SUS News

Colleagues:

Over the past several years, a nationwide movement to make textbooks more affordable has taken on momentum, based in part on the concern that the cost of higher education is so high as to make it inaccessible to many. As a University focused on access, UMUC wants to make every effort to keep education affordable, including addressing the costs of textbooks. I want to talk a little about this in the current month's blog so that you have the bigger context of the national debate when you, as faculty, are asked to participate in helping us to drive down costs.

Several external forces have recently added to the textbook cost concern:

• Higher Ed Opportunity Act--This act was recently signed into law by former President Bush, and it addresses the requirements that colleges and universities must meet in order to receive Title IV (financial aid) funds. For the first time, the Act requires that institutions take steps to control the cost of textbooks and related course materials.
• Maryland legislature--In several recent sessions, legislators have introduced bills that would mandate an upper limit on the costs of textbooks. While these bills have failed to gain the necessary support to become law, the Maryland legislature is currently considering a more comprehensive bill that would require universities, textbook publishers, and textbook vendors to take steps to reduce the costs to students. At some point it is likely that a law will be passed to this effect.

At UMUC we have been working to address this issue in several ways. We are adopting the following methods to reduce the costs of textbooks to our students:

• We ask that directors choose textbooks that optimize quality and cost to students
• We are exploring ways to negotiate reduced prices for textbooks with publishers
• We will post textbook information and ISBN numbers for textbooks as early as we can so that students can purchase from their choice of vendor
• We will work with our online bookstore (MBSDirect) to provide as many used textbooks to our students as possible and to buy back as many textbooks as possible
• We will seek to only adopt new editions of a textbook if there is substantial change to the text
• To the extent possible, we will try not to order textbooks that come "bundled" with other materials that may be of little use to students.

In future years, online texts and materials may allow for an entirely new way to provide low-cost materials to students. We will continuously monitor ways to reduce the cost of materials for students, and keep you apprised of our progress.

If you have any thoughts on how we can help keep the costs of books reasonable, we want to hear from you. Please do let us know.

~~Marie

Colleagues:

Our learning management system (LMS) at UMUC, currently called "WebTycho" has gone through several iterations through the years with accompanying name changes to reflect the newer technology. Before "WebTycho" it was referred to as "WinTycho," as an example.

The current WebTycho platform is based on Lotus Domino, which has not been upgraded for many years and is now outdated. The WebTycho development team has been working for some time now on upgrading the platform to an Oracle database with a Java interface, which will make WebTycho more powerful, flexible, scalable, secure and stable. The new version of Tycho is often referred to as "TychoNG" for "Next Generation."

Given that Learning Management Systems, by their very nature, evolve over time, we will be calling it just "Tycho." As we improve and enhance Tycho, we will be making modifications to keep UMUC at the forefront of online education. The new platform will allow us to make upgrades more seamlessly and frequently with very little interruption to the users. This is in line with other LMS systems used by other Universities--updates to keep pace with technological and pedagogical change are the norm.

As part of this updating of our LMS, the Tycho development team is working to enhance many features. However, we will roll out these changes in small chunks over three years so that the changes will not be disruptive to the teaching process. I want to assure everyone that the visible changes to Tycho are minimal for 2009.

I'm pleased to announce that two features, enhanced conferencing and private messaging, have been tested thoroughly with faculty feedback and are ready for a phased rollout to selected SUS classes beginning in summer 2009. Academic Directors are currently selecting the courses and sections that will be in the first phase.

If all goes well this summer, we will be rolling out these enhanced features to all courses and sections this coming fall of 2009.

These features were designed with faculty input and we believe you will find they add value to the classroom. While there are many benefits, a few highlights of the enhanced conferencing include:

• Tabbed conferencing that allows you to have multiple conferences open at the same time;
• Deatailed indicators of unread messages (a count indicating the number of unread messages at various levels versus just a red star);
• Conference threads will have up to five levels rather than the current two;
• No file size limit for attachments; and
• Acitivty statistics at the conference level.

The private messaging feature will allow for two-way private communications between you and each student and will be archived directly and easily within the classroom environment.

Tycho Orientation and Training for SUS Administrators and Faculty

While the changes to Tycho are not large, some practice will enable you and your students to make the transition easily. The practice exercises are designed to take approximately 3 hours to complete.

In preparation for using the new features, SUS Academic Administrators will be trained in the new features by the end of March. Faculty will receive an orientation to the new features of Tycho in their 999s in April. Training for faculty will begin in April and continue through the spring and summer. Both online and face-to-face formats will be available.

You can complete the training in an online OR a face-to-face format. You do not need to attend both. Pick the format that you prefer.

The Tycho training will allow you to explore and use the new conferencing and messaging functions. You will have the opportunity to practice the new features and ask questions to ensure you are comfortable.

We will also have support available through our help desk at any time of the day or night. We have built in several levels of support so that you can seamlessly incorporate the updated tools in your classroom.

I've personally gone through the training so that I know what you will experience. I believe you will find that the basic functions of Tycho are the same. Tycho will look updated and provide you some abilities that I believe you will welcome.

~Marie