Evaluation: Digital mapping for Forest Management
Planning
Student feedback
This course was a significant departure
from the style of teaching that Oxford students are used to. There was
no formal teaching; instead, students learned by independent computer-based
study. Each week a new tutorial/practical was posted on the course website.
Hour long surgeries were held each week, with two demonstrators and the
course tutor available to give help and advice to those students with
problems. In addition, the website had a dedicated e-mail help facility
through which students could get advice.
Feedback was elicited via a questionnaire
(using both multiple choice and open questions) and a group discussion
during the last taught session.
Twenty students took part in the evaluation.
Results
1. Please give your overall evaluation
of the course.
2. Did you find the course interesting?
3. How difficult did you find the material?
4. How useful was the course in helping
you to understand GIS and digital mapping?
5. How much did you learn from this on-line
course in comparison with a conventional lecture course?
6. How easy did you find it to get help
when you got stuck?
7. How valuable will the skills you have
learned on this course be in your future career?
Although there was general enthusiasm for
a more interactive course there were aspects of this course that were
not popular. Students enjoyed the flexibility that an independent study
programme allowed them since they could choose when and where to study,
and could work at their own pace. However, many students commented that
the lack of a formal schedule meant that it required considerable self-motivation
to keep up to date with the work. A number of students suggested that
weekly surgeries should be turned into compulsory practical classes or
that there should be deadlines by which work had to be completed in order
to help them with their time management.
The course content was well received. Most
saw it as a highly relevant skill to have acquired. They felt that the
web-site was well designed and easy to follow. However, a majority of
students expressed the view that they would have preferred a combination
of lectures and computer-based study. They were unclear as to what constituted
the examinable curriculum and felt that lectures would have helped outline
what they were expected to know. The website has a large number of links
to related sites including more detailed information and case studies.
The students felt these were extremely valuable but were anxious as to
whether these constituted part of the course. A number of students found
it difficult to absorb information and ideas from the computer screen
and would have preferred printed documents. Many students admitted (and
the demonstrators observed) that they would go through the course material
just completing the tasks by following the instructions without following
links to additional material, reading linked references or acquiring any
theoretical understanding of what they were doing.
It seems that many Oxford forestry students
have an approach to learning in which they see lectures and classes as
an opportunity to accumulate lecture notes and hand-outs as a resource
which they anticipate memorising later for examinations. This course had
no lectures or hand-outs and this seems to have been a cause for considerable
anxiety.
Most students expressed irritation (and
in some cases outright anger) at the frequent software and hardware
problems. Four of the seven surgery sessions were interrupted by significant
computer problems. Typically these were very slow response times on
the network but the software (MapInfo v5.5) crashed frequently. This
is probably because it is not designed to be run as a terminal-server
application.
The students felt that the level of
support provided was good. There was considerable praise for the helpful
and knowledgeable demonstrators. In my opinion a module such as this,
requiring use of complex GIS functions could not be run without skilled
demonstrators. The availability of skilled demonstrators was essential
to the success of the surgery sessions. The e-mail help facility worked
less well as many students found it difficult to articulate their problems
in a way which would allow them to be diagnosed. Email was usually used
to arrange a face to face meeting to solve the problem. Students worked
together and provided each other with considerable support. Frequently
problems were solved by another student before we were able to help.
The course took considerably more time
to set up and run than a conventional lecture-based course. There were
many teething problems that should be ironed out in future iterations
of this course. However, even when the course is running smoothly I anticipate
that the hours spent in providing individual assistance and support will
more than take up the time saved by not delivering lectures.
Although many students were left unsettled
by having to take the initiative for their learning and felt that they
had learned less than from a conventional lecture course, we observed
a significant increase in skills and understanding in many of the students
who took part.
