Professor Interview Conducted by Lisa on 2/10/2005

Professor Interview Conducted by Lisa on 2/10/2005

Course Schedule Creation

Who do you intend your class schedule for?

Himself Looses track of where at in semester, needs to refer to it to go back to it

No need outside of core to cover every topic, needs to adapt to current events. In core covers all of the topics

Students: so they can find readings, when he says in section H, they go to section H. No dates, things move around

Outside academics: people who want to use readings, problem sets. SIMS is open, doesn’t hide stuff in Blackboard. Sometimes puts things behind login pages. Doesn’t always know who they are, but has community of people he shares with.

“Unknown/Unknowable”: people who find it on the web, but doesn’t know how to categorize them.

When do you choose a paper schedule, and when do you choose an online schedule? How do you decide how to get the class schedule to students?

Tries to keep it up to date. Up to date: means up to the last lecture. It’s a historical record. Tries to reflect future events, but they are not guaranteed. Really tries to reflect recent reality. “As of today reflects what we are up to”

If substantial changes made, prints and hands them out

Firm believer in over kill. Used to have separate print and web files, but no longer, prints web pages

Does your content strategy vary depending on the class type?

Yes

In core, only course that there is a day by day schedule and every due date is posted from day one. But does change things if reality is needed. Updates website accordingly.

Only course he’s done with all of the dead lines, except for class taught with German Uni.

Rest of classes schedule is amorphous and not set with definite dates

Class schedule Creation Process

Walk me through the process of creating your class schedule.

[for classes that aren’t core]

Starts with number of weeks of lectures he needs, say 10, which means there are 10 – 20 lectures, and then goes over what he has prepared.

Bases on previous syllabi, and alters order dramatically with 1/3 new topics or so

Has outline chunks, figures out if has topics with chunks, then blocks out schedule, but doesn’t know how many weeks he has really because of presentation time for students

Topics = weeks = components

But doesn’t add dates because he wants to be flexible

Takes previous schedule and alters. Uses notes and articles gathered over time since last time course was taught to alter it. Not a touch typist, easiest to cut and paste.

In your experience, is the class schedule developed over the course of the semester, or created at the beginning of the semester?

[from above, creates at beginning, but changes constantly through the semester]

How much do you base a course’s class schedule on previous class schedules you’ve created, either for that course or other courses?

[from above 2/3 old, 1/3 new]

Do you use the class schedules of other faculty in some way? If so, how?

Yes, kept track of other core to know what they didn’t cover so he could add to his core

But electives have no overlap with other courses at SIMS

When takes over classes looks at previous syllabi

With community looks at what they do.

Have you designed a class schedule with another person? If so, how did you manage that process?

Do you make changes to reflect ongoing course changes through the semester?

[from above, he absolutely does, historical record]

How do you maintain the class schedule document over the semester?

Uses Mozilla Composer, optimizes for IE,

Separate link to reading list

Separate link to resources

If you co-teach, how do you manage the maintenance of the class schedule?

Absolute control, wouldn’t let Peter touch it

Do you have a TA, and if so, what role does he or she play in maintaining the class schedule?

Depends on the TA, rarely. Doesn’t have TAs do clerical work. Would rather do it than delegate it

Really enjoys autonomy of destroying own data.

What do you do with the class schedule document when the semester ends?

Kevin archives it. He performs magic

Will go back last week of class to update for final historical record

Uses update dates to keep track of version

Class schedule Implementation

Do you have a preferred look and feel?

Likes simple

Doesn’t like Times Roman, likes higher x-height relative, likes serif. Used to use minion web. Renders better.

Light but not white backgrounds, goes for pastel Cal colors. White background when doing tables.

Other than that a “roll of toilet paper”

What features of other professor’s class schedules do you appreciate?

In what ways do you prefer your class schedules to other professors?

Tries to avoid sophistication, print download render faster. Wants page breaks,

Do you receive feedback from students on your class schedule? If so, what does that feedback tend to be? Do you feel the feedback is representative of your students?

Tell him they are lost all the time.

Problem one: class and assignment schedule in two different places.

Getting no complaints about Sylvia

Problem two: lost between course outline and readings. Tries to have Section Numbers for readings referred to in course outline

Likes having separate reading list… uses as ToC for Reader at Copy Central (white background, required readings in green, online have blue hyperlinks)

Is there anything that you think could be improved about your class schedule? What are the obstacles to making those changes?

Seems to think it works fine for him.

Do you have any frustrations with your current method of creating class schedules? If so, what are they?

Version control from H: dir to WWW dir: edits wrong one

IE temp file saving in weird place

Maintaining printable and screen format, and easy to up date

“Simple minded” wants simple interface

Are there other applications for creating course websites or class schedules that you’ve used?

Won’t use Study.net and blackboard. Resisted to the death

If so, what have you liked about them? What have you disliked?

Wants things open. Would have to learn something new. What is the pay off for learning something new. Hasn’t even heard bad answer. Just ignores it.

If a system were available for making the class schedule more usable for students, would you invest extra effort?

Not into exact number

_x_ 20% more

If a system were available for consolidating all the class schedules to help you with scheduling exams and assignments, would you invest extra effort?

“schedule for me or vis a vis others in school?”

“assuming that profs care”

_x_ 20% more

If a system were available for better coordinating student schedules, would you be interested?

Would really depend on nature of it

_x_ Don’t know

Hasn’t had one student complain about new format

Looking at table format printout:

Prints out table format to figure out where he is

Likes that same links can be reused from his personal html place

Confused at first about assignments appear twice, thinks we should explain this.