Executive Summary of Results

The purpose of this project was to expand and improve the framework for the intelligence Web site (http://www.indiana.edu/~intell). We made progress in the areas of content revision, interface revision, collecting teaching resources for the site, investigating copyright issues, and collecting digital video clips to include on the site. Our work will continue in the areas of streaming the video clips and conducting usability tests with students, both scheduled for this summer.

Need for the Project

With the current emphasis on using technology in college level instruction, professors and students are turning to the Web for resources that support learning. However, many disciplines are limited by the lack of high quality content on the Web. This is certainly the case for several topics in psychology and educational psychology, especially the study of intelligence. Although several texts and print resources exist for this topic, they suffer from the limitation of representing complex constructs in paper format.

The creation of a high quality site on the topic of intelligence would serve as a valuable resource for students in a variety of fields and at several different education levels. To meet this need, my students and I have constructed the basic framework for an intelligence site: http://www.indiana.edu/~intell. Our goal has been to create an electronic, constructivist-influenced version of a textbook, using technology to create features and opportunities that are not possible in a print-only version: multiple navigation possibilities, non-linear format, several delivery options for information, and frequent information updates. These features could be expanded to include video streaming of interviews with profiled academics, a collection of syllabi from courses on intelligence and other teaching resources, and online forums for students and teachers of intelligence. The purpose of the proposed project is to improve the framework for the site and take advantage of recent advances in instructional technology in order to make the site a world-class resource on the topic of intelligence.

Use of Technology

When designing and building the site, my team’s focus has been on content first, technological bells and whistles second. After watching many Internet-based instructional strategies fail because of a lack of high quality content, we believe that our focus on content should be maintained. However, the site is being improved with several technological enhancements: streaming video clips from interviews with important theorists, researchers, and practitioners; discussion forums on important topics; enhanced visual appeal of the site; and mechanisms that allow students and instructors to submit content and suggestions for the site. Furthermore, recent research is being used to guide revisions and additions to the site. For example, Mayer et al. (2001) suggest that providing too much information in multimedia impedes student learning, so a goal of the site redesign was to reorient the pages to provide a level of information that is helpful but not visually overwhelming.

Instructional Design Plan

Describe how the use of technology used supported your teaching approach:

• What student learning outcomes were expected?
• How did your teaching plan encourage active learning, provide feedback, address respective learning styles, and build collaboration?
• What resources were used? (campus technology support services, etc.)
• Would your project be easily understood and executed by other faculty?

• Continue to revise and add content. The content has been significantly upgraded throughout the site.
• Add video clips of structured interviews. Three interviews have been recorded, and several more are being scheduled at the next round of academic conferences in education and psychology. The clips will be uploaded this summer. I completed training on working with digital video during the spring 2002 semester. Although the technology is straightforward, I decided to wait on adding the streaming video until the site redesign was completed.
• Continue to revise the interface to allow students to navigate the site in multiple ways. The major overhaul of the site’s visual interface has been completed, although minor improvements are ongoing. A search function, often requested by students, was recently added to the site.
• Increase the interactivity of the Hot Topics. Ongoing.
• Add links to primary publications to encourage students to access the author’s original material. These links have been added and will continue to be added to the site.
• Revise evaluation form to allow for more detailed responses from students. Problems with the original form were corrected. A new form was created and uploaded when the site redesign was completed.
• Create online work spaces that encourage student interaction and collaboration. Ongoing.
• Create a discussion forum on teaching about intelligence theory and assessment. Ongoing.
• Solicit/add annotated syllabi for courses on intelligence from all educational levels. This information has been collected and is being added to the site now that the interface redesign is complete.
• Solicit/add activities that can be used by instructors to teach about intelligence. This information has been collected and is being added to the site now that the interface redesign is complete.
• Increase level of documentation. This material has been added. The copyright permission for photos took several months, but we are now in compliance with all copyright regulations.

Potential to Impact Student Learning

Clearly define how your project improved student learning - include specific examples of how your project:

• Fostered depth of learning
• Supported efforts to improve retention
• Fostered the learning of large numbers of students
• Has broader applications that will affect learning K-12 or community environments?

We have not yet conducted usability tests with students, but we believe the data we have gathered (see Figures 1 and 2 in the Assessment section of this report) suggest that we are making progress toward our goal of facilitating student learning about human intelligence. Indeed, faculty at other universities continue to send unsolicited messages about the degree to which their students find the site to be useful.

Assessment Plan

Briefly explain the effectiveness of your assessment plan:

• What measure of assessment was used?
• How did your approach obtain measures of performance?
• Did you feel your measurement was accurate and effective?

The assessment plan involved collection of site visit statistics, online evaluations by users, reviews of the site by content experts and usability experts, and usability tests. At this point in the project, we have carefully monitored site visit statistics (Figure 1) and have invited reviews of our site by content and usability experts. Online evaluations are being collected and continue to be analyzed now that the improvements to the site are in place. Usability tests will be conducted after the site reorganization is completed during the summer.

Site visit statistics suggest that the site is becoming much more popular. For example, March 2002 was previously the highest hit total since the site was launched in October 1998. Yet even against that tough standard, we saw a 66% increase in hits on the main page from March 2002 to March 2003. This increase in traffic is not surprising given that we are spreading word of mouth about the site as we contact leaders in the field for their input. As one leader in the field recently wrote in an e-mail message, “Some time back, I found no Web sites on intelligence, so I am glad to see that you are providing one.” Another scholar noted that he always told his students that good Web-based resources on intelligence did not exist, but now he was glad that such a resource was available.

Critiques from context experts (both solicited and unsolicited) continue to be integrated into our work. Many of the critiques focus on what I would consider to be minor points, which is a good sign – we rarely receive complaints that we have missed the big picture on a particular topic or issue. More often than not, scholars send us information on obscure resources that may inform our work, which helps us move toward our goals of becoming the top Internet resource on the intelligence and creating an online community of people interested in human intelligence.

Figure 2 contains information that was used to determine how people navigate through the site. We will compare this data, which were collected early in the project, with similar data collected after the reorganization of the site.

Plan for Colleague Development

Describe your role and activities as a mentor:

• What mentoring activities were implemented to assist colleagues?
• How did you help to develop colleague's instructional technology skills?
• How do you think your contributions to the Knowledge Base will help colleagues planning similar projects?
• Is your project approach potentially applicable to other contexts or disciplines?
• What tips would you offer?

This project proposed to facilitate colleague development in three ways: Creating a section of the site that provided an interactive resource for colleagues who teach about intelligence, (2) providing information about the process as a mentor and workshop facilitator, and (3) spreading the word through refereed journal publications and presentations at national conferences. To date, we have focused on the first of these strategies and will shift our efforts to the second and third strategy now that the major revisions to the site are completed.

As mentioned in the midterm report, I found two excellent print resources for designing effective Web sites: Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability and Van Duyne et al.’s The Design of Sites: Patterns, Principles, and Processes for Crafting a Customer-Centered Web Experience. Both books contain excellent suggestions for building effective sites, although the Krug book is more accessible. The content of both books was used extensively during the interface redesign.

Final Comments on Project Results

• Do you think you met the goals of your project?
• What, if anything,would you do differently?
• Did you have any unexpected outcomes? (positive or negative)
• Would you recommend this teaching approach to colleagues?
• What other comments or suggestions would you offer to complete this report?

With the benefit of hindsight, my original goals for the project were a bit too ambitious. Fortunately, I hired two very talented graduate assistants: Amber Esping focused on content-related issues, contacting experts in the field, and conducting the taped interviews, and Jason Hessing focused on the site redesign and other technical aspects of the site. Collectively, we reached nearly all of the original project goals, in addition to accomplishing other tasks that appeared on our radar screen as we worked on the project.

As mentioned in the midterm report, the biggest stumbling block was obtaining information about copyright law as it pertains to the Internet. We expected that lawyers would be able to provide at least limited guidance on this issue, but they generally could not provide meaningful guidance. We believe we currently meet copyright standards on our site, and we know that we have the correct permissions for any images on the site. Our work on this issue may make a helpful contribution to the Knowledge Base.

If I were starting the project again, I probably would have hired two part-time assistants to work on the technical side of things. Both of the graduate assistants did first-class work (i.e., work at a level I would have expected from faculty members), but constraints on their time slowed the pace of revisions, especially during the current (spring 2003) semester. Indeed, with the remaining funds, I plan to hire this extra help during the summer to tie up the technology-related loose ends of the project.

If nothing else, I hope that our experiences – and success – with this project encourage other faculty to consider the creation of high-quality online resources in their area of academic specialty. The issue of prestige has been widely discussed on campus regarding Internet versus print outlets, with the majority of faculty believing that print scholarship is more valued than In4 May, 2007this position, the success of our site provides an example of a way in which one’s Internet scholarship can complement one’s print scholarship. In other words, it does not need to be an either-or situation: My work reaches a far greater audience because it is available in multiple forms of dissemination, not in spite of it.

Our overarching goals were to (1) create the best Web resource on human intelligence and (2) increase the usefulness of the site as a teaching and learning resource. Although we have not completed our data collection efforts – and, indeed, never plan to stop collecting data and revising the site accordingly – we believe we have made significant progress in meeting these goals. Without the support of the SBC Fellows program, we would not have been able to bring such a high level of quality to the site.

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Last updated: 18 May, 2007

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