Review of QUT’s
Virtual Learning
Environment (VLE)
Final report
November 2013
eLearning Services
Review of QUT’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE): Final report
Executive Summary
Higher Education in Australia and around the world is facing unprecedented change. The
confluence of ubiquitous affordable devices and connectivity, easily accessible technologies,
and the pervasive role technology plays in everyday life (at least in the developed world) is
opening up exciting opportunities. At the same time, the need for lifelong and personalised
learning, an ever more sophisticated digital and knowledge economy crying out for a highly
skilled work force, and increasing cost pressures are demanding Higher Education to re-invent
not only its business models, but the fundamental concept of teaching and of the learner.
In this context, the Review of QUT’s VLE set out to identify the extent to which the current
centrally supported virtual learning environment (including QUT’s Learning Management
System, QUT Blackboard, and its related learning tools) enables the University to pursue its
ambitions in learning and teaching, and to identify opportunities as well as issues and gaps
both for current and future needs.
The review was carried out from May to November 2013 by a team of eLearning Services staff
under the auspices of the Learning Environments Working Party. It was sponsored by the
Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic), and was guided by a Steering Committee chaired by
Prof Robyn Nash (Assistant Dean Learning & Teaching, Faculty of Health) with representation
from students, academic and professional staff.
Review activities included broad and deep consultation with all stakeholder groups through
focus groups, submissions from faculties and other areas, interviews, and a crowd-sourcing
campaign. In addition, the team carried out an analysis of existing feedback particularly from
students, as well as extensive environmental scanning and research with regards to
developments in VLE technologies and implementation, contemporary pedagogies, and trends
in educational technology development.
The review outcomes have resulted in the following nine recommendations, which are
presented in four categories below.
1.
A strategic approach
In recognising that technology has become fundamental to teaching and learning in the
21st century, we must be intentional and clear about QUT’s vision and approach to using
technologies in this space, and ensure this vision is shared throughout the QUT community.
There was a strong theme throughout the consultation with staff that they would like to see an
agreed and articulated QUT vision, and would value clearer information on institutionally
endorsed technologies and related supports, as well as guidelines around use of tools outside
the institutional VLE. At the same time, there was significant emphasis on the need to optimise
alignment between the development of the VLE and related systems, projects and initiatives,
and to develop strategies that allow learners to engage in QUT’s VLE beyond their studies, as
lifelong learners.
The following recommendations are based on these outcomes:
R1.1:
QUT should confirm and consolidate QUT’s clear vision about the fundamental role of
digital technologies for learning and teaching.
R1.2:
QUT should state and clearly communicate levels of institutional support for VLE
technologies and tools.
R1.3:
QUT should maximise synergies between the VLE and other projects, initiatives and
approaches.
R1.4:
QUT should develop strategies to meet the need for open and ongoing access to the
VLE.
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2.
An extended, agile and integrated VLE
Despite many comments about the lack of certain functionality and the less than perfect
nature of Blackboard, the key message resulting from the consultation with staff and students
did not indicate that change to a different LMS was needed. Rather, there was a call to extend
and integrate beyond Blackboard so as to accommodate the emerging needs of new
generations of learners, and to better support innovative pedagogies, authentic and connected
learning, and deliver on QUT’s ‘real world’ promise. There was recognition that the LMS is
inherently teacher-centred by definition, and that many of its core functions are valuable and
can contribute to a quality student experience. Students in particular raised the need for
consistency in unit site structure and navigation. At the same time, many academic staff use a
range of learning technologies in their teaching (including social media) with good student
feedback, but often with a sense that this is not permitted.
Based on these findings, it is recommended to newly conceptualise QUT’s VLE beyond
Blackboard (including giving it a name and creating a dashboard representing it); to extend
VLE functionality by continually improving Blackboard (e.g. through shorter upgrade cycles),
by experimenting with, evaluating and adding suitable tools and supports based on defined
learning and teaching priorities; and to aim for maximum integration within and beyond the
VLE.
The following recommendations are based on these outcomes:
R2.1:
QUT should brand the VLE and provide a clearer representation for both staff and
students.
R2.2:
QUT should improve QUT Blackboard as part of the VLE while experimenting with
alternative tools to provide extended functionality.
3.
Improved and focused support for staff
There was agreement across stakeholder groups consulted that investment in staff capability
building is the most important cornerstone of the successful use of digital technologies in
learning and teaching. The starting point for this must be specific learning and teaching needs
and desired learning outcomes, with appropriate learning design driving the use of technology
rather than technology availability. While current activities are seen as valuable, there was a
strong emphasis on increasing opportunities and support for communities of practice enabling
staff to connect with one another and exchange ideas and good practice. Staff also raised the
need to acknowledge the time and effort required, and to have resources and structures in
place to encourage, enable and reward staff involvement in these activities.
Based on these premises, the review recommendations are to base capability building
programs on defined and agreed learning and teaching needs; and to review current supports
with a view to design a range of refreshed learning, collaboration and training opportunities to
enable staff to effectively support their students’ learning with technology.
The following recommendations are based on these outcomes:
R3.1:
QUT should prioritise, address and highlight specific learning and teaching needs and
initiatives.
R3.2:
QUT should refresh the support mechanisms for staff to use the VLE effectively in their
teaching.
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4.
Ongoing evaluation and review
At a time of rapid technology development and change, it is imperative to continually evaluate
and review the effectiveness of the VLE, and to recognise that plans need to be flexible to
ensure new developments can be taken on board. By re-conceptualising the VLE as a network
of systems and tools which will be in constant flux (particularly at the more loosely defined
levels), it is important to have a collaborative approach to evaluating and reviewing the
effectiveness and fit for purpose of the VLE on an ongoing basis.
Therefore, it is recommended to review the VLE on a frequent and regular basis, and to
develop a shared framework for ongoing evaluation that includes input from all stakeholder
groups.
The following recommendation is based on these outcomes:
R4.1:
QUT should evaluate on a regular basis the effectiveness of the VLE.
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Contents
Review of QUT’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) ......................................................................... 1
Final report November 2013........................................................................................................... 1
eLearning Services ........................................................................................................................ 1
Executive Summary ....................................................................................................................... i
Contents...................................................................................................................................... 1
Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 1
Terms of Reference .................................................................................................................. 2
Governance ............................................................................................................................. 3
Consultation and investigations .................................................................................................. 4
Forming recommendations ........................................................................................................ 5
1. A strategic approach ................................................................................................................. 7
R1.1:
QUT should confirm and consolidate QUT’s clear vision about the fundamental role of
digital technologies for learning and teaching ............................................................... 7
R1.2:
QUT should state and clearly communicate levels of institutional support for VLE
technologies and tools ............................................................................................... 9
R1.3:
QUT should maximise synergies between the VLE and other projects, initiatives and
approaches ............................................................................................................ 12
R1.4:
QUT should develop strategies to meet the need for open and ongoing access to the
VLE ....................................................................................................................... 15
2. An extended, agile and integrated VLE ...................................................................................... 19
R2.1:
QUT should brand the VLE and provide a clearer representation for both staff and
students ................................................................................................................ 19
R2.2:
QUT should improve QUT Blackboard as part of the VLE while experimenting with
alternative tools to provide extended functionality....................................................... 22
3. Improved and focused support for staff ..................................................................................... 25
R3.1:
QUT should prioritise, address and highlight specific learning and teaching needs and
initiatives ............................................................................................................... 25
R3.2:
QUT should refresh the support mechanisms for staff to use the VLE effectively in
their teaching ......................................................................................................... 28
4. Ongoing evaluation and review ................................................................................................ 33
R4.1:
QUT should evaluate on a regular basis the effectiveness of the VLE ............................. 33
Next steps ................................................................................................................................. 35
References ................................................................................................................................. 35
Appendices ................................................................................................................................ 36
Appendix A:
Focus group methodology ................................................................................. 36
Appendix B:
Learning Management Systems used in Australian universities .............................. 39
Appendix C:
VLE usage data ............................................................................................... 41
Appendix D:
Technology-enhanced learning and teaching trends ............................................. 43
Appendix E:
QUT ePrints publications related to web-conferencing approaches .......................... 47
*****
Review of QUT’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE): Final report
Introduction
Higher education in Australia and around the world is facing unprecedented change. The
confluence of ubiquitous affordable devices and connectivity, easily accessible technologies,
and the pervasive role technology plays in everyday life (at least in the developed world) is
opening up exciting opportunities. At the same time, the need for lifelong and personalised
learning, an ever more sophisticated digital and knowledge economy crying out for a highly
skilled work force, and increasing cost pressures are demanding higher education to re-invent
not only its business models, but the fundamental concept of teaching and of the learner.
Technology is key in the endeavour to conceptualise new ways of learning in higher education
that will respond to these drivers, and prepare our graduates for the world of tomorrow. In the
words of Diana Oblinger (President and CEO, Educause), we must use the best technology has
to offer for education. However, how do we best do this as a large institution, with a diverse
student cohort, varying levels of skills and capabilities in our staff, and limited resources? How
does our current technology set-up support our ambitions for tomorrow, and what do we need
to do to better place ourselves to respond to these challenges?
QUT recognises the fundamental role technology plays in responding to these important
drivers, and in enabling us to stay relevant in a rapidly changing world and to deliver on our
real world promise. QUT’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) plays an important role in this
effort, both now and into the future.
In this context, the Review of QUT’s VLE set out to identify the extent to which the current
centrally supported virtual learning environment (including QUT’s Learning Management
System, QUT Blackboard, and its related learning tools) enables the University to pursue its
ambitions in learning and teaching, respond to the challenges described above.
In 2013, a submission to LEWP described the proposed approach to a broad review of QUT’s
Virtual Learning Environment. The scope of the review was to take into account the way QUT
conducts teaching and learning in virtual and blended spaces and other developments in QUT’s
virtual environment, as well as evolving and emerging changes to the broader landscape of
higher education with regards to the use of educational technologies, open learning resources,
approaches to managing learning environments, and the impact of social and mobile learning
opportunities. The review was carried out from May to October 2013.
Feedback in relation to where QUT is at in its use of the VLE, what is working well and what is
not working well was varied across the institution. From a student perspective, there was a
strong message about usability and consistency in navigation across unit sites in QUT
Blackboard, and demand for lecture recordings to be made available online, an increase in
eTextbooks, and a seamless experience across systems (one-stop-shop). From a staff point of
view, there were many comments about QUT Blackboard’s lack of functionality to support
learner activity and collaboration, and a call to extend the capabilities of the VLE. Faculty
responses indicated that the use of QUT Blackboard often does not go beyond it being a
repository for resources, and also that more engaging activities are not well supported by the
system. Conflicting feedback was received with regards to other tools. It is worth noting that
some staff view QUT Blackboard as the VLE, and that there is an ‘unwritten rule’ against using
other technologies (such as social media or other productivity tools). At the same time, there
are many examples of these tools being used successfully. There was also a commonly held
appreciation of the support provided for QUT Blackboard and other VLE tools.
This report presents the outcomes of this review, framed in a set of recommendations for
QUT’s future virtual learning environment, which are based on the dominant themes resulting
from the consultation processes with staff and students, and draw on current thinking in the
virtual learning environment arena.
This review has been carried out in the context of other initiatives and activities at QUT under
the umbrella of QUT’s digital transformation, most notably the Learning Transformation
Initiative.
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While strategies and requirements with regards to technology are still emerging in that space,
it is recognised that these are likely to have a significant impact on the VLE into the future.
It is important to note that this report contains a set of recommendations with regards to the
future directions of QUT’s Virtual Learning Environment (i.e. the ‘What’). It does not include
specific implementation plans (i.e. the ‘How’). These will be developed upon endorsement of
the recommendations, and will include a technology roadmap as well as a communication plan.
Terms of Reference
The aims of the review of QUT's Virtual Learning Environment were to establish the extent to
which the current centrally supported virtual learning environment (including QUT’s Learning
Management System, QUT Blackboard, and its related learning tools) enables the University to
pursue its ambitions in learning and teaching, and to identify opportunities as well as issues
and gaps both for current and future needs.
The review has considered a range of environmental and institutional factors, including the
needs of various cohorts of students, interrelationships between supported and not supported
educational technologies, and the broader context of the (disruptive) potential of technology to
significantly impact on learning and teaching. The review activities are part of the broader
considerations occurring under the umbrella of QUT’s digital transformation agenda.
Questions investigated were:
1. Where are we at?
•
How does QUT’s Virtual Learning Environment support QUT’s strategy for learning &
teaching?
•
How is QUT's virtual learning environment currently being used?
•
What works well in QUT's virtual learning environment?
•
What doesn't work well in QUT's virtual learning environment?
2. Where do we need to be?
•
What does QUT’s virtual learning environment of the future look like?
•
What gaps are there between our current virtual environment and our future needs?
•
How do we work towards achieving our future environment?
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Governance
The VLE review was sponsored by Professor Carol Dickenson, DVC (Academic), and overseen
by a Steering Committee chaired by Professor Robyn Nash, Assistant Dean (Teaching and
Learning), Faculty of Health. Other project participants are shown below:
Project role
Name
QUT position
Project
Director
Ms Regina Obexer
Director, eLearning Services
Project
Manager
Mr Roger Cook
Change
Manager
Ms Cathy Cameron
Manager, Learning and Teaching Technologies (Governance
and
Quality), eLearning Services
(with Dr Natasha Giardina)
Project Manager, eLearning Services
Project Officer Ms Lynn McAllister
Senior Support Officer, eLearning Services
Steering
Committee
Members
Mr Ross Daniels
Course Coordinator, Faculty of Health
Professor Karen Nelson
Director, Student Success and Retention, Learning and
Teaching Unit
Ms Sheona Thomson
Associate Director, Academic, Learning and Teaching
Transformation, Learning and Teaching Unit
Dr Jason Sternberg
Transformational Learning and Teaching Fellow; Senior
Lecturer, Creative Industries Faculty
Ms Stacey Percival
QUT Student
Ms Elizabeth Grist
Administration Officer (Learning and Teaching), Faculty of Law
Ms Lena Wong
Manager, Learning and Teaching Technologies (Strategic
Initiatives), eLearning Services
Mr Ashton Mossop
Team Leader (Technology Support), Learning Environments
and Technology Services
Mr Anthony Deacon
QUT Student; Sessional Academic, Science and Engineering
Faculty
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Consultation and investigations
Broad and deep consultation occurred with stakeholder groups across the university, using a
range of techniques as listed below.
Stakeholder group
Techniques
QUT students
Educause Centre for Analysis and Research (ECAR) Study of Undergraduate
Students and Technology, 2013
Review of 330 responses
Insight Survey (Semester 1, 2013)
Review of responses filtered for ‘engage/engagement/engaging’.
QUT Sharing Ideas Student campaign (August, 3 weeks)
18 ideas, 105 student logins
Final focus group with 4 students and 10 staff
Discussion of draft recommendations
QUT staff
Focus groups with academic and professional staff
14 groups with approximately 90 staff members
Individual consultation
Professor Peter Little, DVC (Corporate Programs and Partnerships); Prof Glenn
Stewart (SEF); Prof Helen Partridge (SEF); Dr Jill Willis (Education); Ms Marisha
McCauliffe (CI); Dr Erin O’Connor (Health); Ms Sheona Thomson, Mr Richard
Evans and Mr Steven Kickbusch (Learning Transformation Initiative)
QUT Sharing Ideas Staff campaign (August, 3 weeks)
18 ideas, 104 staff logins (including 30 TILS staff logins)
Final focus group with 4 students and 10 staff
Discussion of draft recommendations
QUT faculties and
departments
Written responses to terms of reference from Faculty of Health, QUT Business
School, Faculty of Education, Faculty of Law, Creative Industries Faculty, Learning
and Teaching Unit, QUT International College and QUT Library.
Senior Leadership
Group
Review of relevant responses received via GoSoapBox during Senior Leadership
Group Conference, 15 May 2013.
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Drawing on the expertise of eLearning Services staff, the following investigations were carried
out to identify current trends and the future potential of different VLE approaches.
•
Environmental Scan Report, May 2013 (Dr Kim Moody)
•
VLE Usage Data Report (QUT Blackboard, Blackboard Collaborate, QUT ePortfolio, QUT
Media Warehouse, GoSoapBox)
•
High level comparison of Learning Management Systems (Blackboard, Moodle and
Desire2Learn)
•
Review of MOOC Platforms
•
Review of technology-enhanced learning strategies of other universities (i.e. Australian
and some international).
Forming recommendations
Focus group responses were central in helping to identify emerging themes (refer to
Appendix A for details about this methodology). Other consultations techniques and
investigations then consolidated these themes resulting in nine recommendations. Members of
the Steering Committee provided feedback about the wording, order and supporting details
and identified four categories for the recommendations:
1.
A strategic approach
2.
An extended, agile and integrated VLE
3.
Improved and focused support for staff and students
4.
Ongoing evaluation and review.
The recommendations are structured as follows:
•
Direct quotes and paraphrased comments are listed that are indicative of the student and
staff responses.
•
Comments are given to contextualise current QUT practice and provide a broader
perspective.
•
An implementation focus is stated.
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1. A strategic approach
Higher Education is going through an unprecedented time of change caused by the confluence
of rapid technology development, ubiquitous affordable devices and connectivity, and
generations of learners for whom technology use is an integral part of the way they do things.
Technology pervades all aspects of our lives, including the way we connect with other people,
access information, and learn. In recognising that technology has become central to teaching
and learning in a connected age, we must be intentional and clear about QUT’s vision and
approach to using technologies in this space, and ensure this vision is shared throughout the
QUT community.
This includes the articulation of a shared vision for the role of digital technologies in learning
and teaching; providing clear guidance to staff about the range of learning technologies as well
as associated support levels and guidelines available; ensuring that there is close alignment
(and the highest level of integration possible) between the various projects, systems, and tools
making up and peripheral to the Virtual Learning Environment; and developing strategies that
support QUT students to become successful lifelong learners during and beyond their time at
QUT. The recommendations below relate to this imperative.
R1.1: QUT should confirm and consolidate QUT’s clear vision about the
fundamental role of digital technologies for learning and teaching
Staff say
The most emphatic response common across all focus groups was that of the need for
‘leadership from the top’; for institutional clarification and guidance on the VLE and use of
educational technologies. Staff responses such as ‘What does the institution mean by online
learning anyway?’; ‘How can we develop new approaches if the institution can’t even
communicate what this looks like?’ indicate the perception that QUT is not clearly
communicating to academic and professional staff, the vision for learning development and
innovation.
Staff indicated there is a need for ‘genuine investment’ in resources, particularly resourcing of
multidisciplinary teams that explore and develop technologies and then promote and support
the wider use of these for learning and teaching. This was a common theme across feedback
groups. Staff expect the purposeful development of a safe environment and culture in which
they can take risks to explore and implement new technologies. They expect leadership which
values and safeguards the autonomy of academics in developing, innovating and implementing
in the blended/online learning and teaching environment. Staff emphasised the need for
increased resourcing to enable the effective use of technology, in the broad sense, ‘they [QUT]
need to realise that technology costs money, it does not save money’.
Staff would like to know whether blended learning is an option or a requirement of learning
and teaching at QUT.
The Faculty of Law identified alignment between the QUT VLE and the QUT Blueprint, Faculty
Academic Plan and Graduate Courses Review. The QUT International College indicated the VLE
aligns with key English language programs and Foundation/Diploma pathways giving
competitive advantage over other universities. The Learning and Teaching Unit response
suggested there is a widely held perception that the current VLE does not support or align with
QUT strategy.
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Comments
The QUT Blueprint provides some strategic details relevant to the VLE:
•
QUT will seek to provide welcoming, challenging and collaborative environments and
experiences in the classroom and beyond (Students, Learning and Teaching, p. 4).
•
Provide high-quality, learning-centred environments that capitalise on both physical and
virtual innovations (Students, Learning and Teaching: ‘Real-world’ learning that engages a
diverse population of students, p. 4).
•
Continue to offer students and staff, services that are reliable, responsive, enabling,
accessible, personalised and streamlined (Students, Learning and Teaching:
Comprehensive Student Engagement, p. 5).
http://www.qut.edu.au/about/the-university/blueprint-for-the-future
With the current review of the Blueprint, there is an opportunity to include a strong and
forward-looking vision that focuses on the transformative power of technology for learning and
teaching at QUT. This vision would:
•
recognise the fundamental role technology plays in learning and teaching
•
be founded on the requirements of future generations of learners
•
draw on the opportunities opened up by technology to support connected, authentic,
integrated, and flexible learning that delivers on QUT’s real world promise.
While an institution-wide vision is important, it is equally important for faculties and course
teams to discuss and be clear about the role technology plays in teaching and learning at
various levels across the institution, and to communicate this to students.
R1.1 Implementation focus
Articulate and communicate QUT’s clear vision about the fundamental role
technology plays in learning and teaching at QUT, at all levels of the institution.
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R1.2: QUT should state and clearly communicate levels of institutional support
for VLE technologies and tools
Students say
Students want a reliable and seamless experience with the VLE. They want consistency of
experience between units. Students expect all lectures to be recorded and made available
online. They require the flexibility to watch lectures ‘in their own time’ and to revisit lectures
for study and revision.
Staff say
Staff responses clearly indicated they do not know what technologies and tools they are
‘allowed’ to use and often perceive their use of educational technologies and tools to be
against the wishes of the institution. Academics stress the need for autonomy when designing
their learning and teaching resources but wish to have a fully sanctioned and supported
‘toolbox’ of technologies and expertise from which they can choose the technologies to best
meet their goals.
The VLE is more than QUT Blackboard—it needs to evolve to suit different learning and
teaching needs and contexts. ‘We must keep up-to-speed with technological developments in
the teaching space, and maintain an open mind and the willingness to explore new educational
opportunities and delivery modes as they become available through advances in technology.’
Staff use a range of non-Blackboard tools such as Facebook, Twitter, Fuze, Skype, Survey
Monkey, Dropbox, Ning, Google tools (e.g. Drive, Hangouts, Sites), WordPress blogs, Wiki
tools, Hotshare, YouTube, Wallwisher, Pinterest, Yammer, Vimeo, SlideShare, Prezi, Evernote,
Edublogs, Zotero, Second Life and Avatar Kinect.
Comments
Consultations revealed that staff and students are using a wide range of educational
technologies and that there are differing perceptions amongst academic staff concerning what
is ‘allowed’ or ‘not allowed’ in the use of learning technologies. This needs to be clarified and
communicated to staff, especially in regards to levels of support and ongoing changes to the
VLE.
Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) implemented a distributed VLE termed the ‘Core+
model’ in an attempt to provide a consistent student experience and allow staff to innovate
and experiment where appropriate. MMU's Department of Learning & Research Technologies
(LRT) is headed by Professor Mark Stubbs (2010) who provides this explanation of the Core+
model:
We seek the convenience of a core VLE integrated with our corporate systems, ideally available
to students to use with the devices and services of their choosing, and extended through tools
that the institution arranges, recommends or recognises:
•
Arranged: MMU creates accounts on these tools, e.g. Live@Edu and Turnitin and ensures
access to training materials.
•
Recommended: MMU develops recommendations and supporting training materials for
bringing these tools seamlessly into the core, e.g. using RSS to bring in content from
Twitter, SlideShare or YouTube.
•
Recognised: MMU is aware tutors are experimenting with these but there is not yet a
critical mass of users to research and prescribe integration and training.
Over time, innovative tutors and students are likely to identify new tools that could be taken
on as ‘recommended’—support materials would be created demonstrating how a seamless
experience can be established with the core; and, over time, thresholds for digital literacy
would be raised to embrace the new skills required by all staff to make best use of new tools.
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In this way we see our learning technology base growing organically over time while still
maintaining the convenience of a guaranteed entry point through the core VLE for students
seeking consistency (Stubbs, 2010).
Applied to QUT’s current VLE, the Core+ model would indicate different types of expectations
of staff (both academic and professional) and associated levels of support as shown in
Figure 1.
Note that the implementation plan following this review will determine where supported tools
(e.g. GoSoapBox), collaborative tools (e.g. Google hangouts) and different social media tools
would actually fit within this model.
Figure 1: Core+ model with indicative QUT examples (adapted from Ballard, 2013)
There are some important points to make about having an LMS such as Blackboard as the core
of a distributed VLE. Mott and Wiley (2009, p.4) argue that LMS use has ‘generally been
focussed on helping teachers increase the efficiency of the administrative tasks of instruction
(e.g., distribute documents, mark assignments, give quizzes, initiate discussion boards, assign
students to working groups, etc.)’ leading to ‘instructor-centrism’. They further state that:
… one possible characterization of the CMS [LMS] is a very effective, albeit
very expensive, course content distribution and teacher-student
communication platform. While improvements in efficiency are certainly
beneficial… the CMS has yet to yield consistently demonstrable, replicable,
significant improvements in learning outcomes (p. 5).
In other words, the LMS may continue to play a role in meeting particular baseline needs at
QUT rather than being a one-size-fits-all teaching toolbox, whereas the distributed VLE will
support a greater variety of student-centred learning and teaching requirements (these are
further discussed in R1.4). While Blackboard has recently integrated social media tools such as
YouTube, Flickr and SlideShare, such changes are minor and are occurring at too slow a pace
for the needs and expectations of students and staff.
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It is apparent a number of challenges exist when incorporating freely available technologies
into the VLE. Such technologies, while regularly updated, are not designed specifically for
educational use (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, Google tools, etc.); therefore, suitable processes
would be required to ensure that the VLE evolves in sustainable and scalable ways.
R1.2 Implementation focus
Create a distributed VLE that can meet changing needs and expectations and a
process through which this can be enabled. Recognise that there could be different
variations in the application of the Core+ model according to individual, faculty and
institutional contexts.
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R1.3: QUT should maximise synergies between the VLE and other projects,
initiatives and approaches
Students say
Students want a ‘seamless’ experience within the VLE. They have asked for tools to be
integrated into Blackboard and accessed such as to appear within the VLE. They also expect
seamless use across a range of mobile devices. ‘There is a definite need for a central interface’
where all tools can be accessed; ‘combine everything into one central site’.
Staff say
‘There must be an institutional, collaborative approach to the ongoing development of any
future VLE.’ This quote exemplifies a major theme which arose from both focus groups and
group/individual responses across all stakeholder groups.
Respondents referred to ‘everything else’ as not only educational tools and technologies but
also QUT administration systems. The VLE will need to integrate with other QUT systems to
allow flexible enrolment and timetabling of learning spaces beyond the traditional semester
based teaching periods.
It will be essential for the VLE to develop in parallel with projects initiatives and approaches
such as the Learning Transformation Initiative, blended learning and augmented reality.
Integration processes for the VLE need to be developed so future tools, programs and
technologies are accessible from within the VLE. Frameworks, processes and procedures will
need to be designed to ensure this happens.
Comments
This recommendation recognises that strategic directions and associated projects at QUT
impact on the design and use of the VLE. A need exists for collaboration and synergies to occur
between projects and relevant stakeholders since the VLE does not operate in isolation but is
dependent on other QUT nodes and networks. This could lead to improved efficiency, ease of
navigation, seamlessness, interoperability and reliability.
The next table provides examples of current projects and their relevance to the VLE.
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QUT projects
Relevance to VLE
Learning
Transformation
Initiative (LTI)
The LTI is designing strategically selected, modularised and entirely online courses
which can be undertaken outside traditional semester constraints. This approach may
eventually realise benefits and insights for mainstream learning and teaching
approaches.
COMPASS
(Curriculum
Management
System)
Data obtained from the VLE (especially from Blackboard) could be used by this
system.
QUT Virtual (QV)
Upgrade Project
Modes of student interaction with QV online spaces and tools may inform and support
the needs of the VLE.
QUT Analytics
Suitable analytics investigations have the potential to reveal the conditions under
which student engagement occurs. Data may eventually be supplied to students and
staff to monitor learning.
Academic Workforce By identifying the QUT workforce capability requirements, relevant training and online
Capability Project
resources can be developed.
echo360 Lecture
Recording
The VLE review has identified that students value being able to access and download
lecture recordings. Therefore, it is important for staff to consider the type of
recordings and activities that best support student learning.
Online Assignment
Management
System (OAMS)
Marking assignments online, using Turnitin, could enable more timely and informative
feedback (e.g. with audio, annotations).
Engage—Student
Success Program
The current investigation of UCROO, a private social networking tool, may provide
students with improved informal learning opportunities across a course (refer to
http://www.ucroo.com.au/).
Robotics Massive
The student learning experience in a QUT MOOC has the potential to contribute to
Open Online Course the development of mainstream blended learning and online learning approaches.
(MOOC)—SEF &
eLS
QUT Student
ePortfolio
Students will soon be able to share selected parts of their ePortfolios with prospective
employers. Refer to Appendix C for usage statistics about student and staff
ePortfolios.
Academic Staff
ePortfolio
The trial of the Mahara ePortfolio tool (see https://mahara.org/) may result in benefits
for academic staff but also, indirectly, for their own students’ learning experiences.
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Once such linkages are made, it would be necessary to disseminate project progress and
outline resulting improvements, changes or deficiencies in the VLE. An example communication
approach on a larger scale is the University of Queensland’s Centre for Educational Technology
and Innovation website which lists project groups and their corresponding status and allows for
staff to join and/or follow particular groups (refer to Projects & Communities:
http://ceit.uq.edu.au/og/all).
Many of the centrally funded technology projects at QUT are funded through the AMP(IT)
account and governed by the IT Governance Committee. Integration needs to be a key
consideration in the process of considering and approving project proposals for new systems
and technologies for learning and teaching.
At the same time, evaluation of new technologies and tools needs to consider interoperability
standards as a key criterion.
R1.3 Implementation focus
Project, service and system owners need to collaborate deeply in aiming to achieve
a higher level of integration by considering appropriate planning and controlling
mechanisms and interoperability standards.
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R1.4: QUT should develop strategies to meet the need for open and ongoing
access to the VLE
Students say
Students want to be able to ‘download all subject information, slides, assignment results to the
cloud after graduation’. They want to self-evaluate post-graduation and use course information
into the future.
‘Shouldn’t students have a QUT student social space?’
‘Course level collaboration and beyond should be possible.’
‘Content needs to extend beyond the semester for continued learning.’
Staff say
Professor Peter Little: We need to give learners the capacity to build the learning experiences
they need/want to fulfil their goals [now and into the future]. In terms of CPE which is a
growing sector for higher education and the ‘third income stream’ for QUT, ongoing
engagement with the VLE seems an imperative for attracting alumni back to QUT for further
study and for marketing QUT, through Alumni, in the broader community. The future VLE will
need to support the growth of Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) activity [which is central to
CPE engagement], through systems/functions which enable RPL management.
Staff responses included the desire to use specific external tools [which require external log
on], with the comments that bringing these under the one QUT logon would be ‘nice to have’.
The provision of open ongoing access to VLE spaces may require a new policy for ongoing
access.
Staff spoke about ‘Projects that can be done collaboratively online, involving external and
industry stake-holders’ noting the VLE should provide more collaborative spaces. There is likely
to be more demand for supportive tools and spaces online for this type of activity into the
future with the rise of WIL initiatives, CPE, RPL and industry partnerships.
There was one mention of MOOCs being developed to deliver course content or pre-course
experiences to very large cohorts.
Comments
More open and ongoing access to the VLE has been identified as important for the:
•
Learning Transformation Initiative
•
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)
•
Work Integrated Learning courses
•
Professional development
•
Lifelong learning (as referred to in C/7.1 High quality teaching:
http://www.mopp.qut.edu.au/C/C_07_01.jsp)
The fact that staff are already using a wide range of educational technologies external to
Blackboard suggests that a more open and distributed VLE would benefit all students. This
review has revealed a number of important concepts and ideas about open and personalised
learning, importantly that the role of students has changed from one of ‘information
consumers’ to ‘knowledge producers’ and informal as well as formal learning opportunities are
an essential part of a student’s experience during and after their studies. Such a ‘connected’
learning environment is integrative, personalized, interconnected, and authentic (Smith, 2013)
and is not bound by semester-length periods of time.
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The Horizon Report Technology Outlook for Australian Tertiary Education 2013–2018 lists the
top ten trends impacting on technology decisions (listed in Appendix D), some of which have
particular relevance to the openness of QUT’s VLE (Johnson et al., 2013, pp. 17–18).
Trend
Relevance to VLE
1. People expect to be able to work, learn, and study Students expect a seamless experience that
whenever and wherever they want.
connects learning experiences across the contexts of
location, time, device and social setting.
3. Openness—concepts like open content, open
data, and open resources, along with notions of
transparency and easy access to data and
information—is becoming a value.
This is important for producing ‘real-world’ learning
experiences.
5. Increasingly, students want to use their own
technology for learning.
This has implications for adopting a ‘bring your own
device’ (BYOD) approach.
7. There is a growing interest in using new sources of For example, students may be able to use Google
data for personalising the learning experience and for Analytics to track access of peers and external
performance measurement.
audiences to their blogs.
9. Social media is changing the way people interact,
present ideas and information, and judge the quality
of content and contributions.
Students expect the VLE to enable meaningful
collaborative and social learning opportunities.
10. The workforce demands, from university
graduates, skills that are more often acquired from
informal learning experiences than in universities.
Students need to develop digital literacy skills and
learn how to create a suitable digital identity.
The Open Learning Network (OLN) model proposed by Mott and Wiley (2009) is a hybrid
between the LMS and the personal learning environment (PLE) and is one that could be
customised to suit the QUT VLE. In this model the LMS is used where privacy and security is
paramount, for example with students grades, assessment related information and online
quizzes. However, other OLN components do not need to be private, such as staff and student
blogs, wikis, portfolios, open courseware and open educational repositories. A significant
advantage of the OLN is that it allows students to build learning networks over time and so the
‘artificial boundaries of the CMS [LMS] are removed thereby allowing the learner to benefit
from participation in a broader community of networked learning (p. 15).
It is important to acknowledge that QUT academics have been experimenting with open
learning approaches. For example, Carroll et al (2013) used a free wiki tool to share and
showcase student research on contemporary health issues for peer review and critique.
Students clearly benefited from the experience where:
the learning that occurred was done socially, publically, collaboratively, and
competitively; and via an iterative process… Overall, the wiki allowed some
of the most advantageous elements of social media and information and
communication technologies to work in parallel with the pedagogical goals of
the teaching staff to ensure deep and sustained learning for students
(p. 523).
LMS companies are also increasingly providing tools with open access features. For example,
Blackboard recently released xpLor, a cross-platform learning object repository that enables
the creation and sharing of content in the cloud and outside the LMS (see
http://www.blackboard.com/sites/xplorinfo/index.html).
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A further example is the ePortfolio tool from Desire2Learn used at Deakin University where
students can:
•
use the ePortfolio for formative, summative and peer assessment
•
upload course content from the LMS, including quizzes, dropbox submissions and grades
•
import/export content between ePortfolio systems
•
use the social learning tool within the ePortfolio to follow peers within their learning
network and subscribe to content of interest
•
create and import content (e.g. text, images, audio and video) from an iPhone
•
export the Portfolio, at the end of the course, to ‘myDesire2Learn’ with a storage limit of
2GB (Deakin University).
R1.4 Implementation focus
Be mindful of a learner’s technology use throughout and beyond study at QUT to
create opportunities for lifelong engagement.
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2. An extended, agile and integrated VLE
Despite many comments about the lack of certain functionality and the less than perfect
nature of Blackboard, the key message resulting from the consultation with staff and students
did not indicate that change to a different LMS was needed. Rather, there was a call to extend
and integrate beyond Blackboard so as to accommodate the emerging needs of new
generations of learners, and to better support innovative pedagogies, authentic and connected
learning, and deliver on QUT’s ‘real world’ promise. There was recognition that the LMS is
inherently teacher-centred by definition, and that many of its core functions are valuable and
can contribute to a quality student experience. Students in particular raised the need for
consistency in unit site structure and navigation; at the same time, many academic staff use a
range of learning technologies in their teaching (including social media), often with a sense of
doing this against the ‘rules,’ but with good student feedback.
Based on these findings, it is recommended to newly conceptualise QUT’s VLE beyond
Blackboard (including giving it a name and creating a website/portal representing it); to
extend VLE functionality by continually improving Blackboard (e.g. through shorter upgrade
cycles), by experimenting with, evaluating and adding suitable tools and supports based on
defined learning and teaching priorities; and to aim for maximum integration within and
beyond the VLE.
R2.1: QUT should brand the VLE and provide a clearer representation for both
staff and students
Students say
Responses indicate ‘have one brand’. There were no calls from students to replace Blackboard,
rather to make it integrate and provide a seamless experience. Student responses highlight
the need for a consistent approach by academics in using Blackboard, so that students know
what to expect from Blackboard, across all units. Several responses indicated ‘customisation’
of particular unit sites is frustrating: ‘it is just ridiculous trying to navigate through them’.
‘Give staff guidelines to group all information and documents that they want to give students
[so it is the same across units]’ and ‘… have universal structures to Blackboard pages’.
Staff say
Across all focus groups there was a high level of concern for the support available for students.
Respondents have indicated there needs to be caution regarding the number of different
applications students could be required to learn. In particular, course level management of
technologies, and support strategies such as student peer support and online learning
modules, will be needed, to ensure students are not overwhelmed when required to learn new
tools and technologies.
Comments
Some staff identify the VLE as being largely synonymous with QUT Blackboard. However, as
discussed in R1.2 and R1.4, the VLE should be a collection of educational technologies that
enables learning diversity. Therefore, this recommendation suggests two changes. Firstly, the
VLE should be represented as an integrated system in a way that makes sense from a userperspective (i.e. academic staff user, student user) rather than a service or departmental one.
Figure 2 shows how the University of Southern Queensland represents eLearning Environments
to academic staff.
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There are a number of worthwhile features of this representation:
•
Staff can access all relevant information about the VLE from one dashboard.
•
Generic terms are used (e.g. ‘Virtual Classrooms’ instead of the name of the tool) which
can accommodate greater flexibility in adding/removing tools and for staff in gaining
broader understanding of a particular educational technology.
•
Subsequent web pages (e.g. ‘Presentation Capture’) each provide information in a
consistent and logical manner: pedagogical uses of the technology; technical guides;
common FAQs; and short video case studies.
•
The ‘Learning and Teaching Tools Matrix’ (middle left) clarifies uses of the VLE by
recommending tools for the learning and teaching contexts of: Presentation Capture,
Virtual Conferencing, Voice Tools, Moodle Tools, Media Enhancements, Assessment Tools,
Virtual Worlds, and USQ ePortfolio.
Moreover, current students are presented with a similar looking dashboard which includes a
calendar as shown in Figure 3 (see next page). Importantly, and as currently occurs with QUT
Blackboard tipsheets, there needs to be consistency between the VLE representations and
resources for both staff and students.
Steering Committee members also raised the need to consider a closer integration with QUT
Virtual in order to work towards a unified portal for students. It is important to note that, in
contrast to the USQ examples shown, QUT staff and student dashboards would include
additional dynamic and social elements (e.g. video, image slide shows, presentations, Twitter
feeds etc.) to highlight topical blended learning initiatives and projects (discussed in R3.1).
Figure 2: Staff VLE dashboard, USQ (http://www.usq.edu.au/ele)
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Figure 3: Student dashboard, USQ (http://www.usq.edu.au/current-students)
Secondly, the VLE should be branded by using a more generic name that is not related to one
particular tool or system (which is the case for ‘QUT Blackboard’). For example, Macquarie
University has recently changed to Moodle and the VLE is known to students as ‘iLearn’ and to
academic staff as ‘iTeach’ with ‘iShare’ used for the content management system (VLE names
for Australian universities are listed in Appendix B). Selecting a more meaningful identity for
the VLE (such as ‘QUT Learn’, ‘QUT Online’ or ‘Learn@QUT’) may enable staff to gain a broader
appreciation of the range of educational technologies available and would more easily
accommodate any changes within the distributed VLE model outlined in R1.2.
R2.1 Implementation focus
Brand the VLE to convey a new identity and produce accessible VLE dashboards for
staff and students.
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R2.2: QUT should improve QUT Blackboard as part of the VLE while
experimenting with alternative tools to provide extended functionality
Students say
They do not want change, too quickly. ‘Don’t change too much overnight [need stability, do
not disrupt learning].
‘Blackboard is a great hub for students’.
‘Blackboard and virtual act as a 1-stop hub for all my study purposes.’
Staff say
Stakeholders were asked to identify both strengths and weaknesses of Blackboard. They were
quick and emphatic in doing so.
‘Blackboard is only a tool — the VLE should be so much more’.
‘There needs to be greater flexibility of architectures behind it (VLE)’.
Both focus group and faculty responses indicated that access to central support services and
dedicated learning designers was the major strength of the current VLE.
The major weakness of the VLE, and more specifically Blackboard, was the lack of integration:
‘nothing integrates; Blackboard and Collaborate are very poor tools [in certain units];
Blackboard is unable to effect the connections required to deliver effectively, online or
remotely; communication between QUT systems is ‘crippling’. There was the perception by
many participants that existing Blackboard tools [wiki, blog, and discussion forum] actively
‘block’ the use of third party tools which are perceived to do a much better job e.g. freely
available wiki and blog tools.
Perceptions of the capacity of the VLE, to meet learning and teaching needs, appeared
subjective and perhaps context bound, as responses identified specific elements as both
strength and weakness. Elements such as Blackboard Collaborate, quizzes, wikis and blogs
were useful to some respondents and a necessary evil to others. In both the
faculty/department responses and the focus groups, the predictable, uniform, orderly,
templated, rigid, ‘uninteresting’ nature of the Blackboard environment was negatively seen as
stifling creativity but positively seen as providing a predictable and stable environment for
users.
Despite the criticisms there was no suggestion that Blackboard should be replaced by an
alternative LMS solution. Rather, there was a strong feeling across all focus groups and
responses that the VLE must be flexible and integrated and that this integration includes not
only learning and teaching technologies and the LMS, Blackboard, but ‘external’ QUT systems
to ensure flexibility of academic calendar, enrolment, administrative processes such as
assessment sign offs and workflows, timetabling of resources. The responses indicate a sense
of what a VLE should do, functionally, rather than what ‘product’ it should be.
The majority of interview responses also did not indicate that change to a different LMS was
needed. Rather, responses highlighted that our investment in technology should always build
towards the flexible delivery that will engage digital natives and future learners [regardless of
platforms/software/systems being used]. The QUT Business School response noted that
significant investment has been made in academic staff becoming accustomed to using
Blackboard. As such, a change of LMS is not warranted at present.
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Comments
This recommendation states that QUT use Blackboard as its core component in a distributed
VLE (as outlined in R1.2). Even though this review acknowledges legitimate concerns with
current appearance and functionality of this LMS, there are a number of factors that has
influenced this recommendation.
A high level comparative analysis of the features and layout of other LMS alternatives, namely,
Moodle and Desire2Learn are not significantly beneficial to require a change. For example,
Moodle has some similarities with QUT Blackboard regarding the left navigation, breadcrumbs
and central content area. It could be argued that Blackboard and these LMS alternatives are
attempting to address similar issues of personalised learning—integration with social media
tools, online assessment, providing learning object repositories and creating open spaces for
MOOC offerings. eLearning Services staff think that a convergence of functionality is taking
place. However, it is worth noting that the Desire2Learn ePortfolio tool (mentioned in R1.2), its
adaptive learning functionality and more contemporary and accessible user interface merit
ongoing investigation, as does Desire2Learn’s Degree Compass tool.
The LMS market share timeline for the United States shown in Figure 4 indicates the respective
influences of LMS products including the recent emergence of a variety of MOOC platforms
such as Canvas. Importantly, this reveals how Blackboard has grown from a range of products
and will probably continue to do so. For example, it acquired the web-conferencing tools
Elluminate and Wimba in 2011 to create Blackboard Collaborate, and it has recently released
an ex-Moodle tool now called ‘Polls’ which is a web-based student response system (refer to
http://polls.bb). Similarly, partnerships are formed with other vendors such as Pearson to
enable integration with Blackboard products. Blackboard Inc. went through a leadership
change last year. Expert advice from Gartner to QUT has indicated that the new leadership
team are more attuned to the need to partner with their clients rather than just sell to them.
Growing competition is also putting pressure on the company to improve products and
solutions. QUT is positioned to benefit from these changes providing they are useful and
available in a timely manner.
Figure 4: LMS market share in the USA (Claremont Graduate University, 2012)
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It is important to acknowledge that the Blackboard LMS does have limitations in addressing
some of the QUT learning and teaching needs, and that the distributed VLE needs to track,
address and communicate important concerns such as how to provide access to participants
external to QUT, deliver online quizzes more effectively, create a more user-friendly dashboard
for students, and deal with large file sizes.
Finally, other developments to be followed that may influence the future form of the VLE are:
•
The inclusion of Google Apps for Education:
–
see http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/education/
•
The use of wiki and/or blog spaces for QUT staff and students outside of QUT Blackboard
•
The design and pedagogical use of MOOC platforms
•
Publisher platforms such as Pearson:
–
see http://catalogue.pearsoned.co.uk/institutions/elearning/index.page
•
Learning Object Repositories such as Blackboard xpLor:
–
see http://www.blackboard.com/sites/xplor/
•
The creation and integration of open education resources.
R2.2. Implementation focus
Develop a 3–5 year roadmap for the VLE based on an on-going evaluation of learning
and teaching needs in consultation with key stakeholders. [An example roadmap
from USQ is shown below in Figure 5.]
Figure 5: VLE roadmap (University of Southern Queensland)
http://www.usq.edu.au/ele/~/media/USQ/learnteach/LandT_RoadmapV1_13.ashx
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3. Improved and focused support for staff
There was agreement across stakeholder groups consulted that investment in staff capability
building is the most important cornerstone of the successful use of digital technologies in
learning and teaching. The starting point for this must be specific learning and teaching needs
and desired learning outcomes, with appropriate learning design driving the use of technology
rather than technology availability. While current activities are seen as valuable, there was a
strong emphasis on increasing opportunities and support for Communities of Practice enabling
staff to connect with one another and exchange ideas and good practice. Staff also raised the
need to acknowledge the time and effort required, and to have resources and structures in
place to encourage, enable and reward staff involvement in these activities.
Based on these premises, the review recommendations are to base capability building
programs on defined and agreed learning and teaching needs; and to review current supports
with a view to design a range of refreshed learning, collaboration and training opportunities to
enable staff to effectively support their students’ learning with technology.
R3.1: QUT should prioritise, address and highlight specific learning and
teaching needs and initiatives
Students say
Cutting edge technology that students want is ‘online assignment submission; ebooks,
e-textbooks; interactive lecture notes; better mobile access.’ [ECAR Survey]
‘If there is not at least recorded lecture, then a subject should not be made available to
external students.’
‘The weekly tutorials via Collaborate were a god-send ... I wish every unit with external
students did that.’
Online lectures had ‘minimal opportunities for feedback, lack of human contact, poor audio
quality, ability to discuss in depth [using Blackboard Collaborate].’
‘The lecturer was unable to engage with the cohort via the e-lecture.’
‘Blackboard does not allow much interaction…set up groups on other platforms such as
Facebook, Google+ and Twitter for ease of use.’
Staff say
‘We must be able to promote connectivity between “student and student” and “students and
teachers’’’.
‘We need spaces [online and physical] where students can share and collaborate, spaces that
work’ [referring to difficulty with Collaborate]. ‘There are currently no spaces on campus where
students can meet and collaborate with students who are online’.
Across all focus groups and faculty responses there was a clear indication that the VLE must
facilitate collaboration and sharing between all users and user groups. Responses suggested
there should be specific tools to enable different types of collaboration such as small and large
groups, shared spaces and private meeting spaces, study group spaces, while catering to the
‘fragmented attendance’ of learners. The current VLE does not include robust collaboration and
sharing tools—video conferencing; video upload which works smoothly; Collaborate drops out.
There is a lack of support for collaborative learning spaces.
Professor Peter Little noted that ‘the market’ [CPE] does not want current delivery models;
change must be achieved ‘soon’ to meet learner demands. If we are to secure this ‘third
income stream’ change needs to be effected as soon as possible.
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He also highlighted the need for RPL capacity to develop in line with CPE. The future VLE will
need to support the growth of RPL activity, through systems/functions which enable RPL
management.
The need for mobile agility was a common theme across all stakeholder meetings. Academic
staff, professional staff and students are keen to have the VLE accessible via mobile devices.
In the focus groups there was a very strong sense that being able to access and fully utilise
the VLE on ‘any’ device is crucial to student engagement.
Comments
Key to the success of the VLE is its ability to support current and future pedagogies by
providing effective solutions for learning and teaching problems (i.e. rather than using
technology for its own sake). As a result, this recommendation suggests that by identifying
and prioritising particular pedagogical needs, suitable combinations of VLE technologies can be
implemented and the outcomes (i.e. successes and challenges) then need to be shared with
the wider QUT community.
Consultation revealed that academic staff are concerned about how best to implement blended
learning approaches to achieve the right balance between synchronous and synchronous
activities; to provide equitable, not necessarily equal, learner experiences; to not overwhelm
students with too many technologies during a course; to gradually develop the digital literacy
skills of students across a course; and to produce scalable and sustainable solutions.
The Horizon Report Technology Outlook for Australian Tertiary Education 2013–2018 lists the
top 12 trends for global and Australian higher education institutions (see Appendix D).
Similarly, Open University, UK has now released two reports about Innovating Pedagogies
(refer to Appendix E). These reports illustrate how rapidly the educational technology
landscape is changing. To make sense of this for a QUT context requires regular feedback and
consultation with staff and students (mentioned in R4.1).
Based on student and staff feedback in this review, current pedagogical needs include the
following:
•
Using a flipped classroom approach:
–
Making this work is important when students are demanding access to lecture
recordings.
•
Teaching face-to-face and online students at the same time:
–
Insight survey comments show that the learning experience for online students is
sometimes inferior to that for face-to-face students. Some staff use Blackboard
Collaborate to do so, whereas this tool is designed primarily for webinar use.
•
Sourcing, creating, presenting, sharing and publicising content (for both staff and
students):
–
A variety of more accessible and interactive forms of media are required to allow for
more personalised and connected forms of learning.
•
Mobile learning:
–
Participation in live events; viewing recordings; creating and sharing content back to
the VLE are important as is the ability for students to use their own mobile devices
and mobile apps that enhance learning.
•
Team collaboration, communication and interaction:
–
This is vital for problem based learning and other collaborative learning approaches.
•
Online assessment:
–
Designing, embedding into Blackboard unit sites and managing formative and
summative quizzes is considered necessary.
•
Developing and delivering MOOCs.
•
Learning and teaching in collaborative learning environments (this has been a significant
focus for QUT with further details available from
http://www.els.qut.edu.au/blendedlearning/latice/index.jsp).
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Finally, staff also need to be informed of what the VLE is not capable of doing and what
alternatives exist or are being planned for inclusion. Therefore, the VLE dashboard outlined in
R2.1 should be designed to showcase learning and teaching initiatives and summarise known
challenges and alternatives when working with individual or groups of tools.
R3.1 Implementation focus
Use the VLE to help address key pedagogical priorities and communicate the
resulting outcomes to staff and students.
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R3.2: QUT should refresh the support mechanisms for staff to use the VLE
effectively in their teaching
Students say
Students emphasised the need for staff to fully understand the technologies being
implemented: ‘it’s a joke sometimes… lecturers should be technology literate’; ‘Students have
to learn to be multifaceted… so lecturers should learn to use technology.’
‘Some lecturers are hopeless with using the technology… which greatly impacts on learning’.
This has ramifications for the institution in terms of staff training and support.
Staff say
‘The current support model for use of technology is much too restricted. Support must be
available on an “as needs” basis and 24/7.’
The focus groups and faculty respondents felt strongly that support needs to be available when
and where it is required [both online and in the physical space]. [Students and] staff need to
be able to ‘see’ where they can go to fix a particular problem. They particularly mentioned the
lack of ‘fit’ between the learning and teaching ‘window’ and the support ‘window’. There was a
view that IT support at QUT has a closed approach; that it [the support model] is ‘this is how
we will support you’ rather than ‘how can we support you’? Both academic and professional
[support] staff want a space/function in the VLE where they can state their support/training
needs and locate suitable resources. Staff believe the support and training process needs to be
underpinned by user feedback [from both staff and students] to enable innovative use of
technology for learning and teaching. Now and into the future creative solutions will be
required to ensure all learning spaces are supported.
The eLearning Services expert focus group highlighted the need for support ‘before a
technology is mis-utilised’; ‘some of the ideas they [academics] generate don’t match up with
the system … e.g. large videos and images not able to be uploaded’. ‘Support to help
academics choose appropriate technologies would save valuable time’. Expert support staff
want resourcing to provide the support needed by academics, ‘staff know what they want to do
in Blackboard; we need to support them to do it’.
All focus groups indicated there is a need for larger teams of learning designers both centrally
and at Faculty level, to support academic staff. The expert focus group emphasised the value
of training faculty-based administration staff, so they can support a range of tools, within
faculty. Professor Peter Little also emphasised this view, noting the changing nature of the
academic role. ‘Most of our academics are discipline experts’ and need to be ably supported by
teams of learning designers and IT experts to enable the delivery of discipline content through
a flexible and integrated system.
The LTU response noted that the QUT culture is a barrier to and does not support
experimentation (which is seen as a critical necessary phase of technology adoption and use
for learning and teaching). This was a strong theme of all focus groups in terms of workload,
support, training and resourcing.
There was a significant number of responses calling for dedicated/planned opportunities, both
face to face and online, for practitioners [both academic and technical] to share application of
technologies for learning and teaching activity. Staff want to share what they are doing, learn
from and be supported by their peers, and have this activity valued in terms of workload and
resourcing. Staff say this is critical for technology innovation in learning and teaching.
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Comments
For staff to successfully address specific pedagogical challenges as mentioned in R3.1, a
suitable range of support mechanisms must be put in place. This requires careful consideration
of staffing, capability building strategies and support availability.
On examination of 33 ALTC projects, Keppell et al. (2011) determined ten outcomes that
represent best practice for technology-enhanced learning and teaching (shown in Appendix D)
with the following three relevant to capability building and which are approaches that have
been already introduced at QUT:
1. A focus on learning design allows academics to model and share good
practice in learning and teaching.
3. Successful academic development focuses on engaging academics over
sustained periods of time through action learning cycles and the provision of
leadership development opportunities.
7. Knowledge and resource sharing are central to a vibrant community of
practice.
More recently, the Horizon Report Technology Outlook 2013–2018 lists the top ten challenges
faced by Australian tertiary institutions (shown in Appendix D):
1. Faculty training still does not acknowledge the fact that digital media
literacy continues its rise in importance as a key skill in every discipline
and profession.
2. Most academics are not using new and compelling technologies for
learning and teaching, nor for organising their own research.
3. The demand for personalised learning is not adequately supported by
current technology or practices.
4. New models of education are bringing unprecedented competition to the
traditional models of tertiary education.
5. Our organisations are not set up to promote innovation in teaching.
(Johnson et al., 2013, pp. 17–18)
In other words, and as noted in R1.4, capability building should also focus on personalised
learning, the development of digital literacy skills and an exploration of alternatives to
traditional teaching approaches and should draw on research and good practice in workplace
learning. Academic development approaches that have been successfully used at QUT are
listed in the next table, as are other possibilities for consideration.
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Approach
Examples
• Online guides, case studies, exemplars (as described in R2.1)
Just-in-time,
self-help
resources
• These may come from the vendor or produced by QUT
Training
• Generic and customised workshops
• Extended blended learning programs
• Intensive training such as Flexible Learning at Macquarie—FLAME, a 16-hour
program delivered during semester breaks to assist staff in preparing
units
for
the
following
semester
(Macquarie
University):
http://staff.mq.edu.au/teaching/workshops_programs/flame/
Showcase events
• Making Connections
• Symposia (e.g. LATICE Symposium)
Design-based
research
Collaborative,
experiential
approaches
• Research into uses of the VLE
• Professional and/or academic staff presenting at conferences, co-writing papers
• Crowdsourcing using QUT Sharing Ideas: http://ideas.qut.edu.au
• Crowdsourcing sprints such as the Educause 2013 3-day MOOC sprint:
http://www.educause.edu/events/educause-sprint-2013
• Submit an app (Mesa Community College, Arizona): http://ctl.mesacc.edu/blooms/
(shown in Figure 6 on the next page)
• Team-based projects (e.g. Bachelor of Science development)
• Learning Design Live webinars using Blackboard Collaborate
• LATICE training in collaborative learning spaces
• Designing for Learning Scoop it (University
http://www.scoop.it/u/uws-blended-learning
Standards,
Checklists
Learning Design
tools
of
Western
Sydney):
• QUT Blackboard Site Design Guide (community site)
• Blended
Learning
Standards
(University
of
Western
Sydney):
http://www.uws.edu.au/qilt/qilt/blended_learning/blended_learning_resources
• Pedagogical Pattern Collector: http://www.ld-grid.org/resources/tools/pedagogicalpattern-collector
• ePrimer series (Aoteraroa National Centre for Tertiary Teaching Excellence):
http://akoaotearoa.ac.nz/eprimer-series
Accredited
programs
• Graduate Certificate in Academic Practice (delivered by QUT’s Learning and
Teaching Unit)
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Providing opportunities for staff to participate in communities of practice that involve
knowledge sharing using online tools may be one approach to responding to rapid pedagogical
and technological change. For example, the ‘Submit An App’ approach (shown below in
Figure 6) may be one way that all QUT staff could participate in sharing and tagging apps
(e.g. according to their relevance for a particular discipline or a framework such as Blooms
Taxonomy). This crowdsourcing approach could also be applied to specific pedagogies and
other tools.
Figure 6: Submit An App (Mesa Community College, Arizona)
R3.2 Implementation focus
Develop focused capability building strategies in close collaboration with key
stakeholders to meet the needs of different learner groups. Review the support
requirements for staff in the design, development, enactment and review phases of
learning and teaching activities, with a particular focus on just-in-time support in
the enactment phase.
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4. Ongoing evaluation and review
At a time of rapid technology development and change, it is imperative to continually evaluate
and review the effectiveness of the VLE, and to recognise that plans need to be flexible to
ensure new developments can be taken on board. By re-conceptualising the VLE as a network
of systems and tools which will be in constant flux (particularly at the more loosely defined
levels), it is important to have a collaborative approach to evaluating and reviewing the
effectiveness and fit for purpose of the VLE on an ongoing basis. Therefore, it is recommended
to review the VLE frequently and regularly, and to develop a shared framework for ongoing
evaluation that includes input from all stakeholder groups.
R4.1: QUT should evaluate on a regular basis the effectiveness of the VLE
Students say
There are many responses citing the ‘lack of consistency’ in presenting materials in Blackboard
is a major frustration for students: ‘there were many folders on the ‘learning resources’ section
of Blackboard with nothing in them’; ‘the blackboard site was a complete mess’; and ‘it’s
ridiculous to try to keep up with a dozen separate wikis [in Blackboard]’. Comments such as
these may indicate the need for comprehensive evaluation of the VLE, to include not only
potential for supporting learning and teaching but actual use.
‘Students are only moderately interested in early-alert learner analytics and guidance about
course offerings’ p. 35 (ECAR, 2013).
Staff say
‘There must be an institutional, collaborative approach to the ongoing development of any
future VLE…there needs to be an evidence base for the development of the VLE’.
This quote exemplifies a major theme which arose from both focus groups and
group/individual responses across all stakeholder groups. Focus group responses indicate that
users expect a formalised process of ongoing updating of the ‘toolbox’ of supported
technologies which comprise the VLE.
All focus groups requested the use of statistics and analytics from the VLE to be self-generated
[rather than requested from a third party] as appropriate for units and courses of study. There
was an equivalent call for analytics and statistics to be available to students to inform their
learning, study planning and make explicit the progress through their courses of study.
Technical development staff stated the need to keep logs such as a ‘problem register’ which
informs future development.
Faculty responses indicated the need to look at technologies students already use; ask
students what they need in a VLE and give students regular opportunities to give feedback on
the VLE. These ideas can then inform ongoing development of the VLE. [Interestingly this view
did not arise during the focus groups.] The number of comments and responses to ideas
posted by students during the VLE Review Sharing Ideas campaign suggests this could be an
achievable evaluation strategy [105 students; 18 ideas; >200 votes]. This strategy could also
be used to encourage staff participation in the VLE evaluation.
Comments
The ongoing evolution of the VLE needs to be informed by a continuous improvement
approach. This could include the use and/or modification of existing processes and the
implementation of more streamlined ones.
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Evidence of impact could be obtained from:
•
VLE usage data. However, it is has been challenging to obtain meaningful usage data for
this review indicating data collection approaches need to be improved. Note that eLearning
Services has used Google Analytics from the start of 2013 to track activity in QUT
Blackboard to explore the benefits of this approach.
•
Faculty review processes (including the Insight survey).
•
Student reflections on their use of the VLE (e.g. via a blog, Twitter, etc.).
•
Monitoring IT Helpdesk and Blackboard Support queries.
•
Feedback from existing communities of practice.
•
Evaluation of the piloting of emerging technologies.
•
Crowdsourcing campaigns using QUT Sharing Ideas (see http://ideas.qut.edu.au).
•
Data interpretations from QUT Analytics (including process mining).
•
Learning and teaching publications and presentations (i.e. for conferences or workshops).
For example, Appendix E lists QUT ePrints publications related to the use of
web-conferencing approaches.
•
Benchmarking activities.
•
Analytics data from of the hits on VLE resources web pages.
•
Feedback from staff about QUT training.
•
Staff and student focus groups.
R4.1 Implementation focus
Adopt a shared, flexible approach to the continual evaluation and review of the VLE
to respond to emerging staff and student needs.
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Next steps
Endorsement of the recommendations resulting from the VLE Review will be sought from the
Learning Environments Working Party and then the University Learning and Teaching
Committee. eLearning Services, in conjunction with other stakeholders, will then take steps to
produce an implementation plan in early 2014 to prioritise activities arising from the
recommendations for the short, medium and long term.
Note that Dr Stephen Marshall (Senior Lecturer, Victoria University Wellington) has provided a
draft evaluation of QUT’s VLE approach using the e-Learning Maturity Model, which will also be
useful in informing future directions. Refer to Marshall (2010) for an explanation of this model.
References
Australian Education Network. (2013). Student numbers at Australian universities. Retrieved
from http://www.australianuniversities.com.au/directory/student-numbers/
Ballard, J. (2013). Learner engagement: A metric for
http://www.slideshare.net/JamesBallard2/learner-engagement
learning.
Retrieved
from
Breen, R. (2006). A practical guide to focus-group research. Journal of Geography in Higher
Education, 30(3), 463–475.
Carroll, J.-A., Diaz, A., Meiklejohn, J., Newcomb, M., & Adkins, B. (2013). Collaboration and
competition on a wiki: The praxis of online social learning to improve academic writing and
research in under-graduate students. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 29(4),
513–525. Retrieved from
http://ascilite.org.au/ajet/submission/index.php/AJET/article/view/154/607
Claremont Graduate University. (2012). LMS market share for all institutions. Retrieved from
http://sites.cgu.edu/lms-review/additional-material/lms-marketshare-for-all-institutions/
Deakin University. ePortfolio overview. Retrieved from
http://www.deakin.edu.au/students/clouddeakin/help-guides/eportfolio/eportfolio-overview
Kitzinger, J. (1994). The methodology of focus groups: The importance of interaction between
research participants. Sociology of Health & Illness, 16(1), 103–121.
Marshall, S. (2010). A quality framework for continuous improvement of e-learning: The
e-learning maturity model. Journal of Distance Education, 24(1), 143–166. Retrieved from
http://www.jofde.ca/index.php/jde/article/view/606
Mott, J., & Wiley, D. (2009). Open for learning: The CMS and the Open Learning Network. In
education, 15(2), 1–10. Retrieved from
http://ineducation.ca/index.php/ineducation/article/view/53/529
Smith,
S.
R.
(2013).
The
connected
learning
environment.
Retrieved
http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/connected-learning-environment
from
Stubbs, M. (2010). Outcomes of learning technologies review. Retrieved
http://lrt.mmu.ac.uk/ltreview/2010/03/04/outcome-of-learning-technologies-review/
from
University of Southern Queensland. Teaching support: eLearning environments at USQ.
Retrieved from http://www.usq.edu.au/ele
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Appendices
Appendix A: Focus group methodology
Focus groups are ‘group discussions organised to explore a specific set of issues’. The
discussion focuses on a set of pre-determined questions designed to stimulate but not limit the
discussion. Focus groups are distinguished from general group discussions by the interaction
possible between participants (Kitzinger, 1994, p. 1). All participants in the VLE Focus groups
have an interest in the Virtual Learning Environment at QUT, in academic and professional
roles. Participants were recruited by email through the Assistant Deans Teaching and Learning
and the Faculty Administration Managers. With reference to the objectives of the review, and
drawing on the experience of project team members, stimulus questions (see table below)
elicited responses from and engendered discussion between participants, regardless of their
mode of engagement with the current QUT VLE. It was essential that focus group participants
had a clear understanding of the purpose for the focus group and the concept or issue being
explored. Figure 7 shows the current elements of the VLE as explained to all focus group
participants. The institution concept of the current VLE was explained, to all participants, as it
realised that many individuals at QUT consider Blackboard to be the entire VLE, rather than
just one element of what is a multi-faceted system.
Owing to time constraints of the project, a formal pilot phase was not carried out. Feedback
from the initial focus group was used to inform modification of the approach for subsequent
sessions. As a result, two strategies, recommended by Breen (2006), were used to minimise
possible negative factors. Firstly, the stimulus questions were sent to participants prior to the
remaining focus group sessions so they had time to consider what was being asked. Secondly,
session duration was extended (up to two hours) to allow time for participants to seek
clarification about the concepts arising from the questions. A third strategy, small group
discussion, was introduced in subsequent focus groups as a warm up exercise as
recommended by Kitzinger (1994). Participants broke into smaller groups to discuss their ideas
pertaining to the first question. This encouraged participants to engage with each other, thus
giving greater opportunity to clarify understandings before responding to the moderator.
Focus group questions
Academic and professional staff responded to the following questions:
1.
What does Learning and Teaching look like in 2020?
2.
What capabilities/functions should a VLE of 2020 have to support learning and teaching activities?
3.
What would you like to be able to do within a Virtual Learning Environment to enhance your teaching
and to ensure learning objectives are achieved?
4.
What do you see as the constraints of the current VLE? [What is the impact on your teaching/on
faculty? What would make your teaching more effective?]
5.
What do you see as the strengths of the current VLE?
6.
Are you currently using other online technologies in your teaching that are not supported by the
current VLE? [What are they? Should they be considered for QUT’s future VLE?]
7.
What support do you need to move towards the VLE of the future? (i.e. policy, processes,
technology, personal, teaching?)
8.
What does the university need to think about in terms of supporting: Academic staff; Professional
staff; Students?
9.
Are there any further comments or questions?
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Figure 7: VLE explanation for project participants
Data analysis
Saturation point of a focus group series is the point at which no new themes emerge. This
point is an indication that sufficient focus groups have been conducted for the purpose (Breen,
2006). In the present study, this point was identified between the third and fourth focus
groups. At this point, it was predicted that no new themes would appear and this prediction
was borne out in the remaining five sessions. It is also interesting to note that there were no
mutually exclusive themes.
Breen (2006) suggests two good indicators of the reliability of your focus group data are ‘the
extent to which participants agreed/disagreed on issues and the frequency with which
participants change their opinions’ about an issue. This indicates that the major themes
emerging from the VLE focus groups are reliable as the extent of agreement across the
responses is very high and there was no noticeable changing of opinion among the participants
of any group.
Breen (2006) notes ‘the extensiveness, intensity and specificity of comments made’, adds
more weight to those comments. There were several themes which could be weighted heavily
based on the conviction and emphasis of the respondents in the current study. These are
detailed in the following section. The session moderator noted comments on a whiteboard so
participants could track the discussion and a dedicated note-taker recorded responses to
minimise moderator bias (Breen, 2006).
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Themes
There were more than 1000 responses from the focus groups and these were coded to identify
underlying themes. The codes were moderated by the group facilitator and the note-taker to
minimise bias. Responses were consolidated based on the stimulus question which invoked
them. Similar themes emerged under multiple stimulus questions. The themes identified from
the focus groups formed the basis of the analysis and categorisation of responses resulting
from other consultation techniques and the investigations into current trends and possible VLE
approaches.
Note that QUT staff and students who were consulted during the review were able to access
the project blog—https://blogs.intranet.qut.edu.au/vle-review/—to become familiar with the
objectives, approaches and activities of the review.
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Appendix B: Learning Management Systems used in Australian
universities
In Australia 21 universities use Blackboard (Bb), 14 Moodle (M) and three Desire2Learn (D2L)
as listed below. Full-time student numbers are from the Australian Education Network (2013).
University name
No. FT
students
LMS
Name of VLE
University of Sydney
51 163
Bb
MyUni
University of Melbourne
45 438
Bb
my.unimelb.edu.au
University of Queensland
43 830
Bb
My.UQ
Griffith University
41 788
Bb
Griffith Online
Queensland University of Technology
41 786
Bb
QUT Virtual / QUT Blackboard
University of Western Sydney
37 716
Bb
My UWS
Curtin University
36 773
Bb
Curtin Learning and Teaching
Charles Sturt University
35 929
Bb
Interact CSU
RMIT University
35 776
Bb
myRMIT
University of Technology, Sydney
34 609
Bb
UTSOnline
University of Newcastle
30 332
Bb
UoNline
Edith Cowan University
24 800
Bb
Student intranet / Learning intranet
University of Adelaide
23 281
Bb
MyUni
Swinburne University of Technology
20 196
Bb
Swinburne Online
Australian Catholic University
19 498
Bb
LEO—Learning Environment Online
James Cook University
16 292
Bb
LearnJCU
Southern Cross University
13 393
Bb
MySCU
University of the Sunshine Coast
8956
Bb
USC Portal
University of Notre Dame Australia
8853
Bb
Learnit
Charles Darwin University
7780
Bb
LearnLine
Bond University
6554
Bb
iLearn@Bond
Monash University
53 612
M
my.monash
University of New South Wales
49 487
M
myUNSW
Macquarie University
36 363
M
iLearn / iTeach / iShare
La Trobe University
30 850
M
Learning Management System
University of South Australia
29 938
M
myUniSA
University of Southern Queensland
25 572
M
UConnect
University of Wollongong
22 838
M
SOLS—Student Online Services
University of Western Australia
21 562
M
My UWA
Central Queensland University
19 451
M
MyCQU
Australian National University
18 569
M
Wattle
University of New England
18 068
M
Learning Online @ UNE
Flinders University
17 385
M
FLO—Flinders Learning Online
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University name
No. FT
students
LMS
Name of VLE
Murdoch University
15 169
M
MyMurdoch
University of Canberra
13 826
M
Learnonline
University of Ballarat
10 684
M
Learning and Teaching @UB
Deakin University
38 229
D2L
CloudDeakin
Victoria University
22 336
D2L
MYVU Portal
University of Tasmania
19 466
D2L
MyLO—My Learning Online
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Appendix C: VLE usage data
Blackboard Mobile usage
The QUT Blackboard mobile app was released 6 July 2012. This data shows the page hits on
unit sites since then via the app and reveals the threefold increase in hits between Semester 2,
2012 and Semester 1, 2013. Note that data for semesters before the release date indicate that
students have been viewing past units.
Year
Semester 1
Semester 2
Summer
Semester
2010
481
522
99
2011
1207
1386
107
2012
6 872
139 021
19 111
2013
430 287
-
-
QUT ePortfolio
QUT offers an ePortfolio tool for students and a different tool for staff (with Mahara being
currently trialled as an alternative for academic staff).
Year
No. created
(student)
No. created
(staff)
2009/1 (Jan–Jun)
5448
324
2009/2 (Jul–Dec)
2971
378
2010/1 (Jan–Jun
4292
506
2010/2 (Jul–Dec)
2201
378
2011/1 (Jan–Jun
2622
287
2011/2 (Jul–Dec)
1738
214
2012/1 (Jan–Jun)
11 069
241
2012/2 (Jul–Dec)
4366
208
2013/1 (Jan–Jun)
7318
278
Note that a Student ePortfolio link was made available in the left navigation of all Blackboard
unit sites from the start of 2012 and this may have contributed to a spike in usage.
The total number of generic Student ePortfolios created is 26 058. However, some ePortfolios
have been customised for particular course requirements. Examples of the most prevalent use
are shown in the next table.
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No. customised
student ePortfolios
Cohort courses
BS05 Bachelor of Business
4993
NS40 Bachelor of Nursing
3352
ED38 Grad Dip in Education
1310
BS40 University Diploma in Business
822
ED90 Bachelor of Education (Secondary)
806
ED91 Bachelor of Education (Primary)
794
KK33 Bachelor of Creative Industries
618
IF49 Doctor of Philosophy
528
Blackboard Collaborate
Data below is shown for the use of the
web-conferencing tools from Blackboard sites.
Period
Elluminate
and
Blackboard
Collaborate
Recordings Downloads No. unique moderators No. unique participants
Elluminate Live!
Jan–Jun 2010
580
39 702
444
1583
Jul–Dec 2010
508
8592
196
1559
Jan–Jun 2011
920
15 390
423
2596
Jul–Dec 2011
885
17 807
390
2490
Elluminate Live! upgraded to Blackboard Collaborate in January 2012
Jan–Jun 2012
1133
36 052
451
3976
Jul–Dec 2012
2114
45 398
324
2440
Jan–Jun 2013
3150
80 741
351
3036
The data shows that since 2011 the number of recorded sessions has increased threefold and
the number of recording downloads has risen sharply by a factor of approximately four.
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Appendix D: Technology-enhanced learning and teaching trends
Part A. Technology Outlook—Australian Tertiary Education 2013–2018
The following summaries from Johnson et al. (2013) outline current trends and forecasts as
well as challenges faced by tertiary education in Australia.
Comparison of ‘Final 12’ Topics Across Three NMC Horizon Research Projects (p. 1)
NMC Horizon Report
Technology Outlook for
Technology Outlook for
2013 Higher Education Edition
Australian Tertiary Education
Australian Tertiary Education
(Global perspective)
2013–2018
2013–2017
Time-to-Adoption Horizon: One Year or Less
Flipped Classroom
Learning Analytics
Cloud Computing
Massive Open Online Courses
Massive Open Online Courses
Learning Analytics
Mobile Apps
Mobile Learning
Mobile Apps
Tablet Computing
Social Media
Tablet Computing
Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Two to Three Years
Augmented Reality
3D Printing
Digital Identity
Games and Gamification
Badges
Game-Based Learning
Information Visualisation
The Internet of Things
Open Content
Learning Analytics
Location-Based Services
Personal Learning Environments
Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Four to Five Years
3D Printing
Flexible Displays
New Generation Batteries
Wearable Technology
Flexible Displays
The Internet of Things
Virtual and Remote Laboratories
Wearable Technology
Digital Preservation
Massive Open Online Courses
Natural User Interfaces
Telepresence
Top Ten Trends Impacting Technology Decisions (pp. 17–18)
1. People expect to be able to work, learn, and study whenever and
wherever they want.
2. Education paradigms are shifting to include online learning, hybrid
learning, and collaborative models.
3. Openness — concepts like open content, open data, and open resources,
along with notions of transparency and easy access to data and
information — is becoming a value.
4. Massive open online courses are being widely explored as alternatives
and supplements to traditional university courses.
5. Increasingly, students want to use their own technology for learning.
6. As the abundance of resources and relationships made easily accessible
via the Internet grows, we are ever more challenged to revisit our roles
as educators.
7. There is a growing interest in using new sources of data for personalising
the learning experience and for performance measurement.
8. The technologies we use are more and more cloud-based, and our
notions of IT support are decentralised.
9. Social media is changing the way people interact, present ideas and
information, and judge the quality of content and contributions.
10. The workforce demands skills from university graduates that are more
often acquired from informal learning experiences than in universities.
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Top Ten Most Significant Challenges (pp. 19–20)
1. Faculty training still does not acknowledge the fact that digital media
literacy continues its rise in importance as a key skill in every discipline
and profession.
2. Most academics are not using new and compelling technologies for
learning and teaching, nor for organising their own research.
3. The demand for personalised learning is not adequately supported by
current technology or practices.
4. New models of education are bringing unprecedented competition to the
traditional models of tertiary education.
5. Our organisations are not set up to promote innovation in teaching.
6. Appropriate metrics of evaluation lag the emergence of new scholarly
forms of authoring, publishing, and researching.
7. Critical campus infrastructures are under-resourced.
8. Too often it is education’s own processes and practices that limit broader
uptake of new technologies.
9. Data mining is much more suited to courses run under business models
that can scale.
10. Commercial providers are delivering ever more credible educational
content, providing a wide range of customizable offerings at quality levels
that may dampen interest in traditional sources of scholarly work, such
as university presses, and even open educational resources.
Johnson, L., Adams Becker, S., Cummins, M., Freeman, A., Ifenthaler, D., & Vardaxis, N.
(2013). Technology outlook for Australian tertiary education 2013–2018: An NMC Horizon
project regional analysis. Austin, TX: The New Media Consortium. Retrieved from
http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2013-Technology-Outlook-for-Australian-Tertiary-Education.pdf
Part B. Innovating Pedagogy
The Open University, UK, has produced two reports for 2012 and 2013 that rank pedagogical
innovations that have some currency and which potentially may a profound influence on
education (Sharples et al., 2012; Sharples et al., 2013).
Rank 2012
2013
1
New pedagogy for e-books—Innovative ways of
teaching and learning with next-generation
e-books
MOOCs—Massive open online courses
2
Publisher-led short courses—Publishers
producing commercial short courses for leisure
and professional development
Badges to accredit learning—Open framework for
gaining recognition of skills and achievements
3
Assessment for learning—Assessment that
supports the learning process through diagnostic
feedback
Learning analytics—Data-driven analysis of
learning activities and environments
4
Badges to accredit learning—Open framework for Seamless learning—Connecting learning across
gaining recognition of skills and achievements
settings, technologies and activities
5
MOOCs—Massive open online courses
Crowd learning—Harnessing the local knowledge
of many people
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Rank 2012
2013
6
Rebirth of academic publishing—New forms of
open scholarly publishing
Digital scholarship—Scholarly practice through
networked technologies
7
Seamless learning—Connecting learning across
settings, technologies and activities
Geo-learning—Learning in and about locations
8
Learning analytics—Data-driven analysis of
learning activities and environments
Learning from gaming—Exploiting the power of
digital games for learning
9
Personal inquiry learning—Learning through
collaborative inquiry and active investigation
Maker culture—Learning by making
10
Rhizomatic learning—Knowledge constructed by
self-aware communities adapting to
environmental conditions
Citizen inquiry—Fusing inquiry-based learning
and citizen activism
Sharples, M., McAndrew, P., Weller, M., Ferguson, R., FitzGerald, E., Hirst, T., & Gaved, M.
(2013). Innovating pedagogy 2013: Open University innovation report 2. Milton Keynes: The
Open University. Retrieved from
http://www.open.ac.uk/personalpages/mike.sharples/Reports/Innovating_Pedagogy_report_2
013.pdf
Sharples, M., McAndrew, P., Weller, M., Ferguson, R., FitzGerald, E., Hirst, T., Mor, Y., Gaved,
M., & Whitelock, D. (2012). Innovating pedagogy 2012: Open University innovation report 1.
Milton Keynes: The Open University. Retrieved from
http://www.open.ac.uk/personalpages/mike.sharples/Reports/Innovating_Pedagogy_report_Ju
ly_2012.pdf
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Part C. Good Practice Report: Technology enhanced learning and teaching
Outcomes for best practice in TEL (Keppell et al., 2011, p. 2):
1. A focus on learning design allows academics to model and share good
practice in learning and teaching.
2. Authentic learning provides a means of engaging students through all
aspects of curricula, subjects, activities and assessment.
3. Successful academic development focuses on engaging academics over
sustained periods of time through action learning cycles and the provision
of leadership development opportunities.
4. Engaging teaching approaches are key to student learning.
5. Technology-enhanced assessment provides
academics to provide feedback to students.
flexible
approaches
for
6. Integrating technology-enhanced learning and teaching strategies across
curriculum, subjects, activities and assessment results in major benefits
to the discipline.
7. Knowledge and resource sharing are central to a vibrant community of
practice.
8. Academics require sophisticated online teaching strategies to effectively
teach in technology-enhanced higher education environments.
9. Academics need a knowledge of multi-literacies to teach effectively in
contemporary technology-enhanced higher education
10. Exemplar projects focused on multiple outcomes across curricula
integration,
sustainable
initiatives,
academic
development
and
community engagement.
Keppell, M., Suddaby, G., & Hard, N. (2012). Good practice report: Technology-enhanced
learning and teaching. Retrieved from http://www.olt.gov.au/resource-good-practice-reporttechnology-enhanced-learning-and-teaching-2011
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Appendix E: QUT ePrints publications related to web-conferencing
approaches
2013
Saghafi, Mahmoud Reza, Franz, Jill M., & Crowther, Philip (2013). A holistic model for blended
learning. Journal of Interactive Learning Research (JILR), 23(5). (In Press)
2012
Peach, Deborah, Gomez, Rafael E., & Czaplinski, Iwona (2012). Improving student
engagement through the integration of blended delivery approaches in WIL. In Campbell,
Matthew & Mather, Dinelli (Eds.) ACEN Conference 2012, 31 October – 2 November 2012,
University of Deakin, Geelong. (Unpublished)
Yule, Jennifer M., McNamara, Judith, & Thomas, Mark N. (2012). Reality Bytes: Using
Technology in Mooting. QUT Law and Justice Journal, 12(1), 89–104.
Saghafi, Mahmoud R., Franz, Jill, & Crowther, Philip (2012). Perceptions of physical versus
virtual design studio education. International Journal of Architectural Research, 6(1), 6–22.
Hughes, Hilary E. (2012). Informed cyberlearning : a case study. In Godwin, Peter & Parker, Jo
(Eds.) Information literacy beyond library 2.0. Facet Publishing, London, pp. 138-150.
Yule, Jennifer M., McNamara, Judith, & Thomas, Mark (2011). Reality bytes : technology in
real world legal education. In Australasian Law Teachers Association Conference (ALTA 2011),
3–6 July 2011, Stamford Hotel, Brisbane, QLD. (Unpublished)
2011
Butler, Desmond A. (2011). Using cost-effective multimedia to create engaging learning
experiences in law and other disciplines. Australian Learning and Teaching Council, Sydney
Australia.
Burnett, Bruce M. (2011). ICT for blended learning Queensland University of Technology,
Australia. In ICT for Higher Education Case Studies from Asia and the Pacific. UNESCO
Bangkok, Bangkok, pp. 78–102.
Butler, Desmond A. (2011). Technology : new horizons in teaching law. In Kift, Sally M.,
Sanson, Michelle, Cowley, Jill, & Watson, Penelope (Eds.) Excellence and Innovation in Legal
Education. LexisNexis Australia, North Ryde, NSW, pp. 460–496.
2010
Yule, Jennifer Margaret, McNamara, Judith, & Thomas, Mark N. (2010). Mooting and
technology : to what extent does using technology improve the mooting experience for
students? Legal Education Review, 20(1&2), 137–155.
2009
Fuller, Joanne (2009). Engaging students in large classes using Elluminate. In Proceedings of
ATEC 2009 14th Annual Australasian Teaching Economics Conference, School of Economics
and Finance, QUT, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland, pp. 84–97.
Yule, Jennifer M., McNamara, Judith, & Thomas, Mark N. (2009). Virtual mooting : using
technology to enhance the mooting experience. Journal of the Australasian Law Teachers
Association, 2(1 & 2), 231–243.
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