The Blended Learning Unit, University of Hertfordshire: A Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, Evaluation Report for HEFCE

The University of Hertfordshire’s Blended Learning Unit (BLU) was one of the 74 Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETLs) funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) between 2005 and 2010. This evaluation report follows HEFCE’s template. The first section provides statistical information about the BLU’s activity. The second section is an evaluative reflection responding to 13 questions. As well as articulating some of our achievements and the challenges we have faced, it also sets out how the BLU’s activity will continue and make a significant contribution to delivery of the University of Hertfordshire’s 2010-2015 strategic plan and its aspirations for a more sustainable future. At the University of Hertfordshire, we view Blended Learning as the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to enhance the learning and learning experience of campus-based students. The University has an excellent learning technology infrastructure that includes its VLE, StudyNet. StudyNet gives students access to a range of tools, resources and support 24/7 from anywhere in the world and its robustness, flexibility and ease of use have been fundamental to the success of the Blended Learning agenda at Hertfordshire. The BLU has comprised a management team, expert teachers seconded from around the University, professional support and a Student Consultant. The secondment staffing model was essential to the success of the BLU. As well as enabling the BLU to become fully staffed within the first five months of the CETL initiative, it has facilitated access to an invaluable spectrum of Blended Learning, research and Change Management expertise to inform pedagogically sound developments and enable change to be embedded across the institution. The BLU used much of its capital funding to reduce barriers to the use of technology by, for example, providing laptop computers for all academic staff in the institution, enhancing classroom technology provision and wirelessly enabling all teaching accommodation. Its recurrent funding has supported development opportunities for its own staff and staff around the institution; supported evaluation activities relating to individual projects and of the BLU’s own impact; and supported a wide range of communication and dissemination activities internally and externally. The BLU has led the embedding a cultural change in relation to Blended Learning at the University of Hertfordshire and its impact will be sustained. The BLU has produced a rich legacy of resources for our own staff and for others in the sector. The University’s increased capacity in Blended Learning benefits all our students and provides a learning experience that is expected by the new generation of learners in the 21st century. The BLU’s staffing model and partnership ways of working have directly informed the structure and modus operandi of the University’s Learning and Teaching Institute (LTI). Indeed a BLU team will continue to operate within the LTI and help drive and support the implementation of the University’s 2010-2015 Strategic plan. The plan includes ambitions in relation to Distance Learning and Flexible learning and BLU will be working to enable greater engagement with students with less or no need to travel to the university. As well as opening new markets within the UK and overseas, even greater flexibility for students will also enable the University to reduce its carbon footprint and provide a multifaceted contribution to our sustainability agenda. We conclude this executive summary with a short paragraph, written by Eeva Leinonen, our former Deputy Vice-Chancellor, which reflects our aspiration to transform Learning and Teaching at the University of Hertfordshire and more widely in the sector. ‘As Deputy Vice Chancellor at Hertfordshire I had the privilege to experience closely the excellent work of the Blended Learning Unit, and was very proud of the enormous impact the CETL had not only across the University but also nationally and internationally. However, perhaps true impact is hard to judge at such close range, but now as Vice Principal (Education) at King's College London, I can unequivocally say that Hertfordshire is indeed considered as the leading Blended Learning university in the sector. My new colleagues at King's and other Russell Group Universities frequently seek my views on the 'Hertfordshire Blended Learning' experience and are keen to emulate the successes achieved at an institutional wide scale. The Hertfordshire CETL undoubtedly achieved not only what it set out to achieve, but much more in terms of scale and impact. All those involved in this success can be justifiably proud of their achievements.’ Professor Eeva Leinonen, Vice Principal (Education), King's College, Londo

Challenges while MOOCifying a HE eLearning course on Universal Accessibility

There are some similarities in developing a traditional Higher Education (HE) eLearning course and MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), due to the use of the basis of eLearning instructional design. But in MOOCs, students should be continually influenced by information, social interactions and experiences forcing the faculty to come up with new approaches and ideas to develop a really engaging course. In this paper, the process of MOOCifying an online course on Universal Accessibility is detailed. The needed quality model is based upon the one used for all online degree programs at our university and on a variable metric specially designed for UNED MOOC courses making possible to control how each course was structured, what kind of resources were used and how activities, interaction and assessment were included. The learning activities were completely adapted, along with the content itself and the on-line assessment. For this purpose, the Gardner's Multiple Intelligences Product Grid has been selected

Understanding international users' library experience in the Digital Age – joining the behavioral and experiential aspects

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe, analyze and understand international users' library experience in the Digital Age in order to inform library service design and ensure it provides an inclusive environment. In this study, the behavioral and experiential aspects of user library experience are merged to develop essential interconnections between information behavior (IB) and user experience (UX) in the context of the academic library with the goal of constructing a more holistic understanding of ‘library experience. Design/methodology/approach: The study was built on the concept “library experience” through analyzing its essential components of IB and UX. It was developed through findings from mixed methods research, consisting of the quantitative investigation from a library log analysis, and qualitative investigations via cognitive mapping exercises and semi-structured interviews, both targeted on the largest single group of international students in United Kingdom – international Chinese students. Findings: The findings demonstrated the complexity and multilayered characteristics of international Chinese students' library context, and three unique contexts emerged from the data shaping their library experience. Building on the previous findings on the connections between IB and UX, the work attempted to redefine “library experience” by joining both behavioral and experiential aspects. It is found that the key components of cultural library experience are the multilayered context, cultural group's perception needs, sense-making process and subjective evaluations. Originality/value: This study joins the behavioral and experiential perspectives together to explore library experience in a more holistic way and proposes a systematic structure to understand and analyze library experience, especially that of international users in a cross-cultural context, which, in turn, will better serve their information needs and inform the design of a more equal and inclusive library system

KEER2022

Avanttítol: KEER2022. DiversitiesDescripció del recurs: 25 juliol 202

Composing @Play

Modern college students traverse the boundaries of traditional literacy daily. Maturing alongside Web 2.0 and multimodal social networking, these young people tweet, blog, email, film, photograph, illustrate, hyperlink, and compose their lives regardless of formal instruction. Therefore rhetorically analyzing a student\u27s recreational play with image, video, audio, and oral mediums often proves helpful for writing instructors who wish to better mentor and engage the communicative capacities of those born in the late 20th century and after. Yet few educators have actively pursued this line of inquiry over the last couple of decades. Many continue to favor traditional pairing of academic discourse with alphabetic literacy, logic, and media. Unfortunately, this means academic writing in general, and composition studies in particular, grow increasingly obsolete when facing a generation of young people whose nearly native relationship with new media encourages them to transcend the computer screen and channel their digital fluencies toward (re)composing physical reality. Few incidents illustrate the stakes and values of such conditions more clearly than the recent case of the Barefoot Bandit-a seemingly average teenager from Washington State, who made international headlines for his two-year joyride with reality: stealing vehicles, flying planes, evading police, robbing businesses, and hijacking the hearts of his peers. Armed with little more than an Apple laptop and iPod, Internet access allegedly sponsored the Barefoot Bandit\u27s specialized education in breaking the law. Not wishing to validate his unlawful behavior, my research awards importance rather to the hardly exceptional nature of his personal technologies, literacies, and motivations. In an age where any given American teenager may access the same technological resources, the lasting influence of formal education seems questionable when facing a digitally literate generation of perpetual bandits. By rhetorically analyzing the discursive conditions instigating young people to (re)compose their own educations, the following study elucidates and tests a new interpretive model for educators to use in assessing and challenging the abilities of a generation whose multifaceted literacies seem best nourished by banditry. For writing education to retain relevancy, composition pedagogues must look to the fringes of modern composing practices-where students (at least digitally) know and compose valuable non-institutional texts for diverse audiences

Novice evaluators' behavior when consolidating usability problems individually or collaboratively

Publisher's version (útgefin grein)An important, but resource demanding step in analyzing observations from usability evaluations is to consolidate usability problems (UPs) that were identified by several evaluators into one master list. An open question is whether consolidating UPs in pairs is cost-effective. A within-subject study examined if evaluators merge UPs differently when working in pairs than individually and what motivates their decisions. Eight novice evaluators took part. The number of discarded, retained and merged UPs, evaluators' confidence and severity of UPs in the two settings were measured. The results showed that UPs merged or discarded in the collaborative setting would rather be retained in the individual setting. Participants increased confidence and UP severity in the collaborative setting but decreased UP severity and confidence in the individual setting.Peer Reviewe

An Exploratory Study of the Impact of Language on the Transition and Success of Students in Their First College Year

ABSTRACT In a time where colleges and universities are taking strides to consider their communication strategies with incoming students there appears to be a lack of attention on the language within communication pieces and what messages that language conveys to students. This study sought to examine this language through inductive analysis of four research questions which explored what the communication pieces are, what relationship they build, the discourse language present, and the strategies of empowerment language within the communication pieces distributed to all incoming first-year students at a large, public comprehensive four-year university in the Southeastern United States. Research on college adjustment, student success, and making meaning was considered before explaining the creation of a rubric created to conduct analysis for this study using perspectives from Foucault (1972) and Weimer (2013). Results exposed the necessity of language balance, as well as the influence the communication process can have on a transactional relationship, the importance of word choice, opportunities to use language that can motivate choice and participation, and an emerging theme about the importance of a communication experience. Additional findings were related to the importance of mode and revisions to the rubric developed for this study which may serve as a model to develop and evaluate communication pieces. Implications for future research involve deeper exploration of the impact of language and understanding how language can influence other collegiate transitions. Implications for practice involve increased collaboration across departments toward communication experiences and bolstering language balance through intentionality and appropriate word choice for incoming first-year students