ACUTA Journal of Telecommunications in Higher Education

In This Issue Web Technologies @RlT lntegrating the Arts and Sciences with lT at GMU Collaboration ls the Key to Success A Panel Looks at the lmpact of the Web on the Classroom 21st-Century Classrooms Using the Web as a Safety Net Caught in the Web: How Schools Capture Alumni UConn Wins Control of Campus Infrastructure President\u27s Message From the Executive Director Interview Bill D. Morris Awar

Towards the establishment and implementation of an institutional repository at the University of Cape Town (UCT): a case study

Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references.The concepts of open access and scholarly publishing are still gaining momentum in Africa, especially South Africa. Increasingly, institutional repositories are being planned and developed by universities throughout the world especially in the first world countries, which have taken the lead. Institutional repositories have developed because of changes in scholarly communication where journal prices are high and libraries are finding it difficult to subscribe to them. Communication technology in the form of the internet brought a solution to the problem. Researchers, authors and libraries now advocate for the open access model of scholarly communication. This study explores the developments associated with the establishment and implementation of an Institutional Repository at UCT

A study of the nature of instruction and community in a virtual high school

The two-fold purposes of this study were: to determine the nature of instruction required in the virtual school context and student responses to that instruction; and, to determine the nature and parameters of community that develop in the virtual school context. A case study in one Western-Canadian virtual high school was conducted in two phases. Phase I focussed on the perceptions of faculty and included interviews with four administrators, seven teacher/ developers, and four developers. Phase II focussed on the perceptions of students and included an on-line survey and four focus group interviews. Phase I data were analysed using content analysis procedures. Phase II textual data were analysed using content analysis while the descriptive statistics from the survey data were obtained using SPSS. The conceptual framework for analysis was derived from Mitchell and Sackney's (2001) model of the learning community in which they suggested that a learning community must build capacity in three arenas: interpersonal, personal, and organisational. This study found that, due to factors including a lack of course development time, a paucity of technical and software support, and insufficient pedagogical training for the teacher/developers, this on-line high school looked very much like a traditional high school with the exception that its classes took place on the Internet. Instruction was typically teacher-led and context-driven. It consisted primarily of static text-based web-pages delivered to students via the Internet. Students indicated that they chose to enroll in this on-line school for several reasons including: the desire for a flexible schedule to ­facilitate work, athletics, or child care needs; the desire to take extra classes that were either not available at their home schools or were impossible to include in their timetables due to school scheduling inflexibility; or, the desire to try something new. A surprising finding was that many female students had enrolled in the on-line school courses because they had become frustrated with instruction in their regular school classes. They indicated that there were two particular sources of frustration: they did not approve of many of their fellow students' off-task behaviours and teachers' responses to that behaviour and they felt that there were too many cooperative learning activities and group projects in their regular courses and that they wished to be able to work alone more often. However, it was also found that there was a very high drop out rate and a high level of student disengagement within this virtual school. It was also found that the existence of a virtual school had exerted considerable pressure on the other schools and teachers in the school division to make changes. Students had begun to demand a more interactive and flexible learning environment in their regular classes and the school division's faculty associations had begun to focus on the use of technology in face-to-face classroom settings in their professional development activities. In addition, the existence of particular virtual school classes had become a point of contention within the school division as teachers of the regular face-to-face versions of the courses objected to the existence of on-line versions of their courses. This study surfaced key implications for theory such as: in the initial stages, an on-line course will look much like a typical face-to-face course unless adequate course ­development time and sufficient pedagogical and technological training for teachers are provided, the traditional bureaucratic management style does not fit well with a cyberschool project, and the cyberschool appears to have a positive impact on student learning. In addition, implications for practise included the need to address the high student drop out and disengagement rates as well as the students' desire for more structured community and course procedures. Implications for further research included the need to develop an effective screening process for prospective on-line students, a further examination of the administrative structures necessary for effective management of on-line schools, and a longitudinal study of virtual school operation to develop a set of correlates of virtual school effectiveness. A reconceptualisation of the theoretical framework was offered indicating that the metaphor of a learning community was an apt description of an on-line school but, the traditional models of learning communities did not go far enough. The learning community, for the on-line school context, needs to account for greater student input and must reframe the student-teacher relationship in terms of being co-learners. Finally, the potential future directions of on-line learning such as the proliferation of on-line learning objects and hybrid schools were explored

Towards sustaining professional development: identification of essential competencies and effective training techniques for chat reference services

This dissertation seeks to determine the essential chat reference competencies and the effective training techniques to deliver them. Two survey studies were conducted to examine chat reference practitioners’ perceptions of competencies and training techniques reported in the literature. As a result, prioritized lists of chat reference competencies and training techniques were produced, respectively. The examined competencies could be broken down into four categories: 1). Media-independent core reference competencies; 2). Reference competencies highlighted in the context of chat reference; 3). Reference competencies specific to chat reference; and 4). Reference competencies not as important in chat reference. In terms of training techniques that could deliver the essential competencies, the most effective ones are those enabling practice-based learning. Findings from the dissertation study can be used as the basis to design and implement training and education programs to professionally prepare chat reference librarians and eventually lead to better performance of the service and better fulfillment of users information needs

The iTour project: a study of the design and testing of effective online animated tours as a form of interactive online documentation

The iTour Project is an empirical study of the design of online interactive animated tours (iTours), and establishes a knowledge base for technical communicators and new media designers working in this area. The key objectives of this research were to understand the features of effective iTours; to explore the processes and techniques of designing and testing effective iTours; and to establish new praxis in new media design for technical communication. Design artefacts resulted from six key activities including: (1) Sub-project 1- RMIT Multimedia Online documentation with basic animation; (2) Sub-project 2- Online @ RMIT Orientation with some iTour animation; (3) Third-party iTour analytical review to deconstruct iTours and determine key elements; (4) Sub-project 3- Online @ RMIT iTours; (5) iTour Guidelines; and (6) A second, more comprehensive third-party iTour analysis to test the Guidelines. The outcome of the research is encapsulated in a web site that binds the artefacts of design sub-projects with a set of Guidelines. These Guidelines form a conceptual, structural and operational framework for iTour designers, and draw on the knowledge established while designing and testing iTours, analysing third-party iTours, and researching comparative fields. These fields include technical communication; new media; web; usability design and testing; and, to a lesser extent, software design and testing. The Guidelines, in conjunction with the knowledge base, were developed to facilitate effective communication through iTours. Through this research, the design action case study was established as a hybrid research approach: design research and action research are blended; and knowledge is situated within, and derived from, a case study. In support of design research, the PDIOR design cycles have been specified and include these phases: plan; develop; implement; observe; and reflect. The PDIOR approach combines design research and action research in a cyclical mode to explore technical communication and new media activities. Finally, eleven principles for designing effective iTours emerged from this research project. Articulation of these principles, in addition to the Guidelines, contributes new knowledge in the field for technical communicators, new media designers and others, who wish to engage in iTour design