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Academic dishonesty is a concern for any faculty whether they are teaching online or face to face. We've all heard the excuses such as "I didn't know that was cheating", "I didn't do it". It's frustrating to see students make this effort to cheat but is it more likely to happen in an online course because students are not physically present in class? According to recent research, students are less likely to cheat in an online course than in a face to face course. We are not talking about ensuring the identity of the student - that is a blog posting for another time - we are talking about handing in the same paper for two classes, plagiarism, cheating on tests and assignments.

Cheating happens for a variety of reasons such as a need to maintain GPA, poor time management skills, assignments are not clear, task loading. Although cheating is still cheating, there are some instances that lead to learning opportunities for both students and faculty. For example, some students simply do not know how to cite sources properly. This happens quite a bit with adult learners who have been out of school for several years. A solution would be to recognize the error and provide citation examples or simply send them to the writing center for help. Another instance of unintentional academic dishonesty is group work when it is not allowed. This can be fixed by providing clear expectations to the students as to what is acceptable and what is not.

Regardless of class delivery mode (online or face to face), assignments and assessments should be modified regularly to avoid "repurposing" assignments from previous semesters. Some ideas are to pull exam questions from a class discussion board, have students to individualized research and submit the paper in parts, randomize and time exams in Blackboard while pulling the questions from a larger pool of questions. Engaging students and providing clear expectations and instructions for assignments and behavior will help students meet our expectations. No matter the situation, we must set examples and follow our own rules. Let's teach them how to use the technology we have in a constructive, not destructive way.

On October 15th and 16th, the Teaching, Learning and Technology Center offered its first Online Teaching Boot Camp. This event focused on providing information and resources to faculty who are either interested in, currently developing, or teaching online courses. The sessions offered during Online Teaching Boot Camp were developed based on feedback from faculty during previous online course development projects.

For attending the entire day and a half workshop, Professor Reed Easton and Professor Susan O'Sullivan-Gavin from the Stillman School of Business were awarded a Certificate of Recognition for being our Online Teaching Innovators. When asked what he thought of Online Teaching Boot Camp, Professor Easton said

"I found the Online Teaching Boot Camp to be extremely informative and important to both my understanding of Blackboard Version 9 as well as the mechanics that make up a quality online course. I created the first online courses to be offered at the School of Business and have been involved in online education since 2002. I would strongly suggest that all faculty interested in continual improvement take advantage of this opportunity."

The TLT Center crogratulates Professor Reed Easton and Professor Susan O'Sullivan for their accomplishments and dedication to developing and teaching quality online courses and thanks all of the attendees for their participation and making the first Online Teaching Boot Camp a success!

A recent analysis from The United States Department of Education on online learning shed light on some very interesting elements in online teaching and learning. First, teachers always have and will remain a critical element in the success of student learning whether classes are online, hybrid or face to face. Second, the findings released this July, "found that, on average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction." To find out more of what was in the report, it is available on the MVU Web site .

Coutesey of MVUAbout MVU
MVU is a private, nonprofit Michigan corporation established in 1998 by the State of Michigan to serve as a champion for online learning. It is the parent organization of the Michigan Virtual School(TM) and Michigan LearnPort(R), an online learning portal that delivers professional development opportunities and more to the Michigan education community.)

As we build more and more online courses, a common tool to facilitate dialogue between faculty/student and student/student is the Discussion Forum. The important thing to remember when developing any online course is that the method of achieving a goal will be different from what faculty are used to but it is by no means any less effective. As long as students are able to achieve the stated goals and objectives of the course, it doesn't matter how they get there. Below are three essential items to consider when developing a discussion forum for an online course.

Discussion forums are great sources of interaction for select groups or full class discussions. They can be used for debates, peer review of documents, collaboration, and general discussions based on course readings or current events. First, for students to be engaged and the discussion to flourish, the discussion question should stimulate thought rather than the regurgitation of content. For example,

As we all settle in with using the new Pirate Net portal, you might not have noticed a very useful technology resource available to the entire SHU community called Element K.

Element K is a free, computer based training solution that anyone at Seton Hall can access and use to improve their tech skills in a particular software package or maybe learn something entirely new. The great part about Element K courses is that you take them at you own pace and at your own convenience. Since the resource is internet based, it's available whenever you have time.

The login module is located on the Offices & Services tab of the Pirate Net portal. Just click the link and you have access to 120 different self-paced courses and there all not just on technology.

Of course, the Microsoft Office 2003 and 2007 courses are offered, but there are also some business "soft-skills" courses and some higher end technical courses as well. It's a great resource to have at your fingertips.

The Computer Training Center regularly offers classes on university-supported software, but sometimes you may not be able to fit a class into your busy schedule. If that's the case, Element K is an excellent substitute for instructor-led training. Try it out today and contact me, otskeybi@shu.edu, with any problems or for more information.

Each year, the College of Arts and Sciences and the TLT Center hold a meeting with faculty teaching online as part of the large course redesign project. The goal of the meeting is to share best practices and to hear from the subject matter experts themselves regarding their online course development and teaching experiences. Through this roundtable, the TLT Center finds ways to support faculty needs and requests such as a sample course that met Quality Matters standards.

To support online course initiatives of other schools at SHU, we invited representatives from departments within the Stillman School of Business, College of Education and Human Services as well as SetonWorldWide, Seton Hall's online degree program, who have inquired as to developing online courses based on the Arts and Sciences model. The event held on November 25, 2008 and was attended by over a dozen faculty and several deans. Discussions on quality assurance and the evaluation of online initiatives were had during the meeting. If you are interested in becoming part of the online teaching roundtable, please email Renee M. Cicchino.

Whether you teach an online, hybrid or face to face course, developing engaging activities can be a difficult task. What information does the student need to successfully complete the activity or assignment? Illinois Online Network, part of the University of Illinois, developed an extensive index of online teaching activities ranging from art projects to wikis. Each activity offers goals, objectives, examples, strategies and suggestions for assessment allowing faculty to customize the activity to suit their course while providing necessary information to students for completing the activity. This is a great resource for all faculty and will help get your creative juices flowing! If you see an activity you feel would be perfect for your class, contact your Instructional Designer to answer any questions you have about implementing such an activity. To access the information, click here, Select "Educational Resources", then "Online Education Activities"

Learning the new technologies has not always been an easy task to accomplish with the constant changes and the newest editions to the hardware/software collection. However, Sony has made it possible to adapt to what's out there at your own pace. The Backstage 101 service was developed by Sony in an attempt to help users understand and utilize the emmerging technologies such as MS Office 2007, digital photography and videography techniques, amongst other. The best thing about the service is that it is free and only requires a registration account to be setup. This will be the best opportunity to take advantage of such a comprehensive service because it will broaden abilities and inspire creativity. Please click on the link for more details -> Backstage 101

Connectivism and Connective Knowledge - CCK08 explores distributed learning in today's networked world, offering us perhaps the best glimpse of how knowledge sharing and building can be leveraged for teaching and learning in the years to come using learning networks. This course, facilitated by Stephen Downes and George Siemens, is offered for credit out of the University of Manitoba and also available as open-source (non-credit). Combined, the current enrollment is 2200 students of all ages, occupations and nationalities.

Impossible you say? As a "part-time" student in this class, I have found the structure, delivery, contents and assignments absolutely fascinating from an instructional designer, educator and student perspective. Using web 2.0 software for course delivery (blogs, RSS feeds, wikis, podcasts, web-conferencing) the course offers one new ways of viewing the acquisition of knowledge as well as providing an example of the power of these technology tools, especially in an online environment. Of course it is impossible for 2200 online students to have one massive online discussion however what is interesting is that the students have formed their own small groups, independently around the technologies they are the most comfortable with or have special interest such as FLICKR, Second Life, Facebook, and LinkedIn. The different perspectives, experiences and artifacts people have shared and added has extended the original content of the course, providing a true working model of what successful knowledge building could look like in an academic course.

To find out more about the course: view this video by Stephen Downes, listen to the Mid-Course Review by George Siemens and explore the links above.

We all have them. We include them in our syllabi. They are course objectives: a simple statement of what students are expected to know, master, learn. As part of the Quality Matters rubric, course level and unit(module) level objectives are required and are a best practice for online teaching and learning. Most would agree that objectives are an essential part of a solid course and aids in the evaluation of student progress. However, a survey done by Quality Matters showed 27% of the courses do not pass the QM review because they lacked unit(module) level objectives or the objectives were not measurable.

S.M.A.R.T. Objectives
SMART objectives are Specific; Measurable, Achievable; Relevant, Timely. There are other terms which can be substituted for SMART but these align nicely with the Quality Matters standards.

While developing your online course objectives keep these questions in mind:

• Are the objectives focused and well-defined?


• Can the objective be met with the students current skill set and information provided in the course?


• Can the objective be used to motivate learning?


• Do the objectives align with the course level objective and match the course content? Can they be met in a timely manner?


• How are the objectives going to be measured?


• How will the students know if they've me the stated objectives?


• Are the deadlines for meeting the objectives clear?

Remember that an objective has three major parts:
At the end of this module you will be able to: (action verb) + (one focused result) + (set date)

A list of action verbs as well as examples based on Bloom's Taxonomy can be found at this great site!

The College of Arts and Sciences together with the TLT Center launched two additional online courses this Fall: Communication Ethics (taught by Dr. Don McKenna from the Department of Communication) and American History I (taught by Dr. Brigitte Koenig from the Department of History).

When asked about his experience developing COMM 2134 - Communication Ethics, Dr. McKenna,

Cheating on exams, activities and plagiarized papers are always a concern for those teaching online courses. Is there anything we can do to prevent or reduce the temptation of cheating? The good news is yes; there are things we can do to build an environment in which students are less likely to cheat. The bad news is it takes a little more work on our part and it's not 100% fail proof. Studies have shown there are many reasons why students cheat, ranging from trying to maintain their scholarship, task overload and external factors (family, work, life pressures, time management). How can we foster academic honesty in our classes? While there are several models for plagiarism prevention, they all have three things in common. It is important to note that these items are also best practices when building an online course.

On February 14, 2008 the TLT Center and the Dean's Office for the College of Arts and Sciences launched a call for proposals for the 2008-2009 Arts and Sciences Online Course Development grants. The goal of this initiative has been to offer online undergraduate and graduate courses to create more flexible course options for traditional and non-traditional students. Faculty who are awarded these grants use Blackboard and a template based on the Quality Matters rubric to develop and implement their course.

Now in its fifth year, the program has been very successful and has received positive feedback by both students and faculty. The Dean's Office of the College of Arts and Sciences and the Teaching, Learning, and Technology Center is pleased to announce this year's grant recipients.

The Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C) created by funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, is a consortium of institutions and organization which are committed to quality online education. Sloan-C promotes best practices, collaborative knowledge sharing, and strives to improve the quality of online teaching and learning. In addition to their well attended annual international conferences, Sloan-C offers a wide variety of journals, resources including an Effective Practices Database, and workshops.

Faculty at Seton Hall University have been actively exploring distance education as an option for many of the courses offered through the School of Arts and Sciences. Renee Cicchino, Senior Instructional Designer, has been supporting their efforts and leading the Instructional Design team in developing online offerings using the standards set by Quality Matters. Renee's extensive training on how to incorporate the Quality Matters rubric has enabled her to develop a template for all Arts and Sciences online offerings that ensures key components of the course are present.

Does Quality Matter?
Quality is something we look for in whatever we purchase whether it is food, clothing, or anything else we want and have in our lives. Quality is not limited to these items alone; it is also an important factor when registering for a course or finding a college. Since online education is changing the way people take courses and earn degrees, are there quality control devices for online education? The answer is yes!