How One School Succeeded in
Getting Faculty Buy-In for their Electronic Course Management System
Kelly Noll, Robert
Engeszer, Mary Niedringhaus, Heather Hageman, Amy Meyer and Alison Whelan,
Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
ABSTRACT:
Objective: Many schools have struggled with placing course materials on-line. Faculty buy-in is critical but significant barriers exist including limited faculty time for entering material and a substantial learning curve regarding technology use. In order to overcome these barriers, Washington University School of Medicine developed a support team comprised of leaders from the offices of curriculum and instructional technologies.
Methods: The first- and second-year course masters meet with members of the support team prior to the start of their courses to discuss individual course needs, available resources, services and technological innovations, and provide one-on-one instruction.
The support team also provides a central resource for converting 35 mm slides into PowerPoint, transferring and formatting Word documents to the data base, producing a hard-copy syllabus, and provides one-on-one training and help-desk services to course masters and their support staff on using and managing the data base.
Results: 100% of first- and second-year course masters and students are now utilizing electronic curriculum resources in some way. 90% of first- and second-year course masters use the electronic course management system to store all or the majority of their course materials for review by students, coursemasters and other lecturers. A custom-designed search engine allows for a sophisticated analysis of what content is covered where within the required curriculum.
Conclusion: The success of the on-line course management system was due in large part to the support offered to coursemasters. These services have increased faculty technical knowledge/independence and demonstrated practical benefits of incorporating technology into traditional teaching methods. With large volumes of course information now available on-line, the school is better equipped to focus on vertical and horizontal integration and course masters on high-level course planning, course improvements, and additional recruitment and training of instructors.
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Kelly Noll Washington University School of Medicine 660 S. Euclid Box 8214 St. Louis, MO 63110 Phone: 314/362-3404 Fax: 314/362-3439 |
CO-AUTHORS: Robert Engeszer, Application Development Manager, mailto:engeszeb@msnotes.wustl.edu, 362-4735 Mary Niedringhaus, Lotus Notes Support Specialist, mailto:niedrinm@msnotes.wustl.edu, 362-2747 Heather Hageman, Project Manager, mailto:hagemanh@msnotes.wustl.edu, 314/362-5433 Amy Meyer, Finance Manager, mailto:meyera@msnotes.wustl.edu, 314/362-6842 Alison Whelan, MD, Associate Dean for Medical Student Education, mailto:whelana@msnotes.wustl.edu, 314/362-7800 |