Tools for Decreasing Online Instructor
Work Load
Online course instructors frequently complain that their work load is higher for an online course than for a typical traditionally offered course covering the same subject matter; and there is justification in this, assuming that e-mail load is heavy and frequently responded to, or much course work in electronic form is sent by students and graded and responded to frequently by professors in online courses, compared to traditional courses.
This type of work load can be decreased by streamlining processes for handling e-mail, grading course work, responding to e-mail and course work, storing e-mail and course work, record keeping, etc. To some extent, some of the possibilities may be subject matter influenced, with high automation probable in some computer science or math courses for example, and lessened possibilities for automation probable in a composition course in which most assignments are writing assignments. Some of the types of process/tools combinations described below will likely require special training, or require that people with special expertise create them before they can be shared broadly with others.
Using an e-mail client such as MS-Outlook, creating an Outlook folder for each course, and a subfolder for each student, and creating a rule (filter) which filters all e-mail from each student into their corresponding mail box (folder) can be helpful in keeping track of student e-mail, especially when one has many students in one or more online classes. This type of processing and tool combination is easy to create with Outlook, Eudora, or other common e-mail clients. Please see the graphic below.
Rule to Automatically Send E-mail From Student1 to Student1’s Folder
Creating a generic automatic responder for each student e-mail message sent can reassure students, and lighten online professor load, and creating other flavors of automatic responders such as an automatic responder for each correct student work assignment sent for which a particular comment is not necessary can be very helpful. Depending on e-mail client and server used, these sorts of things can be accomplished with rules (filters), or with macros possibly using MS-CDO (Collaboration Data Objects). These same types of tools may be used to direct e-mail file attachments to directories for grading or storage. Please see the graphics below for an example of one type of automatic responder mentioned above.
Respond Button Added to Outlook to Trigger Macro For Automatic Response to Correct Student Work (Macro Automatically Closes Student E-Mail and Responds)
Example of Automatic Response Using Button in Graphic Above
Grading and recording scores can be assisted by specialized environments
allowing users to quickly and efficiently grade student work, store student
work, and record the scores on student work.
MS-Visual BASIC can be used to quickly create such environment which can
bring up student work for grading, store student work in student specific files,
and facilitating recording student grades in Excel or some other spreadsheet.
WinBatch (from Wilson WindowWare) can be used to quickly build similar
systems, and may be “friendlier” for many.
Please see the graphics below.
Each Button Sends User to Appropriate Course Handling Environment
Selecting on Left Allows Student
Grading, Selecting in Middle Allows Score Recording in Excel, Selecting on Right
Allows Student Name Selection in Drop Down Box and Student File Transfer to
Permanent Storage