Technology Needs Assessment Results Report

Introduction

The transition of all instruction online at El Paso Community College due to the COVID-19 pandemic acutely highlighted the lack of educational technology to support faculty in the creation of instructional videos. Some faculty members independently sought technologies to support their efforts. Others used existing technologies and adapted them to meet their needs. Moving forward, online and hybrid instruction will remain prevalent. The need to support full-time, part-time and dual-enrollment faculty with college-wide sponsored video creation and video hosting technologies must be assessed.

Analysis of the Results

The following results are based on a 13 question survey administered to educators at El Paso Community College from July 20, 2021- July 23, 2021. In total, 102 educators responded to the technology needs-based survey.

Question 1 Analysis

Question one revealed that 78% of educators at El Paso Community College were motivated to start recording videos for their courses due to the Covid-19 Pandemic.

Question 2 Analysis

Over 63% used college-provided technologies while 36.3 % used a purchased/paid platform.

Question 3 Analysis

The majority of faculty, 33.3%, chose Blackboard Collaborate Ultra to record videos. Over 16% used Teams, another 11.8% used Zoom, and 25.5% answered “Other” indicating they used a different software application.

Question 4 Analysis

In question four it was found that 45.1% of educators use YouTube as their video hosting platform and 41% upload their videos directly to the learning management system (Blackboard).

Question 5 Analysis

The results from question five show that 54.9% of educators captioned their videos using application auto-captioning, while 45.1% did not caption their videos.

Question 6 Analysis

Wiht regard to analytics, 77.5% want the ability to see which students viewed their video, 48% want to know the total number of views per video, 40.2% want to know the session duration or time spent engaging with the video, 22.5% want to know the location of visitors, and 16.7% selected other.

Question 7 Analysis

When considering the most important needs from a video platform, educators selected (in order of importance): easy/intuitive to use, ability to edit videos, easy integration with the LMS (Blackboard), captioning, 24/7 support, analytics, and multi-camera capture.

Question 8 Analysis

Asked about the need for educators to have a video platform that is secure and restricts content, 36.3% said yes to a need for security encryption, 24.5% said no, and 39.2% said not sure.

Question 9 Analysis

With regard to the need for video collaboration on the video platform, 48% said there was no need for this, 30.4% said they did need this, and 24.5% said not sure.

Question 10 Analysis

Asked about the need for students to post a video on the video platform, 46.1% said no to this need, 30.4% said not sure, and 21.6% said yes.

Question 11 Analysis

Forty-nine percent of respondents want the ability to embed questions into videos while 28.5% answered no, and 22.5% answered not sure.

Question 12 Analysis

Over seventy-one percent need screen recording capabilities on the video platform, while just over 10% said no to this need and 17.6% said not sure.

Question 13 Analysis

In the last question, 80.4% said they would participate in training while said over 12% saidno, and 6.9% said not sure.

Interpretation of the Results

Fifty-two percent of survey participants used a College supported application to record videos for their courses. While at more than half, the remaining 48% of faculty used technologies not supported by the College. Were faculty not aware of the technologies provided by the College or did they choose to use something they were already familiar with? A large number of faculty (41.2%) who uploaded MP4 files directly to the LMS may have unintended consequences related to the space quotas for every course and the amount of server space allocated in the LMS contract.

Almost half of the faculty did not caption their videos making their content inaccessible to students in the deaf community putting the College at risk of lawsuits. What is most important to faculty is: that the technology is easy to use, that it provides editing capabilities, that it integrates easily with the LMS, and that it provides captions. Half the faculty surveyed want the ability to embed questions into the video. This will support the need for LMS integration as integration allows for grades to be sent directly to the grade book.

Recommendations

Based on the results of the survey, the following are recommended:

Assess existing technologies and explore whether or not they meet the faculty's needs.
Train the faculty on the readily available resources to create awareness of what is available to them and maximize their resource utilization.
Develop an informational campaign that focuses on the importance of captioning to ensure access and compliance with federal accessibility laws and mandates.
The investigation into further needs led by faculty supported by the Technology Advisory Committee, the Distance Learning Standing Committee, or the Distance Learning Support Services Department (DLSS).

Summary

The emergency transition of all courses to the online format at El Paso Community College highlighted the lack of educational technologies available to support faculty. One-hundred two faculty members completed the needs assessment survey. The results revealed that the Covid-19 pandemic motivated 78% of the faculty to create video lessons for their courses. With the expectation that online and hybrid courses to remain prevalent and because according to Lindsay McKensir in "Students Want Online Learning Options Post Pandemic," students will continue to want more digital materials and digital resources in their courses whether or not online; it is important to provide faculty with the tools they need to create said materials and resources.

McKenzie, Lindsay. “Students Want Online Learning Options Post-Pandemic.” InsideHigherEd (April 27, 2021) https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/04/27/survey-reveals-positive-outlook-online-instruction-post-pandemic