Establishing a Faculty Technology Center

Dr. Roger Von Holzen
Director--Center for Information Technology in Education
Northwest Missouri State University
Maryville, MO

In the spring of 1998, Northwest Missouri State University established its Center for Information Technology in Education (CITE). The focus of this presentation will be on the process involved in staffing the center, determining hardware and software needs, budgetary considerations, and other issues a college or university interested in establishing such a center may encounter. Key considerations related to faculty and administration relations, training, and the production of technology-based learning materials will also be discussed.

Over the past two years, a growing panic seems to have set in among educational leaders at the college and university level. Most of these leaders feel that their schools must embark as rapidly as possible into the new frontier of high tech, web-related course delivery. The underlying basis for this panic is the fear of losing on the field of competition for needed student enrollment figures. Unfortunately, soon after charging into this new arena, many of the schools find that they lack the necessary infrastructure to support the endeavor, particularly in the area of faculty support.

Starting in 1987, Northwest Missouri State University began building ten years of extensive experience with its campus-wide VAX computer system, which it called the Electronic Campus. The Electronic Campus included terminals in every dormitory room and faculty office. Based on the knowledge it had accumulated, Northwest proposed in 1996 that the university be designated as Missouri's center for the testing and development of personal computer applications for the enhancement of learning. As part of this Mission Enhancement plan to the state, Northwest indicated that a Center for Information Technology in Education (CITE) would need to be established. The center would be used to provide the necessary faculty support infrastructure to achieve the above stated goal and to increase Northwest’s engagement and leadership in the application of information technology to learning. In the spring of 1997, Northwest's Mission Enhancement proposal was accepted by the state legislature and funded to the tune of $800,000.

While awaiting the selection of the first CITE director in 1997, 22 faculty members participated in a series of summer course modularization projects under the auspices of the academic provost. The purpose of these projects was to incorporate information technology into existing courses in such a manner as to enable the course materials to be available to learners in modularized units that better serviced their educational needs. As a director was finally appointed late in the spring of 1998, a second group of faculty was provided summer stipends (at a cost of about $90,000) to again develop modularized, technology-based course materials.

As described in its Mission Enhancement proposal, a major goal of CITE was to facilitate and enhance the educational opportunities of students at Northwest by identifying and testing computer-based learning packages already available on the market and to develop new ones where there were important gaps. These packages were to be made available to both Northwest's own students and to learners enrolled in programs in other Missouri institutions. But a more immediate aim soon captured the exclusive focus of CITE.

Growing out of a series of discussions between Northwest president Dean Hubbard and Colorado Electronic Community College's president Mary Beth Sussman, an articulation agreement was signed in the summer of 1998. Based on the associate degree in business provided entirely online by the Colorado consortium, it was agreed that Northwest would begin the process of providing all of the necessary courses online that would enable students with the Colorado associate degree to complete a bachelor's degree in business management. Thus, in the summer and fall of 1998, the focus of CITE had to be realigned toward assisting Northwest faculty in developing content-specific learning materials for distribution through web-based courses.

All of this was taking place while the new director was settling in. Besides working with the faculty as stated above, the director and the temporary assistant director (a faculty member on halftime release) had to hire the staff (curriculum design specialist, computer specialist, and secretary), physically establish the center in office space provided by the university library, and purchase needed hardware and software. The purchases quickly surpassed the $60,000 mark. The items bought were based on hardware and software platforms that were widely used on campus: PC computers, Office 97 and Toolbook II Assistant and Instructor for the development of online course materials.

One of the first things the new faculty technology center had to do was to designate, after extensive faculty and staff input, the major software packages the center would support both through purchases and technical and training assistance. It was quickly found by the CITE staff that it would not be financially feasible for the center to support the wide array of idiosyncratic software desires of the campus faculty. This policy is especially important in the area of course development software, where an extensive knowledge about a particular software package on the part of the staff is necessary in order to fully utilize its properties.

As part of its Mission Enhancement money, CITE provides each Northwest faculty member with a notebook computer on a two to three year rotation cycle, at a cost of approximately $250,000 per year. The notebooks are distributed based on faculty needs and administrative targeting of academic areas that require technological enhancement.

But beyond the expense associated with the notebook computers, the CITE office soon learned that a policy had to be established as to the depth and breath of financial support it would provide to faculty for the purchase of computer-related hardware, such as digital cameras and CD-ROM burners. The policy, as currently implemented, calls for the center to make a reasonable effort to provide the hardware requested by faculty on a short-term loan basis, with "ownership" of the hardware to remain with CITE. This policy helps to minimize the needless duplication of seldom-used hardware and to maximize the array of hardware available for the faculty to use.

As CITE was getting settled into place and the necessary policies codified, it rapidly became apparent that the center did not have the level of staffing that was necessary to properly assist faculty in transforming course materials to completely web-based online courses. Using some of the funds available within the budget to support faculty stipends, the center decided that the hiring of student help to assist the individual faculty members would be the most economical approach to the problem. Funds were thereby transferred to the participating faculty members' department budgets to pay for the student help, thus minimizing student-related paperwork for the CITE office. Student assistance was also provided through the departments by means of student internships and independent study projects.

During the fall of 1998, while waiting for final negotiations to take place between Northwest and Real Education (which is to provide the course management software and related hardware and technical resources for the online business courses), CITE undertook the selection of Web Course in a Box as its local online courses management software. The reason this package was selected was due to its minimal learning curve and the fact that version 2.02 was free. It was through this software that four online courses were hosted for the spring, 1999 semester: Introduction to Business Finance, Introduction to Philosophy, Enjoyment of Music, and Peoples and Cultures (a cultural geography course). To provide a stronger, more comprehensive, online testing and student tracking system, it was later decided to switch the local course management software to CourseInfo by Blackboard, Inc. for the summer, 1999 online courses. While this may seem a duplication of course management software packages (Real Education vs. CourseInfo), it was decided that an inexpensive means had to be provided to faculty for them to disseminate some online course materials to their students without incurring the high fees associated with the provision of such materials through the auspices of Real Education.

To aid in establishing strong ties with the faculty, a comprehensive survey of every faculty member was undertaken. This provided the center with the opportunity to clearly explain to the faculty the role of CITE, determine the technology needs of the faculty, and to establish a baseline measurement of the faculty's technological skills. The information gleamed from the survey will be used to organize training sessions covering the hardware and software needs of the faculty. Related to this is the center's extensive involvement in the hosting of a technology conference at Northwest. The goal is to encourage a wide range of faculty to participate in the conference.

As its first full year as a functional center comes to a close, the Center for Information Technology in Education can look back at a long list of accomplishments. A key element in the success of the center was the strong support provided by the administration in terms of both budget and status. The center quickly became a critical component in several of the university-wide initiatives and in the continuing effort on the part of the university to enhance the technological abilities of its faculty.

As development of course materials in association with faculty members continues, and as more courses are offered on the web, the role of the center will become more central to the mission of the university. It is in light of this role that the center must maintain strong ties to both the administration and the faculty in order to further the goals of the university and to best serve the needs of the students of Northwest Missouri State University.