Information Technology News Archive

1996 - 2017

You are here: Home / Archives for Instructional Support

Instructional Support

EEE Develops New Online Survey Tool

by

The newest instrument in the ever-expanding EEE toolbox is the online Survey Tool. The tool allows any instructor, TA, or staff member to create and compose a quick and easy survey and then target a specific audience for responses. Results can be analyzed online and in real time.

“By the time we returned from lunch, we already had 14 responses. We were very excited. We never had this fast of a turn-around time when we were mailing out bulky, paper surveys,” said Adam, who has just finished overseeing the school’s 4th major survey.

Any faculty or staff member with a UCInetID can create and publish a survey. Instructors who want to survey their class will find a link to the tool in their MyEEE / MyInstructorClasses module. Other UCI staff can access the Survey Tool from the ToolBox in EEE’s main page navigation bar or go directly tohttp://eee.uci.edu/toolbox/survey/

A fill-in-the-form wizard guides you through each step of the way when you build a survey. Surveys can be reused or shared with a colleague. To make the survey address easy to remember, you can designate an alias, called a “Friendly URL”.

Surveys can be deployed to students in specified classes, research groups, or even to the general public, depending on the settings you choose. The tool generates e-mail and sends it to your target audience, containing a link to the survey.

Data results can be viewed, even as responses are coming in. You can review the results in a graphical display or download them as a spreadsheet.

The Henry Samueli School of Engineering began using the EEE Survey Tool immediately after it was launched to solicit feedback from industries in and around the community regarding eight engineering programs. Iris Adam, Senior Analyst for HSSoE, reported that one survey was sent to two hundred people, and results came in very quickly. “By the time we returned from lunch, we already had 14 responses. We were very excited. We never had this fast of a turn-around time when we were mailing out bulky, paper surveys,” said Adam, who has just finished overseeing the school’s 4th major survey.

NACS has created an example survey to illustrate the tool. You are invited to check it out at http://eee.uci.edu/survey/article-sample

Computer Labs Aid Instruction

by

You might think, in these days of ubiquitous laptops and wireless Internet, that the traditional instructional computer lab has had its day, but labs remain an essential resource for instruction at UCI.

Distributed through 9 rooms in six buildings, NACS manages over 300 computers dedicated to instructional use. NACS continuously invests in the lab computers to keep them current, and systems in any of our labs have a consistent, predictable configuration.

All lab computers have an array of academic and productivity software, and all labs have printing facilities (most through NACS’s Payprint system, and Gateway Study Center computers through the Library.)

Instructional labs fill two principal roles: allocation to faculty while teaching regularly scheduled courses, and “drop in” use. Some labs are always available for drop-in use, and all labs are available for drop-in use when not being used for a course.

Faculty interested in having a computing lab allocated to a course may make their request online.

In addition to course use and drop-in use, some of our computers are available at night as a computational resource. From 10pm to 7am, systems in the MST and SST buildings reconfigure themselves as a computational cluster. If you’re interested in access to this cluster, please contact NACS.

Instructional labs:
http://www.nacs.uci.edu/computing/labs/index.html#instruct

Request a lab for your course:
http://www.nacs.uci.edu/computing/labs/schedule.html

Drop-in labs:
http://www.nacs.uci.edu/computing/labs/index.html#drop

More SmartClassrooms for Fall

by

UCI has for some years been engaged in a process of upgrading classrooms to make better (and easier) use of technology in instruction. Dubbed “Smart Classrooms,” these facilities include a PC, audio/video connections for faculty laptops, Internet access, video and overhead projectors, VHS and DVD players, and a touch-screen control system.

Smart Classrooms are a project of the Division of Undergraduate Education’s Classrooms and Computer Support, with assistance from NACS. UCI enjoys over 60 Smart Classrooms, and 13 new ones, many in ICS, were completed last summer. UCI’s goal is to have all general assignment classrooms upgraded by 2008.

To use the Smart Classroom, faculty must authenticate with their UCInetID and password. Faculty who activated their UCInetIDs many years ago are encouraged to call NACS to verify that their UCInetIDs can be used with the current version of the authentication system.

Once a faculty member has used one Smart Classroom, she or he will find the same interface in every other classroom. From the lectern, instructors can control the computer, the VCR and DVD players, the projectors, and even the room lights. Smart Classrooms can even be controlled by an associate by remote control over the Web.

More information on Smart Classrooms, including a current list of upgraded rooms can be found at the DUE-CCS web site:

http://www.classrooms.uci.edu/

Scrap the Scantrons — Course Evaluations Go Online

by

When it comes to course evaluations, a growing number of schools and departments will be canceling their Scantron orders this coming academic year, opting for pixels instead of paper. They are making the switch thanks to EEE‘s new online course evaluation tool.

Previously a means for instructors and teaching assistants to assess the progress of learning in a class, EEE’s online evaluation tool can now be used for the formal course evaluation process, when authorized by the Dean or Associate Dean.

“This project has saved the School of Physical Sciences staff many hours,” asserts Cindy Fern, Academic Counselor, Physical Sciences.

One advantage of online course evaluations is that results are available immediately after final grade submission. Dr. Rudi Berkelhamer, Associate Dean, Division of Undergraduate Education used the online evaluation system in her University Studies class. She appreciates not only that the data was available much more quickly than in the previous paper-format, but also in a concise form easily imported into a database program for analysis.

Online evaluations conserve resources and reduce expenses. “This project has saved the School of Physical Sciences staff many hours,” asserts Cindy Fern, Academic Counselor, Physical Sciences. “Each of our departments had staff members who spent anywhere from 10 to 40 hours per quarter managing the paper process. With the on-line forms, the time spent each quarter has dropped to about one hour or less for each of the five staff members involved in the process.”

The online form also allows students more time to fill out the form, and in many cases they are more responsive. Bob Cassidy, School of Engineering observed: “This quarter we had 5,600 evaluations completed, so that’s almost twice the volume of what we did on paper.”

Dr. Robert Doedens, Chemistry Professor and Associate Dean, Physical Sciences recognizes that “the proportion of students providing free form comments is larger, the comments tend to be longer, and their overall quality is notably higher.” Dr. Doedens believes that “these changes are largely a result of the absence of time constraints during the completion of the evaluations.”

As of spring, 2005, 21 departments have migrated to the online tool. These include all departments in the schools of Engineering, Biological Sciences, Social Ecology, and Physical Sciences. The EEE Web development team works directly with faculty and staff to ensure that all evaluation needs are met. To find out more about EEE’s new department evaluations process, contact eee@uci.edu.

Class Websites in 60 Seconds

by

In just one minute, Faculty can build a class Website — without having to learn HTML or other special Web design tools — by using EZE3. This popular fill-in-the-form tool now has extra features, and is as easy as ever to use.

How easy? Login to EEE, click the WebSiteManager icon in the toolbox on your personalized “MyEEE” page, select a class, and click the “New EZE3” link. There are options for choosing a color scheme, password-protecting your Website, and rearranging content in the order most useful to your students. A push of the Upload button can link a syllabus, lecture notes, study aids, assignments, or additional publisher-prepared Web materials. Students can then obtain these materials online to view, download and/or print. A link to the class Website appears automatically on enrolled students’ MyEEE pages.

Editing the site is also simple and straightforward. Return to your “MyEEE” page, click on “Manage” next to the Website URL, and then click on “Edit Page.” The materials stay in EEE and are accessible until you decide to remove them.

With 1,337 class Websites available this spring, UCI instructors are becoming webmasters in their own right. “I really appreciate the convenience of this tool”, notes Professor Jennifer Terry of Women’s Studies. “Lugging around 600 syllabus papers to the lecture hall is no longer necessary, and we can count on it 24/7 when we need to distribute materials ASAP”. Terry emphasizes the necessity of social interaction within the brick-and-mortar walls of the classroom, while complementing the physical classroom with EEE’s communication tools like EZE3.

Building a class Website with this no-nonsense, fill-in-the-blank method is a popular way to quickly and efficiently get a class Website up and running. Use of EZE3 is growing rapidly: over 30% of the Spring quarter class Websites were created using EZE3.

To see an example of an EZE3 page, visit http://eee.uci.edu/help/eze3/example/