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Open Educational Resources - DE Oracle
No full textDE Oracle @ UMUC
An Online Learning Magazine for UMUC Faculty
Center for Support of Instruction
Open Educational Resources
Joseph Rawson
24/7 Services Coordinator Librarian
Information and Library Services
Published: September-October 2008
Category: » Online-pedagogy » Emerging-technologies
Background Information
The past several years have seen an exponential increase in the creation and use of open educational
resources (OERs), which, according to an often-cited definition, are "teaching, learning, and research
resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license
that permits their free use or re-purposing by others" (Atkins, Brown, & Hammond, 2007, p. 4).
In other words, OERs are any type of educational material that are freely available for teachers and
students to use, adapt, share, and reuse. OERs include learning content such as videos, audio clips,
images, lecture notes, reading lists, course assignments, syllabi and lesson plans, textbooks, data,
instructional games, tests and quizzes, etc.
OERs started as a grassroots movement by educators worldwide. Funded by grants and private
donations (particularly from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, which has given more than
million in support of OERs), the OER movement has attempted to bring into the educational process
groups who have traditionally been shut out, including K-12 teachers, scientists and engineers working
in industry rather than in academia, and those who are not fluent in English. The OER movement's goal
is to make education available to everyone around the world (particularly those in the developing
world—who could not otherwise afford an education—as well as self-learners).
Since its inception as a grassroots movement, it has become an institutional movement as well, with
early pioneers such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology putting an increasing amount of
course material—including complete course lectures—online, to the point where, as of November 28,
2007, MIT's Open Course Ware site (http://ocw.mit.edu/) contained material for more than 1800 classes
in 33 academic disciplines. Other prestigious educational institutions—such as Harvard, Yale, Stanford,
Carnegie Mellon, and U.C. Berkeley—have begun to put at least some of their educational content
online as well. In most cases, OERs available online from institutions such as MIT do not confer
degrees, certificates, or course credit, but they do provide accessibility to educational material for those
who have interests in particular subjects and want to learn on their own.
The worldwide educational community met in September 2007 in Cape Town, South Africa, and
produced the Cape Town Open Education Declaration (http://www.capetowndeclaration.org/) , a document
advocating the continued development and sharing of OERs in support of worldwide education,
particularly in developing countries.
There are currently more than 300 institutions in over 30 countries that are creating or using OERs,
and OER material is available in more than 10 languages.
Finding OERs
Because of the rapid growth in the development of OERs, there are many online repositories that
contain OER material. The question for educators who want to use OERs is how to find them. There are
Open Educational Resources - DE Oracle
a variety of methods to do this, including:
searching through OER compilations such as:
OCW Consortium (http://www.ocwconsortium.org/)
Creative Commons search (http://search.creativecommons.org/)
subscribing to an education-related listserv such as:
[email protected] (mailto:[email protected])
browsing through OER journals like:
The International Journal of Open Educational Resources (http://journal.eduforge.org/)
conducting searches in UMUC library databases such as:
ERIC, Education Research Complete, Professional Development Collection, and/or Teacher Reference
Center (using search terms like "open education* resources")
conducting general Web searches using search engines such as Google Scholar
OER Collections
Some OER collections focus on particular subjects, while others are multidisciplinary.
Subject-specific OERs include:
Berkelee Shares (http://www.berkleeshares.com/) (music)
Chemistry Collective (http://www.chemcollective.org/)
HEAL (http://www.healcentral.org/) (Health Education Assets Library)
SERC (http://serc.carleton.edu/) (sciences)
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://plato.stanford.edu/)
Multidisciplinary OERs include:
Connexions (http://cnx.org/)
MERLOT (http://www.merlot.org/)
Open Learn (http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/) (http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/)
Open-of-Course (http://open-of-course.org/courses)
Most OER repositories allow users to create a free account and to search for and save OERs as well as
create new OERs and share them with others. This is a great way to organize OERs for future use.
Advantages and Disadvantages of OERs
As with any educational resource, there are both advantages and disadvantages associated with using
OERs in the classroom.
Advantages of using OERs include:
Expanded access to learning: Students anywhere in the world can access OERs at any time, and
students can access material repeatedly.
Scalability: OERs are easy to distribute widely with little or no cost.
Augmentation of class materials: OERs can supplement textbooks and lectures where deficiencies in
information are evident.
Enhancement to regular course content—for example, by adding multimedia to text: Presenting
information in multiple formats may help students to more easily learn the material being taught.
Quick circulation: Information may be disseminated rapidly (especially as compared to information
published in textbooks or journals), which can increase the relevance of the material presented.
Lower student costs: The use of OERs instead of traditional textbooks or course packs, etc. can
Open Educational Resources - DE Oracle
substantially reduce the cost of course materials for students.
Showcasing of innovation and talent: A wide audience may learn of faculty research interests and
expertise. Potential students and donors may be impressed, and student and faculty recruitment efforts
may be enhanced.
Ties for alumni: OERs provide an excellent way for alumni to stay connected to the institution and
continue with a program of lifelong learning.
Continually improved resources: Unlike textbooks and other static sources of information, OERs can
be improved quickly through direct editing by users or through solicitation and incorporation of user
feedback. Instructors can take an existing OER, adapt it for a class, and make the modified OER
available for others to use.
Disadvantages of OERs include:
Quality issues: Since many OER repositories allow any user to create an account and post material,
some resources may not be relevant and/or accurate.
Lack of human interaction between teachers and students: OER material is created to stand
alone, and since self-learning users may access the material outside of a classroom environment, they
will miss out on the discussion and instructor feedback that characterize for-credit classes and make
such classes useful and valuable.
Language and/or cultural barriers: Although efforts are being made to make OERs available in
multiple languages, many are available only in English, limiting their usefulness to non-English
speakers. Additionally, not all resources are culturally appropriate for all audiences.
Technological issues: Some students may have trouble using some OERs if they have a slow or
erratic Internet connection. Other OERs may require software that students do not have and that they
may not be able to afford.
Intellectual property/copyright concerns: Since OERs are meant to be shared openly, the "fair
use" exemption from the U.S. Copyright Act ceases to apply; all content put online must be checked to
ensure that it does not violate copyright law.
Sustainability issues: Since OER creators generally do not receive any type of payment for their OER,
there may be little incentive for them to update their OER or ensure that it will continue to be available
online.
Using OERs in UMUC Classes
There are a variety of resources available to help instructors who want to use OERs in their classrooms.
Because OERs may vary in quality, it is important for instructors to evaluate them carefully before
posting them in their classroom. Although there is not yet a standard checklist that has been developed
for this purpose, many of the criteria listed on the UMUC library's Web site for evaluating online
resources (http://www.umuc.edu/library/guides/web.shtml#Evaluate) can be used to evaluate OERs. The criteria
include:
Authority: What are the author's credentials?
Accuracy: Are errors or omissions visible?
Objectivity: Is any type of bias present?
Currency: Is the resource up-to-date or have a creation or update date visible?
Coverage: Does the resource address the topic at hand sufficiently to add value to the class?
It is important to pay attention to the type of copyright assigned to an OER by its author and to use the
OER in strict accordance to its stipulations. To facilitate their use, modification, and distribution, many
OERs have flexible copyright licenses from organizations such as Creative Commons
(http://creativecommons.org/) ; these licenses provide varying amounts of protection, ranging from "all
rights reserved" (full copyright) to "no rights reserved" (public domain). See the Creative Commons
Web site (http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses) for a list and description of the six main
licenses.
Open Educational Resources - DE Oracle
Several online tools can help users determine an item's copyright status. These include PDTool
(http://librarycopyright.net/digitalslider) , an interactive tool that can be used to determine whether permission
is needed to use an item and when an item will no longer be protected by copyright, as well as
Stanford's Copyright Renewal Database (http://collections.stanford.edu/copyrightrenewals) , which allows
users to search the copyright renewals records received by the U.S. Copyright Office between 1950 and
1992 for books published in the United States between 1923 and 1963.
UMUC's Center for Intellectual Property (http://www.umuc.edu/distance/odell/cip/cip.shtml) is able to
provide additional copyright-related information and guidance.
Instructors planning to use OERs in their classrooms should also keep in mind that the OERs should
comply with federal and state accessibility requirements. A checklist for compliance with Section 508 of
the Americans with Disabilities Act can be found at WebAIM (http://www.webaim.org/standards
/508/checklist.php) .
There are other considerations to keep in mind when determining whether and how to incorporate
OERs into an online classroom. Instructors must consider, for example, how an OER will need to be
adapted to meet the particulars of the class learning objectives. They will also need to decide how the
OER will be used and provide clear instructions to students for its use. They will need to determine
whether the OER was successfully integrated into the class and whether it was valuable to students.
And before they use the OER in another class, they will need to determine whether the URL is still valid
and whether the OER was updated since they last accessed it.
The Future
The students that will be attending college in the near future are used to robust multimedia
experiences, such as can be provided by OERs. Today's students send and receive text messages, play
video games, surf the Web, and post comments in online classrooms—often all at once. Students will
not be satisfied by online content that is text-heavy and instruction that relies simply on students
reading the class material. Students want to interact online, experiment with information provided in
classrooms in a hands-on way, and add their own content to the learning environment. This is what
Web 2.0 is all about. The use of OERs can help bring Web 2.0 to the classroom as well as meet the
expectations of our future students.
OERs can make education more convenient since many contain content that is accessible nearly
anywhere and that can be used "on the go" (podcasts, for example). This aspect of OERs will help to
ensure their popularity and continued use and growth.
The expanded use of OERs also has implications for faculty and their role in the online classroom. Will
faculty still be needed in an environment where educational content is provided for free? Most experts
and currently teaching faculty members indicate that the answer is yes. Students will still need
instructions, guidance, and feedback, regardless of how learning material is made available. Interaction
with faculty and other students is part of the learning process, and while the OERs may enhance the
learning process, they are not substitutes for human interaction. Also, faculty are still the subject
experts in the classroom, and their expertise is warranted in the selection and proper use of OERs. For
these and other reasons, faculty presence will still be needed in online classrooms in the future.
Conclusion
Just as television did not replace the radio but rather complemented it, OERs will likely not completely
replace textbooks, lectures, or other traditional classroom materials. However, their role in enhancing
the online learning environment—allowing faculty to collaborate in new ways and expanding access to
educational materials to people worldwide—will ensure their growth and use in education, to the benefit
of students and faculty alike. This reality can only bode well for the future of online education.
Open Educational Resources - DE Oracle
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Reference
Atkins, D. E., Brown, J. S., & Hammond, A. L. (2007, February). A review of the open educational
resources (OER) movement: Achievements, challenges, and new opportunities. Retrieved June 20,
2008, from http://tinyurl.com/yw4j4u (http://tinyurl.com/yw4j4u)
About the Author(s)
Joseph Rawson is the 24/7 Services Coordinator Librarian at the University of Maryland University College. He oversees the
program that provides library services to the university community 24 hours a day, seven days a week, all year round. In
addition, he is responsible for supervising the Graduate Assistants from the library school at University of Maryland College
Park who provide library services at the McKeldin Library in College Park and the Student and Faculty Services Center in
Adelphi. Also, he provides reference service and library instruction for the university both face-to-face and online. He teaches
LIBS 150 for the School of Undergraduate Studies. Prior to working for UMUC, he was a Reference Librarian at the main
branch of the Providence Public Library, one of the largest libraries in the state of Rhode Island. He received his MLIS degree
from the University of Rhode Island in May 2001 and his BA in International Affairs from the George Washington University in
1986. Prior to his career as a librarian, he spent many years as an education, event, and member services director for builder
and realtor trade associations, running educational programs as well as conventions and working with faculty to develop
course curriculum.
Cynthia Thomes is a Reference and Instruction Librarian in the Information and Library Services department at University of
Maryland University College. She is also one of the library's two liaisons to UMUC's Graduate School of Management &
Technology. She answers all forms of reference questions and provides online and face-to-face instruction for UMUC students,
faculty, and staff. She works to ensure that library resources and services meet the needs of the UMUC community in general
and of GSMT students and faculty in particular. Before coming to UMUC, Ms. Thomes worked as a Technical Information
Specialist at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She received her MLS degree from the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a BA in English and psychology from the College of William and Mary.
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Open Educational Resources - DE Oracl
Suggested Web 2-0 Service Sites - DE Oracle
No full textDE Oracle @ UMUC
An Online Learning Magazine for UMUC Faculty
Center for Support of Instruction
Suggested Web 2.0 Service Sites
Laddie Odom
Multimedia Producer
Center for Support of Instruction
Published: September-October 2008
Category: » Online-pedagogy » Emerging-technologies
Suggested Web 2.0 Service Sites
The following Web 2.0 service sites provide automatically generated embed code for users that has
been tested and proven to work in WebTycho. The generated embed code from these sites is free, can
be added easily to the WebTycho classroom, and works with the Text Formatting Editor. For some
sites, registration and/or a download may be required to create and publish Web 2.0 objects.
"A" Site List - (Content is theoretically of value to all WebTycho classes; zero to
light branding)
YouTube (http://youtube.com) (Video clips)
Thousands of clips and types of subject matter
Quality varies
Most videos are 10 minutes or shorter
Easy access to embed code with limited customization tools
Viddler (http://www.viddler.com) (Video clips)
Can add annotations/transcript to the video timelines
Customizable/brandable player
Hulu (http://www.hulu.com/) (Video clips)
Owned by NBC
Long-format broadcast videos
Advanced player and embed features
Can add start and stop points
Closed captions
Google Maps (http://maps.google.com/) (Customizable, collaborative maps)
Easy to use
Highly customizable via the Google Maps API (currently requires technical knwledge of the API)
flickrSLiDR (http://flickrslidr.com) (Photo slideshows)
Can create slideshows of any available content within Flickr.com
SlideShare (http://www.slideshare.net) (Online PowerPoint presentations)
Browse/search published presentations
Upload and publish PowerPoint presentations
Suggested Web 2.0 Service Sites - DE Oracle
AuthorStream (http://www.authorstream.com) (Online PowerPoint presentations)
No registration required to browse/search and embed published presentations
Registration required to upload and publish PowerPoint presentations
ZohoShow (http://show.zoho.com) (Online PowerPoint presentations)
Currently in Beta version
No registration required to browse/search and embed published presentations
Registration required to upload and publish PowerPoint presentations
Scribd (http://www.scribd.com/) (Online documents)
17 billion words in its library, making it five times the size of Wikipedia
Easily searchable
Can upload DOC, PDF, PPT, XLS, RTF, TXT
ZohoSheet (http://sheet.zoho.com) (Online spreadsheets)
Currently in Beta version
No registration required to browse/search and embed published spreadsheets
Registration required to upload and publish spreadsheets
EditGrid (http://www.editgrid.com) (Online spreadsheets)
Collaborate and visualize dynamic data
Powerful macros available
No registration required to browse/search and embed published spreadsheets
Registration required to upload and publish spreadsheets
RSSviewer (http://www.feedroll.com/rssviewer/) (RSS feeds)
Creates embed code for any RSS feed
"B" Site List - (Content is of value to selective WebTycho classes; light to moderate
branding)
SlideFlickr (http://www.slideflickr.com/) (Photo slideshows)
Beta site
Requries Flickr account
Easily customizable slideshows
VoiceThread (http://voicethread.com) (Collaborative online media albums)
Requires -email registration
Unique collaborative online media album
Allows group conversations consisting of text and/or audio and video, to be collected and experienced
in one place
ScreenCast - O - Matic (http://www.screencast-o-matic.com) (Screen capture based presentations)
Requires e-mail registration for upload to their server, free to create downloadable Quicktime (MOV) of
the presentation, which can be placed on Polaris and then embedded
No downloads required
Editable, timeline-based screen annotations/transcripts
Poll Daddy (http://polldaddy.com/) (Online polls)
Suggested Web 2.0 Service Sites - DE Oracle
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Requires e-mail registration
Selection of skins
11 question types
Online reporting in real time
Can export data as XML or CSV and subscribe to results via RSS
Can close surveys after a certain date or quota has been reached
Can create custom start and finish pages
Can create multi-question, multi-page surveys
About the Author(s)
Laddie Odom began his professional career over two decades ago in Detroit as an animator and special effects artist for
regional and national television commercial campaigns.
After moving to Chicago in the 1980s, he first found employment in "multimedia", which at the time meant slide shows,
produced with traditional analog photographic and graphic tools. Shortly afterwards, he was one of the first persons in the
multimedia industry to be trained to operate large, specialized, ridiculously under-powered (compared to today's machines),
graphics computers that created and presented slides digitally. Several years later, after helping pioneer the production of
digital imagery and animation in multimedia presentations, he began to produce a new kind of multimedia, which was
delivered via CD-ROM, was interactive and was usually authored in Macromedia Director. In the mid 1990s he was given the
opportunity to apply his extensive experience as production manager for several companies and as an independent producer
of interactive marketing and educational materials.
For the last two years he has helped UMUC explore and implement new technologies in order to help staff, faculty, and
students achieve their goals.
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Developing Effective Link Text - DE Oracle
No full textDE Oracle @ UMUC
An Online Learning Magazine for UMUC Faculty
Center for Support of Instruction
What is Link Text?
Link text is the text on a Web page that is placed within the
brackets in HTML; on a "normal" Web page, this
text will show up in another color (usually blue) and is
underlined to indicate that it is a link.
Developing Effective Link Text
Susan Pollack
Instructional Support Specialist
Center for Support of Instruction
Published: July-August 2008
Category: » Online-pedagogy » Teaching-strategies
When devising link text, everyone knows not to "click
here"—or do they?
From an accessibility standpoint, a basic tenet for creating
link text is to ensure that it is meaningful. Readers need
to understand what the link points to, and the link itself
needs to make sense to them. A typical method for adding a link to a file is to copy a URL from the
location bar of a browser and simply paste it where you want it in your document—and many
programs, such as Microsoft Word, recognize certain text as a URL and automatically convert it to a link
with the URL as the link text. The URLs, though important in and of themselves, become an
afterthought in how they are presented to readers. In this article, we'll review the standards and best
practices for developing effective link text so that the links you put in your Web-based documents are
accessible and easy to understand.
Meaningful and Effective Links
In its Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, the World Wide Web Consortium—the same international
standards group that developed the specifications for HTML—notes quite simply in regard to link text:
"don't use 'click here.'" The main reason for this guideline is because the phrase says nothing about
what the link points to; it is not meaningful to the user.
What makes link text meaningful? In a nutshell, link text is effective when it is short, descriptive,
and able to stand alone; it needs to make sense out of its usual context.
Many people who have vision problems use screen readers, such as JAWS, to navigate Web pages.
Instead of having an entire Web page read to them, these users can click the Tab key to jump from link
to link. In turn, the text of each link is voiced to the user as "link, [link text]." Sequential links with the
text of "click here" and "read more," for example, would thus come back to the screen reader user as
"link, click here, link, read more." This information provides little value to the user out of its Web page
context, as it provides no clues regarding the nature of what the links point to.
Some screen readers provide a list of links for the user as an additional way to navigate a Web page.
The links list might list all the links on a page, all the links on a page that the user has visited (or not
visited), or even a list of links that contain certain information requested by the user—such as all links
on a page that point to the www.umuc.edu domain. A list of links generally uses the link text for its list
and could very well contain information such as this:
Read more
Click here
3 comments
More information
Visit
Developing Effective Link Text - DE Oracle
Download
Watch now
Transcript
Again, out of context and without specific identifying information, "click here" makes no sense. Click
here to do what? Similarly, "Read more" does not help orient the user; what topic is it referring to that
you can read more about? By not providing contextual clues in your link text, it becomes very difficult
for people with screen readers to navigate properly and use the Web as a source of information.
There is one good attribute about all the link text examples mentioned thus far: They all clearly meet
the "short" requirement. These examples, however, are simply too short; with just a little more
information added to them, they will likely contain enough description that will allow them to stand
alone.
Consider a resume-like Web page that lists the various major resume categories (education,
experience, etc.) on separate pages, accessible via links on the main page. A link worded as "Work
Experience" is much shorter and more succinct than a link worded as "Page that explains more about
my work experience"; the former link text is also more useful in part because it mentions the important
information first. Likewise, "Work Experience" is more informative than just "Experience" because it
specifies what kind of experience will be described; the reader will not confuse it with possibly being
about teaching, educational, volunteer, or computer experience.
So, what can you use instead of "click here"? Clear, specific, and informative text like "UMUC home
page" or "AAHE Fall Conference Schedule" or even "research procedures" will suffice. Such examples
mean that you may have to change the way you write your text when you add in links. The following
table lists some ways you can improve link text. (Note: The underlined text examples shown
throughout this article are for demonstration purposes only; they are not active links.)
Instead of this link text: Use link text like this:
A transcript is available. Read the Lesson 1 video transcript.
I have prepared a number of writing tips for
you to review when you compose your paper.
Read them now.
Take advantage of these writing tips as you
compose your paper.
Guidelines are available for the term papers
that are due next week. More information…
Be sure to review these important term paper
guidelines before you turn in your paper next
week.
I have posted answers to the quiz here. I hav e posted answers to the quiz on a
separate page.
Stephen D. has some interesting video about
distance learning on his Web site. Watch videos
here.
Stephen D. has some interesting videos about
distance learning on his Web site.
URLs as Link Text
Generally speaking, using a URL for link text, as described in the introduction to this article, is not
recommended for a variety of reasons. If you ever look at products on a Web site such as amazon.com,
you know that the individual URLs are quite long and contain various amalgamations of letters,
numbers, and special characters that make no sense to the average reader (although they do make
sense to specific programming scripts and databases). For example, the following URL points to the
Amazon Kindle e-reader device:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FI73MA/ref=amb_link_6369712_1
/103-6672350-0066213?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-
1&pf_rd_r=1VKAZEKEARQ8ZBQZ7HWC&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=379103301&pf_rd_i=507846
Developing Effective Link Text - DE Oracle
If you wanted to direct readers to this item, it would be perfectly fine to have this URL mentioned in
your HTML code, but to have this URL be the actual link text might present a few problems.
First and foremost, the URL is long. WebAim, an organization that deals with Web site accessibility,
notes that long URLs do not wrap over to the next line in some browsers, so links may get cut off from
visibility or may change the intended width of the viewing area of the Web page—eventually rendering
the page unattractive. Second, the URL as written just doesn't make sense to people who are looking
at the screen. While it is fairly simple to see that it points to something on the amazon.com site, what
exactly it is pointing to is another story. Third, if you were to use a screen reader to listen to a Web
page that includes this URL as link text, the information voiced to you would be an essentially useless
conglomeration of letters, numbers, and symbols that would also take too long to listen to. A much
better way to name the link text in this case would be "Amazon Kindle device," which meets the three
requirements of being short, descriptive, and able to stand alone.
That being said, however, it may be acceptable to use a URL as link text in limited circumstances. For
example, an uncomplicated short URL such as "www.umuc.edu" is certainly preferable—and
understandable—over the long amazon.com URL listed above. But don't take this instance as a
go-ahead to use URLs as link text in your online documents; you're still much better off (as are your
readers) creating link text that is concise, informative, and context independent.
Link Text + URLs
"But I want to provide the entire URL to my students in case they print everything in the classroom to
read offline. If I use only meaningful text as the link, the URL will be invisible to them!"
The commentary above makes a valid point. As someone who has been an online student with a
dial-up connection in the past, having URLs printed out is very handy indeed. Based on the best
practices discussed here, it is possible to combine these two separate ideals without ruining the
appearance of a Web page or making it difficult, if not impossible, for screen reader users to
understand.
One possible solution is to make use of the WebTycho Webliography in a way you may not have before.
The Webliography allows you to enter the name of a Web site, its URL, and a brief description. Some
faculty fill this area at the start of the semester, others add items as the semester moves along, and
others encourage students to contribute to the list. By filling the Webliography with the sites you want
students to visit as they are noted in your main text (whether in Class Announcements, Course
Content, or even Conferences), you can keep the meaningful link text in your main text and reserve
the spelled-out URLs for the Webliography, reminding students periodically to check it for updates.
A second option is to provide the URL directly after the link text, as demonstrated in the following
example:
Check out the courses on the UMUC Web site (http://www.umuc.edu).
In this example, the words "UMUC Web site" are the link text, which follows the three rules and works
well for screen readers. The URL which follows is not a link, however, and that may initially confuse
some readers. It does add some clutter to the page and may detract from readability. Even so, this
method would work fine if the URLs are more or less short. However, when URLs start to get long, they
take up page space (sometimes in an unwanted manner) and may get in the way of efficient reading
and scanning of information.
A third option, depending on where the text links are in the classroom, is to prepare your text as you
normally would with appropriate link text, and then at the end of the document list all the links
mentioned on that page and put the corresponding URL next to it. For example:
Links in this document:
Developing Effective Link Text - DE Oracle
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UMUC Web site (http://www.umuc.edu)
UCEA Web site (http://www.ucea.org)
This method might work for individual pages in, say, Course Content. But it would be difficult to
implement this in an area like Class Announcements unless you were to include this information at the
end of each announcement (rather than the end of the page itself).
If you use the Webliography method, your main text pages will be neat and clean, and students will
have one-stop access to all the important links you want them to visit. The key issue, though, is to be
consistent and use the same approach throughout your classroom.
References
WebAim Web site (http://webaim.org)
World Wide Web Consortium Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 on Link Text
(http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-HTML-TECHS/#link-text)
About the Author(s)
Susan began her career at UMUC in 1998, joining the Center for Support of Instruction in 2007 as an instructional support
specialist. With an undergraduate degree in professional writing from Carnegie Mellon University and a Master of Distance
Education from UMUC, Susan brings to the table a wealth of experience in online communications and learning. Susan
considers herself a lifelong learner who is always eager to try new things. She is continually on the lookout for learner support
and communication issues, having been an online student herself. She is also an advocate of accessibility in online learning
applications.
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Developing Effective Link Text - DE Oracl
DE Oracle Live - DE Oracle
No full textDE Oracle @ UMUC
An Online Learning Magazine for UMUC Faculty
Center for Support of Instruction
DE Oracle Live
Jennifer Thies
Senior Instructional Support Specialist
Center for Support of Instruction
Published: July-August 2008
Category: » Fac-resources » Faculty-development
Starting Fall 2008 Center for Support of Instruction (CSI) will be offering DE
Oracle Live sessions. Using the Wimba system, the CSI team plans to host
webinar sessions on topics related to distance education that are of interest
to our faculty. Wimba allows many participants to view the presentation
simultaneously, which can include slide presentations, demonstrations of
software packages, audio and video components, and collaborative question-and-answer portions.
Announcements of scheduled sessions, including topic, days, and times, will appear on the Events
page. Notification of upcoming sessions will also be sent via e-mail to registered DE Oracle subscribers.
We hope to host multiple sessions at different times to accommodate our global faculty, but we will
also have archives of the DE Oracle Live sessions available following the presentations.
We welcome your suggestions for topics of interest that you would like to see presented. Registered
subscribers are encouraged to leave us a comment on this page with suggestions based on previous DE
Oracle articles or on new topics you would like us to address in the future, consistent with the DE
Oracle's mission. We appreciate that our innovative faculty will want to present in the future on DE
Oracle Live, and presenter guidelines will be available after the first DE Oracle Live session to assist in
that endeavor.
Thank you in advance for you suggestions and we look forward to meeting you online in the DE Oracle
Live sessions.
About the Author(s)
A member of the UMUC team since June 1998, Jen has happily served UMUC's students, faculty, and staff in various support
roles, from Senior Application Support Specialist with the Learning Applications Development and Support unit (LeADS) to
Senior Instructional Support Specialist with the Center for Support of Instruction (CSI).
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Mary Spear -- Aug 27th 2008
Hi Jen, Do have UMUC professors have access to use wimba classroom with online
classes, when is your first wimba program scheduled for fall and Thanks, Mary
Prentice at [email protected]
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Using Turnitin as a Learning Tool - One Faculty Member's Experience - DE Oracle
No full textDE Oracle @ UMUC
An Online Learning Magazine for UMUC Faculty
Center for Support of Instruction
Using Turnitin as a Learning Tool - One Faculty Member's Experience
Diane Bartoo
Graduate School of Management and Technology
Published: March-April 2008
Category: » Online-pedagogy » Teaching-strategies
The UMUC license agreement with Turnitin.com (http://Turnitin.com) , a Web-based service that helps
prevent and detect possible plagiarism from Internet resources, allows students and faculty to submit
papers to Turnitin for originality review.
For the last few semesters, to help prevent plagiarism, I encouraged that students submit their papers
to Turnitin and revise omissions or errors in citing before they submitted their papers to me for
grading. In each of the courses, some students did use Turnitin but most didn't—probably because of
time. Most students gave excuses that it took too long to figure out how to get into Turnitin and submit
their papers.
This past semester, as part of the first week's homework assignment, I required that students complete
the VAIL Tutorial (http://www.umuc.edu/distance/odell/cip/vail/home.html) (also to help with plagiarism), as I
usually do, and also set up their Turnitin accounts (http://www.umuc.edu/library/turnitin.shtml#students)
(unless, per UMUC policy, they objected to submitting their written work to the Turnitin database; to
date, no one has objected). This first week's homework assignment for early Turnitin setup seemed, at
least for this class, to be quite beneficial: There was no last–minute frenzy trying to figure out how to
get into the system and/or how to set up an account. In the end, I estimated that all but two students
actually used Turnitin. The two students who did not use Turnitin submitted their papers at the 11th
hour, so I surmise that they ran out of time.
In addition to requiring the early Turnitin setup, I encouraged students to submit their papers early on,
including rough drafts, and to use Turnitin as an ongoing learning tool. I encouraged them to study the
report, create missing citations, refine incomplete citations, and resubmit. I allowed students to submit
their work to Turnitin as many times as they chose before sending their final submission to me.
As a result, some students clearly benefited from using Turnitin as a learning tool. They were surprised
to see all the highlighting that an instructor might see on the generated Originality Report, so they
were visually encouraged to look more closely at what they had written. Overall, citation and reference
format accuracy was higher than any previous semester. Since the course I was teaching was a "first
course," I consider the level of accuracy significant.
Using Turnitin as a learning tool would not meet the needs of faculty who prefer to use Turnitin
primarily as a tool to assist in detecting plagiarism. For faculty who may wish to consider using Turnitin
as a learning tool, my lessons learned are below.
The Turnitin Originality Reports (http://turnitin.com/static/videos/or_vid.html) generated a lot of questions
from the students, such as why a correctly cited passage was highlighted. From the questions I
received, it was apparent that most students did not read the Student User Guide
(http://www.turnitin.com/static/pdf/tii_student_guide.pdf) (accessed by clicking the "Help" button). To assist
students with interpreting the Originality Report, I would emphasize the presence and location of the
guide.
I had to emphasize to students that the Turnitin report (the way I have been using it) is a learning tool
Using Turnitin as a Learning Tool - One Faculty Member's Experience - DE Oracle
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for them (to help them be more aware of their potential citing and referencing issues) and that it draws
attention to unoriginal text but is not a charge of plagiarism. Therefore, if text is highlighted in the
report, it is an opportunity for them to learn and improve upon their citing skills before submitting the
final paper to me for grading and before I generate a Turnitin Originality Report and review for
plagiarism.
Students had to be informed several times that both correctly and incorrectly cited material will be
highlighted in the Originality Report and that it is their responsibility to review all highlighted material
and make sure that all requirements for citations and direct quotes are present. Are the quote marks
there? What about the page/paragraph numbers?
Some students wanted to see a 0% on the report (zero unoriginal text) and a few who did read the
User Guide wanted to select the option of not including quoted material in the report. I strongly advised
against this option, since the purpose of Turnitin as a learning tool was to focus their attention on all
quoted material so that they could make sure all requirements were present.
Students also had to be reminded that Turnitin does have some limitations and that students are
responsible for properly citing all sources whether or not they are highlighted in the Originality Report.
For example, the Turnitin report does not highlight and report text from books unless the text has been
incorporated into a paper previously submitted to the Turnitin database.
Lastly, I shared with students what I had learned about the Turnitin Helpdesk (http://www.turnitin.com
/help/helpdesk.asp?svr=) , which is accessed by e-mail only. There is an estimated 24-hour response time
from the Helpdesk (longer at high-volume times) Monday through Friday only. So if a student e-mails
the Helpdesk on Friday afternoon, he or she may not get a response until late Monday or Tuesday.
Understanding the Turnitin Helpdesk response timeframe should be helpful for students in planning and
managing their time.
Note: Thanks to Neal Pomea of UMUC Library Services for reviewing this document. For more
information about using Turnitin at UMUC, visit the Information and Library Resources web site
(http://www.umuc.edu/library/turnitin.shtml) .
About the Author(s)
Diane Bartoo, Ph.D. is a Collegiate Professor and Program Director in UMUC's Graduate School.
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Dawn Rodrigues -- Sep 26th 2012
Thank you for a thoughtful article with excellent suggestions. Presenting the Turnitin
service as a "teaching and learning tool" make such good sense. Not only beginning
college students benefit from having an opportunity to learn or re-learn citation
basics.
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updated.
Using Turnitin as a Learning Tool - One Faculty Member's Experience - DE Oracle
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Using Turnitin as a Learning Tool - One Faculty Member's Experience - DE Oracl
