Support personnel. A team of instructional specialists support faculty members using CEIBA. The support team conducts general workshops on how to use CEIBA, as well specialty workshops on how to use Web editors, graphic editors, and video editors. The support team answers questions submitted by email and through Web forms. The support team also provides help for individual professors who come to the office in person. For faculty members who are interested in developing multimedia material, but who do not have the equipment, software, or expertise, the support team works with them in a dedicated multimedia studio. For large introductory courses, such as Chemistry 101 and
Physics 101, the support team worked with the departments to develop professional quality of videos of their lab procedures.
Combining instructive design, inclusive design, and support personnel has made a big difference. After the organizational and system function changes were made, the results were noticeable. A growing number of professors started using CEIBA. A survey was conducted in June 2007 to determine CEIBA usage. Questionnaires were distributed at the end of the spring semester, and 182 out of 620 professors who used CEIBA during that semester responded.
Category Knowledge Knowledge Knowledge Knowledge Knowledge Knowledge Interaction Interaction Interaction Interaction Interaction Interaction Interaction Interaction
redesign of LMS and the assistance provided by the support team, CEIBA usage increased greatly among the faculty without science and engineering backgrounds. Figure 2 presents the total number of professors using CEIBA between 2000 and 2007. The College of Arts and Humanities recorded the highest number of faculty using CEIBA, surpassing the number of users from the engineering department. The results suggested that arts and humanities professors are no less interested or capable of building
online resources for their courses than their engineering counterparts.
Teaching methods. In terms of overall satisfaction, most of the professors ranked the richness and flexibility of CEIBA functions well above average. Over 95% of respondents felt that CEIBA was equipped with instructional and management functions that serve the user needs. Over 85% felt CEIBA was easy to use, had clear guides, and the support team was helpful and quick to solve problems. In terms of the impact of using CEIBA, about 90% of the professors felt their courses were more complete and structured after using CEIBA. Indeed, 80% of professors responded that the contents of their courses were enriched by using CEIBA, and their students’ learning results have been improved.
Many professors indicated their instructional strategies and teaching styles had changed. About 80% of professors felt that their interaction with students had increased, and their teaching styles had become livelier. About 75% of the professors
Functions
Course objectives and evaluation
Student information and roster
FTP files to CEIBA
Announcement boards
Using templates to create course pages
Email to all students
Discussion board
Homework assignment
Resource sharing
Co-teacher management
Grouping students
Homework sharing
Chat rooms
Voting
Never used 4% 5% 5% 10% 14% 15% 34% 40% 42% 55% 57% 63% 65% 66%
Survey results of CEIBA at NTU at spring 2007.
RESULTS OF THE CEIBA USER ANALYSIS Professor participation. One of the barriers limiting LMS use at universities is the fear of technology. Professors in the arts and humanities often feel they do not possess the ability nor have the time to learn to build Web-based course material. With the
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