Share your voice: Online community building during reaffirmation of accreditation

Generic University recently underwent a successful reaffirmation of accreditation process with The Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. As part of the 3-year process, a committee, named the Education and Communication working group, was formed to inform and engage with the entire Generic community. The aim of this report is to describe the process and strategies this working group employed to achieve those goals in a distance learning environment. The primary charges of the Education and Communication working group were to (1) educate stakeholders about the Higher Learning Commission (HLC), the importance of accreditation, and their role in the accreditation process; (2) provide consistent and quality communication to ensure stakeholders are appropriately informed about HLC and the self-study process; and (3) create and execute an appropriate and supportive communication and education plan during the HLC self-study process. The Education and Communication working group primarily focused on internal stakeholders, including students, faculty, and staff. Additional outreach specifically addressed associated individuals, such as alumni and field site supervisors. Other institutions may define their constituencies differently but will find that the goals, plans, and strategies described here will help them to achieve involvement by their stakeholders in accreditation processes.DOI: 10.18870/hlrc.v3i3.11

The University of the Arctic

... The advent of the Arctic Council renewed interest in northern post-secondary education and particularly in university education on the international scene. In early 1997, following informal discussions, the Arctic Council asked the Circumpolar Universities Association (CUA) to appoint a task force to report on the concept of a circumpolar university. The Arctic Council accepted the report in late 1997 and charged the CUA with forming a working group to develop a feasibility study. The working group consisted of representatives of the eight circumpolar countries and the indigenous peoples of the Arctic. The feasibility study was subsequently approved by the Ministerial Meeting of the Arctic Council in Iqaluit in 1998, and the working group became the Interim Council for the University of the Arctic, independent of the CUA. Canada is represented on the Interim Council by the Association of Canadian Universities for Northern Studies (I am the current President) and by Sally Ross, President of Yukon College, who represents the three northern colleges. The indigenous peoples' participants' the Sami Council, the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, and the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North - endorsed the concept of the University, provided that the full participation of indigenous people was ensured. ... The concept of the University is one of a university without walls. Programs are intended to be delivered through a range of distance learning technologies, through formal classroom settings at a number of locations in the circumpolar world and elsewhere (depending on the nature of the program component), and at field locations around the Arctic. In many locations, technical capacity will have to be upgraded to allow distance learning to be available not only in community centres, but in individual homes. This capacity is essential to maintain the strength of the community in northern cultures. However, mobility will also be promoted for some components of the programs, to bring together Arctic students and Southern students. ... One of the major challenges will be to develop information sources to support the curriculum. Since the focus of most extant texts is mid or low latitudes, it will be necessary to promote materials that emphasize the Arctic reality, which can readily be translated and produced in both hard copy and electronic formats. The University is therefore moving ahead with its mandate to provide undergraduate and postgraduate training with a focus on Northern issues and delivered in the North. The University is seeking full participation of northern people for its governance and instructional staff, while continuing to promote the integration of expertise in existing institutions

Desktop multimedia environments to support collaborative distance learning

Desktop multimedia conferencing, when two or more persons can communicate among themselves via personal computers with the opportunity to see and hear one another as well as communicate via text messages while working with commonly available stored resources, appears to have important applications to the support of collaborative learning. In this paper we explore this potential in three ways: (a) through an analysis of particular learner needs when learning and working collaboratively with others outside of face-to-face situations; (b) through an analysis of different forms of conferencing environments, including desktop multimedia environments, relative to their effectiveness in terms of meeting learner needs for distributed collaboration; and (c) through reporting the results of a formative evaluation of a prototype desktop multimedia conferencing system developed especially for the support of collaborative learning. Via these analyses, suggestions are offered relating to the functionalities of desktop multimedia conferencing systems for the support of collaborative learning, reflecting new developments in both the technologies available for such systems and in our awareness of learner needs when working collaboratively with one other outside of face-to-face situations

The seamless integration of Web3D technologies with university curricula to engage the changing student cohort

The increasing tendency of many university students to study at least some courses at a distance limits their opportunities for the interactions fundamental to learning. Online learning can assist but relies heavily on text, which is limiting for some students. The popularity of computer games, especially among the younger students, and the emergence of networked games and game-like virtual worlds offers opportunities for enhanced interaction in educational applications. For virtual worlds to be widely adopted in higher education it is desirable to have approaches to design and development that are responsive to needs and limited in their resource requirements. Ideally it should be possible for academics without technical expertise to adapt virtual worlds to support their teaching needs. This project identified Web3D, a technology that is based on the X3D standards and which presents 3D virtual worlds within common web browsers, as an approach worth exploring for educational application. The broad goals of the project were to produce exemplars of Web3D for educational use, together with development tools and associated resources to support non-technical academic adopters, and to promote an Australian community of practice to support broader adoption of Web3D in education. During the first year of the project exemplar applications were developed and tested. The Web3D technology was found to be still in a relatively early stage of development in which the application of standards did not ensure reliable operation in different environments. Moreover, ab initio development of virtual worlds and associated tools proved to be more demanding of resources than anticipated and was judged unlikely in the near future to result in systems that non-technical academics could use with confidence. In the second year the emphasis moved to assisting academics to plan and implement teaching in existing virtual worlds that provided relatively easy to use tools for customizing an environment. A project officer worked with participating academics to support the teaching of significant elements of courses within Second LifeTM. This approach was more successful in producing examples of good practice that could be shared with and emulated by other academics. Trials were also conducted with ExitRealityTM, a new Australian technology that presents virtual worlds in a web browser. Critical factors in the success of the project included providing secure access to networked computers with the necessary capability; negotiating the complexity of working across education, design of virtual worlds, and technical requirements; and supporting participants with professional development in the technology and appropriate pedagogy for the new environments. Major challenges encountered included working with experimental technologies that are evolving rapidly and deploying new networked applications on secure university networks. The project has prepared the way for future expansion in the use of virtual worlds for teaching at USQ and has contributed to the emergence of a national network of tertiary educators interested in the educational applications of virtual worlds

Digital Dissemination Platform of Transportation Engineering Education Materials Founded in Adoption Research

INE/AUTC 14.0

Comparing distance education and conventional education: Observations from a comparative study of post‐registration nurses

This retrospective study presents a comparison of assessment results achieved by distance‐learning students and classroom‐based students undertaking the same module in a degree course. The purpose of the comparison is to provide some objective measurement of the quality of distance education in relation to conventional classroom‐based education. The authors have selected three groups of students, who have all undertaken the same module in the B. Sc Health Studies degree programme offered by the University of Paisley. One group (in Paisley) undertook their studies by means of conventional classroom‐based education, the second (in Hong Kong) by supported distance learning with face‐to‐face contact in the form of tutorials, and the third (in a geographically dispersed group in the United Kingdom and other countries) by supported distance learning with no face‐to‐face contact. The results obtained by these three groups of students were analysed. Because of the differences in the size of the groups, the Kruskal‐ Wallis 1‐ Way Anova test was applied to validate the face value findings. The authors include findings from the literature comparing distance education with conventional education and from cross‐cultural studies to present their data in context. Analysis of the assessment results showed that students from all three groups were successful in their studies, but the students studying by distance learning obtained significantly higher end‐of‐module results than their classroom‐based colleagues. This latter finding reflects the conclusion that other investigators have reached In their discussion the authors identify educational, cultural and personal factors that may help to explain their findings. A limitation in the study is that it concerns only one module in the degree programme. The research now moves on to comparing students who have undertaken the whole degree programme by the means describe

What's New? Reaching Working Adults with English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) Instruction, A Best Practices Report

In July 2001 the Center for Impact Research (CIR) completed a needs assessment, Barriers to English Language Learners in the Chicago Metropolitan Area, which detailed the needs of immigrant working adults for English instruction and determined the barriers they faced in learning English. CIR's 2001 report documented the fact that many of these employed immigrants take advantage of overtime, hold down two jobs, and are often subject to changing or rotating work schedules that make attendance at regularly scheduled classes difficult. Evening English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) classes that occur twice a week lasting between one-and-a-half to three hours also present difficulties, because they interfere with parenting and family duties; fatigue of the attendees after a long day's work also makes learning problematic. Some Friday evening and Saturday morning classes are available, but seldom are there any classes on Sundays. ESOL providers report that they are unable to schedule weekend classes because of the lack of trained and qualified teachers who are willing to work on Saturdays and Sundays. Volunteer tutors could assist ESOL learners, but they too are reluctant to make commitments for weekend hours. The metropolitan Chicago ESOL system faces an additional problem in that it cannot meet the needs of those immigrants who are interested in, and able to attend ESOL classes. CIR's analysis of demographic data finds an estimated total population of potential English Language Learners 18 years of age or older in the Chicago metropolitan area in 2000 at 277,700. According to the Illinois Community College Board, in Fiscal Year 2001 68,815 adults in the Chicago metropolitan area received some ESOL instruction through programs funded by the Board, meaning that only about one-quarter of the need was able to be met. Sixty-two percent of these learners were in beginning ESOL classes. Many area ESOL providers report long waiting lists for ESOL classes, and some say they are implementing lotteries for classroom places. How then, can ESOL learning be reorganized to enable adult learners who are employed to upgrade their English language skills? Can ESOL services be offered along a continuum, with systems providing various services, geared to immigrants with differing levels of commitment to learning English, as well as changing or rotating schedules and time limitations? How can effective learning opportunities be offered in the home, at the workplace, and in accessible community locations, such as shopping centers and churches

Engaged learning in MOOCs: a study using the UK Engagement Survey

This study sets out to answer the question: how can we know what learning is taking place in MOOCs? From this starting point, the study then looks to identify MOOCs’ potential for future use in HE? Using a specially-adapted version of the HEA’s UK Engagement Survey (UKES) 2014, the research team at the University of Southampton asked participants who had completed one of two MOOCs delivered through the FutureLearn platform and designed and run at the university about their experiences as learners and their engagement with their respective MOOC. The results also show that both of the MOOCs were successful in enabling many participants to feel engaged in intellectual endeavours such as forming new understandings, making connections with previous knowledge and experience, and exploring knowledge actively, creatively and critically. In response to the open access approach – in which no one taking part in a MOOC is required to have a minimum level of previous educational achievement - the report shows that persistent learners engaged, regardless of prior educational attainment

Team project work for distance learners in engineering – challenges and benefits

Team Engineering (first presented in autumn 2006) was the first course (module) at the Open University (OU) to use wikis and video-conferencing in combination to support the work of project teams. Teams of five students, working remotely from one another, tackle an engineering project over 32 weeks. The teams schedule regular meetings throughout the project and these are conducted using FlashMeeting, a lightweight video-conferencing system being developed by the OU's Knowledge Media Institute, KMi (http://flashmeeting.open.ac.uk). Unlike other systems, FlashMeeting requires no software installation. In addition, it not only archives the meetings but also provides detailed analysis of the proceedings. The teams are encouraged to use the wiki facility in the OU's virtual learning environment (VLE) for their collaborative report-writing. The collective work of the team is assessed through these reports. The performance of the individual is assessed through their reflective account of the project. The archiving facility in FlashMeeting has been of huge help in developing this. For the next presentation of the course a learning journal is to be added to the existing means of support. Feedback from tutors and students alike has been extremely positive, whilst recognising the limitations of the technologies in their current implementations. This paper gives an account of the students' achievements and offers an assessment of the pedagogic potential of using these media together