In this article:
- Introducing the operations team
- Vetting and implementing online learning tools
- Ensuring security, privacy, and accessibility
- Providing ongoing support for students and instructors
Penn LPS Online courses stand out in the field of online education. A Penn course promises the high-quality, immersive education you expect from an Ivy League university; an online course offers greater flexibility and accessibility for students who can’t put their lives on hold while pursuing their academic dreams. Both advantages are built into the infrastructure of the Penn LPS Online curriculum by the School of Arts and Sciences (SAS) Online Learning Team (which consists of three subgroups: instructional design, media, and operations), who design, produce, and support the courses envisioned by Penn faculty.
Introducing the operations team
Meet the SAS Online Learning operations team members who leverage technology to meet learning objectives and enhance the online learning experience for Penn LPS Online students. The team vets new online learning technology, contributes to the course development process, and provides support to students and instructors once courses are up and running on Penn’s learning management system (LMS) of choice, Canvas. Their goal is to remove barriers and maximize ease of use for students and instructors in the online learning environment.
Joe Schaffner, Associate Director of Online Operations
Team manager Joe has worked in instructional technology at Penn for 13 years, starting with Penn Libraries during the University’s transition from a previous web-based LMS widely used at Penn to the current LMS Canvas. He came to the College of Liberal and Professional Studies (LPS) in 2019 to help with the launch of Penn’s Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences (BAAS) program—the first Ivy League bachelor’s degree offered online. In addition to supervising the team staff, Joe assists with regular operations responsibilities, such as running the help desk, drafting documentation, and setting up online course materials.
Kara Rodgers, Technical Support Manager
Kara started her career at Penn six years ago with the English Language Programs, where she gained experience across various systems at the University while helping international students new to campus get set up with their technical requirements. Kara had the opportunity to move to SAS Online Learning in 2020. Today, she provides user support for Canvas and other digital tools, and audits courses for accessibility compliance.
Kristen Meidt, Course Operations and Technical Support Specialist
Kristen has been with the SAS Online Learning Team for 10 years, providing technical support for students, instructors, and the operations team. Her responsibilities include course building, systems administration, and periodic quality assurance reviews of every Penn LPS Online course.
Each course offered through Penn LPS Online goes through a months-long development process involving the course instructor and the three subgroups (instructional design, media, and operations) of the SAS Online Learning Team. “The operations team usually comes in after the kickoff meeting that the instructional design team and the media team have with instructors,” Joe begins. “They get the vision for the course from the instructors and come up with some ideas for it, then often come to us to ask for the feasibility of those ideas in the context of instructional technology.” For any envisioned course activity or assignment, Joe’s team can help assess the affordances, limitations, and accessibility considerations to identify the right learning tool. “We then collaborate to develop that course content moving forward and ensure that that vision can be realized through those technologies.”
Vetting and implementing online learning tools
Canvas is the LMS used by all schools at Penn and serves as the core technology for LPS Online courses. “I like to describe Canvas as where the online course lives,” shares Joe. Every new LPS Online student has access to an online Canvas orientation, which the operations team keeps up to date. The platform provides a website for each course and has built-in features for communication, collaboration, and assessment, such as discussion boards and applications for taking quizzes and uploading assignment submissions.
As Kara explains, a lot of thought went into selecting the product. “We stay very in tune with the LMS space and what's happening in educational technology integrations,” she says. “Penn Libraries went through a heavy decision-making process, weighing several of the leading LMSs on the market before choosing Canvas.”
One stand-out feature is the usability of the Canvas interface, which makes it easy to create a templated, unified experience for students and facilitates the construction of organized lesson plans by instructors. From one course to the next, students find a familiar course dashboard: the same buttons, the same help features, and similar navigation bars. “Every time students take a new course, they have a general understanding of the layout,” Joe says.
Robust as Canvas is on its own, the built-in features are not always enough to meet the educational and engagement goals for a course. That’s where another strength of the product comes in: seamless integration with additional technologies. “We will often look at some of the central technology of Canvas to identify what's appropriate for a course,” Joe says, “and if we see any gaps, we look for an alternative to supplement the course in the form of another technology that integrates with Canvas.”
One instructor may want a tool that allows students to build media assignments that can be annotated by classmates. The operations team will likely recommend using the tool Harmonize. An instructor for another course may expect students to engage in collaborative reading analysis by leaving direct comments within a course text. In this case, Perusall may be the best add-on technology.
Penn LPS Online students may find that they are frequently watching course lectures through Canvas using Panopto. This integration allows instructors to pre-record multimedia lectures with the help of the SAS Online Learning media team. The operations team then uses a service called 3Play to add professional, ADA-compliant captioning that is also searchable.
The operations team stays informed about new online learning technologies in various ways, both formal and informal. Team members sit on several Penn instructional technology groups, including the Courseware Steering Committee and the Courseware Advisory through Penn Libraries, and are members of professional organizations like UPCEA. “Instructional technology professionals across higher education are very communicative,” Joe says. “We’re constantly talking to our colleagues about new tools.”
Any new tool that matches the learning goals of instructors must also be user-friendly. For every product the operations team evaluates, they develop documentation—the user guide for both students and instructors—which can be found on the Penn LPS Online Knowledge Base if and when the product is implemented. “We want to make the documentation as simple as possible,” Kara explains, stressing that the technology itself should never be a barrier to the success of an online learner. If the documentation is too complex for the average user (if the tool is simply too hard to use), it won’t make the cut, and the team will continue searching for another product.
Ensuring security, privacy, and accessibility
Before committing to a user-friendly technology that adds value to the educational experience, security and privacy must be addressed. “We’re compelled to make the best decisions for our students, both in terms of what's going to help them with their learning, but also what's going to be secure and effective for them,” Joe says. Security and privacy reviews, which are performed by Penn Information Systems and Computing, can take up to six months as IT professionals thoroughly review a product to ensure that students’ data are secure.
Products must also meet accessibility standards. “Penn strives to be at double-A WCAG compliance,” Kara says, referring to the internationally-recognized Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, “so we wouldn’t use a tool that falls below those standards.” Vendors that supply technology tools must sign the Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT®) form to show their commitment to WCAG standards.
Additionally, Kara, a trained and certified accessibility expert, checks each tool and the broader Canvas user experience for compliance. “I perform audits on our course sites to make sure that they are the best that we can deliver to our students,” Kara says. Accessibility concerns include using unique and descriptive text for links, writing alt text for images, ensuring PDFs are compatible with screen readers and text-to-speech programs, and adding clear and accurate captioning to videos.
Additionally, six weeks before each term, Kristen performs a quality assurance review of existing online courses. “I go into each course and assess the module components to make sure that everything is in line with our Canvas template,” she says. Kristen also checks for general functionality, like working links, and reassesses accessibility requirements. “If something stands out to me, I make note of it and I reach out to instructors after chatting with my team and making sure this is something that we should change to help standardize everything and make it the best experience for students.”
Providing ongoing support and training to students and instructors
Once the SAS Online Learning Team and the instructor build and launch an online course, the operations team remains engaged throughout the life of the course and supports users in a number of ways.
The SAS Online Learning Help Desk, which the team oversees, serves as a feedback channel for monitoring course technology. “It's a 24-7 help desk,” Joe says. “Students can call or email, and there's always someone there to answer their question, which can be about Canvas, Zoom, or whatever technology they're using in their course.” If there is a technological pain point for students or instructors, the team will likely see a pattern in help desk tickets.
Roll-outs of new tools are also accompanied by surveys that the operations team sends directly to students and instructors. “We leverage those surveys and help-desk ticketing data to look for common issues,” Joe explains. “If there’s one feature in a pervasive tool that’s causing a lot of headaches, we need to get out in front of it and help our students.”
Feedback informs documentation improvements as well as what technology issues should be addressed in the new student orientation to ensure the transition to Canvas goes smoothly. Periodic outreach emails sent by the team to students about technology use are updated. Technology trainings offered to faculty are constantly being improved. And, if a particular tool proves too challenging or becomes obsolete, the operations team is ready to investigate a new secure, accessible, and usable technology.
“Our operations team and the whole SAS Online Learning Team are constantly learning, evolving, and adapting to make the online learning experience better for everyone,” Kristen shares.
“All of these tools are meant to assist our students,” Joe adds. “We think in terms of where can we remove the friction? How can we remove the barrier? There’s always that purpose behind what we do.”
To learn more about the Penn LPS Online learning experience, visit Am I Ready for Online Learning? and How to succeed in Penn LPS Online courses.
Read about the SAS Online Learning Team’s instructional designers
