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Case studies
From Qedoc
This page describes different ways in which you can use Qedoc in your teaching and learning. It describes it from a teacher/student point of view. Find out which of the types most closely corresponds to your situation. This page can help you work out if you are on the right track with Qedoc. We have paid attention to whether or not expenditure is required and which software editions you might need to use.
Cases
Debbie: student revising for an examination
Debbie has large lists of material which she has to learn by rote for an upcoming examination. She has a budget of zero. She downloads the Qedoc Quiz Maker and enters all her learning material into it, taking care not to plagiarise or breach anyone else's copyright. She then submits the module to Qedoc for publication. Qedoc review and publish the module for students all over the world to use. Debbie goes along to the Qedoc page for her module and clicks the "launch here" link to launch the module and do her learning. The software tracks her progress individually. If she has used the flashcard learning options, she can track how well she knows each learning item. If Debbie is travelling with her laptop and no internet access at the weekend, she can download a copy of the module and a desktop version of the Quiz Player for use on her non-networked laptop. Debbie's total spend: nothing.
Karen: teacher with one class and restricted/dodgy internet access
Karen wants to practice learning material with her class in a new and interesting way, using computers. Her school IT room isn't the best and she can't rely on internet access. She designs a few training modules using the Qedoc Quiz Maker, and uses a wide variety of questions types and games - memory games, hangman, drag-and-drop exercises, gapfills. She submits the module to Qedoc, using her internet access at home. The module is reviewed and published. She then downloads a copy of the published module, installs a desktop copy of the Qedoc Quiz Player on all the school computers, and copies the module onto all the computers as well. Her pupils can now play the modules on their desktops, track their progress and show her how well they are getting on. Total cost to Karen: zero.
Jason: teacher with access to good computer rooms and fast internet access
Jason's situation is better than Karen's in terms of technology, but his budget is still zero. All the computers at his school have fast, reliable web access. So once he has created his module and had it published, he doesn't need to download or install anything. Instead he just tells his students to go to the page on qedoc.org where his module has been published, and they click the "launch now" link on that page. The module launches straight off the web, but in every other respect functions just like the desktop version Karen is using with her pupils. Jason is a keen web educator, and eventually creates 20 modules for various classes and subjects.
Doug: teacher with materials that should not be published
Doug's situation is similar to that of Jason and Karen, but he wants to keep most of his materials away from the public eye. Sometimes he has tests for his pupils which are marked and he doesn't want his pupils to see these in advance. Sometimes he uses audio clips and images in his modules which he has permission to use himself but which he can't redistribute. And sometimes he creates modules for fun which refer to the pupils themselves and their school - he doesn't want these published for privacy reasons - they're just for his classes. As he isn't sharing his modules with the rest of the world, Doug therefore purchases a subscription from Qedoc for having his modules privately hosted. He gets the same URL's for easy web-launching of the modules which Jason has, but he puts these links onto his own website (or his personal pages on his school's website). This way Qedoc handles the technology, but Doug gets to keep control over who sees his materials.
Sandra: Moodle-using teacher with plenty of web education experience
Sandra is a very experienced web educator. Her college has its own Moodle installation, which she frequently uses. However she finds Moodle's quiz-taking options rather limiting and would like to connect Qedoc's quizzing interface with Moodle. First time round she'd prefer not to spend anything and produce an evaluation for her school. So she creates a Qedoc module for general publication which Qedoc publish on qedoc.org. She then follows the instructions for integrating this with Moodle and tries it out with a class. At this stage Sandra has still spent nothing, and she could continue along this zero-cost route if she keeps on publishing her materials for the public. However like Doug, she'd like to restrict some of the modules to her classes only, so on the basis of her initial experiments, she pursuades her school to purchase a subscription from Qedoc for online private hosting of the modules.
Paul: corporate trainer doing a general introductory IT course
As a corporate trainer, Paul has plenty of IT experience, but it is his first time with Qedoc and he cannot yet justify expenditure. Paul doesn't have to make do just with a trial - he can use the real thing - provided he publishes his materials just like other free users. So he creates an IT module for Qedoc, containing general introductory material rather than material specific to his company. He submits this to Qedoc and it is reviewed and published. Paul does have to share this with other trainers from all over the world, but in return he gets a free go at Qedoc, and he can do this with as many modules as he wishes. Qedoc provides him with a free hyperlink for internet launching of his module, which means he can use the module at different company locations without having to install anything on the computers.
Barbara: corporate trainer with specialist copyright materials
Barbara is a step beyond Paul with her in-house use of Qedoc to support her training. Barbara doesn't wish to publish her materials, and as they are very specific to the company's own needs (e.g. training knowledge of in-house procedures and products) it is unlikely Qedoc would publish them anyway. So she needs to keep her Qedoc modules under her own control and inside the company. For these purposes, she purchases a licence for a desktop edition of the Qedoc Quiz Maker. This edition of the Quiz Maker also allows her to choose background images for her modules, and as the whole interface consists of semi-transparent panels floating over a background, it is possible to use this new feature to almost rebrand the software. She has an artist create some company-specific wallpapers and places these in her modules. This gives them a distinctive look-and-feel linked to her company. Barbara distributes the modules by installing them (together with the Qedoc Quiz Player) onto all the computers her trainees use - she does this by creating installation CD-ROM's.
After 6 months, Barbara goes a step further when she decides that her work at different locations will make it more convenient to have the modules launch from the web rather than locally. She additionally purchases a subscription for online services from Qedoc, so that Qedoc will (privately) host her modules and make these available to her classes with click-and-launch URL's. She uses pages from her company's intranet or in-house virtual learning environment to post the URL's with restricted access to her own audience. For additional security, she adds class-passwords to the modules.
Wendy: freelancer trainer with supporting website
Wendy is a freelance trainer. She runs a small website to market her services better, and has an area of her website where she also makes available additional student materials. However her website is fairly simple - she does not run any e-commerce or virtual learning packages on it.
When Wendy first starts using Qedoc, she uses the Quiz Maker for free. This way she has to publish her modules on qedoc.org before her students can use them, so she ensures that her modules are "publishable" - e.g. of general educational use rather than just specific to her own needs. She retains copyright over her modules, but releases them under a perpetual licence granting universal use to others. She makes the modules available for download from her own website, and they are also available from qedoc.org for anyone else.
Once she gets used to the system, she purchases a licence for the Quiz Maker so she can distribute modules directly to her students without publishing on qedoc.org. Direct distribution means she can personalise the modules for individual students and include references to material discussed only in her own courses. She uploads the modules to her website, where her students can download them for local use on their desktops with their own (freeware) versions of the Quiz Player. Wendy doesn't charge the students extra for this, nor do the students have to pay Qedoc anything. Wendy retains full rights over her modules and can restrict their distribution or sell them if she wishes, but at the moment she just makes them available to her own students. Wendy's total financial commitment is a one-off payment to Qedoc for a licence for the Quiz Maker. As she is not making use of any of Qedoc's online services, there are no recurring charges.
Jeff: freelance trainer selling modules online
Jeff runs a small company combining freelance training (which he does himself) and the sale of educational software. He would like to create Qedoc modules and sell these over the web or to his students. As he is selling learning materials, Jeff is well aware of the issues of software piracy and he doesn't want his customers making and sharing illegal copies of the modules which he worked so hard to prepare. So Jeff's particular interest is copy protection.
To implement copy protection, Jeff first purchases a licence for the Qedoc Quiz Maker. The paid-up version of this software includes a feature where he can lock his modules from any user until they enter a registration code. Jeff does not yet have any registration codes, so he purchases an additional online service from Qedoc which gives him batches of registration codes. He can pass these on to his customers any way he chooses. The registration codes are for one-time use only - if a customer tries to use one twice, it doesn't work the second time. The modules are only unlocked for the computer on which each unique registration code has been entered. As Jeff sells more modules, he can go back to Qedoc and purchase more batches of registration codes.
An advantage of this system is easy distribution for Jeff. He can make all the software downloads public on his website and doesn't need to worry about complicated password systems or software-delivery-after-payment. The only thing he needs to send to a customer when they buy is the unlock code itself, which is just a series of characters that he can send by email or on paper.
Joe: college faculty with 200 students needing a multiple choice test
Joe's college has plenty of computer rooms, but none of these are large enough to handle 200 students at a single sitting for a test. So for testing purposes, pencil-and-paper is still the rule. 200 students means a lot of marking, so Joe has to use multiple choice, and needs a system which enables rapid marking.
With Qedoc he compiles a large module with huge bank of multiple choice questions. He purchases a commercial licence for the software, and this gives him access to the "print quizzes" feature. The printed quizzes are randomly generated each time, so he can work with A and B versions to stop students sitting near each other from cheating. The printed quizzes have answer sheets and keys which are specially laid out to enable rapid marking (depending on test size, 50 to 100 papers per hour is realistic). Each randomly generated test has a unique ID printed on each page which enables the keys to be correctly linked to the tests.
Over a few years, Joe expands his question bank. The multi-item copy-and-paste function allows him to easily create variants of the main question bank. He can also suspend questions from active use without having to delete them. The random generation of quizzes means that he can keep his students guessing. If he feels generous, he can make parts of the question bank available electronically for revision purposes. Joe's main work went into creating the question bank itself - now he has it, he can quickly create new and unique electronic and paper tests whenever he wants. This is an immense time saver, and Jeff now spends less time testing/marking and more time on the content of his courses and on advising individual students.
Andy: military trainer with confidential learning content
Andy has the additional restriction that his organisation will not allow any movement of learning content outside its own walls. As he wants an intranet-based click-and-launch system, but can't make use of Qedoc's (privately) hosted solution, he goes for the option of buying an intranet licence for the web version of the Qedoc Quiz Player, in addition to a licence for the Qedoc Quiz Maker. Andy's expenditure is substantial.
Marianne: homeschooler with two children
Marianne typically faces the dilemma of household chores versus supervising/helping her children learn. She notices that computer-based learning keeps their attention longer than books, but cannot always find the right software for what she wants them to learn. She starts to use Qedoc to create her own elearning materials and finds this a great success. When using Qedoc, she has to learn to keep personal details out of the learning materials, because to keep costs to zero, the materials must be published online at qedoc.org. The efforts she makes brings her much appreciation among other homeschoolers, because they can easily share her materials. All this can be done for free.
