February 2001 — Features
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Evaluating Distance Education Across Twelve Time Zones
Another unusual characteristic of the SMA program is the highly collaborative nature of the degree programs and the coursework. Each course is team-taught by at least two faculty members and, in some cases, as many as six. Almost all courses have at least one instructor from Singapore and one instructor from MIT.
Driven by Technology
Although SMA faculty travel back and forth frequently between Singapore and the United States, most of the classroom experiences involve faculty and students on opposite sides of the planet using state-of-the-art technology. SMA faculty understand their students' need for face-to-face interaction with their professors, making synchronous delivery of course content imperative. Classes therefore meet early in the morning and in the evening to accommodate the time zone differences.
The use of Internet2, a very high-speed adaptation of the Internet, is important to the success of the program because it allows for high quality videoconferencing. Faculty and students can move around without causing distortion to the receiving site, talk to one another with only a two-second time-delay, and view graphics that are more detailed and sophisticated than those possible using ISDN video-conferencing.
Each live lecture is taped and then digitized and archived on the course Web site for later viewing. Other features of the Web site include a chat room, a calendar, homework assignments and reading material.
Technical delivery of the SMA program has been a highly collaborative effort as well. Technical teams at the Center for Advanced Educational Services (MIT), the Centre for Instructional Technology (NUS) and the Centre for Educational Development (NTU) have faced many of the same challenges as the SMA faculty: working with different delivery systems, time zones, and physical distance.
It was important, therefore, to conduct an assessment of the technical delivery (both synchronous and asynchronous) at a very early stage of the program. We therefore decided to survey students on their experiences with the program during the spring 2000 semester. Due to the formative nature of the program, the survey focused entirely on technical delivery and specifically excluded questions regarding faculty teaching in the distance learning environment.
Students' Use of the SMA Instructional Delivery System
Of the 70 students enrolled in the program, 61 (87 percent) responded, the majority (87 percent) of whom are studying at NUS. About half (52 percent) are enrolled in the Advanced Materials program, with the other half in the High Performance Computation for Engineered Systems program. Most (92 percent) are in at least their second semester of the SMA program, and this is the only distance education course ever taken by almost all (97 percent) of the students.
Most students (89 percent) attend classes in person on campus in Singapore, and 87 percent stated that they "always" or "almost always" attend the videoconferencing lectures. Only 23 percent, however, stated that they "always," "almost always," or "usually" reviewed the videos of the lectures on the Web. Another 31 percent stated that they have reviewed at least half of the videos, while 39 percent stated that they have reviewed only a few. Five percent of students stated that they never review the videos.
