Distance Learning Takes
A Leep3 Forward

"Send a URL," says Vince Patone, MS '97 US. It's the fourth day of "boot camp" in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, and students in the morning technology workshop are learning first-hand what a live class session is really like.

Patone, technical coordinator for the school's LEEP3 Distance Education Program, doesn't resemble a drill instructor. Even so, the 27 students who began their master's degree program with a two-week intensive stay in Urbana-Champaign at the end of July are nervous about what they've gotten themselves into.

As they interact in a Web-based chat room with graduates and continuing students, their worries come through loud and clear. One new student half-jokingly asks a second-year student, "Deborah, did all of you live through this, or was the place littered with cold, stiff bodies by the end?"

Learning what a URL (uniform resource locator) is, dealing with live images, Real Audio and other terms form part of LEEP3 (Library Education Experimental Program) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. So do learning from a distance and working on group projects with fellow students, who are also at a distance from campus.

During the chat, new students are warned that the class participation takes more than they are used to in "live" classes. Hal Bloom, MS '98 LIS, who graduated in May, says that one new skill is "how you learn to speak through your fingers." Bloom, coordinator of integrated library systems for the Harvard Business School, also joined in the live chat demonstration.

This unique option for pursuing an accredited master's degree in library and information science offers students the opportunity to take all but their initial "boot camp" required course through the distance learning classes collectively called LEEP3.

Students complete their coursework at home or office, using advanced Web-based technologies.

Students enrolled in the program come from as far away as Alaska, Oregon, California and Massachusetts. This year, the program went international. Out of the 50 students enrolled for the first time this summer, three are Americans living abroad in Japan, Thailand and Colombia.

"There is an enormous demand for library and information science programs now," says Leigh Estabrook, dean of Illinois' highly ranked graduate school. The demand comes from academic libraries, public libraries and other organizations that need to retrieve and organize information. After implementing other avenues of making master's programs more available to students around the state, such as a Fridays-only program, the school undertook the LEEP3 experiment in 1995, offering courses to its first group of students in the summer of 1996.

Knowing that library and information science (LIS) professionals were quick to understand and embrace technology in the field spurred Estabrook's vision for supplying education on-line.

"LIS professionals—including our faculty—already were shaping ways for using technology, and this seemed like such a natural growth to me," she says. "Granted, it has taken considerable effort to find and apply the best technologies, but we are fortunate to have truly gifted and dedicated people working on our LEEP3 option. That's why we have a distance education program with a difference: We've discovered how to integrate the human and technological factors, and we keep refining."

Both students and faculty are enthusiastic about the program.

* Mary Galligan, writer for the University of Illinois Alumni Association magazine. The article was originally published in Illinois Alumni, Volume 11, Issue 2, September/October 1998. Reprinted with permission of the University of Illinois Alumni Association, Urbana.

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"No student has left the program saying, This doesn't work,'" Estabrook related. "Only life events and personal issues have kept students from completing their degree via LEEP3. Again and again, our students tell us this program opens doors and gives them the degree they desired but could not have earned without our option.

"Our faculty also express satisfaction in their interactions with students at a distance, saying they really do get to know these students. Despite some initial trepidation, faculty also report that they enjoy using the technology and finding new ways to share the content of their classes."

Instructors have learned to design courses that allow them to get to know their students without the physicality of the classroom.

"In the classroom, the instructor picks up a lot of information from the students' facial expressions, body language and the tone of voice in which they make comments and ask questions. I can read these signals and respond to them immediately," says Cheryl Malone, an assistant professor who is team-teaching the first course for the incoming LEEP3 students. "With asynchronous learning over the Web, students have to express their need for more information or clearer explanations in different ways, and the instructor has to plan and prepare on-line material that presents the information in a variety of ways before students ask."

"We are experimenting with a whole new form of education," say Michael Twidale, via e-mail from the United Kingdom. He joined the U. of I. in 1997 after teaching in the U.K. for a few years. "Therefore, it is not surprising that initially it is more time-consuming than the traditional, familiar face-to-face teaching.

"The advantages of distance education include time to reflect on the work, both for the student and instructor," he adds. "A student can think before asking or replying to a question, helping those who are not as good at instantaneous response, which is the usual form in class. Likewise, the instructor need not respond instantly to a question as in a regular class but can compose a more considered reply, checking on references and providing useful supplementary material."

Students consider themselves pioneers, he says, and take pride in their work. "For an instructor, the general level of enthusiasm is exhilarating." The fact that the students have jobs in libraries and can offer comparisons of different organizations make for a rich body of practical experience, he adds.

The school also was blessed with $600,000 over three years from the University to get the program started. "It's extraordinarily labor intensive," says Estabrook. Because of the computer technology, there are no time boundaries. Some students work late at night or early in the morning. "You can't say that office hours are one to five," she says. "Faculty have to be online at least once a day."

Students begin the program with a 12-day on-campus summer stay during which they complete a half-unit required course and take a number of noncredit technology workshops, since their computer skills range from beginner to sophisticate.

"I'm kind of exhilarated by this," says Nancy Peterson, a librarian from Glen Ellyn, during a short lunch break. "I'm having a blast being a student and wearing a T-shirt." She and other students recognize the need to work together on projects. "When we go back, we will be solitary," she says. "If we work together, we can support each other."

That support begins in the summer "boot camp," says Wendy Schumacher of Chicago, who works for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Schumacher began the program last year.

"It's a tremendous bonding experience," she says. "We're all part of a unique experience. We have classmates in Alaska, Japan, Taiwan and the Virgin Islands. Normally, you might have coffee after class. Now it seems normal to stay on-line and chat after class or e-mail someone your thoughts afterward. There's even a way to whisper in class."

The individual attention from the program's advisers and instructors impresses both current students and the newest recruits. "When I talked to my adviser about how to achieve my goals in the context of the program, he was really interested in my success," says Richard Pearce-Moses, who began the program this summer. Pearce-Moses, who serves as documentary collections archivist and automation coordinator at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Ariz., adds that the faculty is "incredibly flexible."

That flexibility may come with the distance learning and technology. Some of the instructors are off-campus, too, residing in Madison, Wis.; Chicago; Bryn Mawr, Pa.; Buffalo, N.Y.; Chapel Hill, N.C.; and Bloomington, Ind.

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"The courses that have really succeeded are those in which the instructors have made use of a variety of technologies," says Patone. These may include live, Web-based instruction in which students hear faculty speak. They may see slides and other graphics, hear music and audio clips, as the professor discusses them. Students chat on-line with the professor and each other.

For example, instructor Christine Jenkins put pages of a children's book, "Mike's House," on the Web last year, and she turned the pages as she might a book. She created a virtual children's story hour in a library, complete with background music.

Students, for their part, are required to have access to the necessary technology at work or at home, including hardware (either UNIX, IBM-compatible or Macintosh personal computers with sound capability), software and network connectivity. Students pay full tuition charges at the in-state or out-of-state rates, depending on where they reside.

The flexibility of the program attracts many students such as Nancy Crow, MS '98 US, who graduated from the LEEP3 program in August. "LEEP3 fit really well into my needs," she said. Crow is the director of the Four-Star Public Library in Mendon, a small rural library near Quincy. She is married to a farmer, has four children and says she did her coursework throughout the day. "I would turn on my computer when I got home from work and check my e-mail," she says. "I'm not a night person, but I'd get up early in the morning to do my work."

As part of the LEEP3 program's first class, Crow says she and fellow students at first worried that getting a degree through LEEP3 wouldn't be as good as earning it the traditional way on campus. "But once we got into it, we realized we were getting skills that were very important. In the end, we didn't feel cheated at all"

In the two years since she began her master's program, Crow's library now offers public Internet access, and the library has its own Web site.

In the near future, more courses at the U. of I. will be taught on-line. The UI-OnLine initiative was launched by vice president for academic affairs Sylvia Manning about a year and a half ago. UI-OnLine is an umbrella organization that provides coordination and support for University courses, degree programs and outreach and public service programs that are delivered largely or wholly over the Internet.

The University currently offers more than 41 courses and educational modules in an on-line format, originating from all three of its campuses in Chicago, Springfield and Urbana-Champaign.

"It's an ideal design for professional education," Estabrook says about on-line courses. The College of Education at Urbana-Champaign, for example, has just started offering on-line courses this fall. Altogether, eight courses will be offered over four semesters.

The University of Illinois at Springfield has a proposal for a virtual bachelor's degree program. Other programs up and running include a calculus program for high school students that the mathematics department at Urbana-Champaign administers. In February, the UI Department of Computer Science began offering its professional master of computer science degree to students outside of the United States by means of the Internet.

Also available are several on-line noncredit courses in computer science, such as learning how to use the Internet, Web publishing and JavaScript (a programming language).

And, in what may indicate the growth of on-line courses and offerings, the University announced in July that it is accepting applications and nominations for the position of director of the Illinois Virtual Campus. The virtual campus is a new initiative funded by the Illinois Board of Higher Education. Its purpose is to tie together all of the technology-mediated courses that are offered by accredited colleges and universities in the state into a signal Internet-based catalog.

The goal is to extend access to the state's higher education system to people who are unable to take advantage of traditional on-campus instruction. It may also make Illinois a leader in on-line and other forms of distance education.

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