View the presentation - Dr. Gregory L. Plett

Web-Assisted Learning 

via On-Line Course Supplements 

Drs. Gregory L. Plett and Mark A. Wickert 

Electrical and Computer Engineering Department 

University of Colorado at Colorado Springs 

P.O. Box 7150, Colorado Springs, CO 80933–7150 

24 June 2003 Web-Assisted Learning via On-Line Course Supplements G. L. Plett and M. A. Wickert [1]

Overview 

What are course supplements? How should they be made 

available (style, format, media)? 

¡ 

¡ 

The EduFile Course Supplement Management System 

Student perspective; 

Faculty perspective. 

Assessment via data logging and survey results. 

Conclusions 


Course Supplements 

Some examples: Lecture notes, lecture audio/video, 

homework hints, homework solutions, worked example 

problems, sample tests and sample computer code. 

The Internet is an efficient means to distribute supplements. 

We discuss results of a project with three main objectives: 

1. Develop standards of style and format for supplements; 

2. Develop simple means whereby the instructor may add 

materials to the course web-site; 

3. Develop automatic evaluation means to determine if the 

on-line course supplements assist student learning. 


Supplement Format and Style 

To aid accessibility, standardize file formats and style. 

Style: A constant template for homework assignments and 

solutions, documentation standards for code segments. 

Consistency allows a student to decode content readily. 

Format: Open-standard file formats provide universal 

access and eliminate economic prejudice; e.g., PDF files in 

preference to proprietary document formats. PDF 

preserves fonts, formatting, graphics and color of the 

source document. Where PDF files are not appropriate, we 

use standard ASCII text files where possible. 


Delivery Method (I): The Internet 

The Internet is an obvious choice: It can be accessed from 

anywhere at any time; it may be used to transmit programs 

or code segments, which must be re-typed if delivered in 

paper media; and it is the only reasonable way to make 

audio, video and data files available to large numbers of 

students. 

However, a simple file repository is an untenable solution as 

the number of supplements becomes large. Students lose 

track of which files they have downloaded, and there is no 

apparent organization. 


Delivery Method (II): Dynamic Documents 

Course materials are dynamic documents. They are 

developed and are modified as the semester progresses. 

The student needs to know when a file has been updated. 

An Internet site could be developed that keeps a data-base 

of all download activity for each student and can then mark 

supplement-material files as being “not yet downloaded”, 

“updated since last download” or “unchanged since last 

download” with respect to the student querying the site. 

We have developed such a site. 


EduFile 

We call the web-based software created to meet the 

aforementioned needs the “EduFile Course Supplement 

Management System” or simply EduFile. 

Technical details: EduFile is written in PERL and uses a 

mysql database to manage information on students, 

supplements, courses and so forth. We use a Linux-based 

platform with an Apache web server. 

First, we describe the students’ perspective and then the 

faculty / instructor perspective. 


ˆyk 

Student Log-On Screen 

When the student 

browses to the course 

e 

homepage, she sees the 

screen to the right. 

(sys) 

k 

The student must 

register the first time she 

uses EduFile. 

yk 

ˆyk 

ˆyk 

ˇyk 

˜yk 

After that, she types Temporal her 

username and password Delay 

to enter the system. 

˜dk 

dk 

e (mod) 

k 

˜e (sys) 

k 

˜εk 

˜εk 

rk− P 


Student Registration 

The student does not automatically have access to the 

course supplements. On registration, EduFile sends an 

email message to the course instructor: 

Student user 112233 has requested to download supplements 

for course ECE3510. Go to http://edufile.uccs.edu/ 

facultyadmin/ to log in and enable this user. 

The instructor must “enable” access for each student. 

EduFile will automatically send an email: 

Student user account for 112233 has been enabled. Go to 

http://edufile.uccs.edu/?course_id=ECE3510/ to log in. 

Only then may the student access the supplements. 


ˆyk 

The Main Supplement Access Page 

On log-on, the student 

accesses the main page, 

shown to the right. 

Course information is one 

top, supplement 

information is below. 

(sys) 

Supplements are 

annotated, and marked 

yk 

yk 

yk 

ˆyk 

ˇyk 

ˆyk 

˜yk 

˜εk 

as downloaded or not, rk− P 

updated or not. Temporal 

Delay 

˜dk 

dk 

k 

e (mod) 

k 

˜e (sys) 

k 

˜εk 


yk 

yk 

ˆyk 

ˆyk 

ˇyk 

ˆyk 

Instructor Log-On 

˜yk 

˜dk 

All instructor log-on is done through the browser’s 

dk 

authentication procedure. 

e 

The log-on dialog is shown below. 

(sys) 

k 

e (mod) 

k 

˜e (sys) 

k 

˜εk 

˜εk 

rk− P 

Temporal 

Delay 


ˆyk 

ˆyk 

ˇyk 

ˆyk 

Instructor Welcome Page 

˜yk 

˜dk 

dk 

e (sys) 

k 

e 

The main instructor page 

allows creating a course, 

editing a course, or 

viewing the student 

activity log (for 

assessment). 

(mod) 

k 

˜e (sys) 

k 

˜εk 

˜εk 

rk− P 

Temporal 

Delay 


yk 

yk 

ˆyk 

ˆyk 

Edit Courseˇyk Information 

ˆyk 

˜yk 

The top of the course e 

information page allows 

changing instructor, 

changing course 

description or course 

name. 

(sys) 

k 

e (mod) 

k 

˜e (sys) 

k 

˜εk 

˜εk 

rk− P 

Temporal 

Delay 

˜dk 

dk 


yk 

˜yk 

˜dk 

dk 

e (sys) 

k 

e (mod) 

˜e (sys) 

ˆyk 

ˆyk 

ˇyk 

ˆyk 

˜yk 

k ˜dk 

˜εk 

Edit Supplement/Student k Information 

dk 

˜εk 

e 

The middle of the course rk− P 

information page allows Temporal 

Delay 

changing supplement 

descriptions. 

The bottom allows 

changing student access 

privileges. 

(sys) 

k 

e (mod) 

k 

˜e (sys) 

k 

˜εk 

˜εk 

rk− P 

Temporal 

Delay 


Noise, vk 

rk 

uk 

uk 

ũk 

ũk 

uk 

ũk 

yk 

yk 

yk 

ˆyk 

ˆyk 

ˇyk 

ˆyk 

˜yk 

˜dk 

dk 

e (sys) 

k 

e (mod) 

k 

˜e (sys) 

k ˜εk 

˜εk 

Number of Documents Retrieved 

rk− P 

Temporal 

Delay 

30 

25 

20 

15 

10 

5 

Noise, vk 

rk 

uk 

uk 

ũk 

ũk 

uk 

ũk 

Student Access per Day and Week 

0 

01/20 01/27 02/03 02/10 02/17 02/24 03/03 03/10 03/17 

Date − mm/dd of 2002 

yk 

yk 

yk 

Data logging allows flexible assessment. ˆyk For example, the 

ˆyk 

figures below show histograms of student access per day 

ˇyk 

and per week. 

ˆyk 

˜yk 

˜dk 

ECE 3610 EduFile Visits Per Day 

ECE 3610 EduFile Visits Per Week 

90 

dk 

e (sys) 

k 

e (mod) 

k 

˜e (sys) 

k ˜εk 

˜εk 

rk− P 


Temporal 

Delay 

80 

70 

60 

50 

40 

30 

20 

10 

0 

01/01 02/01 03/01 04/01 

Date − mm/dd of 2002 


k 

rk 

uk 

uk 

ũk 

ũk 

uk 

ũk 

yk 

yk 

yk 

ˆyk 

ˆyk 

ˇyk 

ˆyk 

˜yk 

˜dk 

dk 

e (sys) 

k 

e (mod) 

k 

˜e (sys) 

k ˜εk 

˜εk 

rk− P 

Temporal 


90 

80 

70 

60 

50 

40 

30 

20 

10 

yk 

Student Access yk by Hour 

ˆyk 

Surprisingly, most students observed ˇyk reasonable hours. 

ˆyk 

Most downloads occurred directly after class. 

˜yk 

˜dk 

ECE 3610 EduFile Visits by Hour dk ECE 3610 EduFile Visits by Hour on Thursdays 

0 

0 

18:00 00:00 06:00 12:00 18:00 00:00 

18:00 00:00 06:00 12:00 18:00 00:00 

Delay Delay 

Time − hh/mm 

Time − hh/mm on Thursdays 

k 

rk 

uk 

uk 

ũk 

ũk 

uk 

ũk 

yk 

ˆyk 

e (sys) 

k 

e (mod) 

k 

˜e (sys) 

k ˜εk 

˜εk 

rk− P 

Temporal 

24 June 2003 Web-Assisted Learning via On-Line Course Supplements G. L. Plett and M. A. Wickert [16] 


30 

25 

20 

15 

10 

5

Noise, vk 

rk 

uk 

uk 

ũk 

ũk 

uk 

ũk 

yk 

yk 

yk 

Scatter Plot 

Scatter plotsˆyk of student grades versus number of 

ˆyk 

downloads showed ˇyk no linear correlation between grades 

and supplements ˆyk (except that more downloads seemed to 

˜yk 

result in a passing grade). 

˜dk 

dk 

e (sys) 

k 

e (mod) 

k 

˜e (sys) 

k 

˜εk 

˜εk 

rk− P 

Temporal 

Delay 

Student Final Average Percent 

100 

95 

90 

85 

80 

75 

70 

65 

60 

55 

ECE 3610 EduFile Score vs Downloads Scatter Plot 

50 

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 



Survey Responses 

We conducted a survey to evaluate EduFile. 

Students indicated that they frequently downloaded 

homework assignments, solutions, and sample exams— 

simulation files and updated lecture notes less frequently. 

The utility of the supplements was highly rated, especially 

for homeworks, homework solutions and practice exams. 

They were very pleased with the convenience and were not 

concerned with “invasion” of privacy (by logging accesses). 

The most frequent comments in the write-in section were 

“please add more practice exams”, “please add worked 

problems” and “please add solutions to practice exams”. 


Conclusions 

EduFile is an Internet-based supplement management 

system that we have designed and implemented. 

We hypothesized that benefit to student learning would be 

significant; however, our findings were statistically 

inconclusive as to whether grades were improved. 

Survey responses indicate that the students themselves 

believed the supplements to be very helpful, and the 

Internet system to be very convenient. 

Our plan is to incrementally add courses to the EduFile 

system, as we teach them. 


Acknowledgment 

This work was supported in part by a grant from the 

University of Colorado at Colorado Springs’ Teaching and 

Learning Center. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or 

recommendations expressed in this paper are those of the 

authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the 

University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, or of the 

Teaching and Learning Center. 

The majority of the code in EduFile was written under 

subcontract by Matthew Long of Matthew Long Enterprises, 

http://www.matthew-long.com.

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