Assessment   

Tools

Academic Computing Services is exploring ways to assess student and faculty use of and satisfaction with the instructional technologies we support. Assessment results will help us update our strategies for supporting teaching and learning at Wesleyan University, in particular by identifying which new learning technologies are most effective in our environment, and by articulating student and faculty training needs.

To this end, Wesleyan has purchased the Flashlight Program's "Current Student Inventory," a large set of indexed survey questions, and a handbook covering evaluation techniques, case studies, and other related articles. Other tools scheduled for release in late 1999 include the Flashlight Cost Analysis Handbook, and the Flashlight Faculty Inventory.

Links

9 Principles of Good Practice for Assessing Student Learning from the American Association for Higher Education
- this article provides an overview of what good assessment is and how it is carried out

Assessment Forum
- the American Association for Higher Education's Assessment Resources page

Learning Objects

Proposed Assessment Plan (draft)

E-Learning Research and Assessment Network (eLera): A distributed group that provides information for learning object evaluation and research including the “Learning Object Review Instrument” (LORI).

Effectiveness Research  

Innovations in Online Learning: Moving Beyond No Significant Difference from The Pew Learning and Technology Program (by Carol Twigg)

The "No Significant Difference" Phenomenon selected entries from the book "The No Significant Difference Phenomenon" -- a comprehensive study of the issue of distance versus face-to-face educational outcomes

Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks -- publishes original work in asynchronous learning networks (ALN), including experimental results

ALN Magazine -- publishes reports on original work in synchronous learning networks (ALN), including experimental results, as well as non-research reports such as "how-to" articles, and reviews

International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning -- a new journal aimed at addressing distance education theory, research, and good practice

Journal of Research on Technology in Education (formerly Journal of Research on Computing in Education) -- reports "on original research, system or project descriptions and evaluations, syntheses of the literature, assessments of the state of the art, and theoretical or conceptual positions that relate to educational computing"

T.H.E. Journal (Technical Horizons in Education) -- presents both Higher Education and K-12 practices and research on use of computing technology in education

• Pedagogy and Policy in the Age of the Wired Professor by Angela Benson and Elizabeth Wright
• Sink or Swim? by Gregory Farrington and Stephen Bronack

Web Center for Learning Networks: Effectiveness Research -- a compendium of research on the effectiveness of online learning tools and practices

Mellon Cost-Effective Uses of Technology in Teaching
The Mellon Foundation’s program entitled "Cost-Effective Uses of Technology in Teaching" (CEUTT) supported studies gauging the costs and pedagogic effectiveness of using instructional technology in higher education.  The goal was to help address whether, and under what conditions, such technology might be deployed in ways that reduce institutional costs and promote pedagogic gains.