A national consortium, which has considerable experience delivering online instruction, the University of Alabama, Kansas State University, and Fayetteville State University will work with the University of Idaho to complete a three year national study of online learning and teaching. The primary funding has been granted to the University of Idaho from the NASA Earth Science Enterprise. The purpose of the Project is to optimize online learning through research and development. This research could prove invaluable for future course development as this medium develops. The role of each site member in the consortium will be to 1) disseminate and offer assistance to teachers who desire to enroll in online courses, 2) deliver courses online, 3) implement innovative strategies for online delivery including "distributed teaching" (a model will allow professors at institutions (schools and universities) to work together to deliver online courses to a diverse set of students), 4) assist in the gathering of data to determine the effects on students of variations in key variables in online delivery, and 5) assist in the development an assessment instrument to determine the quality of an online delivery system.

The University of Idaho (UI), the lead institution in the ESS-NOVA Online Project will be joined by the University of Alabama (UA) and Kansas State University (KSU). This pilot will serve the purpose of refining the research agenda and creating instruments to gather data on delivery strategies for online courses. Two courses will be delivered during the Project, a middle school and elementary school version of the NASA Classroom of the Future (COTF) "Earth Systems Science Course". These universities have the necessary technical requirements for housing and delivering the COTF courses. The following section outlines the proposed plan for delivering the courses.

The dissemination plan for each institution will be to recruit 10 teachers per course. In year one, one course will be piloted. In years two and three, two courses will be taught each year. In year 1 this translates to 30 teachers, 10 at the University of Alabama. In year two 60 teachers will be involved, 20 at UA. In year three, five to ten (or more) new participating institutions from the NOVA Network will recruit 20 teachers each for a total of 100 to 200 teachers. Each participating teacher and preservice teacher will receive graduate/undergraduate credit for their participation in the project.

Dissemination outside the consortium will be facilitated by adding a workshop session to the NOVA/NASA Annual Leadership Conference to work with interested faculty at NOVA Network institutions. The NOVA Network represents institutions of higher education which have been funded in the NOVA/NASA program to create innovative courses in science or mathematics for education majors. This dissemination will also allow for the development of a research design that can be used at all the NOVA Network institutions. Research questions will include but will not be limited to ESS knowledge acquisition, teaching efficacy, attitudinal items, transfer to the K-12 classroom and delivery strategies for online courses. One delivery strategy of interest is in examining the idea of "distributed teaching". In this model teachers sign up for the course at their home institution, but the course will be taught by several professors at different institutions. Each professor will take over a portion of the course based on their interest and expertise. For example, during a three week module on volcanoes in the ESS Middle School Course the professor would be responsible for all the students. In trial online offerings it was discovered that professors get burned out providing feedback in online discussions with students for an entire semester. However, if professors are only responsible for a small portion of the online course the discussions are more meaningful for both the professor and students. This also saves faculty time and resources. This model has great potential for delivering online courses in a cost effective manner. It is anticipated that as many as 25% of the NOVA Network institutions (total about 70 in 2002) may come online during the project period and the rest will have the opportunity in subsequent years.

In order to conduct the research and development at the University of Alabama, a graduate student will be trained to monitor courses and compile data (quantitative and qualitative) for the ESS-NOVA Project. The research instruments and focus research questions will put online, by the UI, as part of the ESS course so data can be collected simultaneously. Phone interviews will be conducted with participants to enhance the online data gathered. NASA-ESS staff will design original instruments, identify commercially developed instruments, as well as assign research duties to other involved faculty and graduate students.

At the end of the project period findings will be published as part of a Final report (NASA Publication) and in refereed journals. It should be noted that the research plan will develop as courses are delivered and there will be variations built in to examine teachers at each of the three levels the course is offered. Additional information will be gathered on professors delivering the courses and on preservice teachers.

Overview timeline of three year project

Year 1 - middle school course taught one time at 3 sites

Year 2 - middle school course taught one time at 3 sites

- elementary school course taught one time at 3 sites

Year 3 - middle school course taught one time at 3+ NOVA sites

- elementary school course taught one time at 3+ NOVA sites

on site workshop on site workshop on-line course

and complete