This article appeared in the inaugural issue of the online journal Innovate. Innovate provides an rss feed at http://www.innovateonline.info/innovate.rss. (Reading articles directly from the Innovate web site requires registration, but the access is free.) I'm impressed that a new journal launched with rss feeds included; let's hope that other online journals move quickly to add feeds so that readers (students and faculty) can easily subscribe and stay updated through their news readers.
I believe that Robert Wood and his colleagues are definitely on track in their efforts to move to a full web-enhanced curriculum rather than simply focusing on individual courses. The field needs many more case studies reporting on the specific use of tools and learning objects for courses and curricula. The Rutgers effort deserves careful study and emulation. Unfortunately Wood and his colleagues at Rutgers did not make much use of shared resources from online repositories; their focus is more on using tools such as streaming video and audio enhancements for web courses.
A broader innovation in curricula and courses will occur when departments begin to avail themselves of online instructional resources. When (if?) that happens, then educational sharing and instructional scholarship will move beyond individual colleges and universities to a new kind of electronic academe. An important part of that new acadmic culture will be the introduction of students to a world of scholarship beyond their own institution. In the age of the World Wide Web students should not be restricted to the perspective provided by single courses from single instructors. ____JH
Scaling Up: From Web-Enhanced Courses to a Web-Enhanced Curriculum by Robert E. Wood. "When educators discover the advantages of using online technology in their teaching, they are often inspired to incorporate technology more systematically into their departmental programs. In this article, Robert E. Wood explains how he and his colleagues took this step in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal Justice at Rutgers University, Camden. Rather than focusing solely on their own courses, faculty members began working together to offer their students shared access to online tutorials, course Web sites, streaming video sessions, and a range of other resources. In the process, Wood observes, these efforts had the effect of creating much greater cohesion within the curriculum itself. The expansion of online resources helped the department promote standards for student skills, including consistent policies regarding plagiarism, research methods, and citation conventions. In turn, faculty members were also able to establish greater uniformity in conceptual and technical vocabulary from course to course, while additional online resources helped to foster greater communication among students and faculty. Wood's account provides a positive model of how the spirit of collaboration can help realize the potential of technology in higher education." [Innovate]
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