National Policy on ICT in School Education

Requirements for Effective E-Learning Initiatives

Denise Clarke
CPF, Ghana
E-Learning Workshop
Nairobi, Kenya
December 3-4, 2007

Presentation Objectives

1. Cataloguing the Challenges
2. E-Learning: More than ‘e’
3. Delving Deeper: Users and Developers

User Requirements
Developer / Resource Issues

4. Identifying Critical Success Factors
5. Conclusions
6. Questions

Cataloguing Challenges

(1) Limited Resources in the Face of Increasing Demands for Higher Education

Fiscal constraints, including drastic cuts for education budgets vs unprecedented demand for places

(2) Weak campus-based communications and computer network infrastructure

Few campus-based universities have requisite campus-backbone network, organizational and departmental networks to support e-learning

(3) Limited computer resources to support campuswide programme delivery and administration

Computer-to-faculty ratio - 1:10+ (one computer 10 faculty members) in some universities;
Computer-to-students ratio - 1:100 (one computer to 1000 students)
Without adequate access to computer resources there is very little chance of e-education and e-learning kicking-off in the majority of African universities

(4) Low-level of Internet access and limited bandwidth of access

Most African universities are still struggling with improving access and making the Internet affordable for their faculty and students.
Apart from problems of limited bandwidth and the unreliability of access, very few African universities provide free access to the Internet for their faculty and students.
Without reasonably affordable access to the Internet and improvements in bandwidth and the spread of access, most Africa universities will continue to struggle to introduce e-education and learning on their campuses

(5) Limited On-Campus Technical Expertise and Knowhow to develop, administer and deliver courseware within a e-education environment

Although a reasonable proportion of the faculty in most African universities are computer literate, the majority are yet to acquire the requisite expertise and know-how to develop and deliver courseware and other instructional resources in an online/e-education delivery environment.
Majority of African universities are yet to invest in the training their faculty in developing and delivery courseware-based teaching and learning materials.
Not many universities in Africa have special units or centers with adequate expertise for developing, delivery and administering e-learning programs to supplement or compliment traditional face-to-face programs
Without adequate investment in the requisite expertise and know-how, most African universities will not be able to harness the emerging educational technologies and systems to support education and learning on campus and beyond.

(6) Apathy to change, resistance to change, lack or motivation or incentive to change

African universities are still battling with resistant to change by their faculty, staff and students
Faculty for various reasons (lack of incentive, motivation etc) are slow to embrace technology to support teaching and program delivery
Bulk of the faculty in a number of African universities still deliver their courses in the traditional mode using chalk and blackboard with just few venturing into using PowerPoint or other presentation tools to deliver courses.
Assignments still given on paper or blackboard without using the delivery infrastructure of the Internet or campus-based Intranet where it exist.
Course descriptions, schedules and handouts are still given to students in print format
Student grades are still posted on campus notice boards rather than being sent to them electronically as done in a typical e-learning program delivery environment

E-Learning: More than ‘e’

Leadership, Management, Change
Pedagogy, curriculum design, content and development
Learning resources and networked learning
Student support, progression and collaboration
Strategic management, human resources and capacity development
Quality
Research and evaluation
Infrastructure and technical standards.

Delving Deeper

Issues for users and developers

Pedagogy & E-Learning

In order for e-learning to be effective:

Need to address pedagogic issues
Need to address students' learning styles
Need to consider students' motivational issues
Need to consider stage in learning
Need to consider discipline-specific learning
approaches (medicine different from arts subject)
Need to consider teachers' approaches to learning
…

Who Are Your Users?

Different categories:
- Learners
- Teachers
- Administrators
- Technologists
Members of your organisation:
- Students
- Researchers
- Academic staff
- Other staff
Remote users:
- Visitors
- Organisation partners
- Purchasers
- …
Cultures
- Home
- Overseas
- Native speakers
- Non-native speakers
Special Requirements
- Disabled
- …

User Requirements

Different groups have different requirements:

Learners:

To learn

Teachers:

To support the learning

Administrators:

To support the administration of learning

Technologists:

To manage the e-learning technologies (performance, security, …)

What are the requirements of the user (the learner):

Motivation
Support
Interaction
Information
Knowledge
Ease of access
…

Accessibility

Some users will have special requirements:

Disabilities

Users with disabilities may have special requirements
There may be legal as well as ethical (and financial) reasons to address such needs

Technologies

Not everyone has a PC – Mac, Unix, … users
Network issues in certain areas

Access to Robots

Need to allow automated tools to access and process resources (e.g. current awareness services)

Deployment Issues

Issues:

Resourcing
Content creation
Training
Sustainability
Deployment model
Management acceptance
…

Resourcing

Provision of effective e-learning is not cheap:

Who pays?
What's the rationale: long-term cost savings or enhanced quality of learning?
Using / buying e-learning vs. developing e-learning
Using in-house vs. selling to others
Training staff
Training users

Deployment Model

Issues:

Purchase VLE
Home-grown developments
Interoperability:
- Migration from one VLE to another
- Integration across components of home-grown systems
- Migration of data
- Long term preservation
Centralised or distributed
In-house or integrated with remote services

Sustainability

Will your e-learning communities be sustainable?

People
Motivation
Technologies
Support

Acceptance

Is your e-learning:

An interest of a group of enthusiasts
A pilot experiment for your department
Part of your institution's overall strategy

Small-scale usage:

Can provide quick, effective solutions
Danger of lack of sustainability if enthusiasts leave, priorities change, etc.
Concept proven – but organisation selects alternative application for deployment

Quality Assurance

Need to ensure that e-learning services :

Work correctly
Are maintained
Are widely accessible
Are widely interoperable

A Quality Assurance (QA) approach based on:

Documented policies
Systematic procedures for ensuring compliance can help

CFS

What other challenges confront you in your context?

-Exchanges ideas in pairs for ten (10) mins
-No limit to ‘level’ or ‘type’ of challenge
-Explicit examples of challenges already mentioned welcomed!
-Identify 5 CFS

Possible CFS

Put education before technology; The technology works; the problems are philosophical, pedagogical, political and organizational.
Defined strategy for the right reason
Embedding needs to be at technological, pedagogical and cultural levels
Active involvement and commitment of senior management
TCO = Total Cost of Ownership
Project requirements, set deadlines
Common vision = common sharable outcomes
Appropriate models
Alignment with mission
Dissemination to raise profile (inside and out)
Faculty champions – communities of practice
Collaboration with learner support services
Understanding disciplinary differences
Strategy for sustainability
Build for constant change (pedagogical pluralism)
Need to work with the early majority
Work with the real-politic of the institution

Conclusions

The technology(ies) used are not the most important aspect
There are a wide range of strategic issues which need to be addressed
Failure to address the strategic issues by focussing only on technologies is likely to lead to expensive failures!

Questions?

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