WebCT is a tool that facilitates the creation of sophisticated web-based educational environments in three ways. WebCT provides a set of tools to facilitate learning, communication and collaboration. WebCT provides a set of administrative tools to assist the instructor in the process of management and continuous improvement of his course. WebCT allows the instructor to control course design elements such as color schemes and page layouts.
WebCT was selected in May 1998 by the College of Engineering and Science at Clemson University to provide Web-based instructional support for its Pilot Laptop Program and other interested faculty. There were about 3000 WebCT student accounts at Clemson at the beginning of the 1998 fall semester, 5000 accounts at the beginning of the 1999 spring semester, 8000 student accounts at the beginning of the 1999 fall semester, and about 12,000 student accounts at the beginning of the 2000 spring semester.
Today WebCT, Inc. is focused on higher education with the continued development of WebCT and the e-Learning hub, WebCT.com. As of June 2000, 1433 institutions of higher education in 55 countries were licensed to use WebCT representing over 6 million student accounts.
The WebCT environment is client-server. WebCT is an Apache web server application which runs under the most popular variants of Unix, under Linux, and under Windows NT/2000. Unix, Windows, or Macintosh clients can access WebCT via the supported browsers, Netscape and Internet Explorer. Anyone can download the WebCT server software. A license does not have to be purchased until students accounts are created.
The traditional view of teaching and learning is instructor-centered; an instructor is pictured as dumping information into the head of a passive student. Current research in pedagogy suggests that student-centered teaching and learning is more effective.
In student-centered teaching and learning, the student is given a set of instructional objectives and accepts personal responsibility for meeting those objectives. Besides the instructor, the student has many resources available, including fellow students and web-based materials. Whether taught in a face-to-face, distance, or hybrid mode, student-centered teaching and learning is typically highly interactive and involves a good deal of student-student and student-instructor communication.
Now why use WebCT? My answer would be to deliver a more effective course through enhanced communication, assessment, and progress tracking. The communication tools of WebCT are the core. The tracking tool shows the instructor what materials the student has looked at and how often. With the quiz tool, the instructor can assess student progress outside the confines of a classroom.
The e-Learning hub, WebCT.com, is a higher education web site that offers teaching and learning resources within discipline-specific communities across course and institutional boundaries. Each community has a library, a newsletter, and discussion forums. For faculty, WebCT.com is a place to communicate with colleagues and share teaching ideas and resources. For students, WebCT.com is an academic resource, where students can get help studying, access research materials, take practice tests and quizzes, and conduct experiments. WebCT.com is a place where students and faculty from around the world can exchange information and ideas. Each WebCT.com community provides a recommended reading list and selections can be purchased through WebCT.com's e-commerce partners. In addition, faculty and students can find WebCourselets from 18 major college publishers.
The e-Learning hub also offers four communities that are not tied to disciplines: Online Teaching + Learning, Student Resource Center, WebCT Support, and WebCT Your Way. The Online Teaching + Learning community gives distance learning educators a place to exchange information on best practices in this emerging field. WebCT Your Way is an online community for everyone at any level of expertise who works with WebCT. This community serves as a place where members share ideas and resources regarding WebCT as a course delivery and management platform. WebCT Your Way is the prime resource and communication channel for developers, content providers, trainers, and users of WebCT.
WebCT offers a range of educational services to help users learn WebCT in ways that make sense for them. These services include certification programs, face-to-face workshops, and course support consultation. WebCT offers two certification programs, Trainer and Course Developer. A certified trainer is able to teach basic WebCT skills, answer a range of questions about WebCT, and assist in WebCT implementation. A certified developer is able to use appropriate WebCT tools to achieve desired instructional objectives. Through its Institute Program, WebCT partners with universities to provide campus-based, regional training, consulting, and certification to others. The University of Georgia is the institute closest to South Carolina.
Server Hardware and Support Staff Profile
WebCT runs on several variants of Unix, on Linux, and on Windows NT/2000. It can be run on Linux or Windows NT/2000 desktop computers for off-line course development and on Linux or Windows NT/2000 laptop computers for off-line course development or off-line demonstrations. Departmental or enterprise level servers can handle entire colleges and universities. A midrange Linux or Windows NT/2000 server with a capacity for up to 15,000 student accounts can be purchased in the price range of $15,000 to $18,000 (see Midrange WebCT Server Recommendations) with dual Xeon processors, redundant power supplies, and RAID 1 + 0 storage. An unlimited student account license for WebCT is $3000 per year.
The number of staff required to support WebCT typically depends on the number of faculty being supported since training is by far the most labor intensive support task. A support staff profile might include the following:
WebCT's biggest asset is its community of users. If you need help with any aspect of WebCT, chances are there is a school close by that is more than willing to help. Besides offering a special day of training for 12 of our laptop faculty in June 1998, the University of Georgia provided recommendations on a server and server OS. At Clemson we open our training sessions to anyone. The next one is an "Introduction to WebCT 3.0," today, June 28, 2000, at 1:00 in Martin Hall 102.
Getting Started with WebCT 3.0
The WebCT 3.0 beta release notes describe the new user interface, the new tools and features, the new terminology, existing tool and feature improvements, improvements to support, new administrative functions, and bug fixes. WebCT 3.0 will be officially released on July 9, 2000. Anyone can download and install WebCT 3.0 beta build 18 today from the beta test site. Anyone can download the 3.0 Beta kit of documentation which includes an administration manual, a getting started tutorial, a student tour, and online help.
In WebCT instructors are referred to as course designers. Typically a new designer will attend an introduction to WebCT workshop lasting one to two hours and then request his first WebCT course. This course will not be accessible by anyone else until the designer decides it is ready for prime time. Designers with little previous experience with web-based tools will likely want to get started by using the course builder, which is a new feature in WebCT 3.0. A blank course should be requested with the course builder feature turned on. In a single session, the course builder guides the designer through the creation of a basic course that includes a syllabus and a content module. Although the designer must finish creating the course in one session, modifications can be made at a later time.
The getting started tutorial is based on the concept of a course design scenario. Each course design scenario is presented in a stand-alone tutorial module, which contains pedagogical goals, a description of the WebCT tools used to accomplish these goals, and a set of activities that use these tools. Five scenarios are presented: basic, communication rich, evaluation, content resources, and online gradebook. A new designer should choose the scenario that best meets his educational goals, or choose more than one.
For designers who would like to experiment with a ready-made course, three course templates are provided: basic, intermediate, and advanced. The designer should request the template when he requests a new course. Many schools create their own templates to satisfy local needs.
This section contains a description of 15 screenshots from one of my WebCT courses.
my WebCT: Each WebCT user, whether faculty, student, or TA enters WebCT through a personal WebCT page called my WebCT This page contains links to all the user's courses and will notify the user when there is new information available such as grades, quizzes, mail, or discussion messages.
Home: The course home page is divided into four frames. The top right frame contains four lines. The menu line provides a link to the user's my WebCT page, a Course Map, and Help. The Resume Course link is for student use only. The View, Designer Options line allows the designer to view a page as a student would see it and to edit the page contents. The course description line shows the title of the course as it appears in the WebCT listing of all courses. The breadcrumbs line shows the user where he has been. The bottom right content frame is divided into three regions: header, icon, and footer. A designer can place announcements or banners in the header. A counter can be placed in the footer. The bottom left frame contains the navigation bar. Here a designer will see a control panel and a course menu. Students only see the course menu. The top left frame contains the toggle Hide/Show Navigation.
The designer has a great deal of flexibility in setting up the layout of his course pages. The view above uses both a navigation bar and content frame icons. The designer or student can hide the navigation bar when the content frame needs more horizontal space. The designer can permanently hide the navigation bar and use icons only. The designer can use the navigation bar only and not use any icons.
Designer Options: The designer options allow editing of the content frame: select an item, select an action, hit GO. This course uses the header of the home page content frame for daily announcements.
View Designer Map: This control panel item shows the designer the set of top level tools, utilities, and designer options in his course.
Add Page or Tool: This control panel item shows the complete list of WebCT tools. Here a designer can add a link on the navigation bar, an icon in a content frame, or both.
Manager Files: This control panel item shows the directory structure of the designers course files. File actions include edit, create, upload, download, move, rename, delete, zip among others. Directory actions are also provided.
Manage Course: This control panel item lists management actions including manage students, manage presentation groups, manage teaching assistants, backup course, reset course, and share access.
Change Settings: Using this control panel item, the designer can control default language settings, update the course menu on the navigation bar, update the course welcome page, and customize course appearance.
Content Assistant: This control panel item allows the designer to easily set up links to external web resources.
Getting Started: This content module tells the students how to successfully complete this course.
Schedule: This table shows for each class the preparation that needs to be done before class and what will be covered in class. The calendar tool can also be used for this purpose. The calendar tool can also be used as an online signup sheet for inclass presentations.
Communication: Four communication tools appear here. Threaded discussion can be effective, especially if specific assignment are made. For example, students might be asked to read one article from a list, analyze it in a discussion topic, and then respond to another student's submission.
Student Profile: Student are asked to write a short biography on their homepage including their major, where they are from, what they like to do, and their score on an online learning styles inventory. This information is useful to the designer when class teams are created and makes it easier for students to get to know one another.
Assessment: The dropbox can be used for individual assignments and the presentation area for group assignments. Online quizzes are heavily used at Clemson.
Content: This page contains a syllabus that was written externally and uploaded. The new syllabus tool walks a designer through the process of constructing a syllabus. The designer has a choice of using the WebCT generated syllabus or an externally created syllabus. WebCT is an Apache web server application and so can deliver any type of web content. From this page a student can access Maple programs and outlines and objectives in PDF format.
Acknowledgments
This study was sponsored by the Southeastern University and College Coalition for Engineering Education (SUCCEED) and the Pilot Laptop Program, College of Engineering and Science, Clemson University.
1 William F. Moss, Department of Mathematical Sciences, College of Engineering and Science, Clemson University.