Online Schakelen

About

Motivation to start this project

Many students who have finished a bachelor study on a university of applied sciences appreciate to apply for a master study in the field of Information Sciences. These students usually do not meet the entry requirements of this master completely and need to pas enter examination. In the past these students could attend some courses in the bachelor programme but due to the changes in regulations this was not possible any more and a special pre-master programme had to be organized for these students to bridge the gap and prepare for enter examination for the master.

Results of the project

The pre-requisites for designing a pre-master programme were as follows:
(1) reuse the materials of the existing courses as much as possible, (2) test based learning approach, (3) no face-to-face meetings.
The next argument for online modules was that an online module makes it possible for students to learn independently at their own pace. The guidance of the students in a distance learning setting does not (always) need to be done by the lecturing staff but can be entrusted to the moderators (student assistants) who are specially trained for this role.
The five online Pre-master modules have all the same course design. The electronic learning environment is Blackboard. 

As a result in this project five online modules were developed for Pre-master Information Studies:

• Pre-master Data mining
• Pre-master Knowledge web
• Pre-master Business studies
• Pre-master ICT in Organizations
• Pre-master Academic skills

Each module is divided in 5 to 7 lessons. In each lesson the learning outcomes are given and the teaching materials. Each lesson has a knowledge test. The students need to pass the test of the lesson first in order to continue with the next lesson (sustained release). The students in the module are supported by the moderator who supports students in learning and organizes weekly video conference sessions. For the video conference sessions WebEx was used.

De development process of the modules in the project was organized in several phases of design-implementation-evaluation-improvement which made it possible to execute each module during the project at least in two pilots and at the same time achieve that the students used this pre-master programme for preparation for master entrance exam. The development was organized in a team of lecturers and student-assistants in the sessions with on the job professional development.

The examination of the modules was organized on location. For students from abroad there was also a possibility to take an online exam.
During this project 42 of 58 students who started on this online Pre-master Information studies have finished it successfully and started on the master, 9 students failed on the entrance exam en 7 stopped.
From 2013-2014 the Pre-master Information studies is organized as a regular online bridging programme.
The students who want to apply for this programme can try out one lesson of each of the five modules in Blackboard: try-out (to visit it use: pre-masterinformationstudies / pre-MIS)

A welcome video for the coming students:


The experiences of students who have followed the Pre-master Information Studies.

,
Project leader: Andrea Haker 
Start project: September 2012
End project: October 2013
Funding: UvA ICTO fonds
Budget: 19.955 euro

Download project report:
OnlineSchakelen_FNWI_eindrapportageICTOfonds2012-2013_definitief.pdf

Original author: Natasa Brouwer

---

Creative Commons 3.0 BY SA applies to all content on Starfish.
Starfish-education support for the publishing on Starfish-education.eu does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors and Starfish-education cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. Starfish-education cannot be held responsible for the content published by authors that is not conform with Creative Commons 3.0 BY SA.