Course:

MIT 542-Instructional Technology Internship

Project Advisor: Dr. A. Murdock, UNCW

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Artifact Links:

Project Report (pdf)

• Executive Summary (pdf)
• Introduction and Background (pdf)

·     Situation Findings (pdf)

·     Problem Causes (pdf)

·     Proposed Solution (pdf)

IT Competencies Demonstrated:

• Domain of Design
• Domain of Utilization
• Domain of Management
• Domain of Evaluation

Situation:

The Criminal Justice Program (CRJ) at UNCW operates as part of the College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice. As part of its strategic plan, the university looks for opportunities to expand access to its programs beyond the Wilmington campus in order to reach potential students and fill an educational need. Following this strategy, several years ago, a partnership was formed with Onslow Community College (OCC) to offer CRJ courses aimed primarily at military personal stationed at Camp Lejune in Jacksonville, NC and other locals who have completed the basic studies prerequisites. This program had difficulty getting established for a variety of reasons related to low enrollment, faculty staffing issues, and OCC facility conflicts and was ultimately suspended in late 2002. In 2004, the concept was reactivated and is now set to begin again.

Performance Issue:

The CRJ program at Onslow has historically failed (low enrollment) and appears to be failing again in its restart due to a variety of causes.

Desired Performance:

The ultimate or desired situation would be to provide a sufficient number of students (critical mass) with the ability to achieve their CRJ degree within a reasonable amount of time, without traveling to Wilmington, while:

·        Maintaining the UNCW quality of instruction and learning

·        Meet revenue/cost targets

·        Minimizing/eliminating the additional workload for UNCW faculty

·        Minimizing per student expenses by UNCW

·        Minimizing UNCW expenses for new facilities & equipment

·        Maximizing utilization of instructional technology

Solution:

Conducted needs analysis and presented recommendations based on utilization of instructional technology and strategic management.

Role:

As a paid intern, I worked closely with Dr. Murdock in leading this project. My role was a performance improvement analyst and project manager.

Project Summary:

Presented with a situation requiring in depth needs analysis, I developed a project management schedule for the needs analysis stages. Information gathering included interviews with faculty administration and students at UNCW, Onslow County Community College, and Camp Lejune. I also conducted a focus group meeting with the criminal justice faculty as well as compiling historical data. Given the complexity of the situation and multiple levels of people involved with varying perspectives and motivation many issues both technology and non-technology related emerged. The result was a proposal outlining decisions that needed to be made in the design, development utilization, and management of a successful instructional program.

Result:

Proposal was submitted to Dr. Murdock for consolidation and presentation to UNCW administrators. Utilization unknown.

Reflection:

Involvement in this real life academic problem, provided insight into UNCW strategic and political issues. I utilized many training needs analysis techniques which evidenced training as only part of the solution. Faced with a similar situation in the future, I would take the same approach, however given more time I would have researched other similar academic situations where similar remote educational efforts were successful.