UMBC’s Learning Analytics Program is a community of scholars interested in using analytical data to advance student achievement and success. We’re relaunching the program after, like so many things, Covid-19 interrupted our plans.  The program has two parts, a community of practice and a competitive mini-grant program supported through the Provost’s Office.  

Meetings of the community of practice are open to all faculty, full and part time.  During these meetings, we’ll share ongoing research, have invited speakers, and learn about the data, tools, and platforms that faculty can use to improve student success and learning.  We’ll have infrastructure experts, data scientists, and others on hand to help interested faculty with access to data and to help design analysis or interventions to better understand the factors that improve student learning or student success in face to face, hybrid, or online classes.  

Our first meeting of the community this semester will be held on March 11, where we’ll have virtual visitors from Indiana University show some of their work on grade surprise followed by a discussion about using learning analytics from both a practitioner and research perspective.   More details about the seminar are available here.

The mini-grant program is open to all faculty (full and part time). Each successful applicant will receive $2,000 in research funds and when needed, a license for our visualization software to enable the exploration of data and the sharing of discoveries. The Analytics and Business Intelligence Teams in DoIT and the Provost’s Office will provide support to those who need assistance with data (and will coordinate support with IRADS when needed) and in creating visualizations or helping design and implement the analysis of data.  

We are interested in proposals surrounding student success and retention through graduation, especially those that explore relationships between activities and learning in one course and outcomes in others.  We are also interested in proposals from instructors of courses that have low success rates, are critical progression points for students, or that impart fundamental skills required for success in the major or program. Collaborative proposals are allowed and encouraged. Multiple proposals with different goals may be submitted from the same department.  Participants who identify course or practice redesign as part of their work are eligible and encouraged to compete for a Hrabowski Innovation Award.

Interested in more details?  Here are links to the WebEx recording of our kickoff meeting and the PowerPoint presentation that went along with it.  You can also contact me (Bob Carpenter) or John Fritz directly.

In a survey of more than 900 students from fall 2020 who completed courses that utilized no-cost or low-cost Open Educational Resources (OER), UMBC students said they appreciated saving money on instructional materials and would recommend an OER course to others.

Nearly 90% of students said the quality of the OER course materials was of similar or higher quality than non-OER course materials. In the surveyed courses, faculty replaced traditional print textbooks with OERs and provided supplemental digital homework tools. Forty-five percent of students who completed the survey said they would be fairly likely or very likely to enroll in an OER course again, while 53% said they would recommend an OER course to others.

Instructors Sarah Bass (CHEM 101), Tara Carpenter (CHEM 102), and Maria Manni (SPAN 101/103) replaced traditional print textbooks with OERs and provided supplemental digital homework tools. 

Open Educational Resources are teaching, learning, and research materials in any medium (digital or otherwise) that are released under an open license that permits no-cost or low-cost access, use, adaptation, or redistribution (UNESCO, 2002). OER can include textbooks, syllabi, supplementary materials, quizzes, assessment rubrics, homework, or labs.

About 60 comments were provided about students’ experience with OERs. The majority of written feedback focused on positive engagement with the digital resources and homework tools that supported students’ ability to practice problems or equations and learn vocabulary. 

Students offered additional comments about how they would use money saved from OER toward paying tuition or other fees (64%), covering personal expenses (55%), buying textbooks or materials for other classes (46%), or taking an additional course (19%). Some expressed challenges with the materials themselves, such as relevance to course content, impact on learning style, or ability to annotate online content vs. printed material. 

Additional observations: 

• 61% of students reported spending between $51 - $150 on textbooks or other course materials in a typical semester. 
• 55% of students said they usually purchase online or digital textbooks. 
• 80% of students reported having fairly reliable or extremely reliable internet access, with 19% reporting neutral or somewhat reliable access. 

A total of 551 students completed the survey from the 917 invited to participate. The survey was distributed to students using Blackboard’s native Enterprise Survey tool. 

Explore how you can adopt OERs for your course:

• Follow the Open Educational Resources group on myUMBC 
• Check out the OER research guide

Attend upcoming virtual events:

• How to get started with Open Educational Resources - March 3, 12 noon - 1 p.m.
• M.O.S.T. State Summit, Using OER to Advance Equity and Inclusion - April 8-9

Contact OER co-chairs Erin Durham (edurham@umbc.edu) or Susan Biro (sbiro@umbc.edu) for more information on OER at UMBC.

VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to navigate slides and leave comments in several ways – text, voice, audio file, or webcam. VoiceThread is available to any instructor who would like to incorporate this engagement tool into their digital toolkit for academic continuity. With VoiceThread, faculty and students can:

• Demonstrate procedures to help students prepare for a practical exam

• Explain decisions when selecting subjects for a painting’s composition

• Foster greater community in large, lecture-based classes 

• Debate the pros and cons of a controversial issue

• Practice foreign language skills during role-play

• Critique a classmate’s composition

To learn more about Voicethread and to expand your use of Voicethread in your teaching, please consider attending these webinars:

Using VoiceThread in Blackboard

Feb. 9, 2021  at 1:00pm ET - Register here

In this hands-on workshop, you will learn how to create VoiceThreads and then add them to your Blackboard course as lessons or assessments.

New Assignment Features Workshop

Feb. 16 at 7:00pm ET - Register here

In this workshop, you will learn how to turn new assignments on for your courses and begin using them with your students. We will review all of the workflows, new features, and options for your VoiceThread assessments.

New Assignment Features Workshop

March. 9, 2021  at 1:00pm ET - Register here

In this hands-on workshop, you will learn how to create VoiceThreads and then add them to your Blackboard course as lessons or assessments

As announced last semester, a redesigned VoiceThread (VT) assignment tool is now live. The new interface provides new features with streamlined workflows and enhanced options. Clear, dynamic checklist requirements, grading requirements, and submission status are all new features of the new VoiceThread assignment tool.

In addition to determining the playback and sharing settings for all VT assignments, instructors may now automatically have edit access to student-created VoiceThread submissions. A new Student Gallery option provides students with a central area to see all VoiceThreads for a single assignment, allowing them to view and comment on their peers’ submissions.

Faculty may set start dates and due dates for VT assignments, which hide activities before you are ready for students to see them. New grading features are also available including checking the status of student submissions as unattempted, in progress, or submitted. Automatic reminders to submit can be sent to students. Grading is done with the VoiceThread interface and will automatically synchronize with Blackboard’s gradebook. Grading is based on a percentage-based or pass/fail format. 

Faculty who would like to learn more about the new VoiceThread assignment may wish to review these tools:

• VoiceThread FAQs

• Review the new assignment features in this VoiceThread training recording

As always, if you have any questions about teaching, learning and technology at UMBC, please consider the following options:

• PIVOT | Academic Continuity | Keep On Teaching | Student Technology Resources 

• Check our extensive FAQ collection 

• What’s new in Ultra? | Known Issues 

• Open a ticket via RT

• Follow the Instructional Technology & DoIT myUMBC groups

• Request a consult with instructional technology staff