Course

Instructor

Mary Annette Rose

Assistant Professor

Department of Technology

Ball State University

Applied Technology 207C

Muncie, IN 47306

Email: arose@bsu.edu
Office Hours: By Appointment
Office Phone: (765)285-5648

Facsimile: (765)285-2162

ITEDU 510 "analyzes the use and assessment of technology. Topics include: decision-making in adopting technologies, design for use, usability testing, user surveying, technology assessment techniques, environmental impact assessment, and forecasting."

Technology assessment is an important tool for industry, agencies, consumers, and citizens to ensure that technological decisions are sound, appropriate, and sustainable. In this course, students assess the impacts of technology on the environment, society, and the individual.

What contemporary issues and phenomena compel people to study the use and assessment of technology?

What methods are employed to conduct research on the use and assessment of technology?

How can usability research and technology assessment inform technological decision-making?

How might you judge the quality of usability research and technology assessment?

How can the study of technology use and assessment be integrated into K-12 curriculum?

1. Rationale: Develop a valid rationale and appreciation for the study of use and assessment of technology.
2. Modes of Inquiry: Develop understandings, practices, and critical judgment concerning modes and processes of inquiry related to conducting research on the use and assessment of technology, especially as it relates to informing technological decision-making.
3. Ethics and Appropriate Use: Develop understandings and commitment to act on principles of social equity and justice, economic efficiency, energy conservation, waste reduction, and environmental sustainability (healthy and diverse ecosystems) and ethical research (privacy, welfare, copyright, informed consent).
4. Skills: Develop understandings and fundamental skills in:
   • explaining how society, environment, and technology are interrelated.
   • characterizing the technology use and assessment.
   • applying sustainability principles related to the use and assessment of technology.
   • interpreting and performing a technology assessment using forecasting techniques to predict future outcomes and impacts of technological decisions.
   • analyzing how individuals and organizations select, adopt, use, and manage technologies.
   • collecting, analyzing, interpreting, and presenting empirical data to support technological decision-making.
   • evaluating and developing instructional materials which support the study of technology use and assessment.

1. Nature and scope of technology
2. Impetus for the study of use and assessment of technology
3. Scope of technological decision-making

1. Definitions and Purpose of Technology Assessment
1. Policy
2. Decision-making (Organizational and personal)
2. Assessment Criteria
   1. Stakeholder Interests
   2. Authority
   3. Sustainability: Social, Economic, & Environmental
   4. Efficiency
   5. Ethical Considerations
   6. Costs, Benefits, and Tradeoffs
3. Scope
1. Personal and Organizational
2. Formal and Informal
3. Small- and Global-Scale
4. Types
   1. Risk and Impact Assessment
   2. Environmental Impact Assessment
   3. Health Technology Assessment
   4. Critical Incident
   5. Futuring
5. Methods
   1. Gathering and Verifying Data
   2. Analysis Methods
      1. Economic
         1. Cost-Benefit Analysis
         2. Forecasting, Prediction, Trends
      2. Decision Analysis
         1. Decision Trees
         2. Force-Field Analysis
      3. Other
         1. Modeling
         2. Life-Cycle Analysis
   3. Interpreting and Reporting
6. Integrating Assessment into Curriculum and Instruction

Technology Use

1. Definitions and Purpose of the study of Use
2. Change: Adoption, Diffusion, and Process
1. Characteristics of a Change Process
2. Adoption and Diffusion
3. Usability
1. System & Product Acceptability Criteria
2. Usability Defined
3. Usability Attributes (e.g., learnability, efficiency, and satisfaction)
4. Usability Engineering Lifecycle
1. Goal Setting & Design Criteria
2. User-centered design
3. Ergonomics and anthropometrics
5. Trade-Offs
4. Usability Research Methods
   1. Observation
   2. Usability Tests
   3. User Surveys
   4. Task Analysis
5. Conducting Research on Technology Use
   1. Planning
      1. Human subjects protection
      2. Standards for verifiability, validity, and reliability
   2. Gathering data
   3. Analyzing and Interpreting data
   4. Reporting

ITEDU 510 is a distributed online course where participants access the course materials and interact at different times (asynchronously). The course will be delivered using a Web-based course management system called Blackboard. Students may access Blackboard through any Web browser, such as Microsoft’s Internet Explorer at http://my.bsu.edu. Since this is a secure space, a valid BSU Network ID and a password will be required to access the course site.

Blackboard offers numerous communication tools (e.g., an asynchronous discussion board and a chat tool) and file storage areas (through the Dropbox) that will enable the exchange of information.

Weekly Teaching & Learning Plans: Weekly lessons will be posted by 10:00am EDT on Wednesday mornings in the Announcements section of Blackboard. This announcement will direct the student to a weekly Teaching and Learning Plan (T&L) which includes learning goals, content, resources, and assignments. The Documents section will house informational and instructional resources, such as downloadable readings and PowerPoint slide presentations, to support this T&L plan. The Assignments section will provide a brief overview of  the required deliverables and suggested activities for the week.

1. Participation: Assignments and Discussion (5 to 25 points each)
2. Assessment: Quizzes and Reflections (10 to 50 points each)
3. Synthesis Projects
   1. Integrating Technology Assessment into Curriculum & Instruction (100 points). Select one OPTION:
      1. Plan and develop an instructional unit on technology assessment or a unit which integrates sustainability principles.
      2. Prepare and submit a manuscript for publication on technology assessment or sustainability principles.
   2. Research on Technology Use (100 points). Collaboratively, envision, plan, conduct, and report research on technology use.

Evaluation of student participation and projects will be determined by several criteria, including appropriate integration of concepts, timely completion, accurate application of methods, thoroughness, insight, and quality of work.

Assignment Quality: Although the expected quality of student products and contributions is contingent upon the goals and characteristics of the activity, general quality guidelines for all deliverables include:

1. coherence of work;
2. application of using and assessing concepts and procedures;
3. conforming to the latest edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA, 2001); and
4. conforming to standard conventions of English composition. Remember to use a spell checker and a grammar checker before submitting documents.

Assignment Schedule: All activities should be submitted as scheduled. A 5% grade reduction may occur for each day the assignment is late. Extensions will be administered on a case-by-case basis at the instructor's discretion.

Grading: Grades will be assigned for each activity and posted in the Blackboard Gradebook. Final course grades will be derived by averaging all scores for each type of activity according to the weights identified above. Letter grades will be assigned to this average according to the following grading scale:

A = 100 - 94

A- = 93.9 - 90

B+ = 89.9 - 87

B = 86.9 - 84

B- = 83.9 - 80

C+ = 79.9 - 77

C = 76.9 - 74

C- = 73.9 - 70

As noted in the Graduate Catalog (2005) "no course with grades below C (2.0) may be counted toward any degree program" (p. 19).

Discussion. Unlike a traditional class where participation may be judged by attendance, in a distributed environment participation is documented by communiques and information exchange (e.g., email messages, conference postings, telephone calls) among the class participants. Students will be expected to contribute substance and insight to class discussions. An engaged student typically contributes three substantive postings to the discussion board per week. Substantive postings are those where the discussant:

• conscientiously shares relevant resources and experiences;
• makes connections between current events, first-hand observations of educational issues, and technology use and assessment;
• critically examines their own assumptions, as well as the assumptions of others;
• offers and explains propositions, ideas, and insights;
• justifies their assertions with evidence or authority;
• interweaves the ideas of others into their own posts; and
• summarizes readings and discussions.

The substance, function, and nature of discussion board postings (e.g., relevance, clarity, and insightfulness) become indicators of a student's conceptual growth. The criteria and procedure outlined in the Assessment Rubric for Asynchronous Discussions is typically used to determine the discussion grade for this course. 

There are NO required texts for this course. Instead, this course draws from a variety of disciplines, authors, organizations, and online information sources. Sources of information include:

American Psychological Association. (2001). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (5th Ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. 

Barnum, Carol. (2002). Usability testing and research. NY: Longman.

Guston, D.H. & Bimber, B. (1998). Technology assessment for the new century. Bloustein School Working Paper Series #7. Retrieved January 2, 2007, from http://policy.rutgers.edu/papers/7.pdf

Goston, D.H. & Sarewitz, D. (n.d.). Real-time technology assessment. Retrieved January 2, 2007 from  http://www.cspo.org/products/articles/techassess.pdf

Hansson, S.O. (2005). The epistemology of technological risk. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology, 9(2). Retrieved January 2, 2007, from http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/SPT/v9n2/pdf/hansson.pdf

International Technology Education Association. (2000). Standards for technological literacy: Content for the study of technology. Reston, VA: Author. Available electronically from http://www.iteaconnect.org/TAA/Publications/STL/STLMainPage.htm

Mohr, H. (1999). Technology assessment in theory and practice. Society for Philosophy of Technology, 4(4). Retrieved January 2, 2006, from http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/SPT/v4n4/mohr.html

Nielsen, Jakob. (1993). Usability engineering. San Diego, CA: Morgan Kaufman.

Porter, A. L., Rossinni, F., Carpenter, S. R, Roper, A. T., Larson, R. W., and Tiller, J. S. (1980). A guidebook for technology assessment and impact analysis. New York: North Holland.

Rubin, Jeffrey. (1994). Handbook of usability testing: How to plan, design, and conduct effective tests. NY: Wiley Technical Communication Library.

Shields, W.R. (2006). The epistemic value of cautionary tales. The Journal of Technology Studies, 32(2). Retrieved January 2, 2007, from http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JOTS/v32/v32n2/pdf/shields.pdf

Journals:

Issues in Science and Technology Online is available at http://www.issues.org

Journal of Usability Studies. Available at http://www.usabilityprofessionals.org/upa_publications/jus/index.html

Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology. Available at http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/SPT/spt.html

Usability Professional's Association Monthly Newsletter

Organizations:

U.S. Partnership for Education for Sustainable Development. Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. United Nations Decade (2005-2014)

The Online Ethics Center for Engineering and Science at Case Western Reserve University

Usability Professional's Association

Required Computer Hardware and Applications

• Broadband Internet Access
• Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel
• Microsoft Internet Explorer
• Adobe Acrobat Reader
• Email
• Real Player