Most difficult assessment item, what was difficult about it and how would you improve it:

I found the ongoing blog postings difficult mainly because it seemed to be using up precious time that could have been spent reading the course material and doing the textbook exercises. Also, there was no feedback so even though you did the exercise, there was no indication if you did it correctly. I would suggest fewer postings (maybe 4 all up) and feedback such as a posted comment even it was something like “You’re on the right track, consider …”.

I also struggled a lot with assignment 2 part B because I could not see the relevance to the course and felt my time would have been better spent understanding more of the course content which was difficult enough and I would have benefited from more time spent studying it. My motivation was very low and I was getting very frustrated spending so much time researching something that did not improve my knowledge in my chosen field of study. Whereas, while I found the other part of the assignment difficult, I did not mind because I wanted and needed to understand; it was what I applied to do. I would suggest you do not include the education innovations as an assessment item in future.

Name three things you learnt this term and how you would be able to use this knowledge/skills in your future career:

One of the things I have learned is the importance of stepping through a recognised process such as the SDLC when introducing new information systems to an organisation because there are many potentially harmful and costly impacts to an organisation. Going forward, I would consider the relevance of all the steps in each situation and make sure that I planned and thoroughly prepared for a system implementation.

The data and process modelling, data dictionary and ERDs was all very new to me and I found it interesting. I hope that now I will have a way of expressing what I am thinking or designing in a format that is understandable by all parties whether its management, IT staff or end users.

Finally, I learned a lot of terminology. Some I had heard before (and even used) but not really understood. Other terminology I had never even heard of. Now the DBA and network administrator at work actually speak a language I am starting to understand and hopefully, they can understand me.

Overall, I enjoyed this course. The information in the text was exactly the type of information I was hoping to learn. So thank you.

Corrective maintenance diagnoses and corrects errors in an operational system. The Capricornia Car Pool System (CCPS) could potentially have some system errors such as a report total not totalling properly or some of the system supervisors cannot approve booking requests.

Adaptive maintenance adds enhancements to an operational system and makes the system easier to use. The CCPS end user may decide that they would like, in addition to the standard search function, a different view of data such as a calendar view that shows an item’s availability visually.

Perfective maintenance involves changing an operational system to make it more efficient, reliable or maintainable. The CCPS could be greatly enhanced with the development of a charges extraction file that retrieves the charges and the assigned cost codes and allows direct upload into the CQU finance system.

Preventive maintenance reduces the possibility of future system failure. A backup schedule would need to be developed for the CCPS system and regular analysis of problems for trouble areas.

Method 1: Direct Cutover

This involves ceasing the use of the old system at the same time as you release the new system. This is obviously a higher risk but lower cost method. The concerns of using this method of changeover include:

• Encountering and dealing with problems that arise in the live system that didn’t arise in testing due to operator usage, greater volume of live data versus volume of test data tested, unanticipated or not tested problems
• Detection of minors errors difficult as not able to compare to previous system
• Major errors may shutdown new system and you don’t have the option of reverting to the old system
• Timing is critical especially so as to avoid the need to retrieve information from both old and new systems to perform functions

This is a possibility for the CCP system given that the system is not particularly large or complex, volume of data will not be extraordinary, nor will the number of users at any one time be large.

Method 2: Parallel Operation

This involves running both systems concurrently for a period. As you can imagine, this requires double the workload and therefore is expensive but the risk is very low as it allows output to be compared and any errors detected fixed without disruption to work. The disadvantages are:

• High cost method – paying for two systems and double inputting therefore potentially additional resources
• Two systems running may burden the operating system causing processing delays and potentially causing problems in other systems (not an issue for the CCP system as the old system was predominantly manual)
• Can’t be used if the two systems are technically incompatible (not an issue for CCP)
• Not suitable if systems perform different functions or if new system involves a new method of business operations.

Parallel operation isn’t really suitable for the CCP system as it is really a low risk system anyway. This method is really more suited to high risk/impact systems such as payroll systems. Justifying the cost and asking the users to use both the old manual reservation system and the new system process would be difficult.

Method 3: Pilot Operation

This involves rolling the new system out to just one section of the organisation while continuing the whole organisation on the old system. In effect, you are parallel running only a portion of the organisation for a period before fully implementing via usually direct cutover but potentially parallel operation. This is method reduces the risks and impact of system failure and is not as expensive as the parallel operation method. This method doesn’t seem to have any disadvantages except it is a little more expensive than a direct cutover method.

This would be ideal for the CCP system. The pilot site could be a faculty or department that uses the reservation system more than others. Errors or problems encountered could be rectified before direct cutover for the rest of CQU.

Method 4: Phased Operation

This method involves introducing parts (subsystems, modules, stages) of the system to the whole organisation while continuing to provide the rest of the functions via the old system. The phases may be rolled out by any of the above methods. This reduces costs and the impact a failure may have on the whole system as it is limited to just the one part of the system. Disadvantages include:

• Can’t be used if the system can’t be broken down easily into subsystems or modules
• If you have a large number of phases this can increase the cost and may cost more than the pilot method

This may be possible for the CCP system if you broke it down to the reservation component and then the invoicing component of the system. Being such a small system it probably isn’t worth the effort.

The author, an Instructional Leader at the Florida Virtual School in the US, discusses emerging technologies and their potential applications in distance education.  Baldarrain focuses on technology such as wikis, blogs, RSS feeds and podcasts to foster student interaction in online learning.  The article acknowledges that research on the educational uses of these technologies is limited but what is available does hightlight their versatility.

Bonk CJ & Zhang K, ‘Introducing the R2D2 model: online learning for the diverse learners of this world’, Distance Education, vol. 27, no. 2, August, pp. 249-264.

The authors, Bonk and Zhang, are both professors in the field of Instructional Technology. This article proposes a new model for designing and delivering distance education and in particular online learning. Using their R2D2 model of read reflect display and do, they have suggested learning activities using a combination of technologies such as videostreaming, podcasting, RSS feeds, blogs and standard methods such as reflection papers and summary writing.

E-Learning: Instructional Strategies 2006, ‘Building community in the online classroom’, August 22, 2006, viewed 21 April 2007, http://elearn2lead.typepad.com/elearn2lead/elearning_instructional_strategies/index.html

This is an article/posting in the elearn2lead site. This site is about collaborative and creative teaching and online learning.

Landy M 2007, ‘A review of George Siemen’s Knowing Knowledge, 2006′, The Knowledge Tree, ed. 13, viewed 1 May 2007, http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2007/?page_id=20
.

And

Siemens G 2006, Knowing Knowledge, viewed 1 May 2007, http://knowingknowledge.com/ .

Landy writes a review of Siemens book which raises the issue of how to keep course content up to date and relevant in the face of torrents of information and rapid turnover of knowledge. The suggested answer is connectiveness i.e. networks for knowledge sources.

Macnamara L 2007, ‘Unis face new web challenge’, The Australian, 31 January, viewed 27 April 2007, http://global.factiva.com.ezproxy.cqu.edu.au/ha/default.aspx .

This newspaper article highlights some of the challenges unis face in order to remain competitive with private providers. Macnamara discusses these challenges with various universities’ personnel.

A search of  www.sindic8.com found a feed for The Independent Magazine for Software Developers.  The advantage of RSS feeds is that the information is pushed to the receiver instead of the receiver having to seek the information (Beldarrain 2006).  This would be particularly helpful to students who are already seeking information by researching for assignments etc and may be time-poor.   This is just one example of the type of feeds that could be available on the course website or for ongoing availability maybe the student email accounts.  Any feeds that told stories of real life experiences in the industry would be particularly helpful.  In the feed above, I found an interesting article about a business analyst’s interview experience and what he learned from the CIO of the organisation he was applying to (http://www.developerdotstar.com/mag/articles/programmer_career.html). 

You could further develop this idea by having students pick an article that interested them and summarize it for a blog posting.  Probably doing this earlier in the course would be beneficial so that they know that the RSS feeds exist.  It may be even better if this exercise is posted to a forum for all students to see and learn from. 

Reference:Beldarrain, Y  2006, Distance education trends: integrating new technologies to foster student interaction and collaboration, Distance Education, vol. 27, no. 2, August, pp. 139-153.

Create Blog 

Input Flows: USERNAME, EMAIL, AGREEMENT, BLOG REQUEST, ACTIVATE BLOG

Output Flows: ACTIVATE EMAIL, ERROR MESSAGE,

For each USER,

If USERNAME = valid and EMAIL = OK and AGREEMENT = Y and BLOG REQUEST = Y then

                        Output ACTIVATE EMAIL

Else   

        Output ERROR MESSAGE

               If Output ACTIVATE EMAIL = Y and ACTIVATE BLOG = Y then

                        Output CREATE BLOG and CREATE PASSWORD and NEW BLOG EMAIL

Register Blog 

Input Flows: LOGIN, REGISTER FORM, BLOG URL

Output Flows: BLOG REGISTERED MESSAGE, NOTIFY STAFF EMAIL

For each STUDENT,

            If LOGIN = valid and REGISTER FORM = Y and BLOG URL = OK then

                               Output BLOG REGISTERED MESSAGE and NOTIFY STAFF EMAIL

What services/additions would students find interesting and useful on the course website? 

Technique:  Document review     Usefulness: Document review is used to establish how a system currently works by studying system documentation and forms.  This is not relevant here as it will not in anyway establish what students wish to find on their course website. 

Technique: Observation  Usefulness: You could use observation of on-campus students using the course website and tie in some interview questions at the same time.  The down side of this is that you will only get feedback on what on-campus students would like to see on the course website. 

Technique: Questionnaires/surveys   Usefullness: This would be one of the most effective techniques for finding out the opinion of a large group of students.  It would reach a wider audience including off-campus students. 

Technique: Sampling    Usefullness: You could interview a sample of students using a stratified sample pool across both on-campus and off-campus (flex) students.  You probably wouldn’t sample in this case using a questionnaire when you could send the questionnaire to all students via email.  The emailed questionnaire option to all students would be more beneficial given the generally low number of responses to questionnaires. 

Technique: Research    Usefullness: This would be quite helpful, particularly if you looked at what other universities offered on their course websites as opposed to CQU.  This may generate some new ideas.   

What learning and/or teaching strategies might improve the student learning in this course? 

Technique:  Document review  Usefulness:  A document review of course notes, texts and assignment documentation would you give you a good idea of what is currently done.   

Technique: Observation    Usefullness: Sitting in on lectures and tutorials to observe lecturers/tutors and student interactions would help see if there were any areas for improvement in the face-to-face teacher-student interactions. 

Technique: Questionnaires/surveys  Usefullness: A survey of students, lecturers and tutors could enlighten the analyst.  Students’ expectations and opinions may be found to differ from that of lecturers and tutors and a solution that bridges the disparity may be required. 

Technique: Sampling  Usefullness: You could use sampling particularly if you wished to use the interview technique.  Once again you would probably get a selection from different student groups (internal Vs external students) and university teaching staff.  Interviewing teaching staff (other than the ones teaching this course) may generate new ideas that had not previously been thought of. 

Technique: Research  Usefullness: Conducting research from peer-reviewed journals and newspaper articles may give some good suggestions and highlight techniques that haven’t worked. 

What journals might be useful to search for articles about educational innovations? 

Technique: Document review  Usefulness: Not relevant 

Technique: Observation   Usefulness: Not relevant 

Technique: Questionnaires/surveys   Usefullness: You could conduct a survey of what information sources other educators use regarding educational innovations.  Technique: Sampling  Usefullness: You could conduct sample interviews with other educators to find out what they read.  The ideal sample pool would be those educators who have won awards for their teaching work. 

Technique: Research   Usefullness:  Searching journal and information resource databases for suitable articles.  Teaching forums and conferences are also a good source of information as you can talk to and hear from other educators about their ideas.