrighted work
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion taken, and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market

The link to Standford’s concise, case-law focused discussion of fair use can be accessed here.

Resource 4: UL Lafayette’s Electronic Copyright Handbook

A final source worth considering is the University’s own copyright handbook, which is available electronically. Readers may get access to this electronic and interactive document by clicking here.

“For Hersh, engagement goes hand-in-hand with audio-visual communication. The more that exchanges occurring within an online learning environment resemble those that occur in classrooms, he says, the more that students will feel connected to their professors and classmates, and the more likely they will be to stay in a program.

John Bourne, executive director of the Sloan Consortium, an online-education research and advocacy group, says “social presence” does stem dropout rates in online programs. “There is no question in my mind, based on work on social presence over 15 years, that if you increase interaction between humans, you can increase and enhance engagement, comfort and, eventually, retention,” Bourne says.”

Consideration to incorporating synchronous activities is important when designing or redesigning courses and programs for online delivery. At the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, the Office of Distance and Electronic Learning will be encouraging faculty teaching hybrid and online courses to use two tools (one open source freely available and a proprietary solution purchased by the University) to conduct synchronous activities with their online learners.

Elluminate is UL Lafayette’s supported web-conferencing solution.  The University purchased two V-Offices from Elluminate with capacity to support 50 participant in each virtual office.  This tool is perfect for hosting a synchronous orientation for online students at the beginning of a course or for convening periodically to discuss topics which students are struggling to grasp as reflected in a course’s assessment results. Learn more about V-Office by viewing the video in this blog’s video collection.

Skype. Effective online instructors schedule e-office hours for their students.  Skype provides a free voice over Internet protocol solution for hybrid or online students to connect with faculty and ask questions.  Faculty interaction in UL Lafayette e-courses is critical to successful student engagement.  More information on Skype can be found at – http://www.skype.com/welcomeback/.

These are just two tools with limited sample uses. There are a plethora of other ways to use these tools and a growing number of other open source/free and proprietary tools to facilitate  student and faculty interaction in online courses.

Design for interaction, interact, measure the success of those interactions, and modify for future courses.

      The EDUTech Wiki offers a concise overview of the backwards design method. Visit this link (http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Backwards_design) for the overview and a list of links with more detailed information about applying the backwards design. The information should assist new hybrid and online course creators  as they conceptualize their approach to their hybrid or online course design. After all, design is the foundation of good delivery.

Here are some introductory links and information to help faculty and staff members become familiar with the growing interest and need to focus on academic integrity in distance and electronic learning.

First, blog readers should visit the Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications (WCET) page, which provides a concise collection of informational resources – http://www.wcet.info/2.0/index.php?q=node/1212.

Second, take time to review this presentation by Michael Jortberg on the Acxiom solution to verify identity of distance learning students. You will need to give your name and email address to view the presentation.

http://acxiom.articulate-online.com/ContentRegistration.aspx?DocumentID=402a014d-ecb1-441f-8676-9e0b4a4333c0&Cust=62260&ReturnUrl=/p/6226013529

Finally, explore another perspective through review of this presentation without voice made available through slideshare.

As the UL Lafayette community of faculty, staff, and administrators work to develop our e-learning enterprise, we must be informed about academic integrity issues and solutions in distance and electronic learning courses. Furthermore, we must design systems and processes to manage student authentication.

Does this profile fit you?  http://edudemic.com/2010/05/new-study-yes-professors-are-online-and-teaching-with-social-media/

If not, maybe it is time to explore the world of social media. The Office of Distance Learning can help you think of ideas to appropriately  integrate social media into your courses.

View the recently added video about the Social Media Revolution posted on this blog to view the impact on society.

For first time hybrid and online course developers, this is a great link on how to conceptualize the design of your course before you begin the design and development processes.