Journal of Research in Innovative Teaching - National University

available to onsite instructors ensures that the newest materials will be used in both online and
onsite modalities.
CMI is an effort to provide an improved platform for managing content through E-
College. It does so by enabling faculty to control or manage individualized content in a personal
repository (Dr. Green’s “bucket”). In addition, specific content items can be locked to prohibit
instructors from editing content that course leads intend to be required no matter who teaches the
course (Larson-Daugherty, 2007). CMI would work hand in hand with NU-FAST.
NU-FAST is a high-capacity server developed to support National University faculty by
providing a place to store course material that can be shared with other faculty and students.
Each faculty member has access to two folders. One is designed for other faculty to access and
the other is for students. The course lead is the only person who is able to add, delete, or modify
material in his or her folder. NU-FAST would serve as the depository for each faculty’s
“bucket.”
AMS is a feature of Task Stream, a website the School of Education uses for hosting
assessments and E-Portfolios. AMS specifically equips the School of Education to pinpoint
exactly where learning outcomes and program standards are addressed within a course, enabling
data to be accumulated as a way to determine performance of each student enrolled in a course.
Components of the School of Education Strategic Plan
The strategic plan of the School of Education includes four components. First, continuous
improvement will be achieved by elevating all School of Education courses to the premier level.
Primarily, this will be accomplished by using the steps from the Premier E-Learning Project. As
of June 2008, 11 of the 30 courses offered either 11 or 12 months each year have been PEP’ed.
The other 19 courses will be top priority to be PEP’ed during Fiscal Year 2009.Anadditional 30
courses have been identified as a part of the university’s top 400 courses; they will also be
PEP’ed by the end of Fiscal Year 2009. During Fiscal Year 2008, 55 School of Education
courses were PEP’ed. While many of these courses were new, 38 different faculty have PEP’ed
at least one course, resulting in more than one-third of the full-time faculty having PEP expertise.
This expertise will ensure that the goal of PEP’ing all School of Education courses by the end of
Fiscal Year 2009 can become a reality.
A second component of this strategic plan relates to the use of E-Companion
supplements. As each online course is PEP’ed, E-Companion shells will be provided for onsite
instructors to use to supplement their instruction. More important, by using an online
supplement, onsite instructors will be able to use the online gradebook feature, which means the
assessments for their assignments will be available for determining accountability through use of
the AMS program in Task Stream. It is the goal of this strategic plan that by the beginning of
Fiscal Year 2010, all courses taught by School of Education faculty will be at the premier level,
whether online or onsite through the use of E-Companion supplements, and capable of yielding
data for determining the success of students enrolled in School of Education courses in meeting
both the learning outcomes and standards of the course. With these data, course leads will be
able to review the courses and make the changes necessary to improve the quality of the course
and enhance student learning.
A third component of this strategic plan is to obtain from SPL files that were created for
the online courses and move them into the folders of the course lead. With the advent of a
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