1998 UCGIS Virtual Seminar Evaluation

General Info:

• ~35 students nationwide from 4 universities took the seminar for credit

• ~70 registered participants/"lurkers" overall

• Flexibility in format: some campuses used virtual seminar as part of existing course, some focused only on virtual seminar

• Full article on course to appear in 1999 GeoInfo Systems

Please fill out the quick evaluation form if you have not already done so.

Pros	Cons
Exposure to students from different campuses, interaction nationwide	Topics broad and advanced; more specific examples needed to illustrate concepts
Access to "experts", literature, broader knowledge base	Needed more background reading, profs. to focus discussions more
Better sense of evolution of GIS field
Better sense of how students can contribute to UCGIS
Learned more than just reading the literature	Pace of discussion sometimes overwhelming in web environment (catching up on threads and postings)
Time to formulate and re- edit intelligent questions & replies before actual posting	Intimidation factor on web, easier to "speak up" in face-to-face meetings
Interaction at any time of day (great for working students)	Students on semesters had greater momentum overall; on a weekly basis
Allaire Forums was fairly simple and easy to get used to	Printouts from Allaire pages cumulative, couldn’t select by "day" and print only those

Suggestions for Future Seminars:

• If 2 weeks are spent on a topic reserve Week 1 for background reading, clarification of concepts, etc., and Week 2 on issues in white paper.
  • perhaps reserve Week 1 for local discussion on campus and Week 2 for nationwide interaction in the Virtual Seminar.

• For each topic perhaps have separate threads for advanced and beginning students in GISci.

• Enforce prerequisite of at least an introductory course in GIS.

• Have a session/thread on definitions of geographic information science.

• Enforce participation by making seminar a 3-credit course.

• Prepare web page of student bios before discussions begin.

• Hold video conference at the end.

• Primarily for the instructors/discussion leaders: continue flexible format if desired with each campus taking a different approach (i.e., some doing virtual seminar only, some using it as part of an existing class, face-to-face meetings at end of week, face-to-face meetings at end, etc.) but make sure other campuses know.

• Trying to replicate traditional academic session in a non-traditional virtual format may sell technology short. Use Virtual Seminar to engage interaction with worldwide experts who would never be able to interact were it not for the technology (e.g., videoconference or online chat with a "guest speaker" from Australia, etc.).

Semester vs. Quarter Issue:

• first seminar in 1997 had all students begin together and end at different times

• this year’s seminar had semester students begin earlier and everyone is ending together

• in the future may have everyone begin and end together: i.e., virtual seminar is only 9-10 weeks long for ALL students

Last update: November 29, 1998
http://dusk.geo.orst.edu/virtual/eval.html