Humanities and Social Sciences Completed Projects

2009
Chamber Music Program Site
CHNS1101 & CHNS1102 (Chinese 1A & Chinese 1B) Sites
SCA Online Student Feedback and Learning Development Record
Master of Film & Digital Image Program Site
Teaching Students with Autism
Entrepreneurship and Innovation Stage 2
RLST6951 Spirituality, Consumerism and Health
ARTS1000 eSearch to Research: Library Skills Stage 2
Music Education (Music Practicum Stage 3)
Master of Interactive and Digital Media degree
Electric Rhetoric: WRIT1002 Academic Writing (Contemporary Rhetoricians Stage 3)
Mustech Stage 2

2008
Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program: audio-based learning and teaching
Case-Studies in Special Education
BDST6905 – Healing in Buddhism
Enhancing Learning Opportunities in Field Education in Social Work
Enhancement of Existing eLearning Site SCWK6920: Mental Health Practice Standards
Contemporary Rhetoricians – The ENGL1000 project (Stage 2)
Music Education - Professional Experience and Education Coursework Online (Music Practicum stage 2)
Legal Research Online
MUED3031 – Survey of Jazz History
MCGY2620 - Russian Music History
Assistance with Transition Program 2008: ‘Government and International Relations’ and ‘Political Economy’

2007
Arts Postgraduate Online Coursework Environment
Combined Music Technical Site (MusTech Online)
Masters of Development Studies Sites
Music Practicum Sites
Extension of eSearch to Research Library Skills Site
Aural Perception Site
Writing Arabic

2006
Conversion of ‘Harmony and Analysis’ Units of Study
Assistance with external ‘eLearning Support Project’
Academic Writing Skills - WriteSite Orientation Sessions
Flexible Online Postgraduate Units of Study – Graduate Certificate in Linguistics (LNGS7001)
Flexible Online Postgraduate Units of Study – Graduate Certificate in Linguistics (LNGS7272, 7273, 7002)
Flexible Online Postgraduate Units of Study – Masters of Cultural Studies (GCST6912)

2004-2005
Snapshot & Ongoing Monitoring of ICT Use & Intentions
The WriteSite
Staff & Student Guides to the WriteSite
Flexible Online Postgraduate Units of Study - Graduate Certificate in Linguistics (LNGS7273), Masters of Ancient World Studies (ARCL6901), Masters of Special Education (EDPD5001, EDPD5013)

2009 Projects

Chamber Music Program Site
A site was developed for the Chamber Music program which involves large numbers of students as well as staff from all of the performance units at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. The site provides a central repository for information connected with both undergraduate and postgraduate study. It also assists communication between and amongst the various student ensembles, tutors and coordinators. The administration of the program was streamlined by the online grade book which provided a central point for the 40+ tutors to enter student grades.

CHNS1101 & CHNS1102 (Chinese 1A & Chinese 1B) Sites
Weekly learning sequences were created for the pre-existing online units of study for first-year Chinese language. Each sequence outlines the work students need to do to prepare for each of their tutorials and lectures, with summaries of the key learning for each week and links to extra revision activities. Use of the sequences models good language study skills to first year students who are often new to learning a language. Formative and summative quizzes were also created to provide language drills and allow students to test their skills.

SCA Online Student Feedback and Learning Development Record
This project reviewed the current online mechanism for providing student review and feedback at the Sydney College of the Arts. The aim was to improve engagement in the process, usability and access to the results. Improved feedback templates were created and incorporated into the PebblePad eportfolio software and a limited pilot is taking place in semester 1, 2010. A workshop on giving feedback was co-developed with the Associate Dean Learning and Teaching at SCA and the ITL and presented to staff members in February 2010.

Master of Film & Digital Image Program Site
A site forming a central repository for information, materials and communication was developed for students in the Master of Film & Digital Image degree program at the Sydney College of the Arts. The students are usually on campus in the evenings so it is hoped that the use of the site will increase the Institutional presence for the students and make it easier for them to collect information and organize film shoots.

Teaching Students with Autism
An online site was created for the Summer School unit EDPD6016 – Students with High Support Needs. It contains the basic materials for the first of four planned modules on autism that can be adapted for both undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Entrepreneurship and Innovation Stage 2
Building on the 2008 project and responding to feedback from students and staff, the legacy wiki materials and the assessment activity were migrated to a Media Wiki and restructured to be more usable and engaging for students. Additional materials were also developed for the wiki in the form of a ‘toolkit’ of questions which assist students to analyse business cases.

RLST6951 Spirituality, Consumerism and Health
A blended online unit of study was developed for this postgraduate unit in Religious Studies, based on the site ‘Healing in Buddhism’, which was developed as part of a strategic eLearning project in 2008.

ARTS1000 eSearch to Research: Library Skills Stage 2
The ARTS1000 site was enhanced with two new modules, more annotation of content, tips for postgraduates and revised screenshots demonstrating database searches. The design of the site was also updated.

Music Education (Music Practicum Stage 3)
This project extended the work done in previous project periods on the Music Education Program at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. A pre-placement activity was created for MUED3062 – Teaching Music in Junior Secondary School along with new discussion activities. The project also continues the process of restructuring online material for the new curriculum.

Master of Interactive and Digital Media degree
A program site was developed in WebCT to provide a centralised hub of information and an online community. A program site was also developed using the Blackboard 9 ‘Organisations’ feature in preparation for the migration to the new platform.

Electric Rhetoric: WRIT1002 Academic Writing (Contemporary Rhetoricians Stage 3)
The online site for Academic Writing (formerly ENGL1000) was enhanced with a quiz and graded online discussions, extending the work done in previous project periods.

Mustech Stage 2
Work continued on the development of a website dealing with technical aspects of music to be made available to all students and staff at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

2008 Projects

Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program: audio-based learning and teaching
The project assisted with selected aspects of the Entrepreneurship and Innovation program in the Faculty of Economics and Business.
An assessment activity was created which centered around student contributions to a wiki. The assessment activity is used in three units of study in the program and involves both original contributions and editing existing entries. The wiki forms a resource for all students on key concepts in the field and is especially useful for postgraduate students who have not previously studied subjects in Economics and Business.
Audio case-studies collected by staff were given chapters and annotated to make it easier for students to navigate and review the parts that interest them. Technical guides were created for staff involved in the yearly production of online case-studies.
Guides to storytelling and the creation of audio and audio-visual stories were collated and written for students who must complete an audio or audio-visual business story while on location. Technical guides were also produced to help students prepare their podcasts.

Case-Studies in Special Education
Twelve paper-based case-studies produced for EDUF3031 and EDBT6125 were translated into an attractive online case-study format, which incorporates images, links and weekly task guides.

BDST6905 – Healing in Buddhism
An online postgraduate unit of study was created in the University LMS (CE6) for blended learning. Online assessment activities were created that incorporated student-led discussions, student-created repositories of research sources and the creation of literature reviews. A customised banner and icons were also created for the site. It is hoped that the completed site structure and design may be transferable to other units in the Buddhist Studies program.

Enhancing Learning Opportunities in Field Education in Social Work
The existing 3rd year social work site in WebCT - which contains materials from all third year units of study - was restructured and redesigned. Materials were added to the Field Education 1 area of the third year site, including a folder of materials for the Field Educators who supervise the students on placement. Private discussion topics were created for the students and strategies were developed and implemented to improve the communication between the multiple stakeholders – students, academics, field educators and administrators. It is hoped that this will provide greater support for students and streamline the management of the site.

Enhancement of Existing eLearning Site SCWK6920: Mental Health Practice Standards
This fully online unit of study has been delivered to students since 2006 via WebCT. The project aimed to improve the student experience of the unit by taking into consideration student feedback, issues of student engagement and retention and the coordinators’ experience when managing the online unit. Sydney eLearning worked with the academic facilitators to strengthen the community-building and collaborative aspects of the unit, vary the weekly tasks and increase the self-reflective aspects of the course. The weekly materials were presented on the site in a web-friendly format, while the original multi-page documents remain available for printing.

Contemporary Rhetoricians – The ENGL1000 project (Stage 2)
The online WebCT unit for ENGL1000 which attracts large enrolments from students and is delivered four times a year was further developed with the addition of materials and a quiz addressing the issue of plagiarism. The discussions, glossary, video and lecture materials were also refined in response to student feedback, continuing the work done in 2007.

Music Education - Professional Experience and Education Coursework Online (Music Practicum stage 2)
Development continued on the professional experience in music education site which were begun in the 2007 ‘Music Practicum’ project for the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Changes were made in response to the academic facilitators’ experiences of delivering the site, student feedback and ongoing changes to the curriculum. The existing site was divided into three self-contained sites, which were designed with customized icons and branding. Improvements were made to the existing reflective journal activity. Additional materials were created including narrated Powerpoint presentations of lecture materials which were streamed through Lectopia and activities preparing students for professional experience which are based around selected video clips.

Legal Research Online
Legal research is taught by the Faculty librarians in blended mode to first and third year students enrolled in the Faculty of Law. This project developed self-directed learning modules in Case Law and Legislation for the existing sites LAWS1013 & LAWS1019 in WebCT. Students are directed to study the modules before attending classes to free up face-to-face time for activity-based learning.

Assistance with new online units at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music MUED4006 – Popular Music Studies
A WebCT site was created for this new blended unit of study. The online component of the unit was based around weekly discussions on questions arising from the tutorial readings and a piece of multimedia drawn from the web. Students worked to distil the important issues before the face-to-face tutorial seminar. This activity was designed facilitate student engagement and ownership of ideas and to keep the group preparing consistently for each week.

MUED3031 – Survey of Jazz History
The primary purpose of the WebCT site was to assist with organization of the unit which has multiple handouts of music transposed into various keys to cover the variety of instruments played by the students in the cohort. Students are now required to collect the sheets they need from the site and bring them to classes. The site also forms the central point for transmission of information about the unit.

MCGY2620 - Russian Music History
This site also acts as a centralized repository of information and materials associated with the unit of study. Students can review information and music discussed and played in class, access readings via links to the library and print out additional copies of handouts.

Assistance with Transition Program 2008: ‘Government and International Relations’ and ‘Political Economy’
The Schools of Political Economy, and Government and International Relations were previously part of the Faculty of Economics and Business and have now been incorporated into the Faculty of Arts. Assistance was given with the migration of online units of study from the Blackboard 7 LMS hosted by Economics and Business, to the University’s centrally-supported LMS (CE6).

2007 Projects

Arts Postgraduate Online Coursework Environment
This project explored the educational uses of social and collaborative technologies, particularly those relevant to postgraduate arts programs. The technologies included in the project were blogs, wikis, RSS feeds and social bookmarking. A guide for staff wishing to use these technologies in the LMS was produced, as well as ‘seed’ materials presented in a staff wiki which explore the technical and pedagogical issues. The wiki is the same one that holds the Humanities and Social Sciences Spotlight case-studies and may be accessed at eLearning Test Tube

Combined Music Technical Site (MusTech Online)
Three academics from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music who are involved in teaching music technical units of study collaborated on a website providing information on technical aspects of music, including choosing and placing microphones for recording musical instruments, aural training for sound engineers and 2 track editing. It is expected that the site will form a useful adjunct to many technical units of study and will also be a useful resource for students studying performance who need some technical knowledge of recording and editing processes. The site content may also be applicable to students from other disciplines such as media and communications, architecture and fine arts.

The project ran over the whole of 2007 and will continue in 2008. Project assistance in semester 1 concentrated on managing the production of content for the site, editing the content and providing input into the design of content and activities from an educational perspective. The website was designed and developed during semester 2.

Masters of Development Studies Sites
A program unit of study was created in the University LMS that is available to all students enrolled in development studies. Its purpose is to give students access to current summary material on relevant topics and to allow them to communicate with the wider group via online discussions. A module on the World Bank was written and is being presented as a pilot with students in 2008.
In addition an online activity was created for one of the core units in the program (DVST6901) which assists students to produce an annotated bibliography.

Music Practicum Sites
The project extended the online presence of the professional experience component of the music education program. Site development coincided with a period of curriculum review, so there was substantial reworking of materials with the aim of engendering a more explicit link between theory and practice as a response to the results of student evaluation. The completed online unit of study provides enhanced support to students while on placement, with features including asynchronous discussion activities, annotated teaching plans and revision materials.

Extension of ‘eSearch to Research’ Library Skills Site
This project extended the existing online library skills site in the University LMS (which uses examples taken from Arts subjects), to create a site with four discipline-specific sections - Arts, Education and Social Work, Economics and Business, and Law. Each section contains materials and interactive examples specific to the discipline with the purpose of encouraging student engagement, motivating them to use the site and improving their retention of information.

The site is available from the University of Sydney Library website via http://www.library.usyd.edu.au/subjects/esearch.html and is publicly accessible, by-passing the log-in that is usually required of sites built in the University LMS.

Aural Perception Site
Online units of study have been developed for each of the units in the Aural Perception program. The sites form a focus for the delivery of streamed audio materials, practical work and communication by tutors to students. They also assist the academic coordinator by streamlining the administration of the program, which employs a large number of tutors.

2006 Projects

Conversion of ‘Harmony and Analysis’ Units of Study
Six units of study, previously situated on a local server at the Conservatorium of Music, were converted to the university's LMS (CE6) enhancing eLearning confidence and local knowledge.

Assistance with external ‘eLearning Support Project’
External funding granted under TIF was used to offer local eLearning support to each of the faculties in the Humanities and Social Sciences over the crucial Application to Activate period and in the first few weeks of Semester 2, 2006.

The HASS educational design team assisted by:

Training the support staff who were hired to assist academic staff in the design, maintenance and management of their L&T websites.
Constructing an online site in My eLearning which was used as a focus for summary information and inter-project communication
giving input into the planning process.

Academic Writing Skills - WriteSite Orientation Sessions
Two-hour face-to-face orientation sessions were offered to staff as part of the rollout of the WriteSite. A session was offered to each of the faculties in the Humanities and Social Sciences and to the Faculty of Health Sciences (on request), in addition to general sessions which were open to all staff at the University.

The sessions helped participants to become familiar with the aims and content of the WriteSite and gave them an understanding of how to introduce the site to their students and how to use the marking key effectively to streamline the giving of feedback on student writing.

Flexible Online Postgraduate Units of Study – Graduate Certificate in Linguistics (LNGS7001)
A third unit of study in the Graduate Certificate in Linguistics program was created for delivery in semester 1, 2007. This unit is being offered in fully online mode and the project involved a second academic who is involved in delivering units in the program.

Flexible Online Postgraduate Units of Study – Graduate Certificate in Linguistics (LNGS7272, 7273, 7002)
Project hours were assigned to address management issues which arose during the delivery of these sites and to develop consistency between the units that make up the Graduate Certificate in Linguistics program.

Flexible Online Postgraduate Units of Study – Masters of Cultural Studies (GCST6912)
A fully-online revision module was created for a unit of study ‘Youth Cultures’ that will form part of an online Masters of Cultural Studies. An image analysis activity that was designed for the revision module was elaborated into a template with accompanying instructions. This is available to staff members from other disciplines to use this with their own images and feedback to create visual analysis activities of their own.

2004-2005 Projects

Snapshot & Ongoing Monitoring of ICT Use & Intentions
In semester 2, 2004, an inventory was made of the current use of Information and Communication Technologies in teaching and learning across the University to inform future planning. The information gained from this project was extended in 2005 with a series of staff and student focus groups which collected views on current practice and future needs.

The information will assist in:

supporting staff at the University of Sydney in maintaining/extending/enriching their current practice in eLearning.
developing strategic directions for future projects.
facilitating inter- and cross-faculty collaboration between staff with common goals and interests in eLearning.
establishing communities of interest in particular aspects of ICT in Learning and Teaching.

The Write Site
The Write Site (http://writesite.elearn.usyd.edu.au) is an online resource to facilitate the development of student skills in academic writing. It addresses common learning needs of students, both developmental and remedial and contains three activity-based modules with comprehensive feedback ('Grammar', 'Sources' and 'Structure').

Staff are supported with a marking key that is designed to streamline the process of providing feedback to students on their writing problems. It reduces the need for providing repetitive, detailed feedback on many writing problems. Use of the site by staff promotes consistency of feedback on some of the most problematic writing issues and supports students as they work towards improvement.

The WriteSite was launched in June, 2006 at the Best Practice in Learning and Teaching Forum and is available to all staff and students at the University.

Staff & Student Guides to the WriteSite
Two online guides were produced which can be accessed from the homepage of the WriteSite.

The staff guide contains:

An orientation to the site content and navigation.
Information on using the marking key.
Advice on introducing the site to students.
Tips on integrating use of the WriteSite into a unit of study.
Instructions on linking to the WriteSite from a unit of study.
Downloadable marking key, handout for students and WriteSite icons.

The student guide contains:

An orientation to the site content and navigation.
Tips on getting the most out of the WriteSite.
Strategies for improving writing.

Flexible Online Postgraduate Units of Study
This strategic priority was identified in 2005 and projects based on this theme continue into the present.

The CHASS educational design team conducted group and individual educational design sessions with three academics from the faculties of Arts and Education & Social Work to assist in the creation of four online units of study. The units of study form part of postgraduate programs and therefore the emphasis was on creating sustainable, transferable units that formed part of a coherent program.

An online site in the university's LMS (CE6) was created to facilitate sharing of materials and to allow the academics to experience managing and participating in an online L&T site prior to delivering their own unit. This site and the materials produced for the group sessions may be reworked for other staff members in the College who are planning to develop online units of study.

Evaluation carried out at the conclusion of the project indicated that the staff participants felt they had gained lasting benefits and skills.