eLearnReady: Preparing Students to E-Learn Effectively and Users' Feedback from Students and Teachers
Concurrent Session 4


Brief Abstract
With the successful launch of a revolutionary free student tool, eLearnReady, we analyzed students’ responses, identifying their strengths--and improving their weaknesses in online learning. This presentation discusses the identified key variables (n=3000+) of online student success, as well as the user's experience with the tool.
Presenters


Extended Abstract
eLearnReady is a free, research-based web tool designed to analyze students’ preparedness for online learning, with a focus on enhancing student success in the online space. With this tool, course instructors register their class with the website and provide a class-specific URL to their students. Students then visit this link and complete a 43-item survey aligned to nine targeted success factors for online classes. After students complete the survey, eLearnReady analyzes their responses to identify their strengths and areas of recommended improvement for online learning. The survey results are then provided to students individually as a comprehensive report, complete with study tips and videos that demonstrate methods for being a successful online learner. After their students complete the survey, course instructors receive a class profile that compiles all their students’ results enrolled in a specific course. Instructors will then be able to use each class profile to inform their instruction and differentiate it to meet the needs of their online students, and to provide additional guidance and resources where necessary.
In April 2017, the researchers of this project successfully launched the website at https://free.elearnready.com. Given its usefulness and easiness, to date, more than 3,000 students and 200 teachers from multiple colleges/universities have utilized this system. Researchers have since been invited to present to several campuses on this project—a one of its’ kind as a free tool.
This presentation will briefly introduce how this system was developed, verified, and implemented. A hands-on activity with the tool will be conducted with all attendees, who will be invited to learn how to utilize this tool for their online teaching practices by creating an account and generating a survey link for class, as well as completing the survey from the student perspective for individual evaluation. A walk-through of data interpretation, and how faculty may use this data, will be provided and Q&A with attendees at this stage will be encouraged.
In the second half of the presentation, faculty users of this system will share how their campuses have adopted this tool and their experiences with implementation.
Faculty, administrators, instructional designers, advisors, and faculty developers alike focused on enhancing their students’ online learning success will benefit from this session.