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Online lessons
How JCU improved student engagement with online learning materials .
Frances Cochrane interviewed by Wade Zaglas
When the pandemic hit Australian university campuses in March 2020 , institutions were scrambling to transition to online learning . However , as luck would have it , in the first months of 2020 , educational designer Frances Cochrane was in the early stages of piloting a project at James Cook University to improve the accessibility of the institution ’ s online content – mostly for postgraduate programs .
Realising universities not only have legal and regulatory obligations in relation to the accessibility of content in catering for learners ’ different learning styles and needs , Cochrane and JCU staff saw the project as an opportunity to increase student engagement and provide a point of competitive difference . And from student feedback , the project appears to have been a success .
But staff at JCU weren ’ t prepared to rest on their laurels and never revisit their online materials again . Cochrane explains JCU ’ s journey in making its online materials more accessible and engaging .
CR : When the pandemic arrived early in 2020 , how popular was online learning at JCU already , and was the university predicting more online learning occurring in the future regardless ? FC : Our students have had , for many years , access to their learning materials via our learning management system . I suppose for our undergraduate courses , a lot of those students would have typically come to one of our campuses to undertake their learning activities . Prior to the pandemic , as an institution , we were looking at offering more online learning in that post-graduate space , as were a lot of other institutions .
So that was already underway and it continues to be a focus , particularly in that undergraduate space . In regards to undergraduates , potentially not as much , because one of our strengths , and something that JCU has been known for , is that smaller cohort and that contact and on-campus experience that students can receive .
That ’ s still a factor for us going forward and something that we want to maintain , but there ’ s also , particularly in that postgraduate space , more of that online learning happening considering the large catchment area that JCU has – which is basically that focus on the tropics up into Asia as well , with our Singapore campus . It ’ s about extending those opportunities to students who aren ’ t physically located at some of our campuses .
Universities have legal and regulatory obligations in relation to the accessibility of content , but the JCU Accessibility Project went beyond this to cater for different learning styles and needs . Can you discuss the pilot program in 2020 and how it was rolled out in 2021 ? Our learning management system is based on Blackboard ’ s . We had been piloting an add-in tool called Blackboard Ally , so that was already well underway before the pandemic . We were trialling how this tool might help academics , but also how the tool might be used by students as well .
In 2019 we piloted the tool in a number of different subjects . Particularly in small subjects , but also in those that had very large cohort numbers . For example , one of the subjects we piloted was a very large first year subject that has over a thousand students , and is taught across campuses in lots of different cohorts of students
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