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Thursday, August 12, 1999

National campaign set for fall
Web courses bring good grades
A note and some coming events

National campaign set for fall

A cheque for $200,000 came to the Centre for Wireless Communications the other day, representing the fourth payment on a total gift of $1 million from Ericsson Communications Canada. Brian Barry, president of Ericsson, left, hands over the money to Jon Mark, director of the UW centre.

Student leaders have a four-point program to urge on the federal government, major banks and anybody else who will listen to their case for higher education in a lobbying campaign this fall.

[CASA logo] "Education Builds a Nation" is the theme for the campaign, being organized by the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, with strong support from UW's Federation of Students. "Waterloo is definitely taking part in this campaign," says Christine Cheng, president of the Federation.

Veronica Chau, vice-president (education) of the Federation, says UW gets much of the credit for planning the campaign, which was approved at CASA's annual general meeting earlier this summer. Chau and Federation staff member Avvey Peters worked out a proposal that was "essentially" what CASA approved, Chau said.

Here are CASA's four points:

"Building knowledge through the elimination of GST on textbooks."
"Building excellence through increased core funding to colleges and universities."
"Building futures through interest relief on student aid."
"Building a nation through the elimination of discriminatory interprovincial tuition fees."

Jason Aebig, national director of CASA, said he has "a feeling that we might be able to see two or three of the four" points achieved. Tax relief on textbooks, for instance, "would be a significant gain for students".

The campaign is centred on a lobby to be held in Ottawa starting October 18; within a few days, "three hundred Members of Parliament will be met," Aebig says. Student leaders will also try to meet with other groups, such as the Canadian Bankers Association, where support for student loan reform is considered essential.

Federal finance minister Paul Martin "has been tentatively booked to speak" at the Ottawa gathering, says Kieran Green, formerly a UW student and now communications coordinator for CASA. The lobby will come some four months before Martin brings down his budget for the year 2000, which is the likely time for any announcements of changes in federal education funding.

Web courses bring good grades

A York University survey of students taking courses on the Internet shows that Internet courses yield better grades than traditional correspondence courses and achieve as good or better results as in-class lectures.

Says a news release about the study:

"When you teach a lecture theatre of 500 students, only two may come up to talk to you, but in an Internet course, everyone will e-mail you," said Prof. Suzanne MacDonald, Associate Dean of Atkinson College, where the survey was done. She said it is up to individual faculty members whether they want to teach this way. "But I think more people might be convinced after reading this study," she added.
Professor Ron Owston, co-author of the study with Senior Research Associate Herb Wideman at York's Centre for the Study of Computers in Education, said the immediacy and interactivity of studying on-line may motivate students more.
Their survey was commissioned by the office of the Vice President (Academic Affairs) to find out what students thought of the Internet courses they were taking at Atkinson and what improvements -- technical and otherwise -- could be made. It compared student grades in the three modes of instruction in 14 courses. Grades for 1,099 students in Internet-based courses held between fall 1996 and fall 1998 were compared to grades for students in the same courses offered either in correspondence (2,318 students), or in-class (2,467 students), or both.
No significant difference was found in the grades of Internet and in-class students, but both of those groups scored significantly higher grades than their counterparts in correspondence courses.
When failing marks were eliminated from the data, Internet students achieved significantly higher grades than in-class students, and the difference in grades between correspondence and Internet students was the equivalent of moving from a C plus to a B minus. Owston said it was appropriate to eliminate the failing grades from the study since many of those were not earned grades but simply students who had dropped out before the final exam.
The 1,099 students taking courses on the Internet were asked to evaluate their experiences, with the following results: 73 per cent of the students surveyed said they would recommend the course to their friends; 68 per cent said they were sufficiently stimulated to take further courses in the discipline.

A note and some coming events

Here's a reminder that the Student Information Systems Project has some positions for staff members. The official word is that SISP "invites applications for the position of Functional User Analyst to participate in the analysis and implementation of the University's student administrative systems. Candidates should possess a detailed understanding of the policies, procedures and practices in at least one of the following areas: admissions, registration/advisement or marks processing. Direct experience in a Faculty setting is preferred. As a member of the project team, the incumbent will participate actively in establishing appropriate balances between requirements and costs, the testing of new systems and the training of users. . . . This appointment will follow the University guidelines for secondments. It will be for a period of approximately 18 months beginning Oct. 1, 1999. This is a rare opportunity to participate actively in an institutional project, gain new experience and develop a variety of skills. There are multiple positions available. These positions are in addition to those that are being filled by staff from within the Registrar's Office and Graduate Studies Office."

Coming in the next few days:

§ "Showcase '99", celebrating "the talents of aspiring professional performers", in the Theatre of the Arts this Saturday night at 8. Admission is free; the performance winds up a three-week summer school for high school students, sponsored by the city of Waterloo, and demonstrates the acting, dancing and singing these young people have been polishing.

§ The department of electrical and computer engineering holds its golf tournament on Tuesday, August 17; tee-off time is 12 noon.

§ People from UW as well as other universities are expected at "Bordeaux Wines Alumni Night" at the du Maurier Open international women's tennis championships, August 19 at York University. Tennis Canada has more information.

CAR

Editor of the Daily Bulletin: Chris Redmond
Information and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
credmond@uwaterloo.ca | (519) 888-4567 ext. 3004
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