Figure 1 Link to an FMS site
USE OF THE INTERNET FOR FLEXIBLE DELIVERY AND ENHANCEMENT
OF TEACHING AND LEARNING
B. Baliga and S. Palmer
School of Engineering and Technology,
Deakin University,
Geelong 3217,
Australia
ABSTRACT: This paper presents complementary aspects
of the use of the Internet for flexible delivery and enhancement
of traditional print-based courseware for distance education engineering
students. This innovative joint work has been recognised as significant
by Deakin University, and the authors have been awarded a Fellowship
to allow them to mentor other academic staff in the University
during 1996. The aim of this paper is to disseminate information
about the use of the Internet to enhance the teaching and learning
experiences of engineering students. Web sites of manufacturers
have been hyperlinked with the course work to enhance the traditional
course material. In addition, distance education students are
able to view the weekly lecture slides and past exam papers through
the internet. The techniques for the development of the presented
innovations are discussed, as are the potential benefits and limitations
of these teaching and learning techniques.
INTRODUCTION
Approximately 40% of the students in the school of Engineering
and Technology's undergraduate Engineering and Technology programs
are enrolled in off-campus or distance education mode. Postgraduate
course work programs are wholly offered in distance education
mode. Students are mailed a set of course material, which is primarily
print based, supplemented by other material such as floppy diskettes
containing computer aided learning (CAL) programs and video cassettes.
A previously developed model provided a framework for the design
and implementation of flexible delivery of engineering courses
and described how the model was adopted at Deakin University [1].
Academic support of these students have traditionally
been done with a mix of phone, fax and computer bulletin boards
created on the University's Unix server. Students accessing the
bulletin boards log into the Deakin University network and read
the bulletin board for the units they are enrolled in. The lecturer
updates the bulletin boards and replies to queries from individual
students. These bulletin boards are accessed using a VT100 terminal
emulation program, and have no scope for presentation of graphic
material. With the advent of the world wide web (WWW) and browsers
such as Netscape, the scope of distance education delivery and
support has undergone a dramatic change.
This paper reports on the work done by the authors
that was recognised by the University for inclusion in the Active
Learning and Teaching Participation Program (ALTPP) fellowship
program. The University, through the Centre for Academic Development
(DCAD) has developed the ALTP program. The ALTPP is funded by
a grant obtained by DCAD from the Commonwealth Staff Development
Fund. Through the ALTPP, staff working in innovative areas of
teaching received a fellowship that allows them time relief from
teaching duties in second semester 1996, to act as mentors to
other staff wishing to pursue the same innovations.
FLEXIBLE DELIVERY OF COURSEWARE VIA THE INTERNET
An innovative project was undertaken to convert a
unit in Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS) from a conventional
print-based format to hypermedia mode material which was delivered
through the Internet. Off-campus students could, in addition to
reading the course material, view a short movie of the School's
Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS) lab.
In addition, each topic was linked to Internet sites
of related equipment manufacturers world wide. Manufacturers of
Automated Guided Vehicles, Computer Numerical Machines, FMS, etc
were linked to the unit pages, thus broadening the scope of the
material. Learning activities were designed based on the contents
of the manufacturer's site. This method of course delivery improved
the effectiveness of teaching and learning as it:
In order to best utilise the node link paradigm of
hypermedia, relevant sites, including academic and commercial,
were linked with the program to provide additional industrial
information to enhance the learning of this unit [2]. One example
was the Allied Signal Inc's Flexible manufacturing system facility
in Kansas, USA, shown in figure 1 below. The page itself was in
the form of a map, and the user could click on the various elements
of the FMS to view a colour picture and description. The colour
pictures enhanced the student's learning, as a single picture
conveyed more information than a whole page of text could. It
is interesting to note that even though each picture file size
was of an average 150 kilobytes in size, it did not cause a significant
delay in downloading the file from the US site. The reason being
users connected to the Deakin network have their http proxy directed
to the University's central cache (cache-b.deakin.edu.au). Before
fetching the file, a check is made to see if the file exists in
the cache. If it does, then the request to the US site is not
made, but the file from within the cache is downloaded to the
user's computer.
Another site linked was a manufacturer of Automated Guided Vehicles-
Eskay corporation in USA. To reinforce the students learning process,
activities in the form of self-assessment questions were added.
The student evaluations were reported in a separate work [3].
In addition, a 30 second video clip of the school's FMS lab was
made. This was then digitised to 'quick time for movies' format,
which is common to Mac and PC users.
SUPPORT AND ENHANCEMENT OF COURSEWARE VIA THE INTERNET
The availability and usage of Australian WWW sites
in support of Engineering education has been previously investigated
[4]. In this paper we report a similar support mechanism which
was developed in the school of Engineering and Technology. Most
off-campus students in the school have access to the Internet.
All off-campus students are mailed a user friendly software package
called Deakin Interchange, to enable them to access the University's
network. The package includes, amongst other things, an email
utility (Eudora), Telnet and FTP utilities, WWW browser software
(Netscape), First Class conference, links to library catalogues,
etc. In order to enhance the delivery of core courseware, the
Internet was used to provide supplementary educational resources.
The applications developed incorporated the following:
A 'home page' is akin to the index in a book, only
the page numbers are replaced by links to other pages. By clicking
on each highlighted topic a user can access the linked material.
The first link on the WWW page is a general information unit guide.
Its purpose is not only to be a ready reference for enrolled students,
but also to put the rest of the WWW resources in some kind of
context for anyone than comes across the page while browsing.
The information includes aims of the unit, unit content, prescribed
text book, assessment etc.
The next link provides contact details for the unit
lecturers. Contact details including phone, fax, and e-mail addresses
are listed. Students are able to click on the lecturer's name
and send an e-mail. Most browsers have an in-built mail system
to facilitate this feature.
The next item in the unit home page is the class
discussion group. Students are provided with a brief introduction
about use of this utility. Clicking the discussion group leads
them to the newsgroup for the unit under the deakin.courses newsgroup
hierarchy. Students are able to share information from peer support
groups, and the unit lecturer can post information there for the
students to read.
The next item of use to students is a sample assignment.
In the SEB121 unit, students have to prepare essay and report
style assignment submissions. To assist students in understanding
what is required in their submissions, a sample assignment has
been developed. The sample assignment is a submission for which
a student received full marks. In addition to the sample submission,
the assignment question is presented, along with an explanation
of why it received a good grade, as well as a note as to how it
could have been further improved.
The next link on the home page provides an explanation
as to how students can access past examination papers for the
unit in electronic format. The University library has scanned
hardcopies of past examination papers and converted them to the
Adobe Acrobat portable document format (PDF) and made them accessible
via the WWW. Students can download the Acrobat reader software
free of charge, this allows them to view and print the past exam
papers.
The last link on the SEB121 home page is the summary
of the lecture slides as shown in figure 2 below. Hadi [5] presented
a structural model for the WWW pages of a typical subject in Engineering
which included lecture and tutorial notes. The lecture notes are
made using Powerpoint. Students are able to download a freely
available Powerpoint viewer to view the slides, even if they do
not have access to the Powerpoint program. By clicking on the
weekly slide presentation summaries, off-campus students are able
to view the slides at their own pace, and keep in touch with what
is happening in the on-campus classes. The slides reinforce the
matter covered in the print based study material sent to them.
DEVELOPMENT TOOLS
The hypertext markup language (html) documents were
made using Microsoft's Internet Assistant for Word 6. Documents
were created as normal Word for Windows documents. Links were
formed using a special tool button which required the address
of the link to be entered in a separate pop up window. The Internet
links to relevant sites where found using the Lycos search engine
(http://www.lycos.com). This was done by using relevant search
words such as AGV, FMS, etc. Linked sites were visited and studied
to determine the relevance to the study material.
Initially the html document was made on an IBM compatible
PC using Word for Windows. The document was viewed using Netscape
by opening the local file. Following peer review by School staff,
the completed document was transferred to the University's WWW
server. The file was placed on the University's WWW site specially
created to store html documents (public_html). It was required
to set the file attributes to "world" readable. This
was done using the Unix command "chmod 755". The simple
techniques used by the authors to develop WWW teaching resources
meant that we could transfer this expertise to other colleagues
without the need for extensive training.
The movie of the FMS was made with the help from
the University's media department. It was converted to 'quick
time' format, since this format is common to MAC and PC. The Powerpoint
slides were made using Microsoft's Powerpoint software. These
were then transferred to the WWW directory for access by students.
WWW browsers such as Netscape can be configured to launch the
Powerpoint viewer. The Powerpoint viewer is freely distributed
by Microsoft.
BENEFITS AND LIMITATIONS
An ever-increasing number of companies are using
the Internet for presenting information about their products.
Since the target audience seeks out specific information, the
company can place highly technical information. Use of links allows
the information to be placed hierarchically with users wanting
more information continuing with the hyperlinks and accessing
more information. Moreover, the capital cost of setting up a WWW
page returns a recurring dividend, day after day. In fact, popular
WWW sites record several million "hits" or accesses
per month. This has opened up an enormous potential for academic
staff to tap in to these resources for broadening the information
provided to students. An additional benefit is that in most cases,
the product information is updated frequently, unlike a text book
which has a longer lead time. Further, with the improvement in
the multimedia capabilities of computers, video clips with accompanying
sound are becoming a common feature of WWW sites.
The Internet provides the backbone on which teaching
and learning resources can be delivered to students, both on-
and off-campus. Internet services such as e-mail, newsgroups and
the WWW provide a medium for conveniently interacting with students
that have Internet access, regardless of their location. More
than just a simple electronic communications medium, the Internet
offers the possibility to deliver course material and other supplementary
teaching and learning resources, as described above. Additionally,
these resources are available at the convenience of the student
- a student on-campus, interstate or in another country can retrieve
and print a past exam paper when they require it.
In spite of the potential benefits of the Internet
as a teaching and learning medium, there are a few limitations.
The high demand for modem lines has meant most Universities are
not able to provide sufficient connections for distance education
students. Students may have to make several attempts before they
can get a connection. Some commercial Internet service providers
are overselling/overloading their bandwidth, with the result that
the speed of data transfer is slowing down. Another limitation
is that distance education students tend to be mature age students,
and may not have had sufficient exposure to computers and the
Internet to be able to use WWW based resources.
Issues of security of educational material and copyright
limitations on teaching resources are still to be effectively
addressed in the context of higher education. Martin [6] deals
further with the limitations of the Internet and WWW in the delivery
of distance education.
However, in balance, the potential benefits far outweigh
the limitations, and as time goes by, it is certain the Internet
will increasingly be used for delivery and support of distance
education. The techniques used by the authors to create Internet-based
teaching and learning resources were simple and straightforward,
requiring neither programming skills or specialised computing
resources. Several other staff in the University have been mentored
by the authors under the ALTPP fellowship program. The work developed
as part of the fellowship can be accessed from links on the school
of Engineering and Technology's home page at http://www.et.deakin.edu.au
CONCLUSION
We conclude that the Internet will be increasingly
used to both deliver and support teaching and learning. It offers
particular advantages for distance education. It provides not
only a medium for interaction with students, but also a valuable
resource from which material can be sourced to broaden the course
content presented to students. It is possible for academic staff
to easily produce their own Internet-based teaching resources
without the need to have access to specialist programming resources,
authoring software or computer hardware.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors wish to thank Deakin University Centre
for Academic Development for our inclusion in the ALTPP fellowship
program. This has allowed us to develop our skills in using the
Internet for teaching and learning, and to assist colleagues in
our own and other Universities to do the same.
REFERENCES