Requirements for an Effective e-Learning Initiative: Denise Clarke, Country programme co-ordinator (Ghana), GeSCI
Denise Clarke
CPF, Ghana
E-Learning Workshop Nairobi, Kenya
December 3-4, 2007
Presentation Objectives
1. Cataloguing the Challenges
2. E-Learning: More than ‘e’
3. Delving Deeper: Users and Developers
- User Requirements
- Developer / Resource Issues
4. Identifying Critical Success Factors
5. Conclusions
6. Questions
Cataloguing Challenges
(1) Limited Resources in the Face of Increasing Demands for Higher Education
Fiscal constraints, including drastic cuts for education budgets vs unprecedented demand for places
(2) Weak campus-based communications and computer network infrastructure
Few campus-based universities have requisite campus-backbone network, organizational and departmental networks to support e-learning
(3) Limited computer resources to support campuswide programme delivery and administration
- Computer-to-faculty ratio – 1:10+ (one computer 10 faculty members) in some universities;
- Computer-to-students ratio – 1:100 (one computer to 1000 students)
- Without adequate access to computer resources there is very little chance of e-education and e-learning kicking-off in the majority of African universities
(4) Low-level of Internet access and limited bandwidth of access
- Most African universities are still struggling with improving access and making the Internet affordable for their faculty and students.
- Apart from problems of limited bandwidth and the unreliability of access, very few African universities provide free access to the Internet for their faculty and students.
- Without reasonably affordable access to the Internet and improvements in bandwidth and the spread of access, most Africa universities will continue to struggle to introduce e-education and learning on their campuses
(5) Limited On-Campus Technical Expertise and Knowhow to develop, administer and deliver courseware within a e-education environment
- Although a reasonable proportion of the faculty in most African universities are computer literate, the majority are yet to acquire the requisite expertise and know-how to develop and deliver courseware and other instructional resources in an online/e-education delivery environment.
- Majority of African universities are yet to invest in the training their faculty in developing and delivery courseware-based teaching and learning materials.
- Not many universities in Africa have special units or centers with adequate expertise for developing, delivery and administering e-learning programs to supplement or compliment traditional face-to-face programs
- Without adequate investment in the requisite expertise and know-how, most African universities will not be able to harness the emerging educational technologies and systems to support education and learning on campus and beyond.
(6) Apathy to change, resistance to change, lack or motivation or incentive to change
- African universities are still battling with resistant to change by their faculty, staff and students
- Faculty for various reasons (lack of incentive, motivation etc) are slow to embrace technology to support teaching and program delivery
- Bulk of the faculty in a number of African universities still deliver their courses in the traditional mode using chalk and blackboard with just few venturing into using PowerPoint or other presentation tools to deliver courses.
- Assignments still given on paper or blackboard without using the delivery infrastructure of the Internet or campus-based Intranet where it exist.
- Course descriptions, schedules and handouts are still given to students in print format
- Student grades are still posted on campus notice boards rather than being sent to them electronically as done in a typical e-learning program delivery environment
E-Learning: More than ‘e’
- Leadership, Management, Change
- Pedagogy, curriculum design, content and development
- Learning resources and networked learning
- Student support, progression and collaboration
- Strategic management, human resources and capacity development
- Quality
- Research and evaluation
- Infrastructure and technical standards.
Delving Deeper
Issues for users and developers
Pedagogy & E-Learning
In order for e-learning to be effective:
- Need to address pedagogic issues
- Need to address students’ learning styles
- Need to consider students’ motivational issues
- Need to consider stage in learning
- Need to consider discipline-specific learning
- approaches (medicine different from arts subject)
- Need to consider teachers’ approaches to learning
Who Are Your Users?
Different categories:
- Learners
- Teachers
- Administrators
- Technologists
Members of your organisation:
- Students
- Researchers
- Academic staff
- Other staff
Remote users:
- Visitors
- Organisation partners
- Purchasers…
Cultures
- Home
- Overseas
- Native speakers
- Non-native speakers
Special Requirements
- Disabled…
User Requirements
Different groups have different requirements:
- Learners: To learn
- Teachers: To support the learning
- Administrators: To support the administration of learning
- Technologists: To manage the e-learning technologies (performance, security, …)
Accessibility
Some users will have special requirements:
Disabilities
- Users with disabilities may have special requirements
- There may be legal as well as ethical (and financial) reasons to address such needs
Technologies
- Not everyone has a PC – Mac, Unix, … users
- Network issues in certain areas
Access to Robots
Need to allow automated tools to access and process resources (e.g. current awareness services)
Deployment Issues
Issues:
- Resourcing
- Content creation
- Training
- Sustainability
- Deployment model
- Management acceptance
- …
Resourcing
Provision of effective e-learning is not cheap:
- Who pays?
- What’s the rationale: long-term cost savings or enhanced quality of learning?
- Using / buying e-learning vs. developing e-learning
- Using in-house vs. selling to others
- Training staff
- Training users
Deployment Model
Issues:
1. Purchase VLE
2. Home-grown developments
3. Interoperability:
- Migration from one VLE to another
- Integration across components of home-grown systems
- Migration of data
- Long term preservation
4. Centralised or distributed
5. In-house or integrated with remote services
Sustainability
Will your e-learning communities be sustainable?
- People
- Motivation
- Technologies
- Support
Acceptance
Is your e-learning:
- An interest of a group of enthusiasts
- A pilot experiment for your department
- Part of your institution’s overall strategy
Small-scale usage:
- Can provide quick, effective solutions
- Danger of lack of sustainability if enthusiasts leave, priorities change, etc.
- Concept proven – but organisation selects alternative application for deployment
Quality Assurance
Need to ensure that e-learning services : Work correctly
- Are maintained
- Are widely accessible
- Are widely interoperable
A Quality Assurance (QA) approach based on:
- Documented policies
- Systematic procedures for ensuring compliance can help
CFS
What other challenges confront you in your context?
-Exchanges ideas in pairs for ten (10) mins
-No limit to ‘level’ or ‘type’ of challenge
-Explicit examples of challenges already mentioned welcomed!
-Identify 5 CFS
Possible CFS
- Put education before technology; The technology works; the problems are philosophical, pedagogical, political and organizational.
- Defined strategy for the right reason
- Embedding needs to be at technological, pedagogical and cultural levels
- Active involvement and commitment of senior management
- TCO = Total Cost of Ownership
- Project requirements, set deadlines
- Common vision = common sharable outcomes
- Appropriate models
- Alignment with mission
- Dissemination to raise profile (inside and out)
- Faculty champions – communities of practice
- Collaboration with learner support services
- Understanding disciplinary differences
- Strategy for sustainability
- Build for constant change (pedagogical pluralism)
- Need to work with the early majority
- Work with the real-politic of the institution
Conclusions
- The technology(ies) used are not the most important aspect
- There are a wide range of strategic issues which need to be addressed
- Failure to address the strategic issues by focussing only on technologies is likely to lead to expensive failures!
