After serving as the director of the Center for Instructional Technology for the past 14 years, Lynne O’Brien was announced this summer as Duke’s first ever associate vice provost for digital and online education initiatives. The Chronicle’s Jen Chen talked with O’Brien about her goals in this new position and visions for online teaching.
The Chronicle: Can you share a bit about your path leading up to this point?
Lynne O’Brien: I’ve taught everything from first grade through graduate school. I was a faculty member of Brown University for a while before moving into the area of academic technology. After working at Brown for a number of years, I came here and started the Center for Instructional Technology. My Ph.D. was in Education so I’ve always been interested in the educational applications of computing—how technologies can help teachers teach better and help students learn better.
TC: What initially made you interested in the field of online academic technology?
LOB: Right next to the Education Department at Brown where I was located, there was an IBM funded research institute that was developing educational software and experimenting with possible uses of personal computers. I was interested in their way of thinking about educational change—the idea that instead of only changing the learner, you can change the tools, and through that, enable more learning. Often times, changes happen slowly in schools, but through the use of technology we can create educational change more quickly. I ended up working with this institute and from there slid into the world of technology.
TC: What were your responsibilities as the director of Duke’s CIT and what were some of the most meaningful projects that you were involved in?
LOB: When I came here to start the CIT, the University’s and my goal was to ensure that the faculty members were aware of the technologies that could be used for teaching and to help them use them when it made sense for them.
One of the fun projects was the iPod project, where we distributed iPods to students to find out how mobile devices might have an impact on education. We also had the first course management system in place that made it easier for faculty to distribute course materials—before then, you had to code to have a course webpage.
We’ve had a lot of interesting projects that have encouraged faculty members to make their classes more interactive. Through using technology outside of class like recorded lectures or online assignments, more class time can be spent for discussion or problem solving. Using technology during class time—such as a survey tool called Clickers—can help faculty members get student opinions where they may not otherwise raise their hands to [speak]. The idea of creating engaging, active class time is something we’ve been working on over the years.
TC: What are your goals and visions on your new position?
LOB: Some of the goals are the same, such as I want to see online technology used to enhance learning and to support the goals that faculty members have.
I’m particularly interested in how online technologies can be used to teach innovation, for example, through the use of online materials and more customized individual activities for students.
Also, one of our strategic plan goals is for Duke to be a global institution and I think online education can help make that possible, not only by bringing our education out into the world but also by bringing people all over the world into our campus. That diverse global perspective is very important for Duke undergraduates.
The third thing that online education is good for is showing the world our terrific faculty and programs. Through some of the things we’ve done last year we’ve received positive comments from people all over the world and that’s a great thing for us.
TC: One of the main initiatives you are currently leading deals with Massive Online Open Courses, can you please describe what that is and how it is going?
LOB: Last year was our first year working on MOOCs. We created 11 courses, most of which will be retaught this year. In addition, we will have 10 new courses. By the end of this academic year almost every school at Duke will have created at least one MOOC. We’ve tried introductory and advanced courses in all different subject areas. The idea is to let different faculties try different things so that we can see what are the most useful under what circumstances.
TC: What do you foresee as the future of online teaching and learning?
LOB: At Duke our primary emphasis will always be on face-to-face classes, but hybrid courses and activities will be an increasing part of many Duke courses. We may have face-to-face classes that use some online materials, or we may have parts of the course online and parts of it face-to-face. Faculty can also use online technology for extra projects so the parts students learn in class will be more complex and advanced.
Another thing that we will see is more sharing of courses across institutions, such as faculty members here at Duke and faculty members at our new campus in China now developing courses together and teaching them together.
A third thing is that online courses can help make students’ schedules more flexible and can give them more individualized ways of approaching their classes. There can be materials that students can take before they start classes if their skills are a little weak, and there can be some advanced materials that people can pursue on their own if they get through the courses quickly.
Another thing I see is that we have some MOOC courses that are not for credit and don’t charge tuition. This can allow students to sample a subject area before enrolling in a credit course.
TC: What are some of the challenges in promoting online teaching and how will you address them?
LOB: For online education to work well, it has to be done well. There is sometimes the perception that online education is easier and not as rigorous, so a big challenge is to change that perception. As well, we need to fined out where the role of online is in a university where campus teaching is the gold standard. A third thing is figuring out the long time impact on things like course credit and course length--—a lot of questions are being raised about these areas and we will need to sort some of these things out.
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