iSEAL

Purpose

iSEAL (intelligent System for Education, Assessment, and Learning) is a curriculum management and learning analytics system tailored to unique requirements of the University of Minnesota Rochester’s (UMR) Center for Learning Innovation’s (CLI) highly integrated curriculum. iSEAL replaces traditional single course within a semester delivery systems such as Moodle, Blackboard, and D2L with a system delivers the entire curriculum allowing students to access course modules as needed. In addition, the learning analytics component of iSEAL collects a large dataset of student interaction with the curriculum for research into student learning, future data mining, and creation of individualized learning plans.

Development status

iSEAL began as a research initiative led by UMR Vice Chancellor Claudia Neuhauser and a team of U of M Computer Science and Engineering graduate students. Utilizing the framework developed by these graduate students, a team of UMR based web developers have built and implemented, in consultation with UMR CLI faculty and Vice Chancellor Neuhauser, iSEAL. An initial limited deployment was made in Spring 2010, with version 1.0 being deployed in Fall 2010. The current version, 2.1, was deployed in Spring 2012.

Version 2.1, components, and features

iSEAL is organized into courses, which comprise modules, that are made up of learning objects. Modules and learning objects can be added, suppressed, reordered and revised on an ongoing basis.

Version 2.1 contains the following features:

• Enhanced Curriculum Management
  • Module editing lock / overwrite prevention
  • Draft / Published settings for student access
  • Library / Citation links to avoid copyright infringing uploads
  • Changelog with authorship tracking
• Student / Faculty / Course Profiles
  • Student and Faculty profiles stored in iSEAL
  • Student and Faculty homepages showing relevant course/grade information
  • Calendar on homepage shows all upcoming events and assignments
  • Course section records tied to curriculum, instructors, enrollment
  • Data imported from University’s central student database
• Classroom Response System (“Clickers”)
  • Leverages student laptop program to replace Turning Point or other devices
  • Presents questions to students, responses and histogram generated in real time
  • Data collection across multiple presentations of questions
  • Spreadsheet export of results
• Student/Faculty Interaction Logging
  • Simplified “check-in” of student using tutorial center or other interaction
  • Faculty log details of visit during downtime
  • Students and Faculty can view past visits
• Student and Class Gradebooks
  • Weighted categories
  • Option to accept online file submissions
  • Computes running totals including only graded assignments
  • Students see graded assignments, list of assignments upcoming with file dropboxes
  • Each faculty’s gradebook for a course only shows the students in their section(s)
• Quiz / Assessment Tool
  • Scores automatically tied to the gradebook
  • 5 question types: numeric, file upload, short answer, essay and multiple choice
  • Curriculum materials may be inserted into questions
  • Automatic computer grading of answers
• Online IRB Consent Form
  • Students may opt into or out of the Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved research, or review their current status, at any time

Version 3.0 and beyond

Working in consultation with the CLI faculty, the following features are currently in the planning stages:

• Revision history
• More granulated authorship & editing rights
• Improvements to existing features, particularly Quiz and Gradebook
• Data mining and data analysis tools

Accessing iSEAL

Students and Faculty with access privileges can log in at iseal.r.umn.edu.

More Information

Please review our poster and slides from the 2011 Quality Fair. and the 2012 Academic Technology Showcase. If you have questions, please email umriseal@umn.edu.