Abstract:

Introduction:
With technology being much more integrated in our daily lives (smart phones, tablets, laptop computers), online education (also called distance learning or e-learning) becomes more and more a feasible alternative form of learning. Online education is especially beneficial to working adults who are not able to attend class or only under severe difficulties due to time constraints. Online education also allows students to learn at their own pace, gain more one-on-one access to their instructors, and potentially earn degrees in less time than it would take to attend traditional courses because of less overhead (no or almost no commute etc.). A course can have a synchronous (all students and faculty access the course at the same time) or asynchronous requirement (or both). Online hybrid courses have a face-to-face component. There are, however, challenges to overcome, both for the students and the instructor, and we want to address some in this paper.

Methodology:
We report on a study performed in our university’s Medical and Bioinformatics (MBI) program, a two-year graduate program with a minimum of 36 credits that includes a 1-1 ½ semester internship. Technology in the computer lab is an essential and integral part of the curriculum.
Our study included two online hybrid classes of the program (both asynchronous), “Introduction to Medical and Bioinformatics” (intro) and “Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining“ (KDD). A mix of majors from medical and bioinformatics, computer information systems, and other disciplines take both classes. While mostly first year students take the first class, mostly second year students take the other.
The assessment of students was done partially through Blackboard by midterm and final exams, a group project resulting in a research paper, the paper presentation, and a reflection paper on project management in both classes. To accommodate for the online hybrid format, the intro class had weekly online discussions and a discussion leadership requirement with graded participation, while the KDD class being more technical in nature had lab tests instead. All tests were face-to-face.
The goal of our study was to monitor the quality of the course delivery and to see if any particular group (gender, major, first year/second year, domestic/international) responded differently to the offering, so that we could adjust the presentation of the material.
As evaluation tool we used the Quality MattersTM Rubric Standards questionnaire, Fifth Edition, 2014 (https://www.qualitymatters.org). We added six additional questions including major, gender, and if international student. The questionnaire was administered at the same time as the final exam.

Results:
From fall 2014 until winter 2016 73 students took the intro class (offered every semester) while 25 took the KDD class (offered once a year). 83% returned the questionnaire.
The most striking difference was between domestic and international students: there was a clear preference of international students for face-to-face classes. The other questions gave mixed results with no clear preference.

Impact:
We are cautious in interpreting the results, but the fact that most domestic graduate students work full or part time, while international students are full time students have to be accounted for (and most likely cultural differences). We made some changes to the delivery, but the difference in answers is not conclusive yet. Details will be presented in the talk.

Keywords:

Online learning, hybrid learning, blended learning, graduate education, international students, learning with technology.