Requirements for Effective ELearning Initiatives

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Requirements for Effective E-Learning Initiatives

• Denise Clarke
• CPF, Ghana
• E-Learning Workshop
• Nairobi, Kenya
• December 3-4, 2007

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Presentation Objectives

• Cataloguing the Challenges
• E-Learning More than e
• Delving Deeper Users and Developers
• User Requirements
• Developer / Resource Issues
• Identifying Critical Success Factors
• Conclusions
• Questions

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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

Cataloguing Challenges
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Cataloguing Challenges

• (3) Limited computer resources to support
  campus-wide programme delivery and administration
• Computer-to-faculty ratio - 110 (one computer
  10 faculty members) in some universities
• Computer-to-students ratio - 1100 (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

Cataloguing Challenges
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Cataloguing Challenges

• (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

Cataloguing Challenges
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Cataloguing Challenges

• (5) Limited On-Campus Technical Expertise and
  Know-how 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.

Cataloguing Challenges
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Cataloguing Challenges

• (5) Limited On-Campus Technical Expertise and
  Know-how to develop, administer and deliver
  courseware within a e-education environment
  (contd)
• 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.

Cataloguing Challenges
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Cataloguing Challenges

• (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.

Cataloguing Challenges
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Cataloguing Challenges

• (6) Apathy to change, resistance to change, lack
  or motivation or incentive to change (contd)
• 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

Cataloguing Challenges
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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.

E-Learning More than E
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Delving Deeper

• Issues for users and developers

Delving Deeper
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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

User Requirements
Remember The important part of e-learning is
learning not the e-!
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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
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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, )

User Requirements
Requirements of the different groups may
sometimes be in conflict or may be overlooked.
There is a need to engage with all groups in your
planning
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User Requirements

• What are the requirements of the user (the
  learner)
• Motivation
• Support
• Interaction
• Information
• Knowledge
• Ease of access

User Requirements
You will need to identify the requirements of
your users and then explore how the
requirements can be achieved
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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)

User Requirements
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Deployment Issues

• Issues
• Resourcing
• Content creation
• Training
• Sustainability
• Deployment model
• Management acceptance

Deployment Issues
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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 Issues
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Deployment Model

• Issues
• Purchase VLE
• Home-grown developments
• Interoperability
• Migration from one VLE to another
• Integration across components of home-grown
  systems
• Migration of data
• Long term preservation
• Centralised or distributed
• In-house or integrated with remote services

Deployment Issues
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Sustainability

• Will your e-learning communities be sustainable?
• People
• Motivation
• Technologies
• Support

Deployment Issues
Lot's of money could be wasted if your community
is not sustainable
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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

Deployment Issues
A bottom-up development needs to plan for
success, such as organisational deployment
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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

Deployment Issues
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CSF

• 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

Critical Success Factors
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Possible CSF

• 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

Possible Critical Success Factors
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Possible CSF

• 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

Possible Critical Success Factors
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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!

Conclusions
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Questions?
Questions