Performance Evaluation: Electronic Classrooms and AV Services

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Mission

The mission of the Electronic Classrooms Support Office, and the Audio Visual Services Office is to provide technical and customer service support to faculty, staff and students using a wide range of instructional technologies at the Fairfax Campus.  These two support offices demonstrate a commitment to the effective use of technology in instruction by designing, providing and maintaining reliable, user-friendly electronic equipment and facilities in the Electronic Classrooms, Smart Classrooms, General Purpose Classrooms and distance learning facilities.

Responsibilities

The Electronic Classrooms Support Office and the Audio Visual Services Office provide technical and customer services support to faculty and students using a wide range of instructional technologies at George Mason University.  These units are responsible for the efficient and effective functioning of the Electronic Classrooms, Smart Classrooms, Audio Visual Services and distance education facilities and services offered by the Department of Instructional Improvement and Instructional Technologies at the Fairfax Campus.  The responsibilities include providing support for all high-end electronically-enhanced classrooms, audio visual support, teleconferencing, and learning technologies across a multi-campus environment.

Methodologies and Strategies for Fulfilling the Unit Responsibilities

Electronic Classrooms

At the beginning each class day a technician checks each Electronic Classroom to ensure that all equipment is functioning properly.  All equipment is tested and any problems that are found are rectified at that time.  This is done to ensure optimum reliability of all systems upon which classes depend.  Should there be any problems that can not be remedied, faculty would be notified immediately so they can plan accordingly. 

Each Electronic and Smart classroom has an email list assigned to it.  The purpose of these email lists are to enhance communications between the support staff and faculty teaching in these classrooms.  The email lists are used in order to quickly and efficiently notify faculty of:  any problems that may arise in the classrooms, when those problems are expected to be remedied, and what accommodations can be made until the repairs are completed.  Faculty are subscribed to the email list for their respective rooms at the beginning of each semester.  In addition, faculty are encouraged to use the email lists to inform both the Support Staff, as well as their fellow faculty members of any problems or difficulties that they may experience while teaching. 

Both of these support offices maintain cell phones in order to provide consistent and reliable service to faculty teaching in the classrooms.  When all of the technicians are working with faculty in classrooms, the support phone lines are forwarded to the cell phones.  The object of this practice is ensure faculty teaching in classrooms receive immediate support and are not simply transferred to voicemail.

When a trouble call comes in from a classroom, the technician attempts to troubleshoot over the phone.  This is done in order to save valuable class time.  If the problem cannot be corrected in this manner, or the faculty member does not wish to participate in this effort the technician then goes to the classroom to correct it.

Faculty teaching in the Electronic Classrooms are offered one-on-one training in the usage of the equipment in these classrooms.  In addition, instruction sheets for the usage of these systems are provided in the classrooms and on the internet for faculty use.

The Electronic Classroom Support Office also maintains a group of laptop computers and portable LCD projectors for check out and use in the classrooms.  Due to the high demand for these resources, these computers and projectors are available to both faculty and students for instructional purposes only.  

Distance Education

The Electronic Classroom Support Office also provides technical support for distance education classes.  These classes are taught in two classrooms at the Fairfax Campus.  The staff provides all technical services for these classes, i.e. establishing connections between sites, setting up presentations for faculty and training students in the use of the equipment necessary, researching and deploying new methods of delivering instruction at a distance.

Audio Visual Services

The Audio Visual Services Office offers a wide-range of AV equipment to faculty, staff and students.  All equipment is checked to ensure serviceability prior to and following each reservation.  Printed instruction sheets are included with most pieces of equipment when they are checked out.  This is done to assist faculty in the use of the equipment in the classroom.  If necessary, staff members provide training in the use of equipment when the faculty member arrives to pick it up.  Additionally, the electronic equipment in each general-purpose classroom is checked on a weekly basis to ensure that each piece is functional, clean and in good order.

Prince William Campus Classroom Support

Classroom support at the Prince William Campus is provided by ITU Field Services with guidance and assistance from DoIT’s Electronic Classrooms Support Office. 

Statistics (2001-2002)

EC Laptops checked out:         2224 (11% increase from last year)

EC Projectors checked out:      1236 (8% increase from last year)

EC class sessions:                     2170 (14% decrease from last year)

SR class sessions:                     5132 (17% increase from last year)

Distance Ed. class sessions:         315  (40% increase from last year)

AV equipment checked out:      3298 (27% increase from last year)
Events supported by EC and AV combined: 154 (20% increase from last year)

Goals for 2002-2003

Five most significant accomplishments

Areas needing improvement

Efforts made to improve performance

Participation in DoIT/ITU/University Activities

Survey Results

A support survey is conducted at the end of each semester for all of the Electronic and Smart classrooms.  This survey is sent to all faculty for a given semester.  The survey covers all aspects of the classroom from operation to support.  The faculty completing the survey have the ability to use numerical ratings as well as add narrative comments. There are a total of 3 different types of Electronic Classrooms at Fairfax Campus, each with its own survey.  The following are the results from each Electronic Classroom survey, with results from both Fall ’01 and Spring ’02 listed.

Fairfax Lecturer Style Classroom Survey (Fall 2001 - Spring 2002)

(Poor=1   Fair=2   Good=3   Very Good=4    Excellent=5)

Room environment: 

1.  Please rate the lighting in the room       

2.  Please rate the furniture in the room

Hardware & Software Support:

4.  Did the controls to switch between pieces of equipment work effectively?

5.  Did the PC/MAC work effectively?

6.  Did the software you used work effectively?

7. Please rate how easy the equipment was to use during lectures?

Operational Support:

11.  Please rate the effectiveness of the support offered by the EC Support Staff.

12.  Please rate how well we responded when you had a problem.

13.  Please rate how well the Electronic Classroom Support Staff kept you apprised of the condition of the equipment in the room. (i.e. what problems there were and when they would be fixed)

Training 

15.  If you did take the training, how well did it meet your needs?

Final Assessment:

18.  Please rate the overall support that you have received.

Fairfax Interactive Classroom Survey

Room environment:

1.  Please rate the lighting in the room._______

2.  Please rate the furniture in the room____________

Hardware & Software Support:

4.  Did the ClassNet system work effectively?_____

5.  Did the PC’s work effectively?_____

6.  Did the software you used work effectively?______

7.  Please rate how easy the equipment was to use during lectures?

Operational Support:

11.  Please rate the effectiveness of the support offered by the EC Support Staff.

12.  Please rate how well we responded when you had a problem.

13.  Please rate how well the Electronic Classroom Support Staff kept you apprised of the condition of the equipment in the room. (ie what problems there were and when they would be fixed)

Training:

15.  If you did take the training, how well did it meet your needs?

Final Assessment:

18.  Please rate the overall support that you have received.

Fairfax Smart Classrooms

The Smart Classrooms have the same survey form, with the exception of Enterprise 80, as it offers greater capabilities than the others.  As such, a survey unique to this room is used.  However, in both Fall ’01 and Spring ’02 no faculty teaching in Enterprise 80 responded to the survey.  Therefore, there are no results to list here.

Fairfax Smart Classroom Survey

Room Environment:

1. Please rate the lighting in the room.

2. Please rate the furniture in the room.

Equipment Usage and Support

8. Please rate how easy the equipment was to use during your lectures?

10. Please rate how well we responded when you had a problem.

11. Please rate the effectiveness of the support offered by the EC Support Staff.

12. Please rate how well the Electronic Classrooms Support Office kept you apprised of the condition of the equipment in the room. (i.e. What problems there were and when they would be fixed.)

Training:

15. If you did take the training, how well did it meet your needs?

Final Assessment:

18. Please rate the overall support that you have received.

Faculty Comments on Classroom Support

Listed below are select comments from the surveys conducted that are representative of the responses that were received.  In the interest of space, not all comments received have been included.

James Henry - At one point someone had taken the overhead projector out of the room. I arrived to find for class to discover this situation, and I had several overheads to show in class that day. I called support and an overhead was in the room in minutes.  Excellent work on your part!  The support staff was excellent.  Smart, punctual, professional, cordial.  Great orientation by Susan Campbell.  I had used JC 311 (?) previously and the support there was not nearly as punctual, well-informed, or professional. Thanks to all who supported 173 for the great job this year!  (My regrets that I wasn't able to schedule my class in the fall for the upcoming year.  :(

M. Martin - The biggest problem is that, when something happens, it's difficult to reach someone immediately (my cell phone didn't work in Robinson), and there's no time to run up and down the hall trying to find someone who can place a call for you.  A phone in the classroom would be VERY welcome.

There was one issue that should have been covered more thoroughly in the training.  It's VERY important to understand the importance of the horizontal adjustment button for the projector (the small pale blue button on the wall).  Although this button was pointed out to me during training, I wasn't told that if horizontal position was significantly out of adjustment, I might get a dark (or even black) screen.  There's no intuitive connection between that symptom and the cause - it's reasonable to assume that if the horizontal position is way off, one would instead see a significant portion of the display clipped off.  I lost an entire class period's use of the equipment because I didn't know how to diagnose the problem, and I know I wasn't the only person this happened to - I wound up explaining it to the professor who taught before me in B228.

 Jeff Offutt - Very picky: the door locked when I closed it. I had to close it because the guy across the hall talked *very* loud, but when students came in late they were locked out.  Some software needed to be upgraded. I installed Netscape 6.2 (it previously had 4.7). I also installed “ssh”.  The introduction provided by Susan Campbell was perfectly adequate.  E-178 is the best room I've used.  It's a model for how electronic classrooms should be designed.  I appreciate the chance to provide feedback.

Steve Klein - There are a few too many chairs in the room, which clutters the room.  Someone kept changing the macros; also, sometimes the system responded slowly.  Best semester so far for lack of downtime on individual PCs.  Never had a problem, even with the multimedia stuff.  Always available for phone support, always came over to the classroom when asked; maybe one of the most responsive parts of the university, to be candid. I could always count on you folks. Susan always does a good job with this and has backup support on her GMU website.  I taught Online Journalism in the room Spring Semester.

Michael Gabel - It is just too much trouble to check out a laptop.  It takes too much planning and is too much work for, maybe, a 10 minute example of something. I used it once and all was fine.  I would have used it 4 or 5 times more but often my inspiration to use it came while I was in class and when I had not planned to use it.  You really need permanent computers in the rooms.

Karen Hallows - We need more electronic classrooms so that we don't have to lug around laptops!

Peter Denning - Todd, I was generally pleased with the way that the electronic classroom went.  It was particularly helpful the way you came down just before the start of class and set up ClassWise. You were also very good at explaining the idiosynchrasies of ClassWise so that I could adjust my style to avoid them.

Alan Christensen - First problem was initial set up on first day.  I was using a new laptop and couldn't get the image displayed on screen through projector. Was easily remedied, though.  Second problem was a bent video cable connection.  Cable was replaced quickly and I was back in business.

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