Minutes of the
meeting of the E-learning Advisory Group held on Thursday 10 December 2009 in
the Library Meeting Room
1. Present: Morag Bell
(Chair), John Dickens, Robert Bowyer, Paul Byrne, Adam Crawford, Tony Croft,
Martin Harrison, Charles Shields, Ruth Jenkins, Phil Richards Sharon Pepper
(minutes)
Apologies - Jan Tennant
2. Minutes
The
group were happy with the minutes of the last meeting.
3. Matters
arising
Morag
stated that the concept of the on-line distance learning should be shaped by
academic staff and aimed towards a clear market demand. It was agreed that all bids received to date
should be discussed and those bids that the group were happy to back would be
put forward to the Chair of Ops to be signed off.
The
wider area of support for off-campus students needs to be looked into and
followed up in a future meeting.
Charles
confirmed that the engCETL briefing paper had been distributed. Morag felt that feedback was required.
ACTION: Tony and Adam to report
back at the next meeting.
Phil
confirmed that the electronic module questionnaire pilot was proceeding as
planned.
4. Strategic
issues
4.1
Distance Learning Update
Morag
confirmed that there was £250,000 available for developments and the timetable
for spending the money was July 2010.
It was
agreed that when considering each bid it should be ascertained that a specific
criteria was satisfied, ensuring that there was a valid academic niche in the
market; a real clarity of vision and achievability was present and that broader
lessons could come out of a particular project which could be a benefit to
other areas.
Bids
received to date were highlighted as being from the Electrical, Materials and
MEC departments, and three bids also received from the
ACTION: John and Paul to make relevant departments
aware.
·
Application for
funding for the Postgraduate Certificate in Mathematics Support and
Dyslexia/Dyscalculia in FE/HE
Tony
summarised the course as well-defined and structured and has run for one
session with 7 students at the moment, with an anticipation of 15 students per
year in the future. The materials had
already been produced and a Certificate is gained over one year.
Tony
stated that the £30k estimated was for academic staff time and that e-learning
staff time and development time would be on top of this amount. The group
agreed that the course did fit the criteria; however Morag said there was a
need to reflect on what kind of staff resource the group were willing to fund.
Further detail was requested on breakdown of funding, and any additional
resource requested for other than academic staff time.
ACTION: Carol to liaise with Adam and
Charles in order to itemise academic input and report back to the Chair.
·
Strategic New
Distance Learning Modules for Materials MSc Programmes
Martin
explained that the funds would be put to use in renewing the interactive
elements and to refresh and modify materials to reflect the developing market
and therefore offer the top end of range facility. The department have strong links with
Unilever and are very keen to take this further by developing modules which are
already in use. The programme was seen
to be reasonably costed and it was suggested that perhaps an industry expert or
teacher could be enlisted to act as a consultant.
ACTION: It was proposed that a meeting with
Martin, Barry (Howarth), Charles and Adam be arranged to clarify issues of
where exactly the money would be going and to report back to the Chair.
·
Medical Management
-
Paul
confirmed that this postgraduate programme was a small blended-learning
programme at present, but with scope for some growth in the future. The aim is to add to the academic support
which is already in place. The bid is
specifically for technical support to produce materials required.
It was
agreed by the group that all the specific criteria requirements were addressed,
but an intermediate breakdown of spending was required.
ACTION:
·
The Development of
a Blended Learning
It was
agreed that this programme cannot be realistically achieved by July. The programme is aimed at campus only
students, but can also be offered to every student in the University, therefore
perhaps comes under the ‘distant learning’ header.
Morag
suggested that this programme may be funded in the future and therefore should
be retained for possible further discussion.
·
Foundations of
Management Learning and Leadership: Induction –
The
group questioned the amount of funds requested to develop this, and whether it
was strictly distance learning.
ACTION: The
·
Electronic
Engineering
The
group agreed that this concept fit all the criteria and was well used. It was noted that funding this bid would not
preclude a further bid from this area, for further funds to take such work yet
further.
ACTION: John to relay this back to the
department and advise that they can re-bid for more money if required.
4.2
E-assessment Review
Charles
stated that there was a need to look at reviewing the assessment strategy,
tools and procedures and how it maps onto examination codes of practice. It was suggested that a Working Group be put
together. A wide variety of tools are
used to deliver e-assessment such as perception; OMR service; on-line
submission within Learn including the submission of media files, videos and
audio files; TurnItIn, Turning Point used for diagnostic assessment in
lectures; Wikis in Learn and ‘Hot
Potatoes’ an external tool. It was
mentioned that most of these tools fall outside the boundaries and there is a
need to initiate, debate and agree a framework.
Anonymous
marking is also to be reviewed.
Morag
asked for an audit to be carried out of what is used across campus and an
evaluation of that use which is then to be reported back to the group.
ACTION: The initial audit and evaluation of
current practice should be carried out in the New Year by Adam, Caroline, Rich,
Faz and Brian via a roundtable discussion.
4.3 Web
2.0 Policy
The
draft policy on external use was referred to, which was derived from the HE
tool kit for HE policy makers, incorporating comments. It was agreed that the policy needs to be put
in place as soon as possible to provide clear guidance for users, outlining
Intellectual Property and Acceptable Use procedures.
The
group agreed that Web 2.0 should be used informally only and not for summative
assessments or course materials.
It was
highlighted that a recent poll was carried out in conjunction with the Student
Union on student attitudes towards the use of the Web 2.0 services, to which
100 responses were received showing that 81% of the polled users stated
Facebook was a favourite external service; 8% said that Web 2.0 external
services were used in support of academic work, and 32% used in support of
academic work as well as for social purposes.
ACTION: Phil and Charles to work closely on
the draft policy and seek comment from team management and academic departments,
thereby gaining input from all users.
4.4
Open Educational Resources
Adam
said that some OER projects end in April and he could possibly put something
together on the experiences gained on main issues and academic understanding of
IPR. Morag suggested that once the
projects had reported back this could be used as a stimulus for discussion at
ELAG.
5. Issues
to Report
·
Student e-learning
projects
Adam
stated that students were recruited by their own department at the end of term
for a period of 10 weeks on a Clerical Grade 3 salary and that this had worked
very well in allowing students to develop teaching resources with academic
staff throughout the summer. The
programme had achieved reasonably good results.
Perhaps these results could be improved by recruiting earlier in future.
Morag
encouraged more of the student e-learning projects as work experience /
placements or graduate internships and is waiting for HR guidance.
·
Lecture capture
pilot project
Charles
confirmed that the Echo 360 pilot was installed at the end of September which
is working very well, with another appliance awaiting installation. 20 lectures have been recorded to date,
including 1 public lecture and these are automatically published to Learn. The pilot installation of Echo 360 has only
one camera view, but future installations could have a facility of differing
views. The informal feedback from the
students was positive and Imago has shown an interest in having an install at
Morag
agreed that this was a good way of testing presentation skills, but questioned
the longevity and shelf life of the recorded lectures as these can change from
time to time.
6. Integration
of / communication about e-learning systems
Adam
presented a paper on E-Learning system inter-operability, and standards to
underpin this. Phil, while not opposing the wider scheme, pointed out that in
practice bespoke interfaces between systems tend to deliver this, and that the
best bet for rapid integration of engCETL-developed systems was to action the
agreed and funded transfer between engCETL and the E-Learning Systems Team in
IT Services. It was also noted that new ‘permissions groups’ in the
new Active Directory service, plus the Identity Management project now well
underway in IT Services, would assist here, using LUSI data owned by academic
departments and Registry as the authoritative source of all relevant
information.
ACTION: Rich Goodman, Adam et al. to
initiate agreed transfer ASAP and report back.
7. Membership
Group
It was
agreed to increase the size of the group, perhaps to include a student
representative, Chris Peel and an experienced academic. This change would
require a larger venue.
ACTION: Morag to ask Keith Pond and Chris
Peel to join the group.
8. Any
Other Business
None
9. To
agree schedule of meetings in 2010
Date of
future meetings (all 2010, starting 14:30, larger venue to be advised):
25
January, 26 April, 13 July
Meeting
ended 5.00pm