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It is now July 25th. I have been in the US for 7 weeks and I still feel as though I am not caught up or I am completely behind schedule on everything.

My schedule is picking up again, serving on the senate, a committee to determine the fate of Nole Hub and mentoring for Startup Quest. Teaching and service duties, publications, all the usual work is creeping back into my calendar. All good. I am working on several ideas for a program of some kind in Thailand. The most likely and the best candidate will be the FSU international summer program, with digging for grant money will be the next job that I will undertake.

I cut my Thai lessons back to twice per week, and have decided that working with Noi (the young lady from Chaing Mai) is just about right. She plows through material and listens to what I need to do then alter plans accordingly. She is always ready on Skype when it is lesson time. I'm going to sign up for another 20 hours and hopefully by then Kratai will have data and be able to get online so I can practice Isaan (Thai-Lao). Anyway, it's pretty tough.Thai is a foreign language. Japanese is foreign in the same sense -- it's not related to Latin. While Japanese is quite foreign, it is still not a complicated language to pronounce or speak. For example, there are 5 vowels and the language is spoken with a mild staccato rhythm that sounds quite similar to Spanish.

Thai on the other hand has 32 vowels -- yes thirty-two. Add five tones to the vowels ... you get the idea. The combination of these two factors (tone/vowels) can cause speech patterns that sound counterintuitive. For example, so many combinations of sounds and ptches, well, then each word must sound completely unique, right? Not to a Native English speaker. To our ears complete sentences can sound as though one non-sense syllable has been repeated after another -- for example:  Maai mai mai-mai [ chai ] mai   (new wood doesn't burn [ right ]?)  Huh. Learning Thai is yet another exception to Gladwell's 10,000 hour rule.

Complaints aside - after I had learned a small amount of Thai - literally a handful of sentences that I had worked up -- the Thai are extraordinarily and genuinely appreciative of the effort. All politeness aside, I think Thai people really do appreciate the effort -- I suppose that's because less than half of the Falaang that I met could speak the language. And Thai people are shy when it comes to speaking English. My experience has been that if you insist on English and only English you won't get as far if you speak Thai, even if you use rehearsed sentences. I have observed that one ice-breaker is all it takes for newfound friends to reciprocate with their skill in English equally. Thai people are very kind, especially if their customs and culture are respected.

Along these same lines, many Thai students have said to me that they wished that I could speak Thai, even though their English language ability was more than adequate. There are just some things that perhaps can only be expressed in Thai.

This story actually starts about mid-April, when my remaining time as Fulbright was running short. l had worked pretty had to develop the entrepreneurship curriculum and the materials for the online resource center. The research data was starting to indicate that online learning was not going to be the best path, at least in the Mukdahan/Savannakhet region. The main campus expressed a lot of interest in a single sign-on Moodle/Google Apps set-up, which we demonstrated successfully. Still, online learning didn't appear to be a wise investment of time so I set out to learn more by interviewing faculty and small business owners. 

During the second week of April I visited the main campus in Ubon. They invited me to visit for the Faculty of Computer Science "demo day." It was strikingly similar to the demo days we host at FSU. And the projects included software engineered remote-controlled automated watering systems, a 3-D game programmed using the Microsoft Kinect, and several apps.Dr. Guide and his group are so kind -- after they learned that I was interviewing people for my research they also arranged interviews with three or four faculty. I managed to make contact with two others through a group l met in Ubon. I had a lot of fun with several people I met who are working on the Google-Thailand team. We wore crazy hats and posed for photos to help promote Google -- It was great fun.

[ IMAGE HERE ].

The people I met at the demo day connected me to acquaintances they have at Khon Kaen University (KKU)-- graduate computer science students and a computer science professor. The demo day turned out to be somewhat of a jackpot, a brilliant stroke of luck really. In retrospect, there is a laundry list of reasons why KKU seems like the place I SHOULD have gone to for my Fulbribght project -- not to suggest that online learning would be a more widely used resource in Khon Kaen than other locations. The simple fact is that Thai people live in a collectivistic society. Online leaning requires a certain set of styles; independent learning, technology-oriented, proclivity for reading and writing -- none of which, in their own way, mesh well with Thai culture. At the same time, I thought that I might learn a great deal. Khon Kaen is home to the Isaan software park, the university has a center for software innovation, Microsoft has a presence on campus and there is an established ICT entrepreneur group in town. When compared to other regions of Thailand, Khon Kaen is a hotspot for software entrepreneurs. 

I met with the VP of Technology at Khon Kaen University I the morning of my first day in  town. [ IMAGE ]. We toured around campus and visited teh "Net Zero" building where all of the university's media communications are managed. That evening I wandered through the absolutely enormous night market downtown. It was an easy walk from my hotel so that was great. [ IMAGE ]. The next morning I found the day market, which is spread out across a couple of buildings and outdoor venues covered by corrugated tin roofing. Oh the food -- curries, meats, fish, seafood, grilled food -- but by far the fresh fruit was the best. By this point of my life in Thailand, I had fallen in love with Som-ooh - lobes of Grapefruit meat with gleua prick (salt & chili pepper dip).

The next day I visited the Faculty of Science, computer science department. I met the interim dean of the College and several other faculty. When they started to learn more about eh entrepreneurship research, they invited me to return the next week to deliver 2 days of entrepreneurship training. That was a surprise. They asked me what I wanted in return - I replied that I only wanted to be cash neutral so that if my transportation (fuel) and hotel costs were paid then I could agree. They were so kind. Their counter offer was all of the above and a handsome hourly rate. I stayed in the Pullman -- arguably among best hotels in Khon Kaen.

The 2 day session was great fun. We did a pitch competition, prototype and team presentations. The students and faculty put a lot of work into their ideas. I believe that the KKU computer science students are on a whole other level when it comes to software entrepreneurship. It was a refreshing joy to teach at KKU. At the same time, it was amazing to see 80% of the teams work on garden maintenance, food and tourism. While there are great topics to explore for some kind of electronic/ICT support, application development or ICT service business the results were labor-intensive business models. Where are the apps? Why so many restaurants and coffee shops? Nothing made the GEM survey data more real than this experience. I never expected the data patterns would be blatantly apparent in practice -- and while mine is a smaller sample (two workshops and a semester long seminar), the pattern is remarkably similar -- few ICT startup ideas.

Today was my last day with the Mukdahan Campus. Kulapau arranged a lunch meeting for the entire faculty and staff. It was a wonderful surprise and so gratifying to to se everybody together one last time. 

I'm staying in Mukdahan for a couple more weeks to finish up interviews and take care of business before I leave town. The department of computer science at Khon Kaen University has hired me to teach a 9 hour workshop on the 11th and 12th! That's great news for several reasons; it validates my Fulbright project and well, it gives Anchalee and I an opportunity to build research opportunities.

The visit to campus was interesting. The Vice President of Technology took me on a tour of the Net Zero Building and the software innovation center. In retrospect, this is where my Fulbright Scholarship should have been placed. It's the right environment, there is support, community groups and corporate interest (Microsoft) in the effort being put forth here.

The Fulbright Experience has been wonderful. Some of the projects we started worked out, some did not. One thing I know for sure is that I learned a l lot about myself by having to negotiate cultural differences. The people of Mukdahan are kind, however, and after some time I began to function as a part of that community. I certainly wish I had 6 more months to spend in Isaan ... I was starting to get to a point where I cold communicate (somewhat) some things in Thai which made my integration in to the community even more real.

No matter how much effort was put into the research and executions of various projects a feeling of inadequacy permeates experience. Perhaps I could have done more, realized sooner that I needed to expand my efforts to other campuses ... given the opportunity to make a big difference I'm not sure that goal was met. My work feels more like a soup of small changes, and I'm not sure how that will add up. My only certainty is that I am not finished. There is more to do.

As for the future -- toward the end of the four months it was obvious to me that my inability to communicate fluently in Thai prevented me from having a deeper understanding of of Thai-Isaan culture. It's the one take-away regret that will serve as a reminder how important it is to continue learning to speak Thai and Isaan. I will return to Isaan and I am determined to go back with the language skills necessary to integrate with the environment. It won't hurt in the classroom either.

To summarize; the Fulbright program was amazing, well organized and adequately supported to provide everything necessary for the Scholars. 

After wrestling with the course content and trying to decide how to approach the audience (Thai students with limited English Language capabilities) it occurred to me that I am trying to address the wrong audience. While it is possible to develop content for this particular audience (non-native language speakers), there are some problems that are either insurmountable or would require too many man-hours to overcome.

For example, the students here do not have a strong interest in reading in Thai, let along reading English. Extensive translations of written materials would probably not be used. My thought is that  written content would have to be translated and the format would have to change to a picture-book/information graphic method, coupled with project-based activities in order to be effective.

Another wrinkle are the cultural references that are part of the open-content video materials. Excellent as the MIT and Stanford video courses are, it has proven to a time-intensive effort to translate slang and change references so that the conversations are easy to follow. While we will finish several videos it is unclear as to whether the materials will prove useful to the younger Thai students.

The solution, then, has been to reconsider the target audience. As I have thought through the problems that we've had with the open content. it occurred to me that the faculty here will deliver and teach in the new curriculum (IT business/innovation management). About half of the faculty here have sufficient English language skills to take advantage of the video and employ the materials as they would know best. The professors here are motivated to make the new curriculum work well and so the most useful approach appears to be to support the faculty. 

This seems to be a reasonable approach -- and one that will provide the most benefit for the future of the Mukdahan (and main UBU) campus. This change does not effect efforts to evaluate usage and seems to provide better options all around to improve teaching, develop the new curriculum, and make research projects.

My Fulbright project includes several research projects and teaching. One of the main goals of my work in Thailand is to developing online learning capacities for the Mukdahan campus and to create a workshop using open content. The purpose of the workshop is student development; both on campus and off-campus (potential students in the local region). At this point, the technology (Moodle) is installed and has been formatted with the UBU colors and logo. The project has, in fact, expanded somewhat because the main campus became interested and decided to adopt the technology for the entire university, including the Mukdahan campus. From my point of view that is a huge win.

The content for my course -- IT Enterprise -- is coming from a variety of sources including video from the Stanford "How to start a startup" course, video interviews with famous entrepreneurs (e.g. Zuckerburg), various web sites and content that I have written for a similar program that I teach at Florida State University. April is my last "official" month with Fulbright but I extended my travel plans by a month to make sure I had enough time to collect date for my research, finish my online course, and to train the faculty how to use Moodle. It's going to be a busy month. Regardless, it seems as though I will finish putting everything together, and collect most of the data that I had planned to capture.

A research group is collecting data using a questionnaire I developed using the Unified Theory of Use and Adoption of Technology (UTAUT). We have high hopes for this work in that we will collect data from as many university students in a variety of locations. We'll segregate the data so that there will be some chance of comparing the results. Hopefully, this work will provide some detailed insights into how to design online learning for Thai students -- we think that there are some huge cultural hurdles and hope to learn more about that.

Other work that includes interviews with current distance learning students for a research project that will support the new curriculum we are developing for the Mukdahan campus, interviews with local business leaders and a data-driven research project that Anchalee and I have planned. One of the difficulties for many foreign researchers in Thailand is the language barrier. Thailand doesn't have as many research-intensive institutions and so most Thai professors have a higher teaching load making it more difficult to produce research papers. Anchalee and I are in a unique position as we are both active researchers and she is native Thai. 

I will be in Thailand 8 more weeks and while that sounds like a lot of time I am beginning to feel time pressure. We have accomplished a lot, but there is still a lot of work to finish!

As noted in a post below, in early February I received an invitation from the Dean of the College of Business at Phayao University. It was a great pleasure to meet Dr. Anusorn, the President and Provost, as well as the faculty in Education, Computer Science and Business. On Saturday I also taught a group of MBA students who attend a weekend program. The faculty who helped me with tours, dinners and meetings with students were absolutely wonderful. I was asked many times to return Phayao as a visiting scholar, teacher or as part of the Fulbright program. I certainly hope to have the opportunity.

I arrived on a flight from Don Meuang airport in the early afternoon. I was whisked to the city of Phayao by a van labeled University of Phayao College of Management. My first stop was to check into the university hostel, a motel-like set of buildings located on the campus. It was basic accommodations but as it turned out, Dr. Anusorn had a busy agenda planned for my  visit, so I did not spend much time in the hostel. 

My first stop was the executive offices, where I met with the president and the provost. It was no small honor to be sure. They were very gracious hosts, taking pains to explain the history of the university (this year will graduate their first class) and their vision for the institution. As noted, the first undergraduate class is 2015. In context, this is a remarkable accomplishment -- the university is just 5 years old and is already home to more than 30,000 students, with 16 faculty (colleges) including a medical school. Briefly, Phayao was formerly a satellite campus of Naresuan University in Phitsanulok, much the same as the Mukdahan campus is a satellite campus of Ubon Ratchani University, with some major differences of course.

After spending about an hour with the president and Provost, we drove into the town of Phayao to attend a celebration for local school administrators. There were about 100 in attendance at a recognition dinner, honoring this group for working so hard to support the university. The party was held on the lake (photographs to follow) and included quite an entertaining show, including karaoke, a traditional Thai dancing troupe and an unusual yodeling contest that I -- somehow -- found my self competing. Yes, I competed in a yodeling contest!! Well, I am a strange man in a strange land, all that can be done in such circumstances is to go with the flow and be a good sport. Everybody was entertained and I have a memento to remember that evening.

On Saturday, we had a busy agenda. I met with students and faculty from the college of management. I gave an impromptu demonstration of FSU and her programs, followed by a lecture on small business ideation and idea refinement. After we finished, the faculty took me to lunch at an extraordinary restaurant.Again, my hosts were very attentive and made sure that everything was arranged. The food was fantastic and the company was delightful.

My next stop was the IT center. We toured their hardware area and then proceeded to the e-learning facilities. Part of my grant responsibilities for Fulbright is to organize the online learning system for the Mukdahan campus (which has expanded to include  the main campus) and so this was a very important stop for me. I was surprised (and reassured) to learn that the University of Phayao also uses Moodle. While the director of the e-learning center didn't speak English (and my Thai is simply awful) he became very interested in seeing how we had connected Google apps to Moodle via the OAUTH plugin. Our communication improved once we got down to version numbers, plugins and issues related to themes.

Since the university seems to have problems getting their faculty to create online courses, everybody in the learning center was particularly interested in learning more about how FSU encourages faculty to create online  content. After our conversation, they were thankful to learn about the role of instructional designers and the financial rewards offered to faculty who develop online courses. Aside from music, computer science is a universal language and so we all got along famously. I made an introduction to the IT group at UBU Ubon as they are now working on the Moodle site and they hope to connect with Dr. Phonlob for advice on the best way to proceed with policies and maintenance.

My last full day on campus included a lecture to MBA students. The lecture focused on small business and IT entrepreneurship. After the lecture, we took a tour of  and a tour of the local business community. We also visited several temples, including a very interesting site where a monk had spent his life relieving images of Buddha on a variety exposed rock near his temple, on one of the local mountains. The work is spectacular - a collection of about 30 images that is no less than high art. Unfortunately, In the process of developing this beautiful imagery, the work exposed the monk to toxic levels of dust. Although he is not well now, I did have a chance to meet him briefly. Of all the places I visited in Phayao, this was certainly the most fascinating.

Among the other cultural stops in Phayao were a visit with a local craftswoman who makes all types of accessories from water Hyacinth reeds; a trip  to a temple that featured naga/pyana, a temple in the middle of lake Phayao and the White temple in Chiang Rai. Overall, the trip was incredible. Many thanks to the faculty and staff with Phayao University, I hope to return there at some point -- I will certainly draft a cooperative agreement when i return to Tallahassee. The university is particularly we suited for an international program. My trip also included many excellent dining experiences, including a visit to the best local restaurant for Cao Soi Gai.

As noted, I met with the College of Business information management faculty, the College of Education and the online learning group (similar to FSU's Office of Distance Learning). Our discussions focused on curriculum development (business), teacher training (education) and online learning. The most interesting aspect of the trip is the infrastructure of the university. The university has student/faculty housing, a large institution in a region that is somewhat rural (removed from the more crazy tourist trappings) and safe area, a highly educated faculty and student body that have reasonable English Language capabilities. In a nutshell, it's perfect for an international program. Phayao University is so much further along than the Mukdahan campus in terms of curriculum and mission that there wasn't much ground to cover on these points. Regardless, the trip was entertaining and productive.

English Camp

On Sunday February 22nd, the Mukdahan campus hosted an English camp for her students. The university rented space at a local resort -- a large hall -- to accommodate about 100 students. The goal of the camp was to create a round-table style event that featured five stops each with different activities, all conducted in English. Arjan Geek found four English speakers to moderate the events. The foreigners included Steve, an Englishman from Birmingham, a gent from Siwtzerland, Mathew a Scot and myself an American. The students rotated to a different activity every 45 minutes.

The tables featured a history discussion that discussed different ASEAN leaders; riddles in English, a cooking class, storytelling and a word smith contest. The students had great great fun. The hall was filled with laughter and excited screams from winning teams throughout the day. The resort had a buffet-style lunch about noon, after which the activities resumed. The event closed at 4PM with an awards ceremony for the best teams (those who collected the most "points" by winning points in the different activities.

I later learned that the feedback was quite good and that there were already plans underway for the campus to host the same event next year.

Phu Mu Forest Park (Pig Mountain)

On February 1 the Mukdahan campus had a welcoming ceremony for new students. Apparently, this activity has become a tradition for new students. Here's how it works -- the government has granted the Mukdahan campus a rather large tract of land that includes a small mountain. This tract of land is where the new campus is being built. Near the top of the mountain is a shrine, build under a sizable overhand of sedimentary rock.

The new tract of land is also occupied by a military unit of about 100 light infantry. It seems this unit is responsible for border security, interdiction (drugs and illegal aliens) and policing the Mukdahan Province. Interestingly it seems that this was previously a field unit that was operating without a formal base of operations. The director of UBU Mukdahan somehow knows the commander of the unit and so she invited the commander to use part of the mountain to create an ad hoc base for his men. He accepted and so now the campus has, well, an incredible amount of security.

The commander is standing to my left and the director of the school is to my right. The commander could not have his picture taken with me enough -- he was quite happy and kept saying (through a translator) that he was disappointed that we could not communicate directly. He seemed like a really good man. He spent quite a bit of time explaining the history of Mukdahan, particularly the role that this region played in the Vietnam war, when Mukdahan was home to a rather large radar installation. It was in fact the largest radar installation in Asia at one time operated by the 621rst.

Our group was led by a small group of young soldiers followed by the group pictured above. The ceremony started with a brief prayer at the bottom of the mountain, at a small shrine. This is also where a small (but weighty) statue of Buddha was located -- part of the ceremony is to carry the statue to the top of Pig Mountain to another shrine. And so the journey began with yours truly as the first of many pack-rats. After about 100 meters, the train of 100 people stopped briefly for photos of my hand-off of the Buddha to the commander, who was next in line. The stop, hand-off-and-photo shoot continued for the length of the 5 kilometer hike to the mountain shrine.

The hike up Pig Mountain was very enjoyable, quite relaxing. There were some parts that required squeezing between rocks or scrambling up a rocky path, but everybody seemed to be enjoying the journey, no complaints were made that I knew of. After about an hour we arrived at the mountain shire and enjoyed a small ceremony. The space was quite tight but we all seemed to squeeze in for the 30 minute blessing. Afterwards, the commander and I stood on an overlook and he gave me a rundown on the historic purpose of the US military presence and pointed out a number of other landmarks that included the Mae Nam Kong, Hor Kaeo and Phu Manorom where a 85-Meter tall Buddha is under construction. The view is quite beautiful from this location as well.

After the ceremony was complete, we all hiked up to a large flat rock and ate lunch. The students and many of the faculty stayed for some time, lingering at the top of the mountain for several hours to accommodate video interviews, photos and -- as always -- eating.

After our visit to visit to the Ubon Ratchathani main campus we stopped at a coffee shop that was quite uniqu,e, a favorite among the college students and faculty. We lingered for about an hour and discussed our meeting with the IT group. The coffee shop was very enjoyable but we could not stay long (enough) as my colleagues had to drop me at a hotel and return to Mukdahan. The drive to Mukdahan takes about 2 hours and they were hoping to be clear of Ubon city center before rush hour traffic started to clog the streets -- and they still had to deliver me to my hotel. While they planned to return to Mukdahan, I was on my way to Bangkok to visit Bangkok University, a private institution that is home to a degree program in entrepreneurship. Bangkok University is home to the only such degree program in Thailand.

During my preparations to teach ICT enterprise in Mukdahan, I spent a lot of time researching entrepreneurial activity in Thailand. I drew information from two primary sources to collect information; a Thai government online warehouse of business statistics and the GEM Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. While I use GEM when I prepare to teach my ICT enterprise class in Florida, I did not pay much attention to who (in the US) authors the report.

While preparing my teaching materials, I decided to use the GEM reports to compare enterprise ecosystems (startup business environment) between different ASEAN countries. From my perspective, then (knowing the US report), I found the Thailand GEM report absolutely fascinating. The cultural differences, focus of business effort and reach of Thai businesses is quite different than what one might expect to find in the US. Interestingly, the startup environment in Thailand is quite far ahead of other ASEAN countries. While not surprising to find differences, the heavy focus for Thai startups in restaurant, hotel and food service industries (60% of all startups) and a scant 3% of new Thai businesses are ICT oriented. The challenges to develop an ICT enterprise program are structural (focus on localized economies) cultural (fear of failure, expectations to continue family businesses) and educational (the Thai educational system appears to be oriented toward knowing answers rather than thinking creatively or problem solving).

The GEM Thailand report provided so much useful information it occurred to me that while I am in Thailand I should try to meet with the authors. When I discovered that the research survey is produced and published by Bangkok University. After several tries I finally made contact through the Bangkok University Facebook page. Within a couple of days we confirmed a plan to meet on the BU campus with the director of the entrepreneurship program and the author of the Thailand GEM report. 

Bangkok University has quite an impressive campus. There are domestic and extensive international programs, summer institutes. Many international universities participating in teaching activities. One of the most impressive relationships that the BUSEM program has is their affiliation with Babson College, the #1 entrepreneurship program in the US.

After arriving on campus I met for about an hour in the BUSEM offices with the director of the entrepreneurship program and the author of the GEM Thailand report. We talked about many topics including my student outreach / ICT enterprise project, potential collaboration between Bangkok University and the Mukdahan campus. They were also very interested in collaborating with Florida State University, perhaps through a cooperative agreement that might include student and faculty exchanges.

During discussions they mentioned that BUSEM had previously developed a Startup Weekend event on campus -- and since I was one of the organizers of Startup Weekend Tallahassee we spent some time talking about startup events and the influence that they have on entrepreneurship programs. Their main interest, however, is in developing more ICT oriented businesses (that also have more international reach) through their programs and any resources that might help achieve that goal. The idea seems like a natural fit for the College of Communication and Information.

The Mukdahan curriculum proposal

Just before I left for Bangkok, the main campus in Ubon Ratchthani made a formal request for the Mukdahan campus to develop a curriculum and operate independently from the main campus. Currently, they share the same curriculum and evaluation metrics. When I related all of this information to the Mukdahan faculty, there was quite a bit of excitement over creating a new curriculum that is ICT enterprise oriented. We agreed to work together to create a curriculum framework that draws upon the courses that currently service their three majors (IT, Business management and Accounting) and follow up with Bangkok University to explore how we might work together.

The curriculum framework, the Learning Management System project (to support student development) and the ICT enterprise course seem to be progressing well. Hopefully, we can develop an entrepreneurship curriculum and enlist other universities as well as local partnerships (chamber of commerce, the local governor and entrepreneurs) before the end of the project term. While it will take some time for the parent campus and local oversight committees to approve a new curriculum, it's an important step for the Mukdahan campus.

While I was in Bangkok visiting the BU campus, I borrowed a car from An's family. Tony (an Arjan from the Mukdahan campus) flew down to Bangkok and drove back to Mukdahan with me -- all 8 hours. Tony is a good guy and proved to be quite a good travel companion. While the trip was long, it was worth the effort - the first day I had the car in Mukdahan it rained. It was also the first rainy day since I arrived in early January -- perfect timing!

Having a car also brings my motorcycle diary to an end. It's too crazy driving a motorcycle over here -- Anybody want to buy a used Fino?

The mission of my work with Fulbright in Mukdahan is to develop an online learning resource for the campus. Moodle version 2.6 (LMS) has been installed at soeleos.com, a temporary site that will allow IT administrators in Ubon Ratchathani University (UBU) and the IT faculty in Mukdahan to test the system. This aspect of my work has taken some time to prepare. While installing the LMS was easy to install, UBU currently uses a suite of Google applications to support online learning. In order to realize the usefulness of pairing these two systems, it seemed reasonable to set up a single-ID login system. Fortunately, the Moodle community offers a plugin which is based on OAUTH and there have been a number of schools (universities, colleges) that are using these two systems together. Moodle docs has some instructions and most questions are answered in one of several forums. On Wednesday the 11th of February, I went with two colleagues from the Mukdahan campus to meet with the UBU IT administrators.

We had a wonderful meeting with two IT directors, each who have doctoral degrees in computer science (one from a US university and the second having completed master's and doctoral work in Japanese institutions). I felt completely at home working through the issues and deciding on a course of action with my new-found colleagues. During the meeting, I discovered that the UBU IT group had been considering integrating a LMS with the Google community, but did not have the resources to dedicate the research and development of such a system. The meeting, then, was a win for the Mukdahan campus and a win for UBU as my work will contribute to their overall effort to improve distance learning at the UBU campus.

The UBU IT group set up a test site and provided the necessary authentication information to make it possible for students to log into Moodle using their Google authentication keys. After a few days, the UBU IT group had worked through the privacy and security concerns and started the process of "going live" by closing the test site and finalizing the integration of OAUTH with the UBU Google community. I can't stop saying good things about how effective and willing the UBU IT group is to help. In a word, they are great.

The goal of the visit was to enable a system so students could use a single user name and password to login to either Moodle or to the Google community using their Google credentials.

The Moodle project, however, is only one of three research projects that I have developed and are in motion for the campus.

Assessing readiness for distance learning

Currently, UBU Mukdahan has a group of 20 students who are enrolled in a basic science class which is simulcast from the UBU Ratchathani campus. This research project, then will use the same survey delivered twice to the same group followed by interviews. The first round will be during the week of the 23rd of February, and the second will take place near the end of March just before the semester ends. Our interest is in how students attitudes change toward distance learning (or not) and to gather the students' salient perceptions of their distance learning experience during interviews. We have already observed what has been noted in research -- student satisfaction is highly dependent on the personality (teaching effectiveness) of the teacher.

The second research project uses a variation of the UTAUT as outlined in a seminal paper by Venkatesh et al. (2003 MIS Quarterly Vol. 27 No. 3, pp. 425-478/September). The unified theory and the method of analysis is very interesting and has been validated in a number of subsequent articles. We will be using this model (and related theories) to assess student (and potential students from the local community as part of my goal to focus on student development) readiness for distance learning. The goal is to learn more about what is acceptable in order to guide content development for the Moodle web site. While there is a lot of open source content, we're trying to figure out which media (video, slides, interactive) to develop on so we don't waste time going in a direction that may not be as useful for the students.