University of South Florida, 4202 Fowler Avenue, Tampa, FL 33620-5650

SCHEDULE: There are NO class meetings. The course is conducted by email/WWW. See Schedule of assignment submission and other deadlines. Ignore any materials or web pages indicating any initial meeting for this class. I won't be there.

The Distance Learning option is offered on a limited basis to a limited number of qualified students for whom the on-campus course is not a productive option (usually these are students who have substantial programming experience.) Participants are expected to be highly motivated and self-directed. Prerequisite skills for EME 6930 Visual BASIC as a Research Tool are graduate standing, fluency with Microsoft Windows 95/98 and applications, ability to use telecommunications for email and binary file transfer, access to appropriate hardware, and previous programming experience. The learner should be have knowledge of and experience in using basic data structures (e.g. scalar and arrayed variables) and basic control structures (e.g. if, case, for, do.)

Visual BASIC as a Research Tool is an introduction to problem-solving and programming with a object-using, event-driven, GUI-oriented, high level language within the field of education. Course content is developed in the context of its application to instruction and to the collection and manipulation of educational data.

COURSE PRODUCTS:

1) Seven formative EVALuation assignments (details in Evaluation Program Assignments) to be submitted via email.  All the files (*.VBP, *.FRM, *.FRX, *.VBW) associated with a given EVAL should be sent as email attachments.  USF-provided email accounts handle this just fine.  So should any Popmail system, AOL, & Unix Pine.) Assignments must be delivered by MIDNIGHT SATURDAY of the given week. (See Course Schedule) 

2) Those students who wish to earn an "A" must create an original course project, for which the student will identify an instructional purpose or research question to which computer-based methods can be applied, and then write a unique program in Visual BASIC that addresses a significant aspect of the task. The computer program must be able to collect appropriate demographic information, deliver an instructional or research "treatment", collect the instructional performance or "treatment"-related data, store the data in a disk file, be able to read the data back from the disk and display it, and be able to export the data in a format usable by other programs (SAS, SPSS, etc.) Don't submit an Eval7 if you intend to submit a course project.  Just incorporate the Eval7 criteria into your project.  See additional criteria under Student Assessment below.

EXAMINATION:

There will be one comprehensive examination administered at the last meeting of an on-campus class. All examination items are multiple choice format and will focus on course objectives # 4 - 10, 12, & 13.  I have scheduled the examination at the same time as a convenient on-campus class. See Course Schedule for specific date, time & location.  If that doesn't work for you, let me know and we will figure something out.

STUDENT ASSESSMENT

TO EARN A COURSE 'B':

1) All EVAL assignments must be completed and submitted according to the Course Schedule, roughly an EVAL assignment every two weeks during Fall and Spring, more frequently during Summer. Incorrect assignments should be repeated until they are correct. More than 4 late assignments will render the "B" grade unattainable.
2) A score of at least 60% must be secured on the final examination.

TO EARN A COURSE 'A':