Special Area of Emphasis: LEEP

In November 2001 LEEP was recognized with the Sloan-C award for the Most Outstanding Asynchronous Learning Network (ALN) Program [now termed the award for the Most Outstanding Teaching and Learning Program], the only library and information science degree program to be so recognized.  GSLIS has asked that LEEP be a special area of emphasis for the review to be completed by the External Review Panel.   This section of the program presentation provides descriptive information about LEEP, a summary of forms and results of ongoing assessment, and a discussion of the ways in which LEEP benefits the MS program as a whole, including the experience of students in other enrollment options.  Far more information can be found in the numerous publications cited in the LEEP bibliography as well as the recently published book that grew out of experience at the summer 2002 LEEP retreat: Learning, Culture and Community in Online Education: Research and Practice. 

A. An Overview of LEEP

1. History

Since the 1890’s, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) has had degree programs preparing students to be librarians and, more recently, information professionals in a wide range of settings.  Prospective students who did not reside in east central Illinois had to relocate there for the period of time required to earn a degree.  This changed dramatically in the summer of 1996 when the first cohort of 31 students enrolled in LEEP, a site-independent online scheduling option for the MS degree. GSLIS saw this as an opportunity to take a leadership position both on the UIUC campus and among its peers in pioneering a new approach to graduate professional education.  This new approach to teaching and learning, enabled by the Internet, now draws students and faculty from throughout the United States as well as some students from abroad.   LEEP was the first online degree program offered by UIUC.  

2. Program Structure

As a scheduling option for the MS degree in library and information science (LIS) offered by GSLIS, LEEP requirements are the same as those for students pursuing the degree on campus.  It is a 10 unit (40 hour) program with two required courses (LIS 502 Libraries, Information & Society for 2 or 4 semester hours credit; LIS 501 Information Organization and Access for 4 semester hours credit) and the remainder selected from available elective courses.   At present between 1/3 and ½ of GSLIS students enrolled in the MS degree program are in the LEEP option.  While two cohorts of LEEP students begin each July (cohorts 9.1 and 9.2 in 2004), students are free to enroll part-time or full-time to complete the degree.  Courses conform to the University academic calendar (16-week fall and spring semesters and an 8-week summer session).  On-campus and Fridays Only students can and do enroll in LEEP courses on a space-available basis.  For example, in fall 2004 more than 50 on-campus and Fridays Only students have enrolled in one or more of the available LEEP courses.

Students may individualize their course of study by enrolling in independent study (up to 4 semester hours), practicum (2 semester hours of study spent in a work setting), and/or thesis (up to 8 semester hours).  Most LEEP students attend part-time, taking two courses in the fall, two courses in the spring, and one in the summer, thus finishing the program in two years.  The program seeks to serve students interested in earning an MS degree from a highly regarded school, but who are not free to relocate to east central Illinois because of work and/or family commitments.   Required face-to-face time is limited to the initial 10-day on-campus session (which has acquired the label “boot camp” because it is an intense period of study (LIS 502) and technology training) and brief visits associated with other courses (typically one day per course over a long weekend).  Because students go through the program at different rates, they are not always in classes together with the members of their original cohort, though they typically think of other students in this group as their closest friends in the program. 

Students are admitted through the regular graduate student admissions process and register for courses with the aid of Academic Outreach, the campus unit supporting student services for off-campus students.  The GSLIS instructional technology and information technology staff are responsible for all aspects of technical support.  Library support is provided by the Academic Outreach Librarian (for document delivery) and the Library and Information Science Library staff (for reference, instruction in use of library resources, and electronic reserves). 

Design of the LEEP web site is intended to foster a sense of community.  Various approaches are used to make LEEP students feel more connected with events on campus.  LEEP general bulletin boards allow information to be exchanged in such categories as LEEP news, LEEP talk (questions, comments, thoughts, and discussion related to LEEP), feedback to GSLIS, and technical questions and answers.  The LEEP student directory has pictures and autobiographical notes.  Special on-campus lectures are recorded and made available using RealAudio.  Live online sessions with program administrators are scheduled once a semester as a forum to discuss student experiences with the program.  Students have an opportunity to learn about different career options through live online sessions interacting with professionals in varied careers.  In May the convocation ceremony is broadcast over the Web so that students and their families who cannot make the trip to campus can still be a part of this event.  Graduating LEEP students are recognized by name and a number of LEEP students have been selected by the faculty for student awards presented at graduation.  The first annual LEEP virtual reunion was held in September 2003 and the second is scheduled for September 2004 (http://leep.lis.uiuc.edu/publish/leep/leep_reunion2_schedule.htm).

In summary, the program focuses on communication and community in its design.  In LEEP, learning is more than gaining knowledge as an individual; it also involves learning from others, developing skills in collaboration and communication, and creating a strong professional identity and community.

3. Motivation for the LEEP Program

The motivation for developing an online degree option was twofold: to reach qualified students who wanted to pursue the degree but were place-bound, and to experiment with a new medium for teaching and learning.  With only 56 MS programs accredited by the American Library Association in the U.S. and Canada, there are many qualified prospective students who cannot enroll in a program because of geographic limitations.  Many students are working in libraries and seek the degree to qualify for more responsible positions.  Others have pursued different careers and seek to develop new knowledge and skills that would enable them to move into library and information-related positions.   To meet these needs, the range of courses offered through LEEP has to adequately prepare such students for professional positions in a variety of settings.

Because the information professions are making increasing use of information technology in service delivery, it was natural to experiment with the use of this technology to support teaching and learning.  By introducing the LEEP option in summer 1996, GSLIS had an opportunity to take a leadership position both on the UIUC campus and among its peers in pioneering a new approach to graduate professional education.

4. Program Development

During the Fall 1995 semester the GSLIS faculty, led by Dean Leigh Estabrook, engaged in intensive discussion (both face-to-face and by e-mail) of possible models for an Internet-based program.  There were no suitable models to follow, so gradually the “signature” of the LEEP program emerged from this discussion.  Constraints placed by the faculty on the design included: two required courses had to be accommodated; a range of electives needed to be available to meet the needs of students with varying career objectives; GSLIS faculty had to be integrally involved in course design and delivery; technology used had to be robust and platform-independent; technology support had to be supplied in-house by staff who could develop close working relationships with students and faculty;  students needed to spend an initial period on campus as well as make a campus visit for each subsequent course; and attention needed to be paid to socialization into the profession and building a learning community.   A campus administrator advised coming up with a short, recognizable label for the program and the faculty settled on LEEP3 (Library Education Experimental Program #3, acknowledging two prior innovations in curriculum design that had also been labeled LEEP).  As the program matured and was no longer experimental, the moniker was shortened to LEEP, which is how the program is commonly identified.  Students call themselves “LEEPers” and frogs have become the program’s unofficial mascots.  

Once the faculty had developed the goals and structure for the program, the Dean submitted a proposal to the Provost, seeking funding to support the resources judged to be necessary for start-up and maintenance.  A key element of this proposal was support for faculty:  release time to prepare a course for LEEP delivery, a reduced courseload when the LEEP course was offered for the first time, better technology for faculty workstations, and in-house technology support staff to assist with instructional design, course delivery, and training of students and faculty.  While several of the faculty were somewhat skeptical that their courses could be adapted for LEEP delivery, the faculty agreed that everyone would be expected to experiment with teaching in the program.  The proposal secured substantial support from the campus ($600,000), with the expectation that lessons learned in LEEP would be shared with other campus units interested in developing online courses and degree programs.   This increased funding guaranteed the availability of the resources needed by faculty to be successful in a medium that was new to all of them.  As new faculty joined the school, they have understood that LEEP teaching would be part of their responsibilities. 

The success and growth of the program meant that demand for LEEP courses exceeded available faculty resources.  Adjunct faculty have been recruited to offer courses beyond the number that can be taught by full-time GSLIS faculty (who also teach on-campus students in the undergraduate information technology studies minor, as well as the MS, Certificate of Advanced Study, and PhD programs in library and information science).  The goal has been to identify a group of effective adjuncts who are interested in teaching in LEEP on an ongoing basis.   For summer courses adjuncts are drawn in part from LIS faculty at other universities; in the fall and spring adjuncts are drawn from practitioners who have prior classroom teaching experience.  All are interested in the opportunity to teach capable students using a new medium.  Just as the students can enroll from any location that has an Internet connection, adjunct faculty can reside anywhere.  Like the students, they make the trip to campus each semester for the required weekend on-campus session, giving them an opportunity to interact with full-time GSLIS faculty as well as their students. 

5. Students

All GSLIS students must meet the same standards for admission.  Each student has completed a bachelor’s degree and many have also completed at least one graduate degree.  LEEP students are expected to be strong academically, able to work both independently and collaboratively, and willing to work with the GSLIS faculty in designing and refining new ways to deliver instruction.  

LEEP students are adult learners.  More than 80% are women.  They vary in age, ethnic background, prior education, prior work experience, prior computer experience, and geographic location.  The first cohort of 31 in summer 1996 had 25 in-state students (81%) and 6 out-of-state (from Alaska, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, and Oregon).   Geographic diversity has increased with each subsequent cohort, with students residing in almost all of the 50 states and several foreign countries.   The in-state residents are from all parts of Illinois.  Students range in age from their early 20’s to late 50’s, with most in their 30’s and 40’s.  Many have one or more children.  They have widely varying computer experience; many are pursuing the LEEP program not because they enjoy working with technology, but because it is the key to gaining access to the degree that they want to advance in their careers.  While students work in all types of libraries (school, public, academic, and corporate), others are employed as lawyers, businesspeople, computing professionals, and teachers.  The fact that many students hold jobs in libraries or related organizations in many different locations creates a rich body of practical experience that can be shared through collaboration during their course of study.  In addition they can often apply what they are learning in courses immediately to their work settings.

Students can incur substantial expenses while enrolled in the program (in-state or out-of-state tuition, course registration fees, books and supplies, technology upgrades, Internet access, transportation for campus trips, and housing and food during campus trips).  Most students need some type of financial aid, as few of their employers have full tuition reimbursement programs.  Thus most take out loans or look for sources of scholarship support.   Support for LEEP students has come from such sources as the scholarship program administered by the Illinois State Library, the American Library Association Century Scholarship for students with disabilities (supporting the first hearing-impaired student in LEEP), the American Library Association Spectrum Initiative for ethnic minority students (supporting Asian American and African American LEEP students), and various award programs sponsored by divisions of the American Library Association, the Medical Library Association, and state library associations. 

6. Faculty

Prior to the start of LEEP courses in fall 1996, GSLIS faculty had no experience in distance education, but made use of e-mail and electronic bulletin boards in on-campus courses.  As explained above, LEEP courses are taught by GSLIS faculty and qualified adjuncts.   Of particular interest in the education of information specialists are the possibilities for involving practitioners in instruction in creative ways.  They may answer assignment-related questions, give guest lectures, or teach entire courses.  Because instruction is no longer dependent solely on same time/same place, practitioners in any location can have an increasing role in preparing the next generation of information professionals.

In the period fall 1996-fall 2004, 89 individuals have taught or team-taught one or more courses online in LEEP.  Thirty-eight were affiliated with UIUC: 23 full-time GSLIS faculty, one faculty member in the UIUC Institute of Labor & Industrial Relations, one Library faculty member, six GSLIS professional staff members, four doctoral students specializing in children’s services, and three visiting faculty members.   The GSLIS full-time faculty come from all ranks. Fifteen LEEP adjunct faculty are affiliated with other accredited LIS schools (the universities of Arizona, Drexel, Indiana, Maryland, Missouri, New York at Buffalo, North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Texas, Wisconsin-Madison, Wisconsin-Milwaukee).  Other adjuncts are employed in academic libraries (Brown University, Bryn Mawr College, Illinois Wesleyan University, Indiana University, Marymount College (CA), North Carolina State University, Northern Illinois University, Northwestern University, Taylor University (IN), UC-Santa Barbara, University of Michigan, University of Missouri-Rolla, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Washington State University), as consultants (located in Alabama, California, Michigan, Ohio, Texas, Washington DC, Wisconsin), in corporate libraries or records centers (in Missouri and Ohio), in a hospital library (in Oklahoma), in a law library (in Ohio), in a historical society library (in Indiana), in a botanical garden library (in Illinois), in public libraries (located in Illinois and Indiana), and teaching information science (at Pennsylvania State University).  All adjuncts hold at least an MS in library and information science and many hold a Ph.D.  

All GSLIS full-time faculty have some contact with LEEP students in their role as academic advisors and supervisors of practicums, independent studies, or theses.  Each LEEP student is assigned a faculty advisor with expertise matching the student’s interests, so all faculty have an opportunity to be involved in academic and career advising of LEEP students.   While some of those teaching in LEEP are junior faculty with only a few years of teaching experience, faculty at the associate and full professor level have as much as 20-30 years of experience.   Several LEEP courses (taught by both full-time faculty and adjuncts) have appeared on the Incomplete List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students based on results from student course evaluations (originally ICES forms, now EON administered online).

7. Staff Support for LEEP Faculty and Students

In LEEP, teaching is a collaborative activity, in which faculty and students work closely with technology support staff.   The GSLIS instructional technology staff originally supported only LEEP faculty and students, but now provide integrated support for all courses offered by GSLIS.  Technology support for LEEP has always been fully in-house, although staffing has evolved as the program has matured.  Technology support in the first year was provided by GSLIS faculty member Gregory Newby and a small number of GSLIS students working as graduate assistants.  One of those graduate assistants, Vince Patone, became the full-time instructional technology coordinator when he completed his MS degree.  He continued working to support LEEP until early 2004.  The instructional technology staff now include two graduates of the GSLIS MS program: Jill Gengler (who began the MS program as a LEEP student and then came on campus and worked as a LEEP GA while completing her MS) and Matthew Beth (who worked as a LEEP GA before joining the instructional technology staff full-time).  Several GA’s provide additional support.  The staff work with each faculty member preparing a course to identify the technology available to support the instructor’s goals for a course.  Other technology support tasks include troubleshooting when students call or e-mail regarding technical problems, helping faculty put material online, setting up and monitoring synchronous sessions, and identifying and evaluating possible new technologies for use in LEEP.   A toll-free telephone number, e-mail, and an electronic bulletin board for technical questions provide ways that students can ask questions of the technology support staff and help one another.  The staff work hard to keep frustration with technology to a minimum by providing friendly, non-threatening support.  They provide workshops, individual tutoring, and practice sessions for students during on-campus sessions, as well as one-on-one training for faculty.  When students return home after boot camp, they participate in practice live class sessions to be sure that they can successfully use the technology before their first online course begins.  Workshops are also provided for on-campus and Fridays Only students enrolling in a LEEP course for the first time.

A few LEEP courses are large enough to warrant assignment of a teaching assistant to help the faculty member.  Depending on the skills of the assistant and the needs of the faculty member, the teaching assistant may help with some technology-related tasks as well as course management tasks such as fielding student questions, logging receipt of assignments, and assisting in grading.  Teaching assistants may also participate directly in teaching—during the on-campus session, collaboratively during live sessions, or as a guest lecturer with sole responsibility for a live session.  

In addition to the instructional technology staff who support LEEP, both GSLIS and the Academic Outreach unit of UIUC provide administrative support for the program.  Much of this is integrated with the work of existing staff, such as admissions processing and maintenance of student records.  Dedicated LEEP staff include Rae-Anne Montague, who serves as LEEP coordinator while pursuing her own doctoral studies.  She is a graduate of the LEEP program, a Canadian who completed her studies for the MS while working as a school librarian in Mexico.  She is assisted by a half-time graduate assistant.  Linda Smith provides ongoing oversight in her role as Associate Dean for Academic Programs.   

8. Enrollment

LEEP began in summer 1996 with 31 students and has gradually increased to the current level of almost 200, with about 100 new students joining the program each year in July.   Experience to date shows that students take on average two courses per semester in the fall and spring and one in the summer.  With a target enrollment of 20-25 per course, this means that 16-20 courses must be offered in the fall and spring and 7-8 in the summer to meet student demand.  Although LEEP students have priority for enrollment in LEEP courses, students in other scheduling options (on-campus and Fridays Only) can and do elect to take these courses on a space-available basis. 

Some marketing has been done to attract prospective students.  Approaches include Web pages describing the program, announcements placed in relevant listservs, entries in directories of distance learning programs, and targeted mailing of brochures to employing organizations who may have staff seeking to earn a professional degree.  Many students learn about the program by consulting the directory of accredited MS programs maintained by the American Library Association, which indicates the programs offering a distance option.  Current LEEP students and graduates are very effective recruiters for the program; their enthusiasm for learning in this way and the employment opportunities opening up for them attract the interest of others who wish to earn an LIS degree.   GSLIS faculty, staff, and administrators also take advantage of opportunities to make presentations about the program at professional association conferences as well as to publish papers and to respond to requests for interviews from the press.   

9. Technology and Infrastructure

From the beginning, choice of technology was dictated by the goals that it must work on multiple platforms, be reliable/robust, and create realistic bandwidth demands for students connecting from home.  Development of the LEEP virtual classroom environment has been accomplished in-house, largely by Vince Patone and more recently by Garret Gengler.  Commercial products have been evaluated, but none has been judged satisfactory for LEEP program needs.  Technologies currently in use support the following activities: asynchronous discussions via electronic bulletin boards; live session interactivity (class presentations via RealAudio by faculty, students, and guest lecturers with simultaneous navigation of associated slides stored on the Web; student questions and comments via text chat; chalkboard; break out rooms for small group discussions); archive of live sessions (including all class components—audio, slides, text chat log); and collaborative document creation and editing (create, edit, and share documents online without leaving the Web browser).   GSLIS technology staff maintain all servers.

The only significant change in technology over the first eight years of the LEEP program was the introduction of RealAudio beginning summer 1997 and the migration from a MOO to our own virtual classroom environment beginning fall 1997.  Migration from the commercially available Webboard system to an in-house electronic bulletin board system took place in summer 1999.  The technology support personnel continue to introduce enhancements to the LEEP environment as faculty and students request more capabilities, but the basic infrastructure has remained stable.  Faculty and students give high ratings to support from instructional technology staff, both prior to the beginning of a class and once it is under way.

10. Content Delivery

LEEP courses must be comparable in quality to those taught on campus—students should have the opportunity to gain the same knowledge, skills, and sense of professionalism.  However, in LEEP it is necessary to distribute faculty/student and student/student contact differently than in classroom-based courses, finding ways to take advantage of strengths of each communication mode and to minimize weaknesses.  In the Web-based environment developed by LEEP technology support staff, each LEEP course has four components:  a syllabus section, which contains the outline and schedule for class events with links to assignments and material on electronic reserve; an archive where audio recordings of previous lectures, associated slides, and text-chat logs can be accessed; a bulletin board area where threaded discussions take place; and the live event control, where access to the programs needed for live sessions is housed.  

While there is a common set of tools available for course design, there is no single model for a course.  Faculty are free to combine Web-based distribution of course materials, live synchronous sessions, and asynchronous bulletin board discussions in ways that help students meet the learning objectives of their particular course.   With limited time for face-to-face (one day) and live sessions (up to two hours per week in a regularly scheduled slot), lectures can no longer serve as the sole means of presenting content.  Course design includes the syllabus (sequencing of topics and readings), assignments (individual, group), and allocation of content delivery and learning activities (face-to-face, synchronous, or asynchronous).  In live sessions the faculty member must find ways to: 1) make effective use of the ability to interweave navigation of slides and other Web sites with audio narration; 2) monitor text-chat to respond to student questions; 3) use small group discussions; 4) involve guest speakers; and 5) integrate student presentations.  Scheduling must take into account the time zones in which students, teacher, and any guest speakers reside (live sessions generally take place Monday-Thursday in the late afternoon or early evening central time).  For asynchronous communication the faculty member must define conferences within the electronic bulletin board area and explain the function of each for communication and discussion.   Faculty must find ways to foster participation and involvement, monitor non-participation, and reach out to students not fully engaged in the course.   Some methods and techniques that work well in a conventional classroom will not transfer directly to an equally effective distance learning experience.  However, possibilities arise for new ways of teaching and ways of applying traditional methods in novel contexts.   

Activities in live synchronous sessions have included illustrated lectures, guest lectures and interviews, demonstrations of online search techniques, visits to and assessment of relevant web sites, discussion with the entire class, responses to student questions, small group discussions and group work, exercises, role-playing, reading picture books aloud, and storytelling by students (in the Storytelling course).  The bulletin board system allows faculty to set up multiple boards, to characterize the purpose of each board, and to authorize either the whole class or smaller groups of students to make use of a given board.  Functions served by bulletin boards include class discussions, group discussions, information/announcements, technology support, introductions of class members, group projects, posting of individual assignments, and feedback on assignments.  

Activities in the face-to-face session on campus are quite varied, depending on the subject matter of the course.  Faculty are encouraged to plan activities that would be difficult or impossible to accomplish in a virtual classroom, given current LEEP technology.  For fall and spring courses, the face-to-face session takes place about half-way through the 16-week course; for summer courses the face-to-face session is at the beginning of the 8-week course.  Examples of on-campus activities include: telling stories and listening to experienced tellers (Storytelling); a mini-conference on the subject of the course with paper presentations and a panel discussion (History of Libraries); technical demonstrations, design activities, technical group work and discussion (Interfaces to Information Systems); viewing and discussing videotapes illustrating communication techniques in the reference interview (Reference); teaching book discussion techniques and watching a video (Youth Services Librarianship); and talks by local specialists, computer clinics, and working groups (Systems Analysis and Management). Many faculty also encourage students to allow time for on-site use of the rich library resources available at UIUC.  

Assessment of student performance is generally based on such factors as contributions to class discussion, presentations, and individual and group written assignments.  Few courses, whether on-campus or LEEP, make use of examinations as an evaluation tool.  Students are taught to post their assignments as web pages and to send the instructor a URL, but they can also e-mail assignments as attachments.   Faculty have devised various means for providing feedback, using either electronic tools (e-mail or private bulletin boards for each student) or printing out papers, marking them up, and mailing them back.   Some classes also take advantage of the Web as a publishing medium for drafts of student work with an opportunity for other students to offer comments and suggestions.   Some courses, like the Government Publications course, also showcase final student projects by publicizing URL’s via relevant listservs.

Faculty members are responsible for course design, working closely with the instructional technology staff.  A number of courses have been offered by more than one faculty member.  In this case, a new faculty member may reuse material already developed, giving appropriate credit to the original developer.  In this we are guided by the report of the University of Illinois Intellectual Property Subcommittee on Courseware Development and Distribution and GSLIS faculty support for a policy that grants both GSLIS and the individual faculty member the right to reuse course material originally developed for use in LEEP.

11. Course Offerings

Forty-nine different courses have been offered online via LEEP in the period Summer 1996-Fall 2004.  The broad range of courses allows students to tailor the course work to their own interests.  The roster of course offerings has been expanded in response to expressed student interests and as we developed a better understanding of what could be accomplished through the teaching and learning model that LEEP supports.  For example, a substantial number of LEEP students are interested in working with children in either school library media centers or public libraries.  To adequately prepare them, we needed to offer Literature and Resources for Children, Literature and Resources for Young Adults, Youth Services Librarianship, and Storytelling via LEEP.   Storytelling is normally very dependent on having a face-to-face classroom environment, but it was successfully adapted to LEEP format and offered for the first time in spring 2000 and regularly thereafter.  Links to sample syllabi for these LEEP courses are provided in the Sources of Evidence at the end of this section.

12. Budget

Under the current budgeting system in place at UIUC, GSLIS receives LEEP tuition revenue (charged at the same in-state or out-of-state rate paid by on-campus students).  These funds have been essential to providing the resources needed to sustain a quality program:  strong in-house technology support, appropriate equipment, faculty release time for course development and initial offering, administrative staff to coordinate program activities, and the ability to hire additional faculty as the program has grown. 

In FY04, LEEP generated $1.384 million in tuition revenue, significantly enhancing the School as a whole.

B. Assessment of Outcomes

Throughout the development of the LEEP program we have been very attentive to assessing outcomes of individual courses, success of individual students, satisfaction of faculty, and performance of the program overall.   Such evaluation has been integral to gauging success and guiding improvements.  LEEP evaluation techniques have included: 1) reports by an outside evaluator gathering data from students and faculty, seeking to compare the quality of LEEP to the on-campus program (using observation, focus groups, interviews, surveys, and monitoring of the web site); 2) “taking your pulse and temperature” (mid-semester call for student feedback—fostering an environment that invites students to comment on what is not working and to offer ideas for improvement); 3) ICES and now EON forms, the UIUC standard instrument for collecting feedback from students, used in all LEEP and on-campus courses;  4) review of LEEP as part of the regularly scheduled accreditation review of the GSLIS MS program in fall 1997 (reaccredited January 1998); 5) ongoing monitoring of bulletin boards to answer questions and gather feedback; 6) tracking retention and placement of students; 7) determining willingness of faculty to teach again in LEEP; 8) a 5-year review by the Graduate College Committee on Extended Education and External Degrees; 9) a LEEP retreat in summer 2002 involving faculty, staff, students, and alumni; and 10) formal research carried out by selected GSLIS faculty with research interests in computer-supported cooperative work, computer-mediated communication, and online pedagogy. 

Some key findings of the various forms of assessment include the following:

1. New Access

Many qualified individuals who would like to pursue the degree do not live within commuting distance of an available face-to-face program.  Students enrolled in LEEP have resided in 45 of the 50 states (all but Arkansas, Delaware, Mississippi, Rhode Island, South Carolina), Canada, the Bahamas, the Virgin Islands, Saudi Arabia, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Mexico, Argentina, Hong Kong, Japan, and Thailand.  Very few of them had the option of a face-to-face program; those that could have attended a program within commuting distance opted for LEEP because of its reputation for high quality. 

2. Learning Effectiveness and Student and Faculty Satisfaction

While the various forms of assessment have helped us to identify ways to improve both individual courses and aspects of the program overall, in general they have affirmed the soundness of the original design and the success that has been achieved in maintaining the high quality of the GSLIS MS program in this new medium.   For example, a study of LEEP students conducted by GSLIS faculty member Caroline Haythornthwaite and three doctoral students [reported in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication in 2000] identified several positive outcomes:

“Overall, we see many positive outcomes with these students that bode well for distance programs.  We see tangible results such as students receiving increased job responsibilities and access to special opportunities long before they complete the program.  We see intangible results as stressed, fearful and/or timid individuals gain confidence and take on leadership roles in LEEP.  We also see people who could not otherwise achieve this degree becoming full-fledged members of their chosen profession.  Lastly, we see something unique from the distance program—that students receive a ‘dual education’.  They learn to use new technology and gain experience in distanced interaction as well as learning about library and information science.”

Reports from the outside evaluator (an educational consultant from Michigan), who studied the experience of the first cohort of students beginning in 1996, echo and elaborate on many of these points.  His final (unpublished) report focused on the impact of the LEEP option on the learning and careers of the first cohort of students (based on telephone interviews with 24 of the first cohort who had graduated or were close to completion of their degree).  Themes that emerged from his interviews with students included: 1) LEEP students develop the knowledge and confidence to use new technology; 2) LEEP students apply technology to their jobs; 3) the combination of LEEP and work provides an immediate payoff for work performance; 4) LEEP students are different demographically from on-campus students (older, more experienced, skilled at using computer technology); 5) LEEP is a qualitatively different experience than the on-campus option; 6) risk taking is learned through the LEEP experience;  7) students faced constant problems balancing work, family, and school; 8) LEEP positions students for career advancement; 9) individual faculty and staff contributed significantly to the success of LEEP; 10) the first cohort formed a cohesive group; and 11) LEEP meets a special need for adult learners.  He also identified a number of recommendations from students:  1) keep the two-week session on campus in the summer and the weekend on campus during each semester; 2) continue to provide strong technology support; 3) consider the size of the LEEP option—try to keep the cohort and classes small; 4) always provide feedback on class projects and other assignments.  The students felt that learning is maximized when faculty design the LEEP courses for the distance learning environment, taking advantage of all of the technologies available in LEEP.

LEEP was the first online degree program implemented at UIUC and therefore was the first to undergo a 5-year evaluation by the Graduate College Committee on Extended Education and External Degrees.  All faculty who had taught in LEEP as well as all current students and graduates of the program were given the opportunity to respond to online surveys.  Conclusions of this evaluation include: