Abstract
This proposal is for design, development and implementation of Insurance 340, a foundation course of the Insurance Program at ISU. This course is a requirement for the Insurance concentration in the Business Administration bachelor's degree, one of the statewide, degree-completion programs offered by Indiana State University in the DegreeLink program. DegreeLink is a partnership between Indiana State University and Vincennes University and Ivy Tech State College that provides access to baccalaureate degree-completion programs via distance technologies. There is also significant demand for this course from a second and major target group, non-degreed employees of the insurance industry in Indiana. This group of nontraditional students has shown great interest in distance degree completion programs, and there is significant support for their educational needs from Indiana insurance executives and human resource managers. The proposed project requests a total of $28,721.06. Of this amount, $11,771.06 is requested from the Indiana Partnership for Statewide Education (IPSE), and $16,950.00 will be provided as matching funds by Indiana State University (ISU).
Project Narrative
This proposal is a request for funding to support the design, development and implementation of Insurance 340 (INS 340), Introduction to Risk and Insurance, as an asynchronous, online course. Currently this course is not being offered in any distance format, and it is a prerequisite for all other insurance courses offered. The course provides the student with a basic framework for evaluating and managing nonspeculative risk.
Need To Be Addressed and Learners To Be Served
By offering INS 340 as an Internet course, the course would serve the needs of at least two target groups who need access to continuing their education, and who might otherwise be unable to attend the traditional campus offering. The first group would be students participating in ISU’s DegreeLink Program. The Business Administration (BA) degree requires students to complete three areas of concentration. Taking INS 340 is the first required prerequisite for the Insurance concentration. Online delivery enables the Insurance program to reach students at locations and times convenient to them, thus increasing the options of those students unable to attend traditional campus settings due to work, family, or economic constraints.
A second, significant target group who can be readily reached by online distance delivery of INS 340 is the insurance industry. The insurance industry is a major and growing economic force in the state of Indiana and provides significant employment opportunities. Because this is a highly information intensive industry, there is need for an educated workforce to both promote and sustain insurance industry growth, as well as to provide challenging professional career options for individuals. Through an active advisory council, the Insurance Program at ISU has become aware of the need to offer collegiate courses beyond the traditional campus to employees of the insurance industry who have not completed their undergraduate education. These employees have access to computers at their job, and many have computers at home as well. Because of job, family, and other responsibilities, many are unable to complete their major education degree and may well miss out on upward career path opportunities.
Having access to the DegreeLink Program gives this target group entry to the Business Administration bachelor's degree approved statewide for distance delivery. These employees have the potential to become more valuable to their employer after having completed one or more insurance courses. Actually, there will be the possibility for these students to obtain a minor in insurance as a part of their Business Administration degree. Two of the remaining four courses necessary for their insurance minor are already in a Beta test phase for online access, and the remaining courses for the insurance minor are planned for Internet delivery by the year 2000.
Rationale for Choice of Course
Early this Fall 1998, the Business Administration bachelor's degree was approved for statewide delivery in the DegreeLink program. As part of the articulation agreements among ISU, Vincennes University, and Ivy Tech State College, ISU will offer only upper division business courses for DegreeLink students. As Insurance is one of the more popular concentrations in the Business Administration program and as this course is a prerequisite for all subsequent Insurance courses, INS 340 was selected to be one of the first courses designed and developed for asynchronous, online delivery. Dr. Peter Mikolaj has also recently attended the Course Transformation Academy, a series of workshops sponsored by Continuing Education and Instructional Services (CEIS) to help faculty with transforming their courses for distance delivery.
Choice of Technologies
Because it is necessary for these time- and place-bound audiences to have optimal access to INS 340, we believe creating an asynchronous on-line course will reach the largest number of students in our target audiences. We also believe that using the Internet as the main technology choice will increase the opportunities for interactivity and communication between students and the instructor. Another reason for using the Internet as the primary technology choice for this course is to provide access to a wide range of Web sites for research and data gathering to distance students whose access to on-site resources and libraries may be limited.
Institutional Capacity
INS 340 is a course that is offered regularly by the Insurance Program as it is a requirement for subsequent courses in the Insurance concentration of the Business Administration Degree. It is expected that the online INS 340 will also continue to be offered regularly.
Institutional Commitment
ISU has committed extensive resources to helping faculty develop courses for the DegreeLink program. This includes design, development, training, and evaluation assistance from instructional designers in Continuing Education/Instructional Services (CEIS) and staff in Media Technologies and Resources (MTR). Marketing support from CEIS Planning and Program Development and implementation support from the CEIS staff has also been assured. In addition, the School of Business and the Insurance Program are deeply committed to the rollout of INS 340 and will provide financial contributions to ensure not only the design and development of the course but also ongoing delivery of INS 340. See Appendix for letters from the Insurance Program Coordinator and School of Business Dean.
Instructional Goals and Design
The instructional goals and objectives for INS 340 are to provide a course that has both problem-based components and a case study approach. A textbook will be the primary source of information, as well as the Internet course site that will be created using a Web-based courseware from CourseInfo called Interactive Learning Network (ILN). This course site will provide links to online handouts, study guides, and reserve readings.
In addition to individual writing projects that will allow students to reflect on the subject matter, students will be assigned to group projects and activities, the major emphasis of the course. This group work not only enhances the learning atmosphere, but also allows group members to participate at times convenient to them because of the asynchronous nature of the learning delivery system. The use of problem-based, online distance learning will also be enhanced through group work, for which the Internet is well suited.
Members of a group, particularly students who are insurance industry employees, will bring their own technical expertise and experiences to the project. Other group members will thus be learning from a potential of many specialists bringing the richness of all student backgrounds to the group and ultimately to the entire class.
Groups will communicate with each other using the online, asynchronous discussion tool in the course Web site, as well as the synchronous chat tool. The group will have their own 'area' on the course site that will allow them to discuss only with other members in their own group, email individuals in the group or email the entire group at once, and upload files to one another and the instructor. The instructor will interact with the groups through email and a monitoring of the group's progress. Expanding on the group-instructor interaction, the Internet technology will also allow interactions between groups. Thus, several groups of experts can provide feedback to a particular group's problem solving results.
Students will participate in writing the group project report. This will involve submitting drafts to the instructor through the upload file function of the course Web site. The instructor will comment on these drafts through emailing the group and uploading their draft to their group site, with feedback typed into the draft. In this way, the instructor and students will enter into an ongoing dialogue concerning the both the group project and the presentation of their project. Groups will be also be responsible for posting an abstract of the group paper to the course site. Each groups' abstract presentation will be critiqued by all other groups and feedback will be provided to each group on the quality of their abstract presentation through email and the course site's discussion tool.
Students will be tested on course content through online tests and quizzes, as well as proctored exams. Interactive practice tests and quizzes will be made available online as study guides to exams. Students will be able to take these practice quizzes as often as they wish to help them prepare for future tests. These 'mock' tests will feature specific feedback to the student for wrong answers, directing their attention to resources (textbook readings, online handouts or study guides) that will help them focus their learning.
Project Schedule
Summer 1999: Design and Development Phase
Fall 1999: Beta Test Phase with Course Site
Spring 2000: Online Implementation
Course Evaluation Plan
The course will first be evaluated when it is Beta-tested in Fall 1999 with a regular on site class. Formative evaluation of the course will include online surveys and focus groups. A summative course and instructor evaluation designed for the online course will also be given.
Students from the beta test group as well as distance students will be asked to provide feedback on the value of the course to them in general and on what they learned by participating in the group problem solving projects. Information from this type of debriefing will allow the instructor to evaluate the success as well as the limitations of the course delivery. This information will be used to continuously improve the quality of the course.
Once the course is fully implemented in Spring 2000, formative and summative evaluations will continue via the Internet. Information from evaluations of course content and procedures, along with revision decisions, will be presented through various CEIS publications. The information will provide guidance for other faculty in effective teaching/learning strategies for on-line course delivery.
External Instructional Design and Peer Review Consultant
In terms of this role, the project will ask Dr. Karen Hamilton, an instructional development expert, with specialized knowledge in the content area of insurance curriculum, to act as an outside consultant. Dr. Hamilton is the Director of Curriculum for the American Institute for Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters (AICPCU), the largest insurance industry professional education organization in the U,S. The AICPCU is devoted entirely to offerings, technical content courses, from an introductory level through a full range of continuing education offerings to professional designation specialty areas recognized by the entire industry.
Dr. Hamilton’s background of a doctorate in risk management and insurance with a master's degree in course design and development and research interests in distance and adult education make her uniquely qualified for this project. She is highly credentialed in the content areas for both insurance and synchronous and asynchronous delivery and has the experience base for working with non-traditional students employed by the insurance industry. Her background and experience are ideally suited to both target audiences of this course, i.e., DegreeLink Business Administration majors and degree-seeking full-time employees of the insurance industry.
Strategies To Strengthen Quality and Interinstitutional Acceptance
Information concerning the design, development, implementation, and evaluation of the course will be disseminated in various campus-wide publications such as Interaction, an e-mail based faculty newsletter. This information will also be shared in the Course Transformation Academy (CTA), a series of workshops offered to faculty who are planning to transform on-campus courses to a distance environment.
There is also interest from other academics through insurance professional organizations, such as the American Risk and Insurance Association and Gamma Iota Sigma, the student professional insurance society. Presentations to these organizations at their national meetings and journal articles for their publications would be used to provide guidance for other faculty in effective teaching/learning strategies for web-based course delivery.
Key Course Development Personnel
Dr. Peter Mikolaj, Professor of Insurance and Risk Management, will be the Project Director for development of INS 340. His INS 340 course has been well received by students on campus.
Additional personnel requirements for this project would include Paula Holder, an instructional designer with the ISU CEIS; and media specialists and technical computer-support personnel from the ISU Faculty Computing Resource Center (FCRC). Further details are provided in the budget narrative.
Proposed Budget Narrative
- The major part of the grant request is for funding for two summer courses faculty release time for Dr. Mikolaj and the services of external consultant Dr. Hamilton. A summer course is compensated as 7.5% of the instructor's base salary. Benefits are 11.65% of the summer salary.
Dr. Hamilton will review the content and design of the course to ensure that it will be appropriate for the target group of insurance company home office personnel, while at the same time being well suited for DegreeLink students.
Summary of External Consultant's Experience
Dr. Karen Hamilton has been a curriculum designer in the field of risk management and insurance for six years. During that time she has written textbooks, instructor guides, and student workbooks on the principles of insurance and risk management, personal insurance and risk management, financial planning, and insurance regulation. She has also been involved in the design and development of computer-based instruction and on-line distance learning. Prior to her current position, Dr. Hamilton was a college lecturer and professor and taught courses on the principles of risk management and insurance, which were similar to INS 340 at Indiana State University. Dr. Hamilton's doctorate is in risk management and insurance, and she has a M.Ed. in instructional design. Her education and experience uniquely qualifies her to serve as an external consultant to the project.
Following is the rationale for the basis for the budget figures related to the Project Director's salary and specific elements of the institutional contribution.
It takes an average of 12 hours of overall design and development work to transform one hour of student learning in a traditional course to an online environment. Some would say this is a very conservative estimate. "The figure of an average of 18 hours for Web development seems to be just about right with this supporting data. Perhaps we could be even more accurate by providing a range of 5-23 hours." (Judith V. Boettcher, How Much Does It Cost to Develop a Distance Learning Course? Syllabus May 1998). Because a Web-based Courseware called Interactive Learning Network (ILN) will be used for the course site, synchronous and asynchronous class communication, testing, and exchanging of files, the estimate is about half of the upper limit of 23 hours quoted. Because this is a new courseware and because most faculty are inexperienced with the technology of creating materials for the Web, our average is higher than the lowest estimate of 5 hours.
As there are 45 student learning hours (3 credits x 15 weeks) 45 x12= 540 hours average to take an existing course and design and develop it for online Internet delivery. CEIS feels this is a reasonable estimate given that Boettchner reports "an investment of 810 hours to move a course to the Web" and "If we assume some time for startup with learning technology and instruction in teaching and learning in this new environment (and also arranging for any copyright and other issues), we can rapidly approach the 1,000-hour mark for moving a course to the Web"
To teach two summer courses requires 90 hours of in-class time (3 credit hours per week X 15 weeks X 2 courses=90 hours), as well as time for grading tests, reading and evaluating written assignments, and office hours for student conferences. A conservative average for this out of class time would be 1 hour a week for every 3 hours of in class teaching, which would add another 30 hours for a 2 summer course load. This gives us a total of 120 hours release time for two summer courses.
Because Faculty Release Time will only account for 120 hours of the 540 hours estimated, Support Staff must take up the remaining 420 design and development hours for the average course.
These hours of design and development are accounted for in the following tasks. The design work for the instructor and the instructional designer is in identifying and then recreating verbal teaching and learning experiences that take place in the classroom for an asynchronous learning experience. This includes lectures, classroom discussions, in class explanations, in class group work, and individual student-teacher conferences. This interactivity must be "reproduced" with highly interactive Internet-based learning materials, activities, and assignments.
Another design activity that takes up considerable time is designing and developing formative and summative evaluations for the online course in order to gain feedback from students to improve the quality of the course for learning and retention purposes.
Much of the development time that the FCRC staff will be involved with is in transforming print materials such as handouts, on reserve readings, and study guides into online information or for mailing purposes. Also time consuming for the FCRC staff is transforming tests, quizzes, and surveys into an online environment. A final part of this development time is taken up with editing, proofreading, and revision recommendations performed by the Course Editor.
Appendix A: Summary of Lead Faculty Member's Experience
Dr. Peter Mikolaj has taught this course on campus for 10 years. Prior to teaching, he was an insurance industry executive for many years and continues his involvement in the area through an active risk management and insurance consulting schedule. He has incorporated a project requiring both an oral presentation and a written report in his on-campus course which students have found helpful to better understand concepts of personal financial planning. The on-campus course also includes several guest speakers. Including guest speakers and industry representatives is planned to be a part of the distance delivery version, perhaps through the use of the ISU audiobridge network or by videostreaming.
Appendix B: Letters of Support for Project
