This post’s title is the tagline of OASIS, “an online readiness assessment designed for students either considering an online course or currently enrolled in an online course.”
It includes two assessments, one for online learning readiness and another for learning styles with tips on how to make the most of one’s styles—active or reflexive, sensing or intuitive, visual or verbal, sequential or global—when participating in online learning.
The site boasts the participation of 75 community colleges in Illinois, access to 2156 online courses, and the participation of over 23,000 students. It does have minor indications of being outdated and the typical signs that the project never quite got competed according to plan. However, it’s a useful tool for college students new to online courses.
I was thinking my post about what’s needed to be a good online student might have been a bit over the top, but this instrument lines up with my points nicely. It emphasizes self-motivation and discipline, the need for greater time and effort than a classroom-based course, and strong reading and writing skills.
The site also includes some brief tutorials on online learning tools; no surprise that this is where the outdatedness comes in (e.g.: IE5). This is not the strongest part of the site.
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Your question about student readiness prompted me to look through the other end of the telescope at the institution’s readiness. If half the problems we have with online students is the student’s “fault” then the other half must be/might be the institution’s.
< YMMV >, I look forward to other opinions.
Are You Ready for WBT? Copyright Gary C. Powell, Wayne State University
This work from 2000 discusses the motivation for moving to WBT/Online environments and the possibility that it isn’t the panacea that it seems to be (at the time). The argument and the pedagogy stands up pretty well for seven years back.
(I particularly liked the matrix included)
< http://it.coe.uga.edu/itforum/paper39/paper39.html >.
Educause, “The Readiness Continuum”.
Copyright Brown, Craft, Gonick and Truman
Excerpt, “Success in this environment is the institutional ability to handle both quality and quantity. Some institutions are more ready than others to be successful, with a strong institution-wide commitment to transforming teaching and learning, a faculty culture that incorporates the commitment, and a support infrastructure that implements the commitment.”
< http://www.educause.edu/content.asp?page_id=5662&MODE=SESSIONS&PRODUCT_CODE=nliifs03/gs%25&Heading=General%20Sessions&Meeting=nliifs03&bhcp=1 >.
Google search ” institutional readiness for online learning” < http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=institutional+readiness+for+online+learning&btnG=Search >
Paul H.
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