Learning management
Walk into any university lecture on the first day of class, and there’s a reasonable chance you’ll face an instructor bearing a serious grudge against ELMS.
Whether due to a general aversion to paperless grading, a somewhat legitimate fear of cloud-compatible technology or simply a refusal to keep up with the times, a number of professors and lecturers just don’t seem to use — or even want — this university’s Enterprise Learning Management System.
That reluctance isn’t indefensible.The university switched from powering ELMS via Blackboard to Canvas in spring 2013, prompting a good deal of confusion as instructors attempted to integrate the new tools into their teaching plans.
At the time, this editorial board documented faculty members’ struggles to perform even the most basic tasks — messaging students and making files available. For some, those struggles haven’t abated, even two years later.
For all the Department of Information Technology’s efforts — chief among them providing student apprentices well-versed in IT support — it’s clear many instructors haven’t grasped the ins and outs of ELMS, and some have rejected it altogether.
Some post course materials to alternate websites; at least one English professor hosts a course page on Facebook. Sure, online access to syllabi and files is convenient, but eschewing the centralized system all students are required to use muddies online waters with a glut of third-party Web pages.
DIT painstakingly researched and tested the ELMS system currently in place, receiving feedback from a pilot group of 24 courses and nearly 1,000 students to pioneer technology that, frankly, isn’t half as difficult to operate as its detractors suggest.
Students benefit from centralized access to their coursework and grades. With one login, any student should be able to view his or her syllabi, download handouts and view grades.
Yet a bill under review by the University Senate suggests that often isn’t the case, and even the university’s academic governing body seems to underestimate ELMS’ importance to students.
Originally proposed to standardize and enforce mid-semester and early-warning grade reporting procedures, the legislation submitted by senior economics major Mythili Mandadi also points toward a larger disconnect between faculty and ELMS.
Mandadi and other students voiced concern about courses in which professors rarely or never updated grades online, saying the practice made self-assessment of effort and proficiency in those courses difficult.
ELMS’ grading features, such as class-average data for each assignment, ease those uncertainties and provide feedback for students.
If instructors aren’t taking advantage of ELMS to post grades as assignments and exams pile up, they’re hurting students and limiting their own technological proficiency.
Most concerning, however, is the reaction of the committee charged with reviewing Mandadi’s proposal.
Charles Delwiche, the Academic Procedures & Standards Committee chairman, told The Diamondback that requiring instructors to post mid-semester grades to ELMS was “probably not practical for several reasons.”
Though Delwiche suggested posting the grades to Testudo instead, so academic advisers could access the information, such a modification to Mandadi’s proposal would weaken the legislation, no longer forcing faculty to use ELMS.
This editorial board urges the senate to reconsider its stance on the proposal and again calls on the university to provide instructors with the resources they need to learn how to operate ELMS. Gentle — though persistent — prodding could go a long way toward helping faculty come to terms with technology that benefits their students.
