Abstract Students are more accustomed to accessing information online than ever before. In recognition of this, some instructors have begun to develop online supports for their classes. These online supports provide review materials, practice items, assignments enrichment resources. A challenge for many instructors is how to convert or create materials for this online delivery mode. Instructors often do not have time to develop efficient methods for creating materials for this new delivery system. This cohort will undertake the systematic exploration of how to translate various types of materials to online formats as well as how to facilitate document sharing between an instructor and those who might be able to effect the translation. The result will be tutorials that others will be able to use to do their own efficient translation and creation of online course supports. Purpose/Vision/Need Students are more accustomed to accessing information online than ever before. According to a survey reported in the Guardian (February 25, 2002 online edition, more than 60% of students reported that, “…they would use information from the Internet instead of buying books.” Some instructors have recognized this and have begun to create online supports for their classes. These online supports have been crafted to provide materials that students need to review prior to class sessions, materials that provide practice items, access to assignments and materials that enrich the information offered in the class. These online supports have the ability to extend learning beyond the scheduled class period, provide patient repetition of key concepts, help students prepare for examinations and be an always-present access point for course information. The University of Kansas provides course management software, BlackBoard for helping organize these online materials and to be the contact point for the materials. A challenge for many instructors is how to convert or create materials for placement in this online delivery system. Too often, in the press of the academic schedule, instructors have not had time to carefully develop efficient methods to translate materials from offline formats to those that can best be used online. This cohort will undertake the systematic exploration of how to translate various types of materials to online formats. These methods will be carefully documented in a way that creates directions for others to follow. In addition this cohort will create a simple system that will allow an instructor to share documents that need to be translated with students who will do the translation. The system will then allow the students to make the documents available to the instructor who will be able to place them into the course management system. This process will also be documented so that it can be replicated if so desired. By developing step-by-step instructions for the translation of common types of materials, this cohort will create resources that will be useful to anyone wishing to create online course supports in the most efficient manner possible. Members Dr. Nona Tollefson, PRE. Dr. Tollefson is the lead faculty in this cohort. She will identify and provide a range of materials for translation into appropriate materials for online delivery. She will use these materials in her online course supports that will provide valuable beta testing of the materials and by extension the procedures for translating those materials. Dr. Bruce Frey, T&L. This member of the cohort will provide subject matter expertise and provide an independent check of the step-by-step instructions that are created. This check will help us verify that the procedures that are developed by the cohort are replicable by other faculty. Practicing teacher (not yet identified). This member of the cohort will provide insight into the types of online materials that students might appreciate. This teacher will also recruit a student who will provide similar information to the cohort. Andrea Banks, LearnGen staff. This member of the cohort will work to identify the types of online materials that students expect or prefer. This person will work to create procedures for translating materials and will also develop methods for communicating these procedures to others. Scope of Work This cohort will have periodic meetings to discuss the process and progress of the cohort; in addition the cohort will sponsor two wider interaction opportunities. The first will occur near the beginning of the cohort’s formation and will bring together the cohort and other interested people to discuss the role of online course supports in their classes. The second will be near the end of the cohorts work and will be an opportunity for the cohort to present its findings and share the procedures it develops. In addition, the two SOE students will work directly with members of the Technology Implementation Group (TIG) on a weekly basis to develop the procedures and do material translation. Deliverables This cohort plans to produce these resources: White paper expressing the sense of the cohort about the nature of online course supports. Specific procedures for translating a variety of materials into a format appropriate for online delivery. General procedures for making it possible to move documents back and forth between the originator and those who will translate it and back again. Timeline March 26, 2002 start date and initial meeting March 29, 2002 open meeting to discuss online supports April 3, 2002, white paper May 7, 2002, final sharing meeting Resources This cohort will make use of software that is available through the school of education, shareware, or that is already available through Learning Generation. The two students involved with this cohort will make use of the Learning Generation supplied laptop computers to do their work. Institutionalization/Extension This cohort will produce materials that will help create a model for online supports. The procedures for translating materials will be useful to anyone who wishes to learn how to translate documents and other resources into formats appropriate for online delivery. In addition, the cohort will create and pilot test a method for the sharing of documents between the originator and those who translate them. This system could be adopted by others in the school of education to facilitate the production of online materials to assist other faculty in the creation of online course supports. Evaluation The procedures that are created by this cohort will be evaluated by the same criteria that have been created to evaluate ‘family’ resources. The cohort will document its meetings and its work in a journal that will be kept online in the cohort’s web space. This will provide a means for the formative evaluation of the work done by the cohort, especially relating to the process of the cohort.

Learning Generation, University of Kansas, 2005.