FORGE: An eLearning Framework for Remote Laboratory Experimentation on FIRE Testbed Infrastructure

The Forging Online Education through FIRE (FORGE) initiative provides educators and learners in higher education with access to world-class FIRE testbed infrastructure. FORGE supports experimentally driven research in an eLearning environment by complementing traditional classroom and online courses with interactive remote laboratory experiments. The project has achieved its objectives by defining and implementing a framework called FORGEBox. This framework offers the methodology, environment, tools and resources to support the creation of HTML-based online educational material capable accessing virtualized and physical FIRE testbed infrastruc- ture easily. FORGEBox also captures valuable quantitative and qualitative learning analytic information using questionnaires and Learning Analytics that can help optimise and support student learning. To date, FORGE has produced courses covering a wide range of networking and communication domains. These are freely available from FORGEBox.eu and have resulted in over 24,000 experiments undertaken by more than 1,800 students across 10 countries worldwide. This work has shown that the use of remote high- performance testbed facilities for hands-on remote experimentation can have a valuable impact on the learning experience for both educators and learners. Additionally, certain challenges in developing FIRE-based courseware have been identified, which has led to a set of recommendations in order to support the use of FIRE facilities for teaching and learning purposes

An evaluation of constructivism for learners with ADHD: Development of a constructivist pedagogy for special needs

We examine whether constructivist eLearning tools can be used to help learners cope with special educational needs, such as difficulties with attention and concentration. Preliminary work is reported here, in which we seek to determine the reasons why a constructivist approach is difficult for learners with ADHD. This work is intended to lead to recommendations of how learners with ADHD could benefit from constructivist eLearning systems, e.g. through the managed use of multimedia technology. A preliminary model has been developed that illustrates the areas in which constructivist pedagogies need to address the limitations of ADHD learners. Further work will expand this model and eventually test it in a real environment (e.g. in a school with ADHD learners). The outcome will encourage a reconsideration of existing multimedia theories as they relate to learners with special needs, and provide new directions in order to support learners with ADHD

ELearning and the Lisbon strategy: an analysis of policy streams and policy-making

Under the Lisbon strategy, education and training form an essential element of the social pillar which aims to modernise the European social model through investment in human resources and combating social exclusion. Up to 2004, elearning was promoted as a key element in achieving the strategy especially through the Elearning Action Plan (2004-2006). This paper will analyse the process through which elearning emerged as a policy measure in implementing the Lisbon strategy. Using Kingdon’s policy streams metaphor (Kingdon, 1995), this paper will outline the policy and problem streams which coalesced in the late 1980s, opening a ‘policy window’, and which pushed distance learning onto the EU political agenda in the early 1990s. These included the accretion of ‘soft law’ around the area of vocational education and training since the Treaty of Rome in 1957; the challenges offered by the emerging new information technologies, declining industries and changing demands for skills; the adoption of distance learning systems at national level to redress disadvantage, and to provide flexible, high-quality and cost-effective access to higher education to adults who were unable to attend on-campus; and the role of the Commission, policy entrepreneurs and networks in promoting distance education as a solution to the major social and economic problems facing Europe. The Treaty of Maastricht committed the EU to supporting education and training in the community, and in particular, to ‘encouraging the development of distance education’ (Art 126 changed to Art 149 in Amsterdam, Nice and Lisbon Treaties). A series of implementation programmes in the 1990s, including Socrates, Tempus and Phare, funded distance learning initiatives in the EU and accession countries. With the development of the Internet and web technologies, elearning came to replace distance education in the EU discourse. The paper will conclude with some observations on the current role of elearning policy within the Lisbon strategy

On-line assessment for e-learning: options and opportunities

The desire to produce educational multi-media packages of ever greater sophistication is such that other, more problematic, elements of e- or on- line learning receive less attention by academics and courseware developers alike. One such problematic area is that of assessment, which is surprising, as e-learning assessment procedures are more critical in defining the learning that takes place. However, because e-learning can create a much richer, more varied active learning experience than would normally occur via the passive didactic teaching mode currently utilised in most universities and centred on the use of the lecture, it also has the potential to provide new and innovative assessments modes and systems. The extent to which the potential of innovatory assessment is realised via e-learning depends on two factors. First, the level of computer component and interactivity utilised in elearning. Second, the attitude of academic staff towards their teaching role, and, more specifically, how they operate within an elearning environment. The speed of the development in online technologies and techniques is such that the information given here will not provide all the answers, it should, nevertheless, enable some of the correct questions to be pose

Open Knowledge Resources for Higher Education: Scholarly Publications, Course Materials, Academic Software

This paper will explain why electronic knowledge resources in academia cannot only be regarded as private commodities, but also as public goods. After sketching a concept of public goods for a postnational, global society, three types of electronic knowledge resources are distinguished: scholarly publications, course materials and academic software. With the help of practical examples, similarities between these resources are developed. Finally, it will be explained what advantages the status of public good for knowledge resources would have and how it could be achieved by the academic community

E-Learning for Teachers and Trainers : Innovative Practices, Skills and Competences

Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged.Final Published versio

Quality in MOOCs: Surveying the Terrain

The purpose of this review is to identify quality measures and to highlight some of the tensions surrounding notions of quality, as well as the need for new ways of thinking about and approaching quality in MOOCs. It draws on the literature on both MOOCs and quality in education more generally in order to provide a framework for thinking about quality and the different variables and questions that must be considered when conceptualising quality in MOOCs. The review adopts a relativist approach, positioning quality as a measure for a specific purpose. The review draws upon Biggs’s (1993) 3P model to explore notions and dimensions of quality in relation to MOOCs — presage, process and product variables — which correspond to an input–environment–output model. The review brings together literature examining how quality should be interpreted and assessed in MOOCs at a more general and theoretical level, as well as empirical research studies that explore how these ideas about quality can be operationalised, including the measures and instruments that can be employed. What emerges from the literature are the complexities involved in interpreting and measuring quality in MOOCs and the importance of both context and perspective to discussions of quality

Lessons from the future: ICT scenarios and the education of teachers

This paper reviews significant events of the last 25 years in schools and teacher education in England and looks ahead to the next 25 years. Various scenarios for the future are examined and the potential is considered for new forms of teachers' initial education and continuing professional development using information and communications technology. It is concluded that the current centrally-controlled national system is increasingly inappropriate to present needs and will fracture under the combination of pressures of a commodified education market, learners' consumerist expectations of personalised provision, and networks of informal learning enabled by widespread access to portable communications technology. Four lessons from this future prediction are drawn, with recommendations for radical changes in government policy and orientation. © 2005 Taylor & Francis

Bridging the gap between digital libraries and e-learning

Digital Libraries (DL) are offering access to a vast amount of digital content, relevant to practically all domains of human knowledge, which makes it suitable to enhance teaching and learning. Based on a systematic literature review, this article provides an overview and a gap analysis of educational use of DLs.The research work presented in this paper is partially supported by the FP7 Grant 316087 AComIn ”Advanced Computing for Innovation”, funded by the European Commission in the FP7 Capacity Programme in 2012-2016.peer-reviewe