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Delivery Method by Course Student

Andrew Gabriel

February 22, 2012 16:16

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Currently we run in-class courses that have students in them who are not on-campus. That is, we integrate some of our Alternative Education (aka, Distance ed) students into our rosters for the in-class courses so that the AE students can have the benefit of interacting with other students who are taking the course at the same time. 

We have two significant difficulties with this.

1. The major problem is that our AE students need to have their transcript indicating that they took the course by an alternative delivery method. If a student takes the course and is not integrated with an in-class roster, then it is not an issue because we just rename the course with an AE on the end of it. However, if they are integrated into the roster of an in-class course, then we have no way of indicating that they took it as an AE student (which needs to happen on their transcript). To deal with this, we have tried to remember to remove the AE student from the in-class roster after they are completed the course and to put them in a separate course instance with the "AE" designation on it. However, it is a LOT of work since it means transferring all of their grades, unfinalizing the course they were in previously, removing them from that course, refinalizing the course, and on, and on. Furthermore, all of those steps lead to a greater possibility of error on our part, especially in a class with a number of AE students. AN EASY WAY OF DEALING WITH THIS, as far as I can figure, is to allow our registrar to designate individual students on a class roster as having a different delivery method (i.e., to indicate they are AE students). This AE indication would need to automatically be indicated on their transcript (with either a new column indicating AE, or an "AE" added to the end of the course name).

2. (Less of an issue probably) Our AE students have a longer period of time to complete the course. This means that we need to be able to finalize the course for most of the students a couple of months before the AE students are done. I figure we can work around this by marking the AE students as incomplete until they submit their final assignments (assuming that they can still submit assignments even though the course is finalized for everyone else). 

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10 comments

• 1
  
  Bob Williamson February 22, 2012 16:52

  I offer the following thoughts:

  I looked into #2 a few weeks back and completely agree that it is the way to go. The Populi Knowledge base suggested that this was an appropriate use for the 'Incomplete' designation.

  I think that #1 is also the best way to go with the following proviso ... is there indeed a way in Populi to add this designation column and automatically have it appear on the transcript? If it is not automatic, then we are stymied again as the onus would be placed on the person printing a transcript to remember to include such a detail on the report. This is fraught with risks.

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  Adam Sentz February 22, 2012 19:17

  @Andrew - Perhaps you could enroll the AE student in the AE course instance as usual, and also set them to audit the on-campus course so they can interact with the on-campus students. If you then removed the auditing course from their course mapping it wouldn't even show up on the transcript. Might be less painful than what you're doing now.

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  Andrew Gabriel February 22, 2012 19:43

  @Adam- We did consider that option, but we decided against it for a number of reasons (even though you are no doubt right that it would be less painful for our staff). The overall reason is that we didn't want to put the onus on our students to have to make it work for them. More specific reasons are:

  1- Some of our students have a hard enough time figuring out online things, this would only confuse things more for them. Their assignments would be submitted in a separate course instance (where they are enrolled) from where they are doing online discussion (where they are auditing). This could make it a little difficult for them to keep track of themselves.

  2- It doesn't make us look good (to me it would make us look a little incompetent).

  3- We still have the difficulty of having to be sure to remember to remove the student from the auditing course once the class is over.

  4- Once the course is over, the student could no longer go back and access their online discussions (in another course they may want to revisit something they or another student has said in the past).

  There may have been 1 or 2 other reasons, but that is what I remember.

  
  

  
  

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  Adam Sentz February 22, 2012 20:04

  I understand if you prefer not to do it that way. Just a couple points of clarification

  1) Auditors can't submit assignments. So the student wouldn't be able to submit assignments in the wrong section. 

  2) You wouldn't have to delete the student from auditing the course. You could just remove it from their course mapping. That way their transcript wouldn't show it, but they'd still have access to it.

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  Sherrie Allison February 22, 2012 21:07

  Some additional information surrounding Andrew's point #1 and #2 above might help clarify; with our AE (Dist.Ed.) students being Auditors AND enroled in a separate AE course instances would likely become confusing as it will not always be the way an AE course would be handled.   I believe added explanation and populi support would be required to bridge that change for each student from one time to another and could become as burdensome on our staff as well as the student, as they would never grasp  or be privy to the reasoning behind why it is one way one time and different another time.

  Horizon has well-defined terms for our regular timetable or on-campus courses and for other terms for AE(Dist.Ed.)   But at times a course will be offered so that a student needing to take a course offered  on our regular timetable could participate even if they are not able to attend the course in class on-campus.  

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  Jonathon Beeke December 07, 2012 01:58

  I'm wondering if what I wrote here may help: https://support.populiweb.com/entries/22074002-sharing-discussions-b-w-course-instances-for-on-campus-and-dl-students

  We distinguish online and on-campus students by placing them in two different instances; but sharing items b/w the two items, such as discussions, would help.

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  Thomas Winger July 17, 2017 18:45

  I would like to see some progress on this idea. We, too, have students in the same course participating via different delivery methods: some are in the room, and some join by video link. Our residence policy indicates that a course received online is not residential, and is subject to limits. Populi's residence tracking only distinguishes transfer courses from in-house courses. I would like to see a field in the roster allowing us to designate which students are participating by which delivery method, and then be able to set limits on Distance Education credits in the programme audit. Right now we have to do this by memory.

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  Matthew Kuhner, Ph.D. September 09, 2020 13:26

  Along the lines of Andrew and Thomas, we also have students utilizing different delivery methods in a given class, and I'm assuming many others are facing this situation in light of the pandemic. A field on the roster designating which students are participating by specific delivery methods would be such a boon for us. Further, I think it would actually put schools that utilize Populi ahead of the game re: accreditation and the ability to assess different delivery methods! 

  Thank you in advance, Populi developers, for considering this!

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  Sophia Zdanowski September 09, 2020 13:34

  Similar to Andrew's point in #1, we are currently dealing with the issue of students choosing different delivery methods for the same course. We have thought through just about every possible method of tracking this and indicating it appropriately on the transcript but, as mentioned throughout this thread, every option we think of poses not only more work but more room for error. I have to agree with Andrew that some sort of delivery method designation here would be so helpful. If the student could indicate their delivery method when they are registering for the course (and have their designation automatically show up on the roster and their transcript) OR if the registrar could go in and manually edit the delivery method of each student on the rosters of courses with mixed delivery methods and have it show up on the student's transcript (more manual work but by far less room for error than other suggested methods), this would help immensely! 

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  Andrew Gabriel September 09, 2020 15:33

  Matthew made a really good point about assessment that I hadn't thought of! For us, the immediate need is simply to know how many students a prof will have on campus, and therefore which classrooms to assign for classes, and how many students a prof should expect online, and if we need to set up the proper tech equipment to support this, etc. The ability to use this info for assessment would be an added bonus, for sure. All is all, this would be a HUGE help to many institutions. 

  Unlike Sophia, we actually wouldn't want the delivery method to show on the transcript because our philosophy has been that our courses are all of equal quality. Nevertheless, Populi could easily have an option in the transcript area or even the general academic settings where one could turn this feature on or off for the transcript.