To encourage, identify, and exchange effective practice in the use of data to inform teaching and learning, the Provost's Office has once again awarded learning analytics mini grants to three faculty for the 2022-23 academic year (the three faculty and their proposed topics are included below):

Tara Carpenter (Chemistry): "Modeling Effective Learning Strategies in Introductory Chemistry." This is a renewal of Carpenter's 21-22 mini grant, focused on students' understanding and use of "spaced practice" as an alternative to cramming for exams in her CHEM 102 "Principles of Chemistry II" course. Specifically, she is focused on how students can take their spaced practice "lessons learned" with them to CHEM 351 "Organic Chemistry," which requires CHEM 102. Carpenter presented her initial findings last spring, and has already offered a "spaced practice" workshop this fall for her Spring 22 CHEM 102 students currently enrolled in CHEM 351. She is also working with the FDC and DoIT to conduct a series of focus groups to better understand the challenges students face in setting up spaced practice on their own.

Karen Chen (Information Systems): "Bumpy Journey: Exploring Gateway Courses Failures and Major Switch - a Case Study with Information Systems Majors." This is a renewal of Chen's 21-22 mini grant focused on what is sometimes referred to "curricular analytics," particularly in CoEIT. She presented her initial findings at Indiana University's 2022 Learning Analytics Summit in May, but also leveraged this work to look at how she teaches data science by engaging students as creators, not just consumers, of learning analytics insights and interventions. Her presentation, "Analytics by Students for Students," was the first in UMBC's Fall 2022 data science and learning analytics series.

Cody Goolsby-Cole (Physics): "How Does Student Performance on Ungraded Practice Questions Correlate to Performance on Exams?"This is a new proposal emerging from Goolsby-Cole's participation in a grant to promote "Equity & Digital Education" by the Every Learner Everywhere Network. Building on a growing CNMS practice of using question banks and calculated question types for online exams in Blackboard, Goolsby-Cole also created practice questions that were ungraded, in terms of points contributing to a final grade, but including correct and incorrect answers displayed to students. During the first six units of his Spring 22 course, PHYS 122 "Introductory Physics II," he found students earning a 70% on the practice questions earned an average of 92% on the exam that followed. Students who did not use practice questions earned an average exam grade of 77%. He plans to build out and assess this practice environment further, including practice exams, to see if and how more students might use and benefit from it.

"On behalf of the Provost, we're pleased to continue offering these learning analytics mini grants to help faculty use institutional data that might inform their course designs and instruction to the benefit of our students," says Robert Carpenter, associate provost and deputy CIO. "We are excited by these interesting projects and look forward to what the faculty may find."

These one-year learning analytics awards are renewable pending receipt of a final report, paper submitted for publication or conference presentation. In addition to use of UMBC's Report Exchange (REX) data warehouse, and a Tableau "viewer" license, faculty recipients can consult with staff from Analytics and Business Intelligence, Instructional Technology and Institutional Research and Decision support (IRADS). 

For more information about this year's workshops, speakers and another learning analytics mini-grant call for proposals to be announced in Spring 23, please visit doit.umbc.edu/analytics/community. 

by John Fritz

According to the latest EDUCAUSE students and technology survey, the number of students who prefer some form of online learning increased more than three times between pre-pandemic and post-pandemic inquiries (Robert, 2022). Additional enrollment tracking of students taking at least some of their courses online also showed increased demand prior to the pandemic (Smalley, 2021; Hill, 2021).

Online learning continues to be a valuable modality at UMBC, supporting students to reach their degree goals through the Finish Line program (Rous, Mozie-Ross, Shin, & Fritz, 2021) or obtain progressional degrees and certifications through our existing catalog of well established programs. UMBC is a growing leader in online learning with its award-winning PIVOT and Quality Matters Impact programs.

Instructional Technology will host a series of Candid Conversations About Online Learning as we explore the theme of leadership across all aspects of distance learning during the 15th anniversary of National Distance Learning Week (NDLW) from November 7-11, 2022.

Our candid conversations will include:

• What does good course design look like? (Nov. 7)
• How do we engage disconnected students? (Nov. 8)
• How do we counter the myths of online learning? (Nov. 9)

Faculty and academic leaders will lead these discussions and the UMBC community is encouraged to join these candid conversations. Event information is posted to the Instructional Technology myUMBC group in October. Register now!

Share your thoughts!

We also invite you to participate in this year's NDLW conversations by contributing your reflection on lessons learned, candid conversation, or what's next in a VoiceThread. To share your reflection, please follow these easy steps:

1. Create your VoiceThread. Not sure how to use VoiceThread? Head over the VoiceThread FAQs!
2. Access the NDLW 2022 landing page in VoiceThread.
3. Click Add Your Own link in the upper right corner.
4. Select your VoiceThread to share.

Be sure to check out the other VoiceThreads throughout the week and add your own comment to the conversation.

Additional resources

Can't make these National Distance Learning Week sessions? Bookmark this post for updates about other virtual events!

• USDLA Schedule of Events (2 events per day all week)
• Blackboard Digital Teaching Symposium - Nov. 10, 2022

For the Fall 2022 semester, DoIT's Analytics & Instructional Technology groups will continue to offer student success and learning analytics-related workshops for the UMBC community. 

All workshops will start at noon, and be available via video conference (the virtual meeting URL be announced on each myUMBC event registration site the morning of the event). To register and view more information, check the links below:

"Learning Analytics By Students For Students?" (9/30, Noon). In this session, Dr. Karen Chen, assistant professor of Information Systems, will make the case for why and how students can and should play a more active role in the design and development of learning analytics to improve student success. 

"Using Analytics to Predict & Improve Sophomore Retention" (10/14, Noon). In this session, student success colleagues Robert Carpenter, Delana Gregg and Len Mancini, will share how UMBC has worked with HelioCampus to build very accurate models that predict second year retention at the beginning of their third semester. In addition to explaining how the models work, key inputs into them, and where to find the results, they will share how we have begun to act on them. 

"Tips & Tricks for Telling Your Story with Data" (11/10, Noon). In this session, Mike Sharkey, an analytics thought leader, teacher, consultant and long-time friend of UMBC, will share his lessons learned using data, narrative and visualizations (including Tableau) to raise awareness and inspire change. 

"Mapping Student Pathways Through the Curriculum" (12/2, Noon). As institutions continue to identify barriers to student success one area to explore is how we engage faculty and departments in using learning analytics to take a fresh look, along with a greater understanding, of student pathways toward graduation. In this talk, Dr. Martha Oakley, Assoc. Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and professor of chemistry at Indiana University Bloomington, will highlight recent developments by IU's Bloomington Assessment and Research (BAR) team to provide faculty and administrators with process maps that show how students actually navigate through curricula. 

To view prior data science and learning analytics meetings (and recordings), please visit doit.umbc.edu/analytics/community.

~ By John Fritz

At the end of Spring 2022, DoIT announced an intention to pilot Poll Everywhere as an alternative to clickers. After much anticipation, DoIT is pleased to announce the launch of our Poll Everywhere pilot, which now includes the ability for students, faculty and staff to login with their UMBC userid and password.

Poll Everywhere is an audience response system that can be utilized in face-to-face and online courses instead of traditional, physical clickers. There is no cost to faculty or students to use Poll Everywhere during the pilot. 

Without the barrier of purchasing a clicker or a supplemental software license, DoIT hopes to grow and better support active learning strategies through the implementation of classroom response systems. Students participate in polls by using any device including smartphones, tablets, or laptops.

Faculty can utilize a number of question types including open-ended questions, clickable image questions, ranking, Q&A, surveys, and competitions in addition to standard multiple choice or true/false questions. Poll Everywhere questions can be launched from a browser or integrated in slide presentations such as Google Slides or Microsoft PowerPoint. Questions and results can be shared with other colleagues as well. Lastly, Poll Everywhere can be used during synchronous, online class meetings since no other hardware is needed. 

Poll Everywhere also offers a Blackboard integration. Instructors can assign participants points or grade questions for accuracy. Please note that instructors and students will need to access Poll Everywhere via UMBC Single Sign On (SSO). Instructors will need to submit an RT ticket to request UMBC presenter access.

Please join us for a 1-hour Poll Everywhere training and demonstration on Monday 10/3 from 12-1 for an introductory training session to learn how to:

• Navigate the presenter dashboard

• Create and present activities

• Collaborate with teams

• Generate reports 

• Integrate Poll Everywhere in slide presentations

DoIT has prepared a robust FAQ collection on Poll Everywhere including a getting started checklist for instructors. In addition, please follow our myUMBC group for upcoming training on Poll Everywhere. 

As always, if you have any questions about teaching, learning, and technology at UMBC, please consider the following options:

• PIVOT | Academic Continuity | Keep On Teaching | Student Technology Resources

• Check our extensive FAQ collection 

• What's new in Ultra? | Known Issues 

• Open a ticket via RT

• Follow the Instructional Technology & DoIT myUMBC groups

• Request a consult with instructional technology staff

As part of a continuing collaboration with the Division of Professional Studies (DPS) to advance digital learning at UMBC, DoIT is pleased to announce that Instructional Systems Specialist Collin Sullivan will be "on loan" to DPS as Coordinator of Digital Credentialing. 

Specifically, Collin will be be working with UMBC@USG, applied master's programs, Shriver Center, and other academic affairs units to coordinate three major efforts:

1. Create a comprehensive catalog of microcredentials aligned with national best-practices;
2. Coordinate our efforts related to building a large-scale micro-credentialing operation. On this effort, he will continue to collaborate with his DoIT colleagues advancing work we have already begun; and
3. Coordinate our efforts related to creating and deploying UMBC's comprehensive learner record (CLR).

"As Vice Provost for DPS Chris Steele and I discussed these opportunities we both felt it was essential that DPS take the lead in moving these programs forward," says VP of IT and CIO Jack Suess. "For me personally, I am very excited for Collin, and this collaboration with DPS that fully aligns with the larger vision we had when we started this effort. This represents an opportunity to take the work that the Instructional Technology team has done to get us to this point and expand our impact on campus."

Since joining DoIT as a student intern supporting faculty use of clickers in 2015, Collin has shown a remarkable ability to quickly and effectively explore, refine, support and scale a variety of innovative student assessment technologies. In addition to his growing digital credentials portfolio and research, Collin has led or supported DoIT's explorations and use of Akindi for "bubble sheet" test scoring and exam question banks in Blackboard, and our pilot of Poll Everywhere. He also created UMBC's first TechFest, and helped make a compelling case for why and how UMBC might consider establishing a campus testing center. All of this while graduating with two bachelor's degrees in 2019 (Information Systems and Economics) -- and serving as SGA president his senior year -- earning his master's in public policy in 2021, and starting his Ph.D. in Technology, Learning and Leadership at the University of Maryland College Park this Fall.

Please join us in congratulating Collin on his new role. We wish him the very best and thank him for all he's done for DoIT and UMBC -- so far! ;-)