New Approaches to Documenting Teaching and Learning in Higher Education:
An Exploration of the Archival Potential of Educational Technology

Helen Samuels

Project Goal

Education is a core function of every institution of higher education.  Yet, teaching and learning remain among the most elusive and difficult activities for archivists to document. Today, however, technology is used extensively in every facet of the educational process.  This project will explore the potential role of educational technology to improve the documentation of the administrative, pedagogical, and technical activities that are a part of teaching and learning. In doing so, I will consider both the digital documentation that is currently created as part of the application of educational technology, and the possibility of enhancing that documentation by working with educators and educational technologies to ensure a more complete record. Though the deliberate creation of records may still be debated within the profession, it is important to continue to consider when this is appropriate. This project, therefore, will explore the archival potential of both the digital records that are currently created and those that could be created to capture the educational process. The end product will include not only lessons learned and appraisal guidelines for archivists, but also recommendations for educators and educational technologists about the long-term value of these records.

Problem Statement

What evidence would be required to respond to the following questions?

In fall 2020, Provost Benson creates an ad hoc faculty committee to formulate recommendations about the future of undergraduate education at MIT, focusing both on the curriculum and the desired methods of delivery.  The study begins by examining the role educational technology played in transforming undergraduate education at MIT in the early part of the 21st century.

In 2025, The Center for History of Physics at the American Institute of Physics undertakes a comprehensive study of the teaching of physics in American higher education.  Their goal is to assess the changing teaching methods and technologies that have been utilized.

In 2050, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching is preparing a volume to celebrate the accomplishments of the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (CASTL) in the first half of the 21st century. Former CASTL scholars have been asked to prepare essays about the impact of their work, and particularly the implications these developments had on their own institutions and on their disciplines. In a broader sense, this commemorative volume seeks to explore how the culture of higher education has been reshaped by educational technology.

In 2020, 2025 or 2050 what evidence would researchers find to provide the information they seek?  What evidence would they hope to find? Can we ensure that an adequate documentary record will exist to answer these and so many other questions that have not yet been asked?

Research Methodology                                                                                                 
With archival practice as the starting point, a collaborative approach will be utilized, as it is important to understand the objectives and practices of the educators and educational technologists who create these records. In addition this study seeks to determine how archival practice might benefit from understanding disciplines, such as anthropology, social psychology, oral history and folklore in which a documentary record is deliberately created to capture elusive activities and enable their scholarly examination.

Archivists: This study must build upon the extensive archival literature on appraisal, and more specifically utilize studies of the records of higher education.  When Varsity Letters: documenting modern colleges and universities was published (Scarecrow Press & the Society of American Archivists, 1992) I suggested that educational technology “may provide an opportunity for archivists, as it does for the educator, to capture the learning process.” This study will explore if that hope can now be realized.

This project will make use of two very relevant NHPRC Archival Research Fellowships: Ellen Swain and Chris Prim, “An Investigation of Student Organization Websites for the Development of Appraisal and Capture Guidelines;” and Nancy Deromedi, “Wired Faculty: Research to Assess the Archival Value of Faculty Websites to Document their Functions and Activities at the University of Michigan.” In addition the work accomplished by Philip Bantin and his colleagues at the University of Indiana on electronic records will also be valuable.  JoAnne Yates’ work (Control through Communication, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.) examining the relationship between technologies, records and communication, will provide another very useful perspective.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Educators: The extensive literature on the use, impact and assessment of educational technology will provide the background for this study. In addition, I will benefit from the growing body of literature devoted to the scholarship of teaching and learning, which has been cultivated to a large extent by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. “A scholarship of teaching will entail a public account of some or all of the full act of teaching – vision, design, enactment, outcomes, and analysis – in a manner susceptible to critical review by the teacher’s professional peers, and amenable to productive employment in future work by members of their same community.” (Lee Shulman, President, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, in “Leadership for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.”)

Current applications of educational technology will be examined by studying courses, at MIT as well as other academic institutions. A variety of educational formats, including lecture, seminar, project-based, hands-on and active learning, will be included in the study to test the assumption that the mode of teaching affects the nature of the documentary record. A group of MIT courses will be tracked during the 2004-2005 academic year, and collaborative relationships established with their instructors will enable the analysis of the use of educational technology and the resulting documentary record. While it might be assumed that educational technology is in general use at MIT, in truth the state of adoption by MIT faculty is comparable to faculty at other institutions: there are faculty who are using technology to transform their courses, and faculty who still refuse to use email. The courses chosen will reflect these different patterns of use. In addition the members of the MIT faculty, the staff of MIT’s Teaching and Learning Laboratory will be used as advisors.

It is important, however, to move beyond MIT and examine the practices at a broad range of colleges and universities. The collaboration I have established with the CASTL program (the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching) will provide an opportunity to study the use of educational technology at many institutions, as the CASTL scholars are drawn from public and private colleges and universities at all levels: community colleges to research universities.  The relationship I have developed with the KML (Knowledge Media Laboratory) of the Carnegie Foundation will support this study as well.                                                                                                                  

Educational technologists: It will be important to understand the architecture and standards that provide the foundation for educational technology systems, as well as the specific educational platforms and tools that have been developed. For example, OKI (Open Knowledge Initiative), a collaborative effort among universities, will be examined as it aims to provide specifications and standards for learning technology in higher education. A variety of educational platforms will be studied, including Blackboard and SAKAI, (a current project aimed at producing an open source learning environment) and tools such as the Carnegie Foundation’s KEEP Toolkit, to understand how these have been used and the information they contain.                                                                                                   

The Academic Computing staff at MIT, a part of Information Services & Technology will serve as advisors.  In addition the KML staff at the Carnegie Foundation will provide advice about this aspect of the project.                                                                       

Other disciplines: As I believe that archivists can learn from other disciplines that have faced similar challenges, I will investigate anthropology, social psychology, folklore and oral history as examples in which a documentary record is deliberately created to capture elusive activities and enable their scholarly examination.

Investigating educational technology requires the examination of the documentation that is currently being created, but also consideration of the record that could be created.  Therefore, it appears relevant to examine disciplines whose research methodologies entail the deliberate creation of documentary records to enable the scholarly examination of diverse phenomena.  In anthropology, for instance, there is a large and useful literature on the issues involved in the creation and use of field notes. Elisabeth Kaplan’s paper “Many Paths to Partial Truths: Archives, Anthropology, and the Power of Representation,” (Archival Science: International Journal of Recorded Information, 2:4 (2003) ) will be used as a very useful point of departure. Mary Huber, an anthropologist by training and currently a Senior Scholar at the Carnegie Foundation, has offered her advice for this facet of the work.                                                                                                        

Disclaimer

This is a theoretical study of the potential educational technology has to provide a documentary record. Therefore this work will not examine any issues related to privacy, copyright, access or long-term preservation. Clearly all of these are critical issues that must eventually be addressed and resolved. But, to justify those investigations we must first establish the documentary value of these records.

How this project will contribute to the management and preservation of electronic records                                                         

The appraisal recommendations formulated for archivists as well as educators should justify the long-term value of these records and therefore encourage the technical and legal work that will be required to ensure their preservation and reuse. The collaborative relations with educational technologists who are developing new platforms and tools will provide an opportunity to influence decisions about the capture and retention of information, and therefore the resulting documentary record. In addition the findings will offer a research methodology that can be used to examine the documentary problems of other elusive activities, and particularly the potential of electronic records to provide evidence about them.

Staff

I retired from MIT at the end of April 2004, and I welcome this time as an opportunity to return to my archival research. The Fellowship funds will in part support the time I will devote to this work, and enable the travel to meet with colleagues and attend relevant conferences.  While I no longer have any formal responsibilities at MIT, I have maintained the relationships I developed through the recent collaborative work with the Carnegie Foundation, and the long-term associations I have made with faculty and staff.  My conversations with these colleagues about this project ensure me of their interest in working with me.  As I understand the ambitious nature of this proposal I will explore the possibility of utilizing MIT’s UROP program (Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program) to acquire some research support.

Plan of Work                                                                                                                  
Fall 2004                                                                                                                         
Select MIT courses to be followed during the 2004-2005 academic year that represent a breadth of modes of teaching/learning, disciplines and applications of technology. Track the progress of each course, and work with the faculty and technical staff to examine the uses of educational technology and the resulting documentary record.

Explore the possibility of using a UROP student to provide research support for this project.

Identify CASTL scholars willing to examine the documentary record created as part of their courses. The group selected should be chosen based on the variety of institutions and disciplines they represent, and types of applications of educational technology.

Work with OKI and SAKI staff to learn more about these projects and determine how these developments can support documentary goals.

Beginning with an examination of the literature on anthropology’s documentary practices, work with anthropologists to determine the relevance of their methods to archival practice.

Meet with Carnegie Foundation staff as well as other collaborators to review methodology and progress.

January 2005                                                                                                            
Evaluate findings from fall semester. Refine plan of work for spring semester.

Spring 2005                                                                                                                  

Continue to follow the MIT courses through the spring semester.

Continue working with CASTL scholars and determine if other individuals and/or institutions should be added to the study.

Continue work with OKI and SAKI staff and others who can provide information about platforms and tools.

Review the literature of other disciplines, such as social psychology, oral history and folklore, to study additional documentary practices/approaches, which could be of use to archivists.

Confer regularly with collaborators to review progress.

Summer 2005                                                                                                              
Assess findings: Formulate appraisal recommendations for archivists. Prepare article with findings and submit to professional journal for publication.  Submit session proposals to report this work at future archival meetings.

Sunday, May 8, 2005