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Journal of Information Technology Case and Application

Research

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/utca20

Teaching and learning transformation in the time


of the Coronavirus crisis

Geoffrey Dick, Asli Yagmur Akbulut & Vic Matta

To cite this article: Geoffrey Dick, Asli Yagmur Akbulut & Vic Matta (2020) Teaching and learning
transformation in the time of the Coronavirus crisis, Journal of Information Technology Case and
Application Research, 22:4, 243-255, DOI: 10.1080/15228053.2020.1861420

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/15228053.2020.1861420

Published online: 26 Dec 2020.

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JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY CASE AND APPLICATION RESEARCH
2020, VOL. 22, NO. 4, 243–255
https://doi.org/10.1080/15228053.2020.1861420

EDITORIAL PREFACE ARTICLE

Teaching and learning transformation in the time of the


Coronavirus crisis
Geoffrey Dicka, Asli Yagmur Akbulutb, and Vic Mattac
a
St John's University, Queens, NY, USA; bGrand Valley State University, MI, USA; cOhio University,
Athens, USA

ABSTRACT
The education landscape changed almost overnight from the in-
person mode to online due to the onslaught of the ongoing pan­
demic, Covid19. As educators, we have a responsibility to build an
online teaching environment that attempts to be as equal as
possible to its face-to-face counterpart, one that will not suffer
from the perception that online classes and programs are
somewhat second-rate. We call for the establishment of a “gold-
standard” for online classes which can serve as a benchmark for
fully or partially online classes. There are implications for extensive
research into the way in which we offer higher education online
classes. The increased dependence on online platforms for course
management and video conferencing requires these systems to be
as seamless, , and inclusive as possible.

Introduction
“ . . . Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give
birth to them, but . . . life obliges them over and over again to give birth to
themselves.” Source: Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

Within a very short span of time, the onslaught of the coronavirus


(Covid19) pandemic has transformed almost all segments of society. At the
time of writing, there were almost 65 million cases worldwide, so far resulting
in over 1.5 million deaths. The USA has been particularly hit hard, accounting
for over 15 million cases and more than 270 000 deaths.1 The education
landscape changed almost overnight from in-person mode to online due to
the onslaught of Covid19. Teachers and learners had no choice but to learn the
technology and all other accompanying nuances of the new mode. For many
this was a completely new experience. Administrators and professors of uni­
versities struggled to cope with the vast numbers of students, new ways of
providing them with educational material and ensuring access while simulta­
neously dealing with a great deal of pressure and concerns from the commu­
nity of parents. Students struggled with having to work in different ways and

CONTACT Geoffrey Dick gfdick@aol.com St John’s University, Queens, NY, USA


1
Source: Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Research Center https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html.
© 2020 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
244 G. DICK ET AL.

take on a much stronger self-management role. Almost a year since the first
case of Covid19 in China, millions of students are still taking classes in some
kind of mixed mode varying from completely online to partially online.

Evolution of online education


Rather like its cousin telecommuting, online education has had
a somewhat checkered past, undergoing many reincarnations.
Telecommuting has moved outwards from Alvin Toffler’s The Third
Wave. Initially encouraged by the pollution-filled Los Angeles skies,
telecommuting has been given an occasional fillip by sporadic earth­
quakes or hurricanes or tornados, then pulled back occasionally in the
last decade to regain face-to-face richness of communication and team­
work (water-cooler driven idea generation at Yahoo is a good example of
management mind-changing, see Arthur, 2013), and now in the current
Covid19 crisis is wholeheartedly embraced again. Online education has
moved through courses by correspondence, CD ROMs, Open University
and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), and while all heralded as
great contributions to mankind, never quite living up to the hype: “. . .
nothing has more potential to enable us to reimagine higher education”
(Friedman, 2013) versus “The “Depressing” And “Disheartening” News
About MOOCs” (Newton, 2020). It now finds itself as a favorite choice
again – by necessity. While Coursera2 and EdX3 previously reported
students in the MOOC environment in the tens of millions, the number
of students taking online classes has ballooned almost overnight to the
hundreds of millions.4 Like telecommuting, online education benefits
from a periodic rebirth.
The current pandemic has forced universities to embrace online
classes – warts and all. It seems that the technology has not been
a barrier here; it has been reliable, scalable and ubiquitous – at least for
most class needs. Universities around the world scrambled to put classes
online in vast numbers. UNAM, the Autonomous National University in
Mexico was faced with the daunting task of putting 360,000 students and
40,000 faculty online via a number of Learning Management Systems.
They were just one of many institutions in this situation (Rodriguez-
Abitia, 2020). Technology itself was, at least in most cases, not the
problem. As we in MIS appreciate more than most, the system is more
than the technology. We believe that the people and the procedures that

2
Source: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/042815/how-coursera-works-makes-money.asp#:~:text=
Its%20base%20of%20users%2C%20who,%2465.48%20billion%20worldwide%20by%202026.
3
Source: https://www.classcentral.com/report/edx-2019-year-review.
4
Source UNESCO reports 1.5 billion for all students https://en.unesco.org/news/13-billion-learners-are-still-affected-
school-university-closures-educational-institutions.
JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY CASE AND APPLICATION RESEARCH 245

surround the technology are just as important as the technological part of


the system – we teach this to our students. Therefore, we in MIS are well
placed to help out here. If we struggle with the challenges, can we expect
other disciplines to get this right?

Challenges in online education implementation


Institutions encountered many challenges in moving to the online environ­
ment. These included helping instructors move to a mode that they had never
tried before, training and advising them in using technologies such as WebEx
or Zoom or creating a narrated PowerPoint presentation, indeed in many
cases using the same unfamiliar technologies themselves for the training. For
the students, the lack of an inherently disciplined environment led to time
management issues – which was further exacerbated by anxieties faced by
continuing Covid19 infections, hospitalizations, and even deaths in families.
Students faced the unavailability of some resources, such as access to physical
library resources including required textbooks. They encountered communi­
cation difficulties, and study became more difficult due to the need to share
resources with other family members, and the need to cope with rapidly
increasing stress levels. For both, instructors and students, a teaching and
learning pedagogical change was thrust upon them. New adverse phrases such
as “glorified Skype” (Hubler, 2020), “disappointing” (Barrett, 2020), “zoom­
bombing” (McKenzie, 2020), and “PowerPoints online” (Quinn, 2020) have
made it into the mainstream media.
There is a widespread perception that online classes do not measure up to
the face-to-face classroom experience: “Faculty and academic leaders, employ­
ers and the general public are skeptical about the quality and value of online
education, which they view as inferior to face-to-face education” (Fain, 2019).
There are many reasons for this view – lack of interaction, bonding and
networking, testing, in-class exercises, discussions and interaction with peers
and the instructor, extemporaneous examples and the ability to quickly
demonstrate a concept in a way the student can understand, and the atten­
dance and preparation for class. There is a perception that courses offered
online are not as beneficial as those offered face-to-face, and perhaps most
importantly it is not feasible to proctor testing and exams to ensure that the
enrolled students have completed these assessment tasks themselves. Possibly
no worse than in a traditional classroom, stories around essay-writing mills
and help with exams somehow loom larger in the online environment.
In order for the widespread use of online classes to be seen as anything other
than a stop-gap measure for tertiary education (both undergraduate and grad­
uate) at this time, several challenges have to be addressed. We have many tools
available, some of dubious validity or lacking ethical legitimacy, ranging from
honesty pledges and plagiarism checkers, through proctored on- or off-site
246 G. DICK ET AL.

exams, to lockdown browsers and inbuilt camera surveillance. Although some of


these are also problematic in traditional education, they seem to take on a higher
profile in perceptions of online classes. Strategically, until we as an industry are
able to demonstrate comprehensibly that the person turning in an assessment
task, taking the test and getting credit for the course is the one who did the work,
online education has a problem, to put it mildly. Tactically, institutions are
adopting different methods and procedures including software such as
Respondus Lockdown Browser and ProctorU, offering the aforementioned
plagiarism checking software and honesty pledges (McCabe, 2005) along with
a variety of punishments for those who are caught transgressing, from the
draconian to the wrist slap. Operationally, instructors are often left to make
their own decisions and adopt what they see fit. We have a range of disparate
approaches across courses, programs, colleges, institutions, and the industry.
Although technology is starting to offer some solutions such as biometrics,
keystroke monitoring, cameras, etc., these are not foolproof, and are still in
their infancy and probably ethically questionable in many environments (Patil &
Bromwich, 2020).

Addressing the challenges


There are many good online programs – Georgia Tech, Arizona State, MIT, and
the University of Maryland come to mind. Apart from these, a look at the Khan
Academy offerings of US history or computer programming, or YouTube videos
on how to fix a leak or do long-division, immediately shows us that online
education can provide us with both skills and knowledge. Problems enumerated
earlier persist despite the fact that several universities attempt to subject their
online students to the same standards as their face-to-face students by using
technologies such as inbuilt cameras, remote proctoring, and randomized ques­
tions. The suggestion here is to rethink the instruction and assessment.
To address the widespread perception that online classes, and particularly
entire online programs leading to a college degree, are somehow a second-rate
education, we need to take some initiatives. A comprehensive review and brain
storming must be done by diverse stakeholders regarding how higher education
institutions might provide an acceptable, rigorous, and robust online learning
environment. Leading university-based online programs from around the
world including those mentioned above (or professional educational services
such as EdX or Coursera) should form a task force to come up with a “gold
standard” for adoption by others. Such a gold standard needs to cover several
areas including technology, ethics, access to course materials, ease of use,
security, affordability, and efficacy. Employers, educators, students, and parents
alike are in need of a holistic online education system they can trust.
JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY CASE AND APPLICATION RESEARCH 247

Transformation to a “New normal”

The next challenge that needs to be addressed is: what can be done to achieve
an effective and satisfactory “new normal”? At this point, it seems likely that
online classes in their various modes (fully online, hybrid, blended, flipped)
will continue for many students in their university studies for at least the
foreseeable future. Through necessity at this time, university administrations
have sought solutions to get them through the current crisis in terms of both
the health of academics and students, and the potential loss in revenue
streams.
As most will recognize, the approaches have been motivated by multiple
goals. Educational institutions must minimize loss associated with declining
enrollments and continue academic progression of students. They must bal­
ance this with the interest in minimizing health risks associated with proximity
issues with in-class instruction, and with residential students in the dormitory
and cafeteria. Institutions are moving forward in the following tactical ways.

(1) They have prioritized strategically important students – by placing


students of freshmen rank and international students (identified as
being significant for university revenue streams) into physically larger
classrooms. This is done to minimize the loss of these students who
either take a gap semester/year, or source equivalent academic credits
from a less expensive sources such as local/community colleges.
(2) They have freed up large classroom halls – by moving junior and senior
ranked students to online classes, and thereby freeing up large class­
room halls for critical classes (such as those with clinical components/
labs, or freshmen/international students). Students in their junior and
senior years are typically more likely to stay and complete their pro­
gram. They tend to have the maturity, tenacity, and experience to
sustain the shift to online instruction.
(3) They use the HyFlex5 approach (Liu & Rodriguez, 2019) – This is
a student-directed, multi-modal learning experience and provides stu­
dents with autonomy and flexibility no matter where, how, or when they
engage in the course. Typically, each class session is offered face-to-face
in large classroom halls, synchronously as well as asynchronously.
Adaptations of the HyFlex approach may include only two or more
modes of instructional delivery, depending on course requirements and
capabilities afforded by the institution or instructor. These include: (i)
rotate students through required course components, such as exams or
clinical/lab sessions, (ii) schedule at least a portion of classes face-to-
face to encourage students to live on campus and pay to live in the

5
An approach to learning where delivery of education takes place is several modes – online, face to face, or recorded
and students have the option of choosing and moving between options.
248 G. DICK ET AL.

residence halls, (iii) make prerecorded sessions/presentations available


to students, often ahead of time.
(4) They have been sensitive and accommodating of issues – related to
academic performance, newness of online education, and students with
special needs or limitations. Instructors have been advised to accom­
modate students in some of the following ways: provide recorded
versions of synchronous sections (as mentioned earlier), accommodate
late submissions without penalty, provide make-up exams, provide
extended time on exams, etc. In summary, instructors have been
advised to provide the benefit of doubt to students wherever possible.

While most institutions have had little choice but to adopt some of the above
solutions, a comprehensive strategic approach for the longer term has been
missing. The pandemic continues to persist and we continue to grab at quick-
fix solutions. Whatever the short or medium-term outcomes, the very tenacity
of this pandemic will ensure that we will be forced to continue our love affair
with current online teaching practices. We, therefore have an opportunity to
undertake online education’s next renaissance, knowing it will be around
seemingly well into the future.
It is necessary for us to recognize that many students, particularly undergrad­
uate students, enroll at universities for the extra-curricular activities and social life
that college campuses offer. Schools routinely include the Students Activities
Center on their campus during the student recruitment tours. In the US and
several other countries, for most students, “College” is an opportunity to leave
home and experience a different side of life to help them develop independently
into professionals. Traditionally, undergraduate students enroll themselves in
higher education programs for the full “on campus” experience. To quote Sophie
Quinn, the UK undergraduate student who started a petition for fee refunds, “Last
time I checked I didn’t sign up to The Open University” (Quinn, 2020).
There is a perception that students learn by being in the physical class­
room and that this does not work quite as well in a virtual environment. We
can perhaps overcome this perception by comprehending the inherent
nuances between the two environments. The technology provides both
a platform and an opportunity for learning activities to take place in an
online environment to achieve the same learning objectives. Students can
successfully complete hands-on exercises, group, and/or individual projects
and participate in meaningful discussions when they are provided with the
resources and instructions to guide them in the process, are kept motivated
and on schedule with regular communication and feedback. In the online
learning environment students can also participate in small-group discus­
sions and develop reports in breakout “rooms”, work on shared documents
and develop computer programs. Professors can use the document editors to
provide meaningful feedback, and students can listen to any part of
JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY CASE AND APPLICATION RESEARCH 249

a professor’s presentation that is directly relevant to the tasks at hand and at


times of their own choosing. In other words, the technology is there, we need
to make certain that the people around it are adequately trained and pro­
cesses are built around to integrate people and technology effectively. Above
all, howsoever rich is the online technology platform, the need for some F2F
interaction cannot be completely substituted. So, there may need to be
a provision for some F2F classes – beginning of semester, end of semester,
blended, or flipped or some combination thereof.

Strategic implications for students, universities and colleges, technology


platform providers, and government
As a call for action, we provide a futuristic view of what the “new normal” may
entail for different stakeholders and list a few strategic implications for key
stakeholders. As the institutions are forced to limit on-campus attendance,
students have been encouraged to take at least some classes in an online
format, if not all. Those who enroll will appreciate the opportunity to manage
their timetables to enter the workforce earlier or undertake greater career-
based employment while completing their studies.

Implications for students


(1) Make a decision on place of residence: Attending universities closer to
home and/or completing their studies at a different institution or con­
sidering a local community college to start their higher education, there
is concern regarding risk of contagion. Students may escape the volatile
Covid19 environment and potentially save on living-away-from home
and tuition expenses, but they miss out on a residential college experi­
ence. To retain whatever semblance of this, students may elect to be on-
campus, despite not having face-to-face classes, while others may have
classes with in-person requirements. On-campus students often maintain
a consistent small group of friends, a social bubble to limit exposure. In
addition to this somewhat limited social experience, students are able to
continue to avail themselves of safe resources or facilities at their institu­
tions, such as labs, physical library resources or physical fitness centers.
(2) Become better at self-efficacy and time management: Self-efficacy
reflects confidence in the ability to exert control over one’s own motiva­
tion, behavior, and social environment (Bandura, 1997). To be success­
ful in this suddenly new way of studying, students must quickly learn to
execute certain behaviors so that they have control over their ability to
produce specific performance attainments. This is new for students, and
the absence of the class presence can add to some lack of required
regulation and organization. On the other hand, those who are able to
250 G. DICK ET AL.

cope will benefit from the increased flexibility. They will be able to use
their enhanced skills in these areas in the workplace.
(3) Reassess their need for a “college degree” right now: Widespread accep­
tance of online classes may also mean greater acceptance of “as needed”
learning, or, learning directly based on job needs. The online delivery
mode levels the playing field for attracting students to professional
online educational systems such as Massive Open Online Courses
(MOOCs), EdX, Coursera, Udemy, in comparison to traditional college
driven higher education.

Implications for universities and colleges


Increase technological support strategically
Technology has been shown to significantly impact learning outcomes (Chauhan,
Gupta, Palvia, & Jaiswal, 2020). Institutions must improve their technological
abilities. (i) From a hardware perspective, more video conferencing will require
much more internet bandwidth, and therefore expanded and improved infra­
structure. Some faculty and students may need access to technological facilities
depending upon their needs. (ii) From a software perspective, educational insti­
tutions may need to improve faculty expertise for the increased focus on online
delivery of instruction. This requires knowledge of software for not just video
recording and video conferencing, but also for advanced functions such as
working with virtual teams or remote monitoring of students during exams.

Engage strategically in instructional innovation


The delivery system of tomorrow may not be an either-or proposition, but
a combination of the multi-modal instructional delivery. A new pedagogi­
cal paradigm must (i) leverage technology to not just replace but transcend
in-person interaction in order to help students stay on top of the academic
performance. The ease of use of the relevant technologies has long been
found to be a significant predictor of student satisfaction in online learning
(Joo, Lim, & Kim, 2011) and of intention to take additional courses online
(Venkatesh & Bala, 2008). (ii) A new pedagogical paradigm must also
accommodate the diversity of the student population, which creates
many challenges. The needs, interests, learning styles, and perspective of
a residential 17-year-old freshman, are vastly different from those of a day
scholar veteran who drives in to take classes part-time. There is consider­
able evidence in the literature that supports the key role higher education
institutions play in student’s satisfaction with their learning experiences as
well as in student drop out and retention rates (Heyman, 2010; Lee &
Choi, 2003, 2011; Lee, Srinivasan, Trail, Lewis, & Lopez, 2011).
JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY CASE AND APPLICATION RESEARCH 251

Redesign college degree offerings


While some students may prefer the broad base of an undergraduate degree,
others may be skittish about committing to a degree program. Universities and
colleges may accommodate such students by splitting up programs into
a series of smaller components (such as micro-credentials). Another approach
is to offer vocational or professional courses. These tend to be shorter than
degree programs and inculcate skills in students that make them more
employable. Universities will need to continually assess the need and accept­
ability of “on-demand” courses and micro-credentials to meet student
demand. While the protection of revenue streams is always paramount, in
the longer term, this is likely to cause a rationalization of the courses offered.
A quick web search will reveal that this has already become a trend, and
prestigious institutions have already lined up suites of course packs to follow
this model. This flexible approach will support the needs of veterans, and adult
learners, non-traditional students, displaced workers, and the like.

Educate faculty to adapt to a pedagogical paradigm


Some of the challenges include lack of a sense of belonging and connectedness,
the presence of distractions, and a lack of engagement (Xie, Siau, & Nah,
2020). Faculty members need to sustain student engagement and experiential
learning. (i) As we come out of this pandemic, the online mode will continue
to be a part of the instructional delivery. Professors will need to concentrate on
designing courses that make students want to take online or hybrid classes
(Chakraborty & Nafukho, 2014; Wright, Jones, & D’Alba, 2013). Engagement
becomes more important in this environment where most students are not
there by choice. Instructors too will need support in online course design,
keeping up with technology and innovative approaches to achieve student
engagement. They will need to find ways to make up for the absence of the
inherent discipline of the classroom and the professor’s “presence.” We need
research that will assess how we can address these issues central to student
engagement before student problems around time management and disinter­
est become insurmountable, particularly if we have to continue requiring
students to take their classes online. (ii) The virtual nature of online classes
makes the courses susceptible to the threat of becoming more theoretical and
less experiential (Latham & Braun, 2020). Universities must support and
enhance opportunities for internships, apprenticeships, or co-ops to support
students’ continuous learning and training through various stages of their
academic career.

Implications for technology platform providers


It can be expected that as students move between institutions, the platforms
need to be similar enough to facilitate easy transition. Such systems will need
252 G. DICK ET AL.

to promote more frequent professor-student contact; the use of collaboration


and communication tools (such as teleconferencing being seamlessly incorpo­
rated into Learning Management Systems-LMS) along with access to blended
asynchronous and synchronous content. Further, LMS must incorporate
adaptive learning to tailor to diverse learning capabilities, and emerging
customer segments beyond the incoming freshmen student. Technology plat­
form providers should experiment and explore seamless integration of all the
technologies in use – communication platforms, document repositories, tele-
conferencing and webinars, testing and grading, etc.

Implications for government


From a government perspective, the opportunity exists to reevaluate the role
that online education plays, as a component of the overall higher education
landscape. This could mean a focused investment in technology infrastructure
(media photographs of homework being done in parking lots near a retailer’s
wifi have drawn attention to the digital divide), incentives (tax or otherwise) to
online learning platform providers, and the potential role for online education
in innovation and applied research. Again, it is important the approach
adopted be comprehensive rather than stop-gap. Perhaps the coming revolu­
tion in education supported by governments will indeed transform the work­
place and the economy (Friedman, 2020).

Conclusions
To sum up – given the status of research to date, we suggest that it is time to
look again at the long-term implications for online education. We see two
essential issues here.

(1) The environment in which online classes are offered must be robust
enough to be seen to equal that provided face-to-face. This environ­
ment, which provides assurance of student performance, needs to be
assessed against a standard that will ensure the transfer and develop­
ment of knowledge and skills.
(2) The landscape is changing – there is an urgent need to review and
research the role that online classes might play in what we perhaps
might begin to think of as the “new normal.” We should not leave this to
serendipity or the whims of university administrations.

Universities will find themselves under enormous financial pressures over the
next year or two and the temptation of online classes will seem to provide a way
to muddle through. The Covid19 virus raging at the moment has presented us
with an opportunity to focus on this form of pedagogy and showcase its benefits
JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY CASE AND APPLICATION RESEARCH 253

to the world. If we do not address the shortcomings above, we will see online
education continue to suffer from its current ailments. Maybe something good
can come out of the current maelstrom – let us take this opportunity to remake
the landscape for the new pedagogical paradigm of tomorrow.

Acknowledgments
The authors would like to express their sincere appreciation to Professor Shailendra Palvia for
his extensive efforts in providing invaluable guidance, insights and suggestions. These have
greatly improved the quality of our paper – we are very grateful to him.

Notes on contributors
Geoffrey Dick is at St John’s University in NYC. Twenty-five years of teaching online or
remotely has had given him several opportunities to watch the rebirth of online education.
He has been President of the Association of Information Systems’ Special Interest Group on
Education three times and is a long-term track cochair of the AMCIS Education track. His
research (100+ publications) is mainly in online education—he is the recipient of the ICIS prize
for best paper in education and was awarded the 2009 Emerald Management Review Citation
of Excellence for one of the best papers published worldwide. He has taught classes in many
countries, including the prestigious programs of the ESAN Summer School in Lima, Peru, the
CETYS International Summer Program in Ensenada, at ITAM in Mexico City, and been
a visiting fellow at UC Davis, University of Malaya, Tec de Monterrey in Mexico, University
of Agder in Norway.
Asli Yagmur Akbulut is a Professor of Information Systems at Grand Valley State University.
She earned her Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Information Systems and Decision Sciences from
Louisiana State University. She also holds an M.B.A. degree. Her research interests include IS
education, business analytics, and enterprise systems. She is an SAP-certified business associate
and an ERPsim certified instructor. Her work has appeared in publications including the
Communications of the ACM, Communications of the AIS, Decision Sciences, Journal of
Computer Information Systems, and Journal of Information Systems Education. She has
served as the President of the AIS Special Interest Group on Education and organized the pre-
ICIS SIGED conference for many years, served as an associate editor for the Communications
of the AIS, and is a long-term chair of the IS Education Track at AMCIS. She has received
numerous awards including the Teaching Excellence Award and Outstanding Educator Award.
Vic Matta is an Associate Professor in the Analytics & Information Systems Department at the
College of Business, Ohio University. He received his Ph.D. in 2008 in Industrial Systems. Vic
teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in Business Analytics and Strategic Use of
Information Systems. He also conducts seminars in business consulting and project manage­
ment in our executive education workshops. He is an accomplished teacher and has won
several awards at the college and university. He has published in several academic journals and
has many editorial engagements. These include editorial boards for multiple journals, associate
editorship for multiple conference tracks and programs, as well as co-editorship for the special
issue on online education for this journal (JITCAR). His research areas include consumer
behavior, analytics applications and pedagogy. He presents regularly at Information Systems
Conferences and is an active member of the Association of Information Systems.
254 G. DICK ET AL.

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