Literature Review
Instructional Materials Search
An instructional materials search serves two purposes. "First, designers must be certain that the proposed instructional product has not already been developed. Second, . . . designers should attempt to build on existing instructional approaches by gaining a broad understanding of presently available teaching materials" (Osguthorpe, 1985, p. 20). In order to effectively build on existing instructional approaches, the materials search focused on advisement materials currently in use by the Education Advisement Center, career counseling materials available through BYU's Career Placement Services, and on web-based advisement materials in place at BYU and other Universities.The EAC currently uses a broad range of materials in their advisement program. One of their primary sources of information is the current BYU undergraduate catalogue. The catalogue contains a brief description of the EAC and its services and general guidelines for students wishing to be accepted into teacher education programs. It also provides specific instructions related to the respective undergraduate education programs: Early Childhood Teaching, Elementary School Teaching, Secondary School Teaching, Special Education Teaching, Audiology and Speech/Language Pathology. The undergraduate catalogue also supplies general information about student teaching and internships.
To supplement the information in the BYU catalogue, the EAC also uses and distributes a number of printed handouts. Some of the handouts are published by the Advisement Center itself, and others are assembled by the various departments in the School of Education. These handouts contain information on General Education requirements, as well as certification requirements for each teacher education program. In some cases they also provide a suggested sequence for completing course requirements. Other printed materials used by the EAC include handouts and packets with information on student teaching applications and deadlines and internship applications and requirements.
The EAC also depends upon computer records from the BYU Admissions Office for materials such as transcripts and graduation forms and applications. These materials are used to counsel new students and transfer students, as well as those applying for graduation.
One final resource used by the EAC is a printed manual titled From Major to Career, published by BYU's Open Major Advisement Center (also available online at (http://www.byu.edu/stlife/cdc/). This manual consists of two parts. Part 1 addresses "career possibilities for [education] majors and resources for information about specific careers." Part 2 addresses the questions of "How do majors relate to jobs and how do I become more marketable?" (Wilkins, 1995). The manual provides some excellent general information about job opportunities in education and basic tips on preparing for those jobs.
A more extensive source of job and career information is BYU Career Placement Services. While the EAC staff does not provide much career counseling, they do work closely with Placement Services to ensure that education majors receive adequate assistance in planning their careers and locating employment. Some of the resources available at Placment Services are State Education Directories, Foreign Teaching Directories, Job Seeking Books, and a series of handouts covering such topics as job seeking steps, interview questions, sample resumes, school district applications, and salary listings.
In conjunction with the review of materials available from the EAC and Placement Services, a World Wide Web search was conducted to examine how other universities are using the web for academic advisement. The advisement center web sites examined had a wide range of complexity. Many advisement sites merely consisted of a brief, text-based description of advisement services and a staff directory. Other sites added information on program requirements and course descriptions, while some of the more innovative approaches provided a higher degree of interactivity. Generally, the information services provided by some of the more interactive sites fell into three categories. First, these advisement sites provided some method of addressing student inquiries. Often this took the form of a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and their answers for students to browse. In addition to the FAQ list, schools like Emporia State University, (http://www.emporia.edu/s/www/sac/sac.htm), also offered an "Ask-An Academic-Advisor" service where students could contact advisors by email, or fill out an online form and receive advisor feedback electronically.
A second service typically provided by advisement sites, was student access to academic information and resources. These resources included information on degree programs and requirements, administrative policies and procedures, course descriptions and scheduling information, important academic deadlines, and biographical information on the advisement center staff. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York (http://www.rpi.edu/dept/advising/) is an excellent example of an advisement site with extensive academic resources and a helpful user interface.
The third service dealt with transfer information. This type of information was less plentiful on the web compared to the other two categories. The University of Wisconsin Transfer Information System (TIS), located at http://www.uwsa.edu/outside/tis/tis.htm, provides an excellent example. This site includes information on course transferability, admissions procedures, financial aid information and registration policies.
This review of existing methods and materials provided several useful approaches used in the design of the EAC web site. First, the existing manuals, handouts, and other materials currently in use by the EAC provided much of the content information that was included in the site. Second, a list of Frequently Asked Questions were included as well as a form for submitting additional questions to advisors. Since one of the main burdens shouldered by EAC staff is having to answer the same questions over and over again, these features allow drop-in students to get answers to common questions online, thus providing advisors with time to spend on more important tasks. A third approach was to devote a portion of the site to providing new student, and transfer information. With the large number of BYU students coming to the campus from other areas of the United States and the world, these resources give prospective students a much more efficient way to access information on the School of Education and its programs.
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©S. Todd Jones 1997