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 #######   ########   ########  ###########

   ###     ###   ##   ###   ##  #   ###   #   Interpersonal Computing and

   ###     ###   ##   ###   ##      ###               Technology:

   ###     ###   ##   ###           ###        An Electronic Journal for

   ###     ########   ###           ###            the 21st Century

   ###     ###        ###           ###

   ###     ###        ###   ##      ###             ISSN: 1064-4326

   ###     ###        ###   ##      ###             January, 1995

 #######   ###        ########      ###     Volume 3, Number 1, pp. 17 - 52

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   Published by the Center for Teaching and Technology, Academic Computer

           Center, Georgetown University, Washington, DC 20057

    Additional support provided by the Center for Academic Computing,

        The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802

 

       This article is archived as BUTLER IPCTV3N1 on LISTSERV@GUVM

                    (LISTSERV@GUVM.GEORGETOWN.EDU)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

USING WWW/MOSAIC TO SUPPORT CLASSROOM-BASED EDUCATION:

AN EXPERIENCE REPORT

 

Brian Butler,

Carnegie Mellon University, Pennsylvania

 

 

                             INTRODUCTION

 

     During the summer of 1994 I taught an undergraduate Management

Information Systems (MIS) course.  The only paper documents for the

course were two exams, the textbook, and the formal course

evaluations. All other course materials, including assignments,

lecture notes, exam study hints, and supplementary readings were

provided using a World-Wide-Web (WWW) server and Mosaic software for

access (for more information about these tools see [5]).  In addition

to providing students with easy access to the course materials, the

goals of this "experiment" were:

 

1.   Investigation of the feasibility of providing all course

     materials for a business class in a useful format on-line.

 

2.   Integration of a standard business subject and a concurrent

     introduction to on-line information resources.

 

3.   Preliminary identification of the costs and benefits of providing

     extensive on-line support for classroom-based education.

 

     The purpose of this report is to provide instructors an

understanding of the challenges and benefits associated using on-line

course materials to support traditional classroom-based education.

 

     + Page 18 +

 

This report contains a detailed description of the on-line materials

provided, my experiences as the author and instructor, and various

forms of student feedback. Specifically, section II contains a

description of the course.  In section III, I consider each of the

documents that were provided as well as a discussion of their intended

use.

 

     If you are familiar with the World-Wide-Web (WWW) and the types

of documents that can be provided through the WWW, you may only want

to skim sections II and III.  Section IV provides a overview of issues

that arose during the class, structured around entries from a journal

that I kept throughout the course.  Section V concludes with a short

discussion of conclusions that can be drawn from this case and

possible directions for future work in this area.

 

           II. DESCRIPTION OF THE COURSE AND THE TECHNOLOGY

 

               Course Content, Logistics, and Enrollment

 

     The class, "70-451: Management Information Systems," focused on

providing a conceptual link between the technical problems and

managerial aspects of using information technology in business

organizations.  Specifically, this involved providing a basic

introduction to information technology and management in the context

of management information systems.

 

     The lectures met for two hours per day (8:30 to 10:30 am), four

days a week (Monday - Thursday) from June 25 to August 5, 1994.  The

students were assigned readings for each lecture.  They were also

given, over the six weeks, two exams and four homework assignments.

The assignments were due by 3:30 pm on Friday and had to be handed-in

using electronic mail. The exams were administered on paper during

class.

 

     There were seven students who completed the class (three other

students came for one or two lectures and then dropped the course).

The students were from a variety of academic backgrounds, including

business, electrical engineering and computer science.  There was one

part-time student, who was a university employee, and the rest of the

students were full time undergraduate students.  The students were all

in their 3rd, 4th or 5th year in college.  All of the students had

basic computer skills, including knowledge of how to use a word

processing program and read and send electronic mail.  Two of the

students knew how to use Mosaic prior to the class.

 

     It should be noted that this environment places some limitations

on the conclusions that can be drawn from this "experiment".   The

small class size, the frequent meeting time, the relatively technical

nature of the subject, and the computer background of the students

provide an atypical environment for investigating the value of on-line

course materials. Most courses do

 

  + Page 19 +

 

not have these characteristics.  However, many of these same

characteristics also made it possible to use on-line materials in a

way that would not be possible at this time in many standard,

full-sized courses.  It should also be noted that though the class was

small, the variation of academic backgrounds and computer experience

among the students, and the dual business/technological nature of the

course materials makes it possible to develop some preliminary

conclusions from this work.

 

             Software, Hardware and Support Infrastructure

 

     The course was conducted at the Graduate School of Industrial

Administration (the business school) at Carnegie Mellon University

(CMU).  The network infrastructure at CMU is well developed.

Networked public computing facilities, consisting of a variety of

Macintosh, IBM-PC, and Unix workstations, are widely available on

campus and open to all students.  During their first year, all

students are given an account that enables them to use electronic mail

and other basic Internet tools (FTP, Telnet, etc.) [1]  All first-year

students are also required to complete a workshop introducing them to

basic computing tools, such as spreadsheets and word-processing

programs. To access the on-line course materials the only tool that

the students must know how to use is Mosaic, which runs on an Internet

connected PC or workstation.  The other software systems and tools

described here are used by the information provider, in this case, the

instructor.

 

     At the beginning of the course, the students were all given a

copy of version 1.0.3 of MacMosaic, a version of Mosaic for the

Macintosh. Before the software was given to the students, it was

tested to ensure that MacMosaic would work on all of the public

Macintoshes on campus. This testing was done to ensure that the

students had a reliable way to access the on-line course materials.

The newer version (2.0.x) of MacMosaic was not used because, at that

time, it was not reliable enough for use by novices.  The students

were also given a 30 minute, hands-on introduction to MacMosaic.

 

     The on-line course materials were made available using a WWW

server running on a Sun workstation.  This machine and the WWW server

software are maintained by the business school computing services

group.  I created the course materials using Microsoft Word and

MacDraw on a Macintosh.  To convert the materials into the proper

format I used GIFconverter, a shareware graphics conversion program

(the text didn't require any explicit conversion).  The materials were

transferred to the server using FTP and slightly modified, as

necessary, using GNU Emacs (a text editor).  I tried several Hypertext

Mark-up Language (HTML) editors [2]  and found that it was easier to

use Microsoft Word and type the HTML by hand.  However, as more

advanced HTML editors are developed, this may change.

 

     + Page 20 +

 

               III. DESCRIPTION OF THE COURSE MATERIALS

 

     The purpose of this section is to provide a brief description of

the course materials and some observations about the design of the

various documents.

 

                     Paper-based Course Materials

 

DESCRIPTION

 

     Though the majority of the course materials were provided only

on-line, there were some paper-based materials, including materials a

midterm and final exam, a textbook, and a formal course evaluation.

The exams consisted of two parts:  definitions and short answer

questions.  The textbook was _Management Information Systems :

Strategy and Action_ by Parker and Case [4].   The formal course

evaluations, which were administered by the university, were conducted

using a standard form consisting of a section for general comments and

a series of questions asking the students to rate various parts of the

course on a 1-5 scale. The only other paper documents created for this

course were the instructor's copy of the lecture notes, printed each

morning before the lecture, used, and discarded as I left the

classroom.  Consequently, there are no significant paper records for

the course.

 

OBSERVATIONS

 

     So why have anything on paper at all?  Theoretically, the exams

and course evaluation could have been conducted on-line using the

simple text entry facilities provided by Mosaic.  In the case of the

course evaluation, it was simply a matter of university policy.  The

formal course evaluation form was on paper, not on-line.  However, an

informal evaluation, the results of which are discussed below, was

conducted on-line using electronic mail.

 

     As for the exams, they were not conducted on-line because it is

not clear what impact the on-line environment would have on the

students taking a fixed time period exam that required essay answers.

An on-line, text-based exam could significantly hinder students'

ability to skim though the exam, draw clarifying diagrams, create

preliminary outlines, and other activities that are generally thought

to be good test-taking strategies.  This change could potentially

shift the focus of the exam from the course content to the computer

skills required to complete the exam.  At the very least, it might

give a significant advantage to students who could touch-type.   It

would also be likely to create additional stress for students, and

significantly reduce the value of the exam as a tool of evaluation of

students' content knowledge.  I believe it is important to consider,

in more detail, the implications of the on-line environment before

conducting any exam, especially a fixed time-period exam, on-line.

 

     Theoretically, if I had more time and energy, a textbook could

have been provided on-line.  In fact, there have been some attempts to

create on-line textbooks [1]. However, for this course a paper-based

textbook was more feasible.  During the course, the textbook was used

by the students in conjunction with the lecture notes and the

 

  + Page 21 +

 

supplemental readings.  As we shall see below, the structure of the

lecture notes seemed to have an impact on how the student read the

textbook.  This serves to emphasize the idea that materials for a

course form an inter-related collection of documents, not just a set

of independent texts.  Consequently, even when the focus is on

designing the on-line materials, it is important to consider in detail

how the paper-based materials will be used and how that use will be

affected by the availability of on-line documents.

 

                       On-line Course Materials

 

     As stated above, the on-line course materials were provided using

a WWW server, and accessed using Mosaic.  WWW documents are structured

hypertext documents.  A hypertext document is essentially a standard

text document with "links" that allow readers to easily move to other

parts of the same document, or different documents, usually by

selecting a highlighted or underlined phrase. For example, a reader in

one document might select a highlighted phrase ( perhaps INTRO) to

follow a link and jump directly to the introduction of the document.

Alternatively, the reader might select the highlighted phrase

SUPPORTING DOCUMENTATION to follow a link to a different, but

presumably related, document.    The on-line course materials were

designed to take advantage of the additional structure that the links

in hypertext documents make possible.

 

     All of the on-line materials described in this section are

available through the WWW at the URL3 :

http://www.gsia.cmu.edu/bb26/70-451/. The on-line materials can be

divided into three categories: administrative documents, content

documents, and evaluation and exercise documents.

 

ADMINISTRATIVE DOCUMENTS

 

Description

 

     The administrative documents created for this course include a

course homepage, a syllabus, a schedule, and an informal survey.  The

syllabus, schedule and home-page were all WWW hypertext documents.

The survey was a plain text document that was distributed to the

students via electronic mail.

 

     Unlike a three-ring binder full of paper documents, which a

reader may open to any page, WWW hypertext documents are often thought

of as having a single entry point.  This entry point is called a

"homepage".  The challenge when designing a homepage for a collection

of materials is to make it as simple as possible to get from the home

 

     + Page 22 +

 

page to the materials that interest the reader.    The homepage for

this course is included in Appendix 1.  At the top of the homepage,

basic information about the course (office hours, instructor's e-mail

address etc.) is provided. This is followed by any announcements that

are likely to be of immediate interest to the students.  The

announcements often included information about upcoming assignments

and links to documents relevant to those assignments.  Then the

homepage contains the schedule entries for the previous lecture and

the next lecture, with complete information about lecture topics,

readings, and assignments that are due - with links to all relevant

documents such as lecture notes and supplemental readings. In addition

to the current "news" about the course, the homepage also contains a

description of the contents of the archives of lecture notes,

assignments, other administrative documents and exam materials, with

links to each document.  Essentially the course homepage was designed

to act as both a quick reference document for current course

information and an unobtrusive entry point into the rest of the course

materials.

 

     The syllabus, on the other hand, was designed to introduce

incoming students to the course.  It was assumed that the syllabus

would only be used early in the course and then only by students

interested in an overview of the course.    The syllabus contained a

overview to the course content, the objectives, a short description of

the textbook and course materials, a list of assignments and a

discussion of the grading criteria.   Each of these items was provided

in a separate, clearly marked section and the document began with a

short introduction that had links to the various sections.  The

enabled students to jump directly to sections of interest.  The

syllabus was provided as a single document, as opposed to placing each

section in a separate document, to enable students to easily print a

copy.  Links were also provided to the course schedule so that

students interested in more detailed information could easily access

it.

 

     Unlike the syllabus, the schedule was designed to be a reference

document for students throughout the entire course.  Consequently, the

schedule was not included in the same document as the syllabus, though

there were several links from the syllabus to the schedule.  The

schedule consisted of two sections: the assignment and exam schedule,

and the main schedule.   The intention of the assignment and exam

schedule was to provide the students with easy access to the

assignment due dates and exam dates.  However, probably as a result of

the announcement on the homepage,  the assignment and exam schedule

was almost never used.

 

     The main schedule was divided into six sections, one for each

week of the course, which could be accessed directly through links

from the homepage.  Each section contained individual daily entries.

 

     + Page 23 +

 

July 25

     Requirements Analysis and System Design (Lecture Outline)

        Readings

                ~ Chapter 14 & 15 - (Parker & Case)

        Part 1 of Assignment 4  was distributed.

 

Each entry had the topic, readings, and information about assignments

that were distributed or due along with links to supplemental

readings, assignment descriptions, and lecture notes.  In addition to

acting as a reference document for the students, the schedule also

served as the primary index for the archives of lecture notes and

supplemental

readings.

 

     The informal survey (included in Appendix 2) was plain text file

which was sent to the students using e-mail after the mid-term exam.

The instructions stated that the students should answer the questions

and return their answers via e-mail.  It was also stated clearly at

the top of the survey that the student's responses would NOT be

anonymous and that if the students were uncomfortable with this they

did not have to respond.  Three of the students returned the survey at

mid-session.  The remaining students were sent another copy of the

survey with their final grade, via e-mail, after the course was

completed.  Another three of the students responded at this point.

The results of the survey are discussed in detail below.  The major

problem with conducting an informal survey in this fashion is the lack

of anonymity.  This could be resolved by using the limited text entry

facilities provided by the WWW server.  However, the version of Mosaic

used for this class did not support data entry capability and at the

time I did not know how to setup a WWW document to accept the data.

 

Observations

 

Some of the main benefits of having administrative documents on-line

include:

 

1.   Increased availability of materials for the students.

2.   Decreased need for the instructor to maintain paper archives.

3.   Greater flexibility for the instructor; for example, it is

     possible to elaborate or modify the schedule without

     redistribution.

 

The costs of having on-line administrative documents on-line include:

 

1.   Time required to create the documents

2.   Time needed to maintain the "news" portion of the materials

3.   Students' and instructor's time required to learn about WWW, HTML

     and the associated tools.

 

     + Page 24 +

 

In the informal evaluation, students provided feedback about how they

used the administrative materials.  Some of their comments were:

 

     "I refer to the weekly schedule & study hints (if any) daily or

     consistently in order to keep myself up-to-date with the current

     course schedule."

 

     "[the schedule] made it possible to look ahead and have an idea

     of what the lecture topic was."

 

Below are some observations and suggestions, based on my experience,

discussions and student feedback, regarding the creation and use of

on-line administrative documents:

 

~ On-line administrative documents are most valuable when used in

conjunction with other on-line course materials.  It is unlikely that

there is any real benefit to a single instructor having just a

syllabus and a schedule on-line.

 

~ The shift from paper to electronic form is not a trivial exercise.

Taking a schedule that was designed to be used on paper and uploading

it with no changes will usually result in a mediocre on-line document.

 

~ The administrative documents are the first thing the students

usually see. They are also the most commonly accessed documents. Keep

the structure simple and easy to understand. Complex formats will be

hard to create, hard to maintain, and may be frustrating for the

students.

 

~ If you create an on-line schedule, use headers to break the schedule

into sections and make each section directly accessible from the

homepage.  As the course progresses the useful information is closer

to the end of the schedule.  If the schedule it is not broken into

easily accessible sections, students will have to page through the

entire schedule to get to the useful information.

 

~ Be sure to plan for the time it will take you to keep the homepage

up-to-date.  Having no on-line information is probably better than

providing incorrect on-line information.  If you stop updating the

materials in the middle of the course, after the  students have gotten

used to having access to up-to-date announcements and schedule

information on-line, you will have wasted your time and frustrated the

students.

 

     An important thing to remember when creating an on-line version

of administrative documents is to focus on how the information will be

used, as opposed to simply recreating existing documents on-line.  For

example, a traditional syllabus serves several purposes.  It

introduces students to the objectives of the course, serves as a cover

page for the course materials, and is used as a quick reference.  For

this course, the official syllabus was intended to be used as an

 

     + Page 25 +

 

introduction, while the homepage is designed to provide other course

information for quick reference.  When creating a on-line version of

an administrative document you should decide whether the various

tasks, such as introducing the course and providing commonly used

information, would be best supported by a single document or by

several more specialized documents.

 

      Content Materials : Supplemental Reading and Lecture Notes

 

     The administrative documents described above provide the overall

structure of the course and the materials.  However, they do not

contain any real content.  The lecture notes and supplemental readings

provided the bulk of the content in the on-line course materials.  In

this section, we will consider these documents and how they were

intended to contribute to the objectives of the course.  We will also

look briefly at how the materials were structured to overcome

limitations and take advantage of the features of the on-line

hypertext environment.

 

LECTURE NOTES

 

Description

 

     After each lecture a copy of the instructor's notes was made

available to the students on-line.  These notes contained an overview

of the material covered in the lecture, but they were not direct

transcripts of the lecture and did not contain many of the details

(see Appendix 4 for an example).  Initially, the lecture notes were

available directly from the homepage and, indirectly, through the

course schedule.  After a few days the direct link was replaced with a

link to notes for the current lecture and the older notes remained

available only through the course schedule.  This procedure ensured

that the most recent materials was easily available and the older

materials were still accessible.

 

     The lecture notes were designed with several different users in

mind.

 

~ The instructor

~ Students using the on-line notes

~ Students using a printed version of the notes

 

For the instructor's purposes, the focus was on providing the

structure, diagrams, and information needed to complete a one hour and

45 minute lecture.  On occasion, graphics were included in the notes

using MacDraw and GIF converter [4], a shareware [5] graphics

conversion program, to create diagrams in the format used by the WWW

server.  For students working using the on-line documents, a number of

facilities were added.  A summary, with hypertext links to each of the

major headings in the lecture outline, was included at the top of each

set of notes.  This enabled the students to quickly jump to particular

sections of each day's notes, thus simplifying the process of finding

 

     + Page 26 +

 

information about a certain topic.  It was also possible to provide

links between outline items and the notes from earlier lectures that

introduced relevant concepts.  For example, in a lecture that talked

about software applications in specific business settings, links were

provided to earlier lectures in which the general software concepts

were introduced.  In order to allow students to easily create paper

copies, each set of notes was placed in a single file.  The lecture

notes were provided with the intention of strengthening the connection

between the individual lectures and the other course materials,

including the textbook and supplemental readings.

 

Observations

 

     In the informal evaluation, students provided feedback about how

they used the lecture notes.  Some of their comments were:

 

     "I think they were the most useful.  I could know what was the

     whole chapter about by just gazing through lecture notes.  To

     study for exams, used mostly lecture notes, maybe skimming

     through book on certain topics or defn."

 

     "I really think that the lecture notes are very commendable! They

     help me to focus on the gist of the lecture itself and to

     recapitulate some points of the assigned textbook readings."

 

     "Useful. The outline really helps us when reading the textbook.

     It let us know what issues we have to aware of."

 

     "Very good summaries. The availability of them at all times was a

     big plus for me."

 

     "To me this is the most helpful. if this weren't available I

     probably wouldn't read the textbook as much"

 

These comments provide some indication that the lecture notes actually

did help strengthen the connection between the lectures and the other

course materials.  In particular, the students seemed to use the

lecture notes in conjunction with the textbook.  However, other than

one comment about availability of the lecture notes, there is nothing

in this feedback to indicate that having the materials on-line

provided extra benefit for the students.  While this could be due to

the fact that the survey question only asked for general comments, it

remains to be seen whether the features available on-line can be used

to provide real educational benefits.  Specifically, I wonder whether

the ability to provide explicit hypertext connections between the

individual lecture notes provides any educational benefit.

 

     Below are some other observations and suggestions, based on my

experience, discussions and student feedback, regarding the creation

and use of on-line lecture notes:

 

~ It is a lot of work to go back and add hypertext links if anchor

points [6] are not created when writing the lecture notes.  One of the

 

     + Page 27 +

 

primary reasons I did not use the linking facilities more extensively

was that by the time that I had really thought about the possibilities

it was not feasible to return to past lectures and add the anchor

points that were needed to easily create useful hypertext links.

 

~ Make a template for the lecture notes.  This saves time when writing

the notes and the standardization probably makes the documents easier

for the students to use.

 

~ Decide early in the course the level of detail that you will provide

in the lecture notes and be consistent.  Lecture outlines can range

from a summary of main points to a full fledged study-guide. Changing

levels of detail in mid-course is likely to confuse the students.

 

~ Use the schedule or the homepage to provide some subject-based index

to old lecture notes.  It is unlikely that the students will remember

what the topic of lecture 18 was.  In the index, provide a short

subject line as well as the date or the lecture number.

 

~ Providing good lecture notes will have an effect on the way the

students use the rest of the course materials.  For example, they may

read the textbook differently.  It seems to be possible to lead the

students from the lecture to the notes and then into detailed reading

in the textbook.  This emphasizes again that the course materials are

interdependent.

 

~ It is not clear whether providing the lecture notes on-line affected

lecture attendance.  Usually 5 out of the 7 students attended.  Though

there were some problems with attendance, it was not worse than one

would expect for a summer class held at 8:30 AM, in which attendance

was not explicitly recorded nor  linked to the final grade.

 

SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS

 

Description

 

     In addition to required readings from the textbook, supplemental

readings were also provided.  The purpose of these readings was to

introduce the students to aspects of the material that were not

specifically addressed in the textbook or the lectures.  The students

were told that they would not be tested on these readings.  Though the

supplemental readings were referred to in some lectures, it was not

assumed that the students had read the additional readings.  The

on-line supplemental readings came in three forms: on-line examples,

extracts from on-line discussion groups, and articles from trade

magazines and journals.

 

     Several of the supplemental readings for the course were actually

small collections of relevant on-line resource or examples.  Each

"reading" was provided for the students with a cover page that

 

     + Page 28 +

 

indicated the significance of the examples.   The examples were chosen

with the intention of encouraging the students to explore a small set

of relevant items from the vast wilderness of the Internet. In one

case, this type of reading was used to show the students specific

examples of how organizations are using electronic networks to do

business.  The cover page for that example, which is included here in

Appendix 3, provided a brief introduction to the topic, links to

general resources, and links to specific examples of businesses using

the Internet.

 

     Another type of reading that was used during the course was

extracts from Internet discussion groups [7].  Most of the excerpts I

used were single messages from the public archives that most of these

discussion groups maintain.  The purpose of providing these excerpts

was to provide students with a different view of certain issues or

problems than is usually available in published articles.  Because

Internet discussion groups often involve a combination of

practitioners and academics it is often possible to find archived

discussions that present a far more balanced picture of certain

issues.

 

     The remainder of the supplemental readings were on-line copies of

articles from a variety of magazines and journals.  To avoid problems

with copyrights, I avoided actually copying articles and in most cases

I simply provided links to the publicly available document.  Most of

these articles were publicly available at no cost.  Though I did not

use them, there are many sources of on-line articles, some which

charge fees, that could be used to provide a wider variety of reading

materials than are available for free in the public domain.

 

Observations

 

     In the informal evaluation, students provided feedback about what

they thought about the supplemental readings.  Some of their comments

were:

 

     "Good in the sense that gives us an idea of what's "out there"

     and to the extent to which MIS services exist. Quite frankly I

     was surprised to see Bank of America providing a Mosaic page."

 

     "They are interesting and helpful which also helps me to

     understand the issue in the lecture and in the book better."

 

     "Very interesting, I really liked seeing how other organizations

     used technology. I found the MUD as a system tool article very

     interesting."

 

These comments provide an indication that some students looked at the

supplemental readings.  The students who mentioned specific example

both returned the survey after the final exam, three to five week

after the readings were provided.

 

     + Page 29 +

 

 

     Below are some observations and suggestions, based on my

experience, discussions, and student feedback, regarding the creation

and use of on-line supplemental readings:

 

~ In many cases there was a wide variety of relevant resources that

could have been be incorporated into an example, most of which I

choose to ignore.  When designing the on-line examples, the challenge

was to introduce the ideas without overwhelming the students with

details.

 

~ I found that good readings and examples that were appropriate for

both the management students and technical students were harder to

create and less likely to be of interest to either group.  It seemed

that the supplemental readings were most successful when they were

targeted at specific groups of students, instead of the whole class.

 

~ Though it was not done during this course, in some contexts it might

be useful to encourage students to first read some excerpts from

discussion archives and then later actively participate in the actual

discussion group.  Depending on the students, the subject, and the

discussion group this may or may not be appropriate.

 

~ It is important to consider copyright issues when using on-line

articles.  I found that most of the time it was not clear whether

on-line articles could be legally used for educational purposes or

not.

 

~ The examples provided for this class were primarily instances of

business related uses of the Internet.  In other subjects, examples

might include relevant data archives, working paper collections,

discussion groups, and other resources that would provide the

interested student with a way to investigate the subject in greater

detail.

 

    Exercise and Evaluation Documents: Assignments and Exam-Related

                               Materials

 

     The goal of the assignments in this class was to ensure that the

students were aware of certain MIS concepts and could apply them in a

variety of situations.  The exams, on the other hand, were intended to

provide the instructor with evaluative information, to distinguish the

students for the final grades.   In this section, we will consider how

the on-line materials and procedures supported, or hindered, these

objectives.

 

ASSIGNMENTS

 

     The assignments for this course were structured in different

ways, ranging from a small individual case study to a group project.

Part of the purpose of providing the assignments on-line was to give

 

     + Page 30 +

 

 

the students some experience with various uses of on-line information,

with the hope that they would begin to think critically about the

strengths and weaknesses of on-line information systems.

 

Assignment 1: Individual Case Study of an On-line Information Service

 

     In this assignment, the students were given a link to publicly

available information about an on-line information service that is

available thru the Internet.  They were asked to explore the service

and to answer several questions about it.  The questions focused on

how the service might be used in a business environment and what the

implications of using the service might be.  This assignment is a

prime example of the potential value of on-line assignments.  While

this assignment could have been done on paper with a description of

the service, it was more realistic, and probably more interesting, for

the students to explore the service on-line.   The assignment also

introduced students to the type of service that is available on-line

and challenged them to think about uses of that service beyond their

immediate personal context.

 

Assignment 2: Read and Comment on Excerpts from an On-line Article

 

     For assignment 2, students were asked to read excerpts from an

article and answer several questions.  On the surface there is nothing

special about this assignment; it could have been accomplished just as

easily on paper.  However, it illustrated, both to me and to several

of the students, some of the limitations of existing on-line tools.

For example, when creating the assignment I was constrained by the

lack of variety in the available articles.  Unlike paper-based

publishers, most on-line publishers do not yet provide a wide variety

of materials, even without tables and graphics, at a reasonable cost.

Several of the students also mentioned that, due to the small screen

size, it was difficult to simultaneously read an article, look at set

of questions, and take notes in a word processing program.  As a

result, most of the students printed out the article and the questions

and worked from the paper copies.

 

Assignment 3: Read, Summarize, and Comment on Several Articles

 

      This assignment presented the students with four articles from

MIS trade journals and asked them to read, summarize, comment on three

of them.   Like assignment 2, this assignment could easily have been

done on paper.  It also illustrated some of the deficiencies of

on-line materials.  It was difficult for the students to work with a

large document in Mosaic and a word processor at the same time.  The

students also had a tendency to copy large portion of the articles,

instead of paraphrasing them.  On the other  hand, the use of on-line

materials made it more feasible to provide the students with a choice

of articles, which would have been more difficult if it were necessary

to copy and distribute the articles.

 

Assignment 4: Group project - Specification and Design of an On-line

Class Support System

 

 

     + Page 31 +

 

     For this assignment the students were split into two groups and

asked to develop a  preliminary design for a system to support a class

that would be taught simultaneously in the U.S. and Mexico.  The

on-line materials for this assignment included the project

description, lecture notes that dealt with system specification, and

the students' final reports.  The students were given time to work on

this assignment during class.  The lecture notes and the project

description were printed by the students for use within their groups.

The electronic hand-in seemed to discourage students from using

diagrams in their final report, even though doing so was no more

difficult than including a graphic in a word processing document.

However, providing the students' final reports on-line seemed to

facilitate the sharing of ideas of among the students.  The access log

of the WWW server indicates that several students looked at all of the

final reports after they were made available on-line.

 

Assignment Hand-in Procedure

 

     The students handed-in their assignments through electronic mail.

Using an e-mail program available at CMU, it was possible for students

to turn in assignments either as plain text e-mail messages or as

fully formatted word processing documents that are "attached" to

e-mail messages.  If the assignment solutions had required that the

students draw diagrams or perform algebraic calculations, typing them

would have been more difficult.  However, because the questions were

primarily short essay questions, this issue did not arise.  During the

course there was only problem.   It occurred when a student

accidentally turned in her solution for assignment 1 instead of

assignment 3.  With a few e-mail messages, this problem was easily

corrected.  In addition to receiving all assignments by e-mail, all

comments and grades were returned to the students via electronic mail.

 

Observations

 

     In the informal evaluation, students provided feedback as to how

they thought about the assignments.  Some of their comments were:

 

     "Sometimes not entirely related to material in lecture but are

     interesting examples of "real" world situations"

 

     "Assignments are relevant to the course. I also like the idea of

     having to complete one assignment per week when there is no test

     /exam."

 

     "These allow you to apply what you learned to a real-life

     situation (or understand how it was applied by others)"

 

     "Useful but it usually takes me a longer time in thinking how to

     do them than I actually do them. It is also too hard to get the

     extra credit."

 

     "I found the readings for the assignments interesting, but for

     me, the questions were more busy work than thought provoking."

 

     + Page 32 +

 

     "Maybe it's just me but I couldn't really relate this to the

     material we've been doing (maybe I just didn't try to)"

 

These comments indicate that the link between assignments and the

other course materials might be made clearer to the students.  It may

be helpful to provide hypertext links between the assignments and

relevant sections of the lecture notes.  Using explict links could

potentially have two benefits.  It may help the students see the

relationship between the lecture material and the assignments.  Also

creating the hypertext links might focus the instructor's attention on

the relationship between the assignments and the lecture notes and

help ensure that there actually is some connection.

 

     Below are some observations and suggestions, based on my

experience, discussions, and student feedback, regarding the on-line

assignments:

 

~ The inability to make notes such as check marks, underlining, or

highlighting made it necessary to write more verbose comments.

Consequently, grading assignments took much longer than expected.

 

~ The instructor's comments were returned in an e-mail message that

did not contain the student's solution.  Several students mentioned

that this made it difficult to read the comments because they often

referred to the solutions which were not available when reading the

comments.

 

~ The administrative benefits of this arrangement with seven students

and one grader are small. However, as the complexity of the grading

process increases, electronic hand-in and secure on-line documents

might significantly reduce the administrative challenges associated

with grading papers, recording grades, and organizing a large group of

graders.

 

~ Given the weaknesses of the existing tools, the most effective

on-line assignments seem to be ones that combine on-line resources

with probing questions that challenge students to consider how they

might apply the resources to a relevant problem.

 

OTHER EXAM AND ASSIGNMENT RELATED DOCUMENTS

 

Description

 

     In addition to the assignment descriptions, several other

assignment and exam-related documents were provided on-line.  These

included exam study hints (for an example, see Appendix 5), and

assignment and exam solutions.  The exam study hints provided several

review questions for each chapter as well as hypertext links to

specific lecture notes.  The exam answers, which were made available

after the exams were returned to the students, also included links to

relevant lecture notes.  The assignment answers were provided only as

stand-alone documents with no significant links to other course

materials.

 

     + Page 33 +

 

Observations

 

     Below are some observations and suggestions, based on my

experience, discussions, and student feedback, regarding the on-line

study hints and solutions:

 

~ The on-line study hints give the instructor yet another opportunity

to help the student understand, explicitly, the link between the

lectures and the issues raised in the textbook.  Again, at the very

least, providing these links serves to focus the instructor's

attentions on connections between the various elements of the course

materials.

 

~ Based on the fact that almost all of the students looked at the

assignment and exam solutions, explicit links from these documents to

the lecture notes might help the students better understand the

relationship between the content and the assignments.  For some

reason, I did not use links to the assignment solutions for this

purpose, though links were provided within the exam solutions.

 

~ To encourage the use of the on-line solutions, the grading scheme

was designed such that a partial credit grade on a particular question

was a signal to the student that he or she should look at the on-line

answers for clarification.  I believe this is the primary reason that

during the course no student requested a regrade, even though the

grading had a significant subjective element.

 

~ On unintended side effect of providing an exam study guide for the

final was that it made the exam less effective for distinguishing

among the students.  On one hand, this is a good thing - it meant that

the students all knew the material covered by the exam.  On the other

hand, it made it difficult to differentiate the students for the final

grade - which, depending on your philosophy of grading, may be a

problem.

 

~ In the future, I plan to provide more connections between the

assignment solutions and the lecture notes.  This seems like it would

be useful, based on the assumption that the students who look at the

answers are the students that are most likely to benefit from

reiteration of the concepts in a context (i.e. the lecture notes), as

well as just on the answer sheet.

 

~ I did not address the standard concerns about making solutions

available to students, such as difficulties with reusing the questions

in the future.  If anything, providing the materials on-line may make

this "problem" greater.

 

     + Page 34 +

 

       General Guidelines for Designing On-line Course Materials

 

     While developing the course materials I began to wonder if

there were any books or articles that provided general guidelines on

designing on-line hypertext documents.  The best reference that I

found was a work entitled Designing and Writing Online Documentation

by William K. Horton [3].  In addition to providing guidelines for

structuring and writing on-line documents, the book also has a

bibliography that provided an overview of the prior work that has been

done in the general area of

on-line document design.

 

Based on my experience and reading, here are some general guidelines

for designing on-line course materials:

 

~ Keep them simple.  Use simple list-like formatting. Don't overuse

bold or italics.  Use hypertext links selectively.  If the document is

too complex the students will get frustrated.  If the formatting is

too complex you will spend more time on typing than on teaching.

 

~ Structure the course materials so that it is possible to reach every

significant document in no more than 5 mouse clicks.  (This is a

direct application of the previous guideline).

 

~ Place the most important or commonly referenced pieces of

information so that, when accessed, they appear at the top of the

screen.  This not only makes it easier to find the important items,

but also increases the chances the item will be read by the students

([2, p. 247]).

 

~ Add something new (and useful) to the collection of materials often.

This provides the students with a reason to access the materials on a

regular basis.  If the students don't see any significant changes they

may stop accessing the materials.  This will severely reduce the value

of having anything on-line.

 

~ Create templates - It takes a little bit more time when first

creating on-line materials, but it will save time in the long run.

 

~ Make the documents valuable on-line and useable on paper.  Assume

that some students will print out the materials [3, p. 5]   Structure

the materials with on-line use in mind, but make sure it is not

impossible to use the documents in paper form.

 

                        INSTRUCTOR OBSERVATIONS

 

     Throughout the course I kept a journal of observations and

thoughts related to the course and specifically to the on-line course

materials. This section contains selections from my journal that

illustrate issues or questions that, in retrospect, seem to be

important when one is considering providing on-line materials for

support of a traditional classroom-based course.

 

 

     How much time did it take to create all of these materials?

 

     Starting from nothing, it took an average of three hours for

 

     + Page 35 +

 

each one hour and forty-five minute lecture.  This included preparing

the lecture, developing supplemental readings, and creating lecture

notes. It took about five hours to prepare each assignment, three or

four to develop the questions and one or two to write the on-line

solutions.

 

     How did the students learn to use the on-line tools?

 

     "I gave each of the students a Macintosh disk with a copy of

Mosaic. The purpose of the this was to ensure that all the students

had access to at least the basic software at all times.   I also spent

about 30 minutes giving the students a hands-on demonstration of

Mosaic.

 

     "There was one student who was concerned about the use of the

technology in the course but when I assured her that I would be glad

to answer any questions she seemed satisfied." (June 27)

 

"Several students asked me for some help about how to attach word

processing documents to e-mail messages." (June 29)

 

     These two entries, from early in the course, are a record of the

only times there were any questions from the students about the

on-line tools.  This is partially due the relatively high level of

computer skills among the students.  In addition, the training the

students received focused on using Mosaic to access the course

materials, as opposed to presenting Mosaic as a general information

retrieval tool. This focused approach to training probably helped the

non-computer users get accustomed to the the on-line tools without

being overwhelmed by details.

 

     What type of equipment  (hardware and software) did the students

     use to access the materials?

 

     In the feedback survey the students were asked how they accessed

the course materials and whether they had ever accessed them from

their own computer at home.   Of the six students who responded to the

survey, four indicated that they had always used MacMosaic and

Macintoshes in public computer labs.  The other two students had

accessed the materials using Mosaic on X-windows [8] workstation or

through their own computers at home.   The four students who just used

the public computers said that they either did not have a computer or

that they did not have a modem

connection to campus.

 

     Did the students actually use the materials on a regular basis?

 

"I forgot to post an announcement about the classroom change and I got

e-mail messages from 2 students asking what had happened.  The

timestamps on the e-mail messages indicate that the students gave up

relatively quickly and sent me e-mail." (June 29)

 

"Some of the students reported that there were some difficulties with

course materials when accessed through Lynx and X windows Mosaic."

(July 12)

 

     + Page 36 +

 

"I also thought about a problem with the Mosaic scheme.  If the

information isn't reliably there then the use drops off dramatically.

If you want the students to reliably use it you need to make sure that

the information is there when they need it." (July 20)

 

     These quotes, and comments that I received on several occasions

when I fell behind in providing the lecture notes on-line, indicate

that the students were actually using the materials on a regular

basis.  In addition, the WWW server log files indicate that most of

the course documents were looked at by at least 9 people, presumably

the 8 students and the instructor.  However, in the log files, it is

difficult to separate the times that I accessed the documents for

testing purposes, from the times that students looked at the files.

In the future, to avoid this confusion, I will create a development

copy of the materials, for testing and demonstration purposes, and a

separate, "clean" copy for the students.  This will  enable me to

better track the number of times the students use particular

documents.

 

     Conducting "Experiments" vs. Educating Students

 

"I spent 5 hours preparing the materials for lecture tomorrow but the

largest portion of that was spent playing around with the

illustrations (perfection is not necessary)." (June 30)

 

"I arranged to use a projector plate and a powerbook so that I could

display the in-class exercise, my notes, and some diagrams.  However,

the projector wasn't bright enough for the students to see and take

notes so I have abandoned this idea.

 

     It also became apparent that having my copy of the notes on the

computer was an unnecessary distraction.  The time that it takes to

glance at a tilted computer screen and perhaps scroll ahead is to

long. The paper copies work better.  However, it might be possible to

arrange things so that the distraction was not so great. (Mouse wands,

and portable tablets?)" (July 1)

 

"[After about 8 hours total for setup] I tried using a MUD for a class

discussion but there was a problem and the students were unable to get

into the system.  I may try again later." (July 8)

 

     These incidents illustrate an idea that I think is important for

instructor to remember when trying out new ideas in the classroom.

No matter how interesting the technology is, it is important to

remember that the primary reason the instructor uses it to educate the

students.  While experiments with new tools are useful, it is

necessary to try and evaluate the impact of the "experiment" on the

students' learning environment, before conducting the experiment.

Trial-and-error may be a useful way of learning, but too many failed

experiments in one course may frustrate and confuse the students.

 

     + Page 37 +

 

Administrative Benefits

 

 "A student who missed the class today sent me e-mail and asked if

they could get a copy of the syllabus and the schedule.  From home, I

replied that both of those documents were available on-line using

Mosaic.  This student was able to access it." (June 27)

 

"A student missed class but he was still able to get a copy of the

lecture notes (which he did later that day)." (June 28)

 

"One student sent me his homework today (Wednesday) [Note: The HW

wasn't due until Friday].  I believe he is not going to be around for

the rest of the week.  Another benefit of using the e-mail for

collecting homework is that it is easier for me to manage the homework

(by accumulating the e-mail in a personal folder)." (June 29)

 

"Today we decided to re-schedule the class from 5 days a week to 4

(but longer lectures).  This involved significant changes to the

schedule. However, all I had to do was change the schedule on the

server." (July 6)

 

     These entries mention various administrative benefits, for both

students and instructor.  In an environment where computers are

readily available, the students have access to the materials at all

times and can hand in assignments at any time.  Because of the on-line

tools the instructor can provide this level of "service" without

having to carry manage large collections of paper documents, thus

reducing the amount of wasted paper and storage space.  However, it is

not clear what the nature of the administrative benefits are and how

they would be affected by changes such as increasing the class size or

a providing less than a complete set of on-line course materials.  For

example, how useful is it to just provide the administrative documents

on-line for a 200 person class?   Determining the magnitude of the

administrative benefits is an important part of determining whether it

is worthwhile, from either the instructor's or the educational

institution's perspective, to support the development of on-line

materials.

 

     Focusing on the Real Audience

 

"In the past week as I have prepared to make the course materials

public I have spent way too much time on them.  This is to be noted:

'publishing' something, even if it is not 'official' publishing is a

very different (and time consuming) task, in addition to preparing the

materials for the classroom." (August 4)

 

     During the course I kept thinking to myself - "Wow, I can make

these course materials available to people all over the world!"  This

is something I would never have considered with paper-based materials.

However, I learned that preparing materials for a large audience of

instructors and preparing materials for the students I was teaching

were two totally different projects.   Even though it was possible to

easily 'publish' the on-line materials, I had to constantly remind

 

     + Page 38 +

 

myself that the target audience was the students, not other

instructors.  When I didn't remember this fact, I spent many, many

hours working on materials that probably provided very little benefit

for the students.  My conclusion here is not that 'publishing' on-line

materials is bad, merely that it is a different project and should not

be confused with helping the students currently enrolled in the class.

 

     Practicality vs. Policy

 

     "Turning in the assignments (3:30 today) went ok.  There was one

     student that turned in her assignment 3 hours late." (July 1)

 

     "One of the students turned in the assignment late again (only a

     couple hours)." (July 8)

 

     These entries bring up an interesting issue.  When turning in

assignments on paper, meeting a deadline is often a practical matter

- if a student doesn't get the paper turned-in by the deadline, there

will not be anyone there to take it.  However, when turning in

assignments through e-mail, a deadline is almost entirely a matter of

policy.  If the student turns in the assignment late, the instructor

will still receive it, with no extra effort on the part of the

student.  The extra "cost" associated with finding the instructor and

trying to hand-in the homework, is essentially gone. Consequently, it

is entirely up to the instructor to determine the strictness of the

policy, and hence the "meaning" of the deadline.  In general, one

should always consider how the use of on-line tools will change

student behavior simply by changing the "costs" of the various

alternative actions.

 

     Did the students actually use the materials on-line?

 

     "I ended up printing all lecture notes in the end, most easy to

     take around"

 

     "Yes, I print the schedule, the lecture notes, and any other

     supplemental readings on a consistent basis, if not, on a daily

     basis."

 

     "No, I printed out the syllabus to keep with my book. I sometimes

     printed out homework questions while doing the reading/

     exploration so I could refer to the questions while reading, I

     should have just copied them into another window or used multiple

     Mosaic windows. The only other thing I printed was some of the

     longer articles that I wanted to read over dinner, etc."

 

     On the informal feedback survey, I asked the students whether

they regularly printed the course materials.  Of the six students who

returned the survey, five of them said that they regularly printed

some or all of the materials.

 

     + Page 39 +

 

     Other Opportunities for On-line Support of Classroom Education

 

     "It also was interesting that the students had questions for the

     guest speakers after the lecture/guest speaker came.  It might be

     useful to try and have several e-mail accessible guest speakers

     come early on in the class and then have them available on e-mail

     (or perhaps have an e-conference panel later in the semester?)

     This strategy might adjust for the delay between the speaking

     time and the time when the students come up with questions."

     (July 29)

 

     During the course, I asked a Vice President (VP) of Research &

Development from a local computer software company to speak to the

students.  On the day that the VP was in the classroom, most of the

students did not have questions.  However, in the days following the

guest lecture, many of the students asked questions about the speaker,

her company, and how it operated.  This indicates to me that providing

the students with a way to communicate with a guest speaker, in the

days following the lecture, would be useful.  An e-mail mailing-list

or a class bulletin board could be used to provide this communication

link.

 

     I have also been considering the possibility of using e-mail to

follow-up on the students.  It seems to me that there might be some

value in encouraging students to continue on-line discussions with the

instructor and other students, even after the course is officially

over.

 

     Traditional Methods vs. New Technology Supported Methods

 

     "The review session was wasted time.  Only one student showed up

     and she really didn't have any particular questions (she did ask

     one question the prompted me to clarify the lecture notes)."

     (August 3)

 

     "It is very encouraging to see the students reading through the

     textbook to see what kind of technology can be applied to the

     problem given in the assignment.  (I'll have to think of some

     variations on the theme it seem to work well to get them into the

     subject.)" (July 29)

 

     "I have begun wondering about the wisdom of teaching a full sized

     class this way.   What is the right function of paper documents

     in a classroom environment?  It obviously is easier to access (in

     some ways).  How about textbooks and other materials, if you are

     going to do things electronically what things should you try and

     replace the paper form and for what things should the paper form

     be used?  These are kind of tricky questions because we have a

     lot of experience with certain types of classrooms and may be

     unwilling to critically examine those experiences." (Jul 20)

 

     "An overall  comment: As you know, I was already familiar with

     most of the information presented in this class. I knew this

     would probably be the case when I entered the class, but I found

     the presentation to be more interesting and dynamic than I had

     anticipated. I found the on-line materials to be very useful and

     interesting, especially as I am looking to apply Mosaic for

     information distribution in my job. Since I had such a hectic

     work schedule, I also found it very helpful to have the lecture

     notes accessible for the classes I missed." (From the student

     feedback survey)

 

     + Page 40 +

 

     "I think it was great using the Web and e-mail for the course."

     (From the student feedback survey)

 

     These last entries raise an issue that I think is crucial when

considering on-line support for classroom instruction.  Everyone has

some experience, whether as a student or an instructor, in a variety

of classroom settings.  Consequently, we all have, already formed,

ideas about what will work and what won't.  It is crucial, however, to

be open minded.  When critiquing a change, be sure to consider the

possibility that it might help or change things for the better, even

if you don't expect it.  At the same time, when working with new

technologies keep in mind the possibility that the traditional way of

conducting the class might be better than the new technologically

supported technique.

 

              CONCLUSIONS AND DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE WORK

 

     In this report I have attempted to provide an overview of my

experiences providing on-line course materials, for a single

undergradute business class.  On the basis of this 'experiment' it is

reasonable to conclude that providing on-line course materials to

support classroom-based education has potentially significant

administrative and educational benefits.  However, these benefits do

not come without a cost.  Specifically, providing sucessful on-line

course materials requires substantial investment of time and effort on

the part of the instructor.  In this case the time and effort required

was comparable to that required to provide paper-based course

materials.  However, it is important that instructors not become

focused on creating on-line materials and forget their primary task

--teaching.  With this in mind, I believe that future work in the area

of the design and use of on-line materials should be focused on the

following objectives:

 

1. The development of a conceptual framework for identifying the costs

and benefits of on-line course materials in a variety of different

educational environments.

 

2. The development of concrete, practical guidelines for instructors

and administrators considering the development of on-line course

materials.

 

                               EPILOGUE

 

     I realize that there are many people working on the development

of computer supported education.  I am very interested in learning

about communities of people who would be interested in this research.

Any comments/criticisms/questions are welcome (my e-mail address is

bb26@andrew.cmu.edu).

 

 

     + Page 41 +

 

References

 

1. Look at the Global Network Academy for the on-line C++ hypertext

textbook project. (The URL is

http://uu-gna.mit.edu:8001/uu-gna/index.html)

 

2. Egan, D.E, Remde, J. R., Landauer, T. K., Lochbaum, C. C., Gomez,

L. M., "Aquiring Information in Book and SuperBooks", Machine-Mediated

Learning, Vol 3., 259-277.

 

3. Horton, W. A. (1990). Designing and Writing Electronic

Documentation New York, NY: John Wiley and Sons.

 

4. Parker and Case, Management Information Systems : Strategy and

Action .

 

5. Schatz, B. R. & Hardin, J. B. (1994). "NCSA Mosaic and the World

Wide Web: Global Hypermedia Protocols for the Internet", Science, 265,

August 12, 1994, 895-901.

 

                      APPENDIX 1: Course Homepage

 

(There are many hypertext links in the orginal course homepage which

is available at http://www.gsia.cmu.edu/bb26/70-451/home.html )

 

70-451:Management Information Systems Summer Session II, 1994

 

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) - Pittsburgh, PA

Instructor: Brian Butler

E-mail: bb26@andrew.cmu.edu

Class BBoard: academic.gsia.70-451

___________________________________________________________________

 

Final Exam Study Hints

Remember the exam is Thursday from 8:30 to 10:30.

 

 

     + Page 42 +

___________________________________________________________________

 

Current Course Information

 

Monday: End-User Computing and Selected Issues in MIS Management

1. Lecture Notes

2. Readings

        % Chapter 18 - (Parker & Case)

 

Tuesday: Security, International, and Ethical Issues in MIS

1. Lecture Notes

2. Readings

        % Chapter 19 - (Parker & Case)

 

___________________________________________________________________

 

Course Archives

 

Lecture notes & readings

        % Week 6 : 8/1 - 8/5

        % Week 5 : 7/25 - 7/29

        % Week 4 : 7/18 - 7/22

        % Week 3 : 7/11 - 7/15

        % Week 2 : 7/4 - 7/8

        % Week 1 : 6/27 - 7/1

 

General Course Information

        Class syllabus

        Lecture and exam schedule

 

Exam Archives

        Midterm:

                % Study Hints

                % Questions

                % Answers

        Final:

                % Study Hints

                % Questions

                % Answers

 

Assignment Archives

        Assignment 1:

                % Questions

                % Answers

        Assignment 2:

                % Questions

                % Answers

        Assignment 3:

                % Questions

                % Answers

        Assignment 4:

                % Questions

                % Answer summary

__________________________________________________________________

 

Brian Butler / bb26@andrew.cmu.edu

 

 

     + Page 43 +

 

                  APPENDIX 2: Student Feedback Survey

 

Hello,

 

I would appreciate it if you would fill out the following short survey

regarding the MIS course.  I will be using the feedback to improve the

various areas of the class.

 

(Your replies to this will NOT be anonymous...If this is a problem,

don't reply....)

 

[ The easiest way to respond to this is probably to use the RESTORE AS

DRAFT option (in the Message Menu in Macmail II) type you answers in

the space below each question. ]

 

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Course Materials

 

1.  Please comment on the following course materials.  Consider

whether they have been useful in helping you understand the topics,

easily available, etc.

 

Assignments:

 

Supplemental readings:

 

Textbook:

 

Lecture notes:

 

Other Documents (syllabus, study hints, etc)

 

2. How do you normally access the course material (what type of

computer, what program)?

 

3. Do you regularly print out the course materials?  If so, which

materials?  If not, why not?

 

4. Have ever access the course materials from a computer at your home?

 

5. If you have any other comments or suggestions about the course

materials place them here:

 

Lectures

 

1. Have the lectures contributed to you understanding of the

TECHNOLOGY issues in MIS?  If so, how? If not, why not?

 

     + Page 44 +

 

2. Have the lectures contributed to your understanding of MANAGEMENT

issues in MIS?  If so, how? If not, why not?

 

3. Have you found the in class exercises to be helpful and/or

interesting?  Explain.

 

4. If you have any other comments or suggestions regarding the lecture

place them here:

 

General Information:

 

1. Homework load (Has it been too much, too little, about right)?

 

2. Reading load (Has it been too much, too little, about right)?

 

3. If you have any other comments or suggestions regarding the course

place them here:

 

Thanks for your time.

Brian Butler

bb26@andrew.cmu.edu

 

    APPENDIX 3 : Supplemental Reading - On-line Example Cover Page

 

( There are hypertext links in the orginal reading which is

available at

http://www.gsia.cmu.edu/bb26/70-451/readings/reading2.html )

 

Examples of Strategic Uses of Information Technology

Readings: June 30, 1994

 

Overview of people and organizational factors that affect MIS

 

For class Thursday you should look at CommerceNet & MecklerWeb

(Executive summaries are a good place to start) and think about how

these services might be used by different businesses. In particular,

consider how these services might be used to change the basis for

competition. (For example, could this technology be used to provide,

on demand, services that currently take a week?)

 

Also, if you have a chance, look at one or more of the following

businesses to see how they are using (or planning on using)

information technology to provide information, services and sometimes

even new products to customers.

 

% Silicon Graphics Inc.

% Homebuyer's Fair

% Bank of America

% Dun & Bradstreet

% Auction Directory & News

 

________________________________________________________________

Brian Butler / bb26@andrew.cmu.edu

 

     + Page 45 +

 

                      APPENDIX 4 : Lecture Notes

 

( There are hypertext links in the orginal document which is

available at

http://www.gsia.cmu.edu/bb26/70-451/lectures/lecture14.html )

 

Management Information Systems

 

Lecture 14: July 19, 1994

 

Knowledge-Based Systems

 

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been defined as the capability of

computer systems to provide a level of performance that reflects

human-like intelligence. Examples include systems that can read

handwriting, provide assistance for a doctor diagnosing patients, and

performing other tasks that are commonly understood to require

intelligence. These systems are also called knowledge-based systems.

In this lecture we will consider a variety of different AI systems,

some available commercially, and others still in development.

 

  1. Natural Language Systems

  2. Robotics Systems

  3. Vision Systems

  4. Neural Networks

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Natural Language Systems

 

The most common way of interacting with a computer system is by typing

commands into a keyboard, or perhaps selecting menu items with a

mouse. While this is effective for some tasks it is not the same way

that we interact with other people. Natural language systems are

systems that attempt to enable users to interact with computer systems

using written, typed or speech communications in a natural language

such as English.

 

Speech Systems

 

One important type of natural language system is speech recognition

systems. Some of the problems that speech recognition systems must

overcome are:

 

     Different volumes (soft voices)

     Mumbling and monotone voices

     Different Accents and Emphasis

 

Most existing speech recognition systems have the following

limitations:

 

     Limited Vocabulary

     Must be trained for individual users

     The need for near perfect, noiseless conditions

 

     + Page 46 +

 

However, even with these constraints, commercial speech recognition

systems can be effectively used in environments where users are not

able to use conventional keyboard-based data entry.

 

One example is a system developed by Zales Jewelry stores. In order to

increase the productivity of jewelry appraisers Zales created a system

that accepted speech input so that the appraisers hands would be free

to handle the jewelry.

 

Another important type of speech system is speech synthesis systems.

Currently the belief is that speech generation technology has reached

a limit. The speech sounds vaguely human, but it is still easily

distinguishable as artificial.

 

Translation Systems

 

One of the goals of natural language system research has been to

create computer systems that can translate items from one language to

another. However, as people began to build translation systems it

became apparent that translation was a very difficult task. One

example from an early translation system was a case where the sentence

"The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" was translated from

English to Russian, and then retranslated from Russian to English. The

result was the sentence "The vodka is good but the meat is

rotten".

 

Currently, there are systems that provide assistance for human

translators. Also there are prototype systems that can translate

structured technical documents. Carnegie Group Inc. is one company

that provides this type of system.

 

Character Recognition and 'Reading' Systems

 

An example was given in class that went as follows:

 

Hide the marker board from the students, and write the following

phrase: "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up". Erase some portion of

each letter in the phrase. Then reveal the marker board with the

modified phrase to the students and ask them to try and read the

phrase. (Most students are able to identify the phrase with a little

concentration.)

 

The purpose of this example is to illustrate how good humans are at

recognizing items based on clues from the context. From the "Help,

I've fallen and I can't get up" example it is useful to point out that

if you saw the modified letter 'H' alone you probably wouldn't have

been able to identify it. However, given the context of the word

"Help" and the phrase as a you most are able to identify

the letter as being an 'H'.

 

     + Page 47 +

 

The challenge with many AI recognition systems is to enable the

computer to use the context to identify objects.

 

One example of a recognition system that is currently available

commercially is a Optical Character Recognition (OCR) systems. These

systems, used in collaboration with scanners, can be used to convert

paper documents into computer files suitable for storage and

searching.

 

Another area where 'recognition' systems are becoming relevant is in

the realm of information filtering. It is important to realize that in

order to screen information it is necessary to 'understand' the

content of the documents that are being screened. An example of this

might be a filter that can scan the subject lines of e-mail messages

and flag certain messages for further investigation. This type of

system also must use some context to 'understand' the messages.

 

Another type of recognition system that has recently become

commercially available is handwriting recognition systems. The most

famous (or infamous) example of a handwriting recognition system is

the Apple Newton. Interestingly enough these systems have many of the

same limitations as the speech recognition

systems described above.

 

Robotics Systems

 

In order to demonstrate some of the limitations and challenges of

robotics the following demonstration was used:

 

At the start of the lecture ask the students to write a set of

instructions for making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Collect

the instructions from the students. Then tell the students that you

will be using the directions to actually make some sandwiches. (Using

some peanut butter, jelly, bread, and knifes that you have brought to

class) Then, following the instructions exactly, demonstrate the

difficulty of giving instructions to a being that has no common

sense.

 

Interesting things that can occur during the demonstration are:

 

If the instructions don't specifically say to open the bag of bread,

the jar of peanut butter, or the jar of jelly then the 'robot' should

have a difficult time.

 

If the instructions specify that the the bread should be picked up,

the knife should be picked up, etc, but never specify that the objects

should be put down the 'robot' will begin to have problems.

 

The purpose of this example is to illustrate that information about

spatial relationships and other commonsensical information is not

known to a robot.

 

     + Page 48 +

 

Common applications of robots include:

 

     Stationary robots : Factory automation robots are an example of

     this.

 

     Mobile robots : Creating mobile robots that can endure harsh

     environments, drive in routine situations, or perform repetitive

     tasks over a large area.

       1. NavLab - A driving 'robot'

       2. Ambler, Dante and Dante II - Walking robots for hazardous

          conditions

 

Vision Systems

 

The challenges and importance of vision systems were demonstrated with

the following two demonstrations:

 

Demonstration 1 : Context and Vision Systems

 

Drop a small pile of rubber band (1 dozen or so) in front of one of

the students. Ask the student to count the rubber band, without

touching them. After the student completes that task, ask another

student to lift one rubber band at a time using a stick, without

disturbing the other rubber.

 

After this demonstration a discussion can be structured around what

knowledge/techniques the students used to identify and manipulate the

individual rubber bands. This can be used to demonstrate the

importance of context for vision systems.

 

Demonstration 2 : Two-Dimensional Representation of Three-Dimensional

Objects

 

Show the students the following picture:

 

[Image]

 

Ask the students what they see. Most answers will be things like: the

a top view of a box that is projecting out of the board or a inside

view of a box embedded in the board. At this point tell them that the

picture actually is a single square with an X in it and another square

on top of it (as shown below).

 

[Image]

 

This demonstration is intended to illustrate the interesting ability

of many of us to use certain context cues to see 2-d representations

as 3-d objects. This is an important skill for a driving robot to have

- If it sees a square with an X and another square then it is likely

to hit the first box-like object it encounters.

 

Another application of vision systems is monitoring images, such as

satellite images for changes or monitoring manufactured parts for

flaws.

 

     + Page 49 +

 

Neural Networks

 

To demonstrate the value of neural networks (or neural nets) the

following demonstration was used.

 

Write the following sentences on the board:

 

Madam, I'm Adam.

A man, a plan, a canal - Panama

Never odd or even.

Step on no Pets

 

Then ask the students if they can identify what the sentences have in

common. After a few minutes also write the string of digits "11011011"

on the board and say that the sentences are also similar to this

string of digits.

 

The sentences are all palindromes or sentences (or strings of digits)

that read the same from right-to-left and left-to-right. This is an

example where there is an underlying pattern that is disguised by the

context.

 

Essentially neural nets are software systems that attempt to identify

patterns such as the palindrome pattern in spite of a distracting

context.

An example of how this pattern recognition capability of neural nets

is used in a business environment is its use by catalog retailers to

identify potential customers. Using demographic information and

records of past purchases retailers can use neural nets to identify

customers who are most likely to purchase items (i.e. match a certain

'pattern') and this information can be used to target mailings and

advertising.

 

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Brian Butler / bb26@andrew.cmu.edu

 

 

 

APPENDIX 5 : Midterm Exam Study Hints

 

( There are many hypertext links in the orginal document which

is available at http://www.gsia.cmu.edu/bb26/70-451/home.html )

 

 

70-451 Midterm Exam Study Hints

 

     + Page 50 +

 

Format of the exam

 

Definitions

     You will be given a set of terms and asked to give one or two

sentence definitions for 5 of them. Each of these definitions will worth 5

points.

 

Short answer questions:

     You will be given a set of questions and be asked to give a one

or two paragraph answer to 5 of them. Each of these questions will be

worth 15 points and partial credit will be given.

 

The exam will be graded based on 100 points

(5 * 5 Definitions = 25; 15 * Short answer questions =75).

 

Content of the exam

 

The exam will cover the topics that were covered in lecture up to and

including Thursday, July 14.

 

For the definitions section of the exam the best way to study is to

look over the lecture notes and make sure that you know the terms that

are mentioned there. For chapters 1,2,3,4,7 & 9 the vocabulary list at

the back of each chapter is also a good resource.

 

Here are a set of question for each of the chapters that will be

covered on the exam. These are not actual exam questions. However,

they are similar to the type of short answer question that will be

given on the exam.

 

Chapter 1

     What are the 4 different types of information systems and how do

     they differ? Can you give an example of each one?

 

Chapter 2

     In what ways do centralized organizations differ from

decentralized organizations? How is the degree of centralization or

decentralization likely to affect MIS design, development and

management?

 

Chapter 3

     What are the important elements in an organizations operating

     environment?

 

     What are some examples of how information technology can impact

     the relationship between the organization and these elements?

 

     Why is strategic planning important for MIS management?

 

 

     + Page 51 +

 

Chapter 4

     What are some of the roles of manager in organizations? What are

some examples of information systems that support managers in these

different roles?

 

Chapter 5

     What are the important hardware elements of a computer system and

how are they related?

 

Chapter 6

     What are the important categories of software and how are they

related? For each category identify the community of people who is

likely to use the software.

 

Chapter 7

     What are the two primary approaches to data management? Mention

two advantages and two disadvantages for each of the alternatives.

 

Chapter 8

     What are the three high level structures that are used to create

     large-scale computer systems?

 

     What is a LAN? What is a WAN? How do these two types of systems

     differ?

 

Chapter 9

     What is a transaction processing system? What are some of the

functions in businesses that are supported by transaction processing

system?

 

     What is a legacy system? What kind of problems do legacy systems

create for system developers and MIS managers?

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

     Brian Butler / bb26@andrew.cmu.edu

 

 

1    FTP is a utility for transferring files from one computer to

another. Telnet is a utility that allows a user to access a remote

computer over the network.   For more information about these and

other Internet related software program see references 1,2, or 3.

 

2    HTML - (Hyper-Text Markup Language) This is the document design

language for WWW documents.  Using HTML you can specific different

formats, headings and other features in a plain text file.

 

3    URL : Uniform Resource Locator

 

4    GIF (pronounced jiff - like the brand of peanut butter) is a

particular format used to store graphics.  A GIF converter refers to a

program designed to convert graphics to GIF format from other formats.

5    Shareware refers to software packages that are developed and

released to the public with the suggestion that the user send the

author a small sum of money in exchange for the software.  The user is

not required to send any money.   (A related term is "freeware" which

refers to software that is distributed to the public with no

expectation of payment.)

 

     + Page 52 +

 

6    A hypertext link has two components - the link and the anchor

point. The link is the phrase that you click on to follow a hypertext

link and the anchor point to the section of the text were the

hypertext link leads to.

 

7    Discussion groups, Listservs, D-lists, BBoards - These terms are

are all used to describe facilities that enable large groups of people

to 'discuss' various topics.  For example, the is a discussion group

comp.www.providers which is used to discusses issues related to

providing information using WWW and Mosaic.

 

8    X Windows is a software system that is generally used to provide

a graphical interface for a Unix workstations

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH:

 

Brian Scott Butler

E-mail: bb26@andrew.cmu.edu

WWW: http://www.gsia.cmu.edu/bb26/

 

Brian Butler is a Ph.d. candidate in Information Systems at the Graduate

School of Industrial Administration at Carnegie Mellon University.  He

has a degree in Computer Science, also from Carnegie Mellon University.

His industry experience includes work as a software developer,

consultant and trainer.  His research interests focus on the design,

implementation and evaluation of new communications technologies in

knowledge-intensive environments such as high-technology companies and

educational institutions.

 

Graduate School of Industrial Administration (GSIA)

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)

Pittsburgh, PA 15213

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

5. Copyright Statement

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Interpersonal Computing and Technology: An Electronic Journal for the

                             21st Century

 

Copyright 1995 Georgetown University.  Copyright of individual articles in

this publication is retained by the individual authors.  Copyright of the

compilation as a whole is held by Georgetown University.  It is asked that any

republication of this article state that the article was first published in

IPCT-J.

 

Contributions to IPCT-J can be submitted by electronic mail in APA style to:

Gerald Phillips, Editor IPCT-J  GMP3@PSUVM.PSU.EDU