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Quiz 6 Final Class Survey See: http://wsms.wikiplanet.com/html/opc/quiz06-final-survey.html

Contents 1 Question 1 2 Question 2 3 Question 3 4 Question 4 5 Question 5 6 Question 6 7 Question 7 8 Question 8 9 Question 9 10 Question 10 11 Question 11 12 Question 12 13 Question 13 14 Question 14 15 Question 15 16 Question 16 17 Question 17 18 Question 18 19 Question 19 20 Question 20 21 Question 21 22 Question 22 23 Question 23 24 Question 24 25 Question 25 26 Question 26 27 Question 27 28 Question 28 29 Question 29

Question 1

This "quiz" is really a survey and gives you a chance to provide feedback on your experience in taking the online course. Remember, this is the first course that I have offered online and indeed the first offered by Continuing Ed online in several years. Your feedback is critical for us to be able to improve our offerings!
Did you purchase "Learning Perl, 4th Edition" for the course?

Answer: No

Question 2

How many online courses have you taken before taking this course?

Answer: None

Question 3

On average, how many hours per week have you spent logged into this online course this semester?

Answer: 6

Question 4

On average, how often did you visit this online course during the semester?

Answer: c. A few times a week

Question 5

Would you choose to enroll in a 100% Internet delivered course if that course required you to be online at certain specific hours on specific days? The number of hours would not exceed the number of in-class hours that a face-to-face class meets.

Answer: c. Maybe

Question 6

If you answered either yes, or maybe to the above question, please answer the following: Which time frame would best suit your needs for an online class that had mandatory online meeting times:

Answer: g. Since my schedule changes, I would need to be able to choose from a variety of mandatory times throughout the term

Question 7

Please "grade" your instructor on this statement:

The instructor treats students with respect.

Answer: c. More than satisfactory

Question 8

Please "grade" your instructor on this statement:

The instructor encourages students, including those who experience difficulty.

Answer: c. More than satisfactory

Question 9

Please "grade" your instructor on this statement:

The instructor is enthusiastic about teaching this course.

Answer: b. Satisfactory

Question 10

Please "grade" your instructor on this statement:

The instructor writes quizzes that reflect important course content.

Answer: b. Satisfactory

Question 11

Please "grade" your instructor on this statement:

The instructor actively communicates throughout the course with students.

Answer: b. Satisfactory

Question 12

Please "grade" your instructor on this statement:

The instructor uses textbooks and other instructional material effectively.

Answer: b. Satisfactory

Question 13

Please "grade" your instructor on this statement:

The instructor uses Internet resources effectively.

Answer: a. Less than satisfactory

Question 14

Please "grade" your instructor on this statement:

The instructor provides assignments that are reasonable and appropriate for online instruction.

Answer: b. Satisfactory

Question 15

Please "grade" your instructor on this statement:

The instructor provides course assignments that give students an opportunity to practice and apply concepts and skills.

Answer: b. Satisfactory

Question 16

Please "grade" your instructor on this statement:

The instructor organizes the course material well.

Answer: b. Satisfactory

Question 17

Please "grade" your instructor on this statement:

The instructor has designed or provides instruction for this course at the appropriate pace and difficulty for an online course.

Answer: b. Satisfactory

Question 18

The next questions ask for information about using WebCT. Indicate the degree to which you agree or disagree with each statement.

I was able to navigate (move around) in this online course successfully.

Answer: a. Strongly Disagree

Question 19

The syllabus accurately describes course content and requirements.

Answer: d. Agree

Question 20

The content and requirements in this online course are as challenging as in a face-to-face course.

Answer: d. Agree

Question 21

I would recommend this online course to other students.

Answer: c. No opinion/neutral

Question 22

The suggested textbook adequately covered the subject.

Answer: d. Agree

Question 23

I was able to communicate effectively with fellow students in this course.

Answer: a. Strongly Disagree

Question 24

I was able to communicate effectively with my instructor in this course.

Answer: d. Agree

Question 25

How does this online course compare with face-to-face, on-campus courses?

Answer:
The on-campus course is much better. I do feel strongly that the online course could be improved by selecting better tools to encourage student-teacher communication.

Question 26

Describe any technical problems you have encountered when using this online course.

Answer:
WebCT was poorly administered at sdccd for this course. Even at its best, WebCT can only be described as unerringly mediocre.

Some of the html for the course content never worked in Firefox. I posted a screen dump at http://wsms.wikiplanet.com/mediawiki/index.php/Image:20070527-010-webct-ng.png To navigate around, I had to view the html source and paste the url into Firefox manually.

During the second week of the class, our scheduled online chat session had to be canceled because the server was inaccessible. According to the instructor this was caused by a misconfigured firewall. For the last few days of the course, some of the lessons were not available. I think this was due to someone saying the course terminated on a particular date, even though the instructor extended that time to accommodate some of us.

WebCT is very irritating software. There are entirely too many windows popping open. We all have tabbed browsers now. Instead of the stupid javascript that pops open a new window, just give us a normal link that can be opened in a new tab. In many instances WebCT gives you a little tinee tiny windows to work in and it takes way too much clicking and scrolling to get anything done. WebCT's forums use the tinee windows and they are ugly besides.

The chat feature in WebCT is especially lame. WHY doesn't it let you type links in the chat session? WHY is the chat window so tiny? WHY can you only be in one chat session at a time? WHY can you paste only one line of text? Real chat clients like XChat are light-years ahead.

Question 27

What suggestions do you have for improving the course?

Answer:
First, use some specialized software in addition to WebCT. Second, supply some guidance about how the online resources should be used. A real chat server based on irc that can be accessed by the student's choice of applications would be a big improvement. In place of the WebCT forums set up a wiki.

One way the wiki idea could work is as follows. If you look at wikipedia.org you see that each page has a discussion tab. The software used for wikipedia.org is freely available and can be configured so that only a specific user (say the teacher) can edit each main page and any registered user (say the teacher and all the students) can edit the discussion.

The students need to be inculcated in the etiquette of using online forums and email. For example, something like half the forum messages were just people thanking other people for posting something. The teacher should have explained at the beginning of the class that when you do that you are talking to 30 people. You should just send a private message to the person in question if you really feel the need. If all 30 of use posted a public thanks, that means almost 900 unnecessary reads.

Question 28

What do you appreciate most about this course? Answer:
The multimedia presentations were really great. You could tell that Joe put a lot of work into them.

Question 29

Other comments? Answer:
The price was right. I'd like to see the multimedia presentations at higher resolution. It is hard to read the text sometimes.