Assistant Professor, Dolores (Dee) Niles is in the process of developing a Certificate Program with Blackboard's CourseInfo. DESIEN interviewed Dolores on her choice of CourseInfo and on the process she's using.

DESIEN - What attracted you to CourseInfo, Dolores?

DOLORES - I looked at different kinds of authorware and Blackboard's CourseInfo seemed to be the friendliest. For example, I didn't have to learn HTML. I talked to several faculty members from other universities who had used it and received good comments. They said that it was easy to use and that it embodied a good faculty/student communication concept.

DESIEN - Describe your Certificate Program and how you'll be using Blackboard's CourseInfo.

DOLORES - Our department chair, Roger Williams, received a grant to develop an Administrative Skills Certificate Program and asked me to lead a group in developing the program. I began with a survey of 1400 to determine desired content to be included and decided that we would kick the program off with a face-to-face Institute that would offer some of the topics and follow this up with 5 online core courses. The institute will be held in May and I'm working, with three other faculty members on the online courses.

DESIEN - Can you describe the process that you're going through?

DOLORES - The content for the first course, which is a Leadership course is new, so it's taken me more time than the others will. I first had to immerse myself in the content and at the same time in the instructional design. I selected the concepts I wanted to convey, prepared a bibliography, set up document files and am developing scenarios for students to use in an interactive way. The secret is getting students involved. They'll be able to email within the course and use asynchronous chat, but I'm not using synchronous chat or streaming audio or video - although Blackboard's CourseInfo has these capabilities.

The Evaluation portion of the course and overall program will be very important, and we're planning to incorporate specific questions that relate to the online environment, as well as content and we're using email for student feedback.

DESIEN - Are you finding CourseInfo as easy to use as you thought?

DOLORES - Yes, I'm very pleased. It really is "instructor friendly," has a very nice look and is capable of doing all of the things I need to do - and more.

DESIEN - Support is critical in distance education. How have you incorporated that?

DOLORES - UW-Extension is providing server Administrative support and Instructional Communications Systems (ICS) will provide the technical support. We've already held several meetings to pinpoint the specific support that we'll need. I'm working with the technical personnel to put together a list of FAQ's for the students that will describe possible scenarios of what can happen and how to do initial troubleshooting and then we'll have an 800 number for them to call if more help is needed. I'm also including an extensive piece in the course materials on what this different environment is like and what students need be aware of for this kind of learning.

A book that has been very helpful to me is: Building Communities in Cyberspace: Effective Strategies for the Online Classroom by Rena M. Palloff and Keith Prat. I highly recommend it. It's been an excellent resource!

DESIEN - Would you agree to doing an article for DESIEN when the first couple of courses have been completed and you've pulled together some evaluation information?

DOLORES - Certainly. I'd like to share what we've learned

DESIEN - Thanks so much, Dolores. We'll look forward to your results and to that article.