E-learning Advocacy: Exploring departmental
approaches to the embedding of e-learning
Mr Brett Lucas
Higher Education Academy English Subject Centre
Royal Holloway, University of London
Support for the development and embedding of e-learning at a departmental level can often
be a challenge. Institutional resources can be inadequate, too generic or simply
overstretched. This paper describes a project which is exploring ways in which e-learning
might be supported more effectively at subject level through an ‘e-learning advocate', an
academic, working with his/her colleagues for one day a week. Their role is to act as both a
catalyst for change within a department and a source of practical help and advice for those
wishing to make greater use of e-learning. The project, now in its second year, is delivering
tangible results and may provide a useful model for levering pedagogical change at a
departmental level.
Keywords: E-learning support, English Studies, Embedding, Cultural change, Staff
development
Introduction
“Not everyone needs to be an e-advocate but perhaps every department needs to have one”
(Robertson, 2007)
VLE’s, MLE’s1 and other e-learning tools have become ubiquitous throughout Higher Education in the
last few years, however, research2 carried out by the English Subject Centre 3 has shown that their actual
use in delivering enhanced pedagogy in blended learning environments is patchy to say the least. Many
staff are too busy with the day-to-day demands of ‘being an academic’ to either familiarise themselves
with the potential for new technologies to transform their teaching practice or gain the necessary skills to
achieve this. In a national survey of English departments, carried out in 2005 by the English Subject
Centre, two of the principal barriers to the development of effective e-learning practice amongst English
academics were lack of time and insufficient or inappropriate support. (Figure 1)
In 2005 the UK Government published an ambitious 5 year e-learning strategy4 which stressed the need
for a more strategic approach to the future development of ICT 5 in education. This approach identified six
key priorities for reform, one of which was ‘good quality ICT training and support’:
“… those wishing to upgrade their skills should have access to flexible courses, with advanced support
for those seeking to specialise further.”(DFES, 2005)
Whilst we therefore now have e-learning strategies at institutional, faculty, school and in some cases
departmental level all of which instantiate the government’s priority by detailing local support structures,
something still seems to be going wrong. There is a mismatch between the rhetoric one hears about elearning on an institutional and national level and the reality that one finds in a typical university English
department. On the one hand we hear that new technologies are radically changing what and how we
teach, whilst simultaneously enhancing the way our students learn, on the other hand we find in many
English departments archaic PC’s, patchy and uncoordinated rollout of blended teaching, ignorance of
possibilities and potential - all rounded off by a general lack of ‘time’ to do anything about it. Not
surprisingly, the persistence of strong cultural resistance to anything ‘digital’ is exacerbating these
1
Virtual and Managed Learning Environments
http://www.english.heacademy.ac.uk/explore/projects/archive/technology/index.php
3
The English Subject Centre is part of the Higher Education Academy Subject Network and supports teaching and learning in
English literature, English language and Creative writing. http://www.english.heacademy.ac.uk.
4
Department for Education and Skills. Harnessing Technology: Transforming learning and children’s services.
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/publications/e-strategy/. [last accessed June 08]
5
Information and Communications Technology
2
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E-learning Advocacy: Exploring departmental approaches to the embedding of e-learning
HEA Conference paper, Harrogate, Tuesday 01 July 2008, 16.30-17.00.
support issues. Ironically many of the messages that the e-learning community and the national support
agencies may have hoped were getting through to individual academics, are not.
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Time consuming to set-up / maintain
IT Infrastructure / support / management issues
Reduces face-to-face engagement
Student participation / engagement / resistance
Encourages bad learning / teaching habits
Student access issues
There are no drawbacks
Lack of staff development / training
Students want too much!
Other technical
IP and plagiarism
Staff resistance
Other
Figure 1: Comments from an E-learning Scoping study of English across 53 institutions carried out in
2005 (n=172)
Support for the development of technology-based teaching by individual practitioners in the humanities
within institutions mirrors that of other subjects in the academy i.e. it usually consists of some
combination of the following:
 Meetings with a departmental, school or faculty e-learning rep /learning technologist.
 Generic training workshops / induction programmes (e.g. ‘How to use WebCT’) which may or may
not be divided into levels.
 Co-ordinated professional development programmes.
 Centralised e-learning or teaching & learning support units for assistance.
 Institutional e-learning seminars (which may or may not be subject specific).
 Applying for internal e-learning or teaching funds for e-learning projects.
 Staff rewards for e-learning work (e.g. e-learning champions).
 Attending e-learning conferences etc.
 Browsing online help and advice either on the intra or internet.
 Reading help manuals or e-learning publications
 Attending external (e.g. Higher Education Academy Subject Centre) events.
E-learning will be considered fully embedded in an institution when all policies, procedures, roles and
responsibilities pertaining to the use of it are fully integrated (Stiles, 2003) (Phillips, 2004). All of the
support mechanisms detailed above aim to embed e-learning in practice but the challenge of embedding
e-learning practice at departmental level still faces significant hurdles.
In my opinion, this model of support and information dissemination is not proving effective enough.
Quinsee & Simpson (2005) mention how staff at their institutions were often unclear as to the relevance
of e-learning courses to their practice or even that the courses were available and had struggled to develop
courses on their own. Horsley (2007) mentions the lack of funding behind the ‘funding promises’.
The English Subject Centre too plays an external support role by sponsoring small-scale departmental elearning projects. Over the last eight years more than twenty-five have taken place with the view that
outputs would be cascaded to colleagues both locally and nationally. Unfortunately this bottom-up
approach involving organic change from early adopters and innovators has not been as transformative as
we might have hoped. it is often hard to change practice through small individualised locally applicable
projects and in a subject where the notion of the ‘lone scholar’ still has currency we often find that
academics in the office next door may have been unaware of the project in question. So what is going
wrong? Did we create expectations of support that just cannot be met?
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Is there another way? Do academics feel more comfortable hearing about new teaching ideas using
technology from their peers rather than outsiders? Are their implications here for change in general in
related to teaching practice? Would it be more effective to embed the support within the department
rather than rely on external drivers to draw academics in?
In an effort to explore answers to these questions a two-year project, funded by the JISC Distributed elearning (DEL) programme6, was initiated which aimed to explore a different support model. The project,
still a work-in-progress involves the appointment of a self-selected ‘e-learning advocate’ who gets a day a
week buyout for an academic year to work with their colleagues on e-learning related initiatives.
Approach
The project has taken place in two stages both of which invited English departments (including literature,
language and creative writing) across the UK to submit proposals indicating how they would embed elearning in their departments over the academic year (2006-7 and 2007/8) given the support of a
nominated e-learning advocate for one day a week. Their role would be to act as both a catalyst for
change within a department and a source of practical help and advice for those wishing to make greater
use of e-learning. Interested departments were encouraged to submit innovative ideas which reached
across the department and might involve design, development, refiguring or creation of e-learning
materials, one-to-one consultancy, training, workshops etc. Applicants would also have to demonstrate
how the support model proposed would integrate with existing institution based strategies, initiatives or
support structures. The proposal would also have to show that there was a serious commitment to the
project at a senior level.
In the first year we received thirteen proposals of which six were chosen by Subject Centre staff and an
independent external e-learning support professional who was also appointed as an evaluator for the
project. The selection criteria included; strategy, experience, impact, sustainability, need and spread of
contexts. In the second year we had a reduced overall budget and were able to offer three advocate roles
out of six applications, one of which was shared between two academics. We also created a new role of
‘E-learning consultant’ whose function was to act as a roving ambassador of e-learning and assist the
project manager in an evaluative role.(see table 1)
Institution
Stage 1- 2006/7 Academic year
University of Wolverhampton (W)
Birmingham City University (BCU)
University of Lancaster (L)
Bishop Grosseteste University College (BG)*
University of Hull (H)
University of Northampton (N)
Stage 2 – 2007/8 Academic year
Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU)
University of Plymouth (P)*
University of Aberystwyth (A)
University of Wolverhampton (W)
Dept size
Advocacy type
Medium
Large
Large
Small
Large
Medium
Regional and departmental
Departmental
Departmental (Creative writing & Lit)
Departmental (PGCE English)
Whiteboard as platform
Departmental
Large
Small
Large
Medium
Departmental
Departmental
Shared departmental role
Roving and evaluative
Table 1: E-learning advocates and their institutions over the 2 year project period(*= HOD)
The academics chosen comprise a mix of both senior and junior academics from a range of HE
institutional contexts. The network is being managed by the learning technology officer at the English
Subject Centre who is responsible for the professional development of the advocates, monitoring of
individual projects in relation to submitted schedules/plans and overall management and critical
evaluation of the support models studied in the project as a whole. A web-based project management tool
(Basecamp7) is being used to help facilitate project discussion, deliver announcements, monitor progress
against individual milestones and allow advocates to reflect on their experiences throughout the project in
6
Funding for the project came from the JISC Distributed e-learning (DEL) Programme – Area 6 - Cultural issues, subject
differences and embedding (phase 2). http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/programme_edistributed.aspx
7
http://www.basecamphq.com/
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E-learning Advocacy: Exploring departmental approaches to the embedding of e-learning
HEA Conference paper, Harrogate, Tuesday 01 July 2008, 16.30-17.00.
a blog-like format. In addition a baseline survey, focusing on unique contexts, was carried out. All six
advocates from stage 1 have written full reports on their work. 8
Results to date
“The e-Advocacy award … not only freed a little time for additional work on these projects, but (more
importantly, I think) gave a demonstration of external support that was enormously useful in negotiating
both at Department and Faculty level. In an atmosphere in which it’s very hard (still) to secure time for
pursuing eLearning developments..” (Horsley, 2007)
The project is now reaching the end of its second and final year. To date it has been extremely successful.
In this section the main achievements of the project are summarised below:
I Pedagogical development
All nine advocates have developed, extended and improved both their own as well as many of their
colleagues courses. The appointment of an e-learning advocate in the small English department at Bishop
Grosseteste University College in Lincoln for example has had a huge impact on the breadth and depth of
e-learning use in the department. The freeing up of time allowed the department to incorporate aspects of
e-learning into all the courses offered through the VLE for the first time. Wolverhampton and Lancaster
assessed discussion forum activities, Northampton developed an exemplar course for all staff and
Plymouth introduced a Wiki-based activity where students created annotated texts collaboratively.
II Shaping policy
At BCU e-learning has been put at the forefront of school and faculty plans, through the influence of the
e-learning advocate who has been influential in determining priorities. In several other departments there
has been more effective representation of English departmental e-learning requirements on institutional
committees, and the advocate has been able to shape school, faculty and university learning and teaching
strategies with a humanities perspective in mind. At MMU the advocate has mediated in infrastructural
issues that were threatening to undermine the distance teaching programme within the department.
III Sharing of best practice
Every advocate had a different way of doing this but all agreed that it was of primary importance. Many
designed a series of staff development workshops encouraging staff to share what they were doing, bring
in outside guest speakers or encourage other institutional support staff to give a talk. As the ‘community’
of advocates developed they started arranging visits to each other’s departments to share their expertise in
areas like podcasting, use of online discussion for role-play, interactive whiteboards etc. At Lancaster
instruction sessions were provided to postgraduate and inexperienced lecturers first, as these groups
proved more receptive to new ideas. At Northampton, working with individuals, or groups of two or three
on specific issues and tools, with a particular end in view (such as how to set the ‘tone’ of academic
discourse in a blog, or how it might differ in a formal essay) proved more practical and productive than
formal staff development sessions. Whereas at BCU an exemplar module within the VLE, a core second
year course, proved most effective.
IV Personal development & recognition
One of the most fascinating results of the project has been the way in which winning external project
money has ‘shone a light’ on the advocate and this has often resulted in both a an increased recognition of
English needs and requirements as mentioned previously, and more funding becoming available. For
example at Hull £7,500 was made available for a mini-lab, at BCU resources were made available to
refurbish derelict teaching space, and several advocates had their antique computer hardware upgraded.
How can we hope that lecturers will develop cutting edge e-learning solutions if they don’t even have
sound or graphics cards?
V Building the departmental skills base
All advocates were involved in developing the expertise of their teams, at BCU the advocate realised that
what staff wanted was not examples of what they might do, but in fact help in developing what they were
already doing. At Hull personalised training courses were developed for staff in the use of the interactive
whiteboard. At Plymouth a learning technologist was employed to work alongside the advocate in
building resources for colleagues.
8
http://www.english.heacademy.ac.uk/explore/projects/archive/technology/tech24.php
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E-learning Advocacy: Exploring departmental approaches to the embedding of e-learning
HEA Conference paper, Harrogate, Tuesday 01 July 2008, 16.30-17.00.
VI Updating spaces
Refurbishment work in the arts building at Northampton resulted in significant equipment upgrade in all
the teaching rooms partly encouraged by the project. BCU was also able to refurbish a teaching space and
ensure it was outside central booking systems. Similarly, an interactive whiteboard lab was built at Hull.
“…the project has begun a movement, at first small- then large-scale, towards improving facilities and
inspiring staff and students to add variety to their learning and teaching experiences - not least by also
inspiring people at the head of the faculty’s teaching and administration. The university has just
demanded JISC-style flexible learning spaces, and we already have one! The project has resulted in
‘kudos gain’ for the faculty within the university.” (Coote, 2007)
VII Better understanding of the student experience
Aberystwyth carried out a comprehensive survey of all under and post-graduate students expectations and
experiences of e-learning at the start of their advocacy. Northampton established a student focus group to
provide feedback on the design of e-learning materials and their effectiveness in the learning process and
BCU ran focus groups with student volunteers where they were encouraged to articulate their experiences
and expectations, informing decisions about the kinds of activities likely to be successful.
VIII Breaking down disciplinary barriers
At Lancaster the advocate worked really hard to extend the already successful e-learning approaches used
in the Creative Writing programmes over to the teaching of literature. It isn’t an easy job, but the funding
has enabled the provision of one-on-one sessions with individual practitioners which helped to break
down barriers. At Hull colleagues from English, American Studies, Film Studies and Creative Writing
were shown the Whiteboard software, and a thorough needs analysis was undertaken. There was
considerable interest, and interest was awakened in other technologies such as moving and still image
production as well as virtual learning environments. At MMU a national Creative writing and e-learning
event was facilitated by the ‘literature’- based advocate.
IX Effective use of e-learning tools & resources
All kinds of e-learning tools were incorporated into courses across the nine institutions. Of particular note
would be the incorporation of Wikis into courses at Plymouth and MMU (for annotating texts and
supporting seminars). At Northampton the use of blogs for summative assessment and student reflection
throughout a module was developed and it was noted by the advocate that this area was where the most
progress was made and which had the most impact on student work! Podcasting too was introduced to
staff and incorporated into several modules. PDP’s9 were introduced at BG.
Issues
Whilst the results at a departmental level are impressive some of the advocates have experienced
challenges when working with colleagues as an ‘advocate’ of a particular educational orthodoxy. The
resistance, mentioned previously, may take longer than a year to breakdown. Several advocates had to
trim back their original project plans as the year proceeded e.g. attempting to do too much over too many
courses or attempting to ‘win over’ every colleague in the department.
There was a growing appreciation among all the advocates that the work they were undertaking is
ongoing and that one academic year was not enough to register substantial change, courses augmented
with online activities, web resources etc would be designed one year then implemented the next. More
research will be carried out to measure the longer-term benefits of the kind of educational interventions
outlined in this paper.
Ironically another issue identified was that change often outstrips the support that is available, this was
particularly true in relation to podcasting (is there a streaming server available?), wikis (I’m not allowed
to use an externally hosted service). Technology itself is still a huge barrier with both unreliability of
provision (bandwidth, old kit, disorganised server upgrades etc).
9
PDP= Personal Development Plans
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E-learning Advocacy: Exploring departmental approaches to the embedding of e-learning
HEA Conference paper, Harrogate, Tuesday 01 July 2008, 16.30-17.00.
Figure 2: An example of management and
organisation of learning at Birmingham
City University.
Figure 3: A poster on the theme of Death and
violence in epic – part of student’s work from
Hull.
Figure 4: Refurbishing learning spaces at
Birmingham City University - Before
Figure 5: Refurbishing learning spaces at
Birmingham City University - After
Figure 6: The website established for the
Centre for Transcultural Writing and
Research at Lancaster university
established during the advocacy project.
Figure 7: A flier advertising a VLE staff
development workshop at the University of
Wolverhampton.
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E-learning Advocacy: Exploring departmental approaches to the embedding of e-learning
HEA Conference paper, Harrogate, Tuesday 01 July 2008, 16.30-17.00.
Conclusions
The context in which most HE practitioners work today does not facilitate experimentation and play, yet
arguably these are the kinds of skills necessary for exploration of effective e-learning pedagogy. This
project has been a source of stimulation and productivity for all nine departments involved. It connects
lecturers from different universities in new kinds of communities, yet each person focuses on innovation
within a particular curriculum and a particular institution. It also adds an element of persistence to staff
development projects and personalises the issue of e-learning within a host department (Ringrose, 2007).
In all the departments involved the groundwork has been laid from which significant benefits may be
reaped in future years.
For the results obtained to be replicable across the discipline and adopted by the wider community more
resource will need to be made available to departments to establish advocacy programmes. For the efforts
of existing advocates to be sustained their will also need to be continued energy focus on the efforts
achieved to date. Departments do not exist in isolation from the wider academic communities around
them and as such E-learning advocacy at a disciplinary level should become an essential part of the
overall campus support mix and in doing so provide a much needed boost to bottom-up approaches to
disciplinary issues in the uptake of new teaching methods. With care and planning it might assist in
overcoming the scepticism that still surrounds the technological revolution in education.
References
Coote, L. (2007). Embedding E-learning using E-learning Advocates – Project report.
Day, M. (2007). Embedding E-learning using E-learning Advocates – Project report.
Department for Education and Skills. Harnessing Technology: Transforming learning and children’s
services. http://www.dfes.gov.uk/publications/e-strategy/. [last accessed June 08]
Horsley, H. (2007). Embedding E-learning using E-learning Advocates – Project report.
Miles, R. (2007). Embedding E-learning using E-learning Advocates – Project report.
Phillips, R. A. (2004). Factors influencing the Widespread Adoption of E-learning in Tertiary Education.
Paper presented at the E-learning Workshop, Korean National Open University, Seoul.
Quinsee, S. & Simpson, V. (2005) Engaging Staff in Organizational Change for e-Learning. Paper from
the 7th Annual WebCT User Conference, San Francisco USA.
Ringrose, C. (2007). Embedding E-learning using E-learning Advocates – Project report.
Robertson, S. (2007). Embedding E-learning using E-learning Advocates – Project report.
Stiles, M.J. (2003). Embedding eLearning in a Higher Education Institution, Keynote Paper for: "At the
Interface - 2nd Global Conference on Virtual Learning and Higher Education", 12th - 13th September
2003, Mansfield College, Oxford. http://www.staffs.ac.uk/COSE/cosenew/ati2stilesrev.pdf [last accessed
June 08]
Weblinks
English Subject Centre: http://www.english.heacademy.ac.uk
Project webpage: http://www.english.heacademy.ac.uk/explore/projects/archive/technology/tech24.php
Author Contact details:
Mr Brett Lucas (brett.lucas@rhul.ac.uk)
Learning Technologist and Web Development
English Subject Centre
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E-learning Advocacy: Exploring departmental approaches to the embedding of e-learning
HEA Conference paper, Harrogate, Tuesday 01 July 2008, 16.30-17.00.
Royal Holloway, University of London
Egham,Surrey TW20 OEX
Tel: 00 44 2078482546
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E-learning Advocacy: Exploring departmental approaches to the embedding of e-learning
HEA Conference paper, Harrogate, Tuesday 01 July 2008, 16.30-17.00.