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Executive Summary

1 Introduction

2 Context

3 Methodology

4 - 9 Findings, Analysis and Discussion

10 Summary of Findings

11 Discussion of Findings

12 References

13 Case Studies

Acknowledgments & Partners

Case Study Map 

Institution H5

6 Impact of networked learning on infrastructure and support services

The infrastructure in relation to networked learning requires examination of both the technological aspects of networked learning and the support that is required by staff and students.

Technology

The technological aspects that were identified by the participants in this study mainly explored issues in relation to software platforms and the interoperability of different systems.

Robustness

Two respondents mentioned issues surrounding potential systems’ failures, but only in passing, indicating that these were not frequent occurrences. However, one respondent acknowledged that the increasing reliance on technology support did make the university more vulnerable and that the technical infrastructure needed ongoing investment and support.

The kind of problems are not necessarily to do with the learning, we had major problems with our network at the start of the session three years ago which was disastrous in all sorts of ways but that was nothing, and presumably that affected the e-learning but that wasn’t as a result of the e-learning…It was something to do with the infrastructure, we needed a new server that actually got held up after September 11th. It was a whole series of events. Of course we are much more vulnerable to hardware problems. If you do invest quite a lot in e-learning, you are vulnerable. You then have to have the infrastructure and the investment in the infrastructure and the technical support to make sure that supply isn’t interrupted. (H5I1/6)

Software

The VLE system was introduced when networked learning was initiated at the university and has been in use for the last 10 years. It was bought in initially for a research project, but people began to use it for their teaching, and later, after consultation, it was agreed upon as the system to use across the university. It was also available free to the university initially, but has recently begun to cost a small amount of money, with this cost being borne centrally. The extract below explains these points and also mentions that some faculties continued to use other software, such as First Class.

… the switch that we did to [the VLE software] and the establishment of that as the central system for [the university] that was very much influenced by the [research] project. There was also…a survey conducted … to settle upon a university policy for a system, but to settle upon a system to use across the university and it has become policy that that is the system that is supported through the Learning Technology Unit. So people in [Department Z], I don’t know if they still do, but for many years they were using First Class Conferencing system and because it became increasingly that network learning was been used here and the system that was [our VLE software]. [Department Z] then were for maintaining and looking after their own courses using First Class because the Policy was to use [VLE software]… Obviously the other costs that have been associated with it have been to do with licensing. We were very fortunate for a long time that the [VLE software] which is the web based version was free, there was no costs, which meant, that is one of the biggest, I guess influences on the fact that undergraduate programmes started to use [VLE system] because they didn’t have to pay for the licenses for their students. That has now switched and we do have to pay a certain amount but it is still kept to a minimum. (H5I3)

There appears to have been a variety of different types of software in addition to the centrally supported VLE system for the university. This may be as a result of an institutional culture that allows a degree of departmental and faculty level autonomy, which allows a variety of approaches to be adopted. As a result there appeared to be a growing interest among staff about other commercially available packages such as WebCT and Blackboard as alternatives to the university VLE. These, and other, factors, have led to a formal review being undertaken into the best way forward for the university. There appear to be conflicting views about which particular VLE system might be best, as these two extracts illustrate:

Well we have problems because people want Blackboard and WebCT rather than anything else. … Yes, the problem, this is one of the bugbears I have here about, if we were supporting Blackboard or WebCT I just don’t think they would be flexible enough to cope with all these issues…. When we looked at Blackboard last they are charging a huge fee for consultancy for linking you to the central records and since they change them every year we would have to pay that repeatedly… I mean there is a review going on at the moment so obviously things are a bit up in the air at the moment. I suspect that there is pressure to use Blackboard or WebCT because people see it used elsewhere and people think well I want to use teaching materials on my course… There are new things coming along, there’s a system called Learning Activity Management System, which is a quantum leap from Blackboard…. Well its here now, they are trying it at [name] this year. Supposedly it is commercially available from about now I think. … because of that it would be a wrong time to leap into using Blackboard and WebCT when such better tools are going to be here anytime now and that would be a fear that they would do that, leaping into it. (H5I5)

I mean what they get now is very simple, but it does do sort of notice board and discussion space, it doesn’t have the kind of extra question and answer bits that Blackboard has and it doesn’t really have the same kind of flexibility over structure and content … that Blackboard has. So we are going to run a pilot next term and I think we are moving towards a situation where we are going to have to set that up as the standard, everybody gets that but if you want something different, because there are people who are been very pedagogically innovative who we can support with innovative environments through the [current VLE] platform because you can do with the programme whatever you like, so I think having a combination of those two things will be very interesting…. As I say, our current environment is also easy to get on with but I don’t know if its, giving things like content is coming out specifically that you can drop into Blackboard and WebCT and that kind of thing, I mean we have been excluded from some innovations. To date we are using [current VLE] still. (H5I2)

Interoperability of the MLE

The other major issue discussed in relation to robustness and security was the integration of systems. The Learning Technology Unit has worked very hard to integrate the current VLE with existing university systems such as the library, as the extracts below indicate. However, this is only a partial solution and the VLE it is not fully integrated with other administrative systems and the necessary facilities were not in place to support this integration.

… this is one of the downsides of not been integrated into their system because they make these changes without reference to us, they don’t tell us in advance, they just say oh this is what we are doing. This year they decided that library card numbers for new students would have eight digits instead of seven which is not a problem except that the tool that they gave us to look at library card numbers won’t look at eight characters. So if we have a query with a student who has got an eight character library card number then we can’t look them up. Postgraduate students don’t get into the [name] system, well we are not there yet, they get in there over the year because their course is run on a different schedule but people want web sites for them but they can’t get in automatically so what we do is we ask the staff to ask for a set of library card numbers but this year that is useless because we can’t look them up. (H5I5)

We’ve been working, have been talking to them and trying and work more closely with the Library to make sure there are links from the course modules to module related information in the Library and they have just had a new system as well and it has been … possible to do automated links to their systems… (H5I2)

One respondent spoke about the need to take into account the potential interoperability of any new systems.

… there is widespread interest on everybody’s part in making sure that if we do introduce [a new VLE]… we make … it a systematic part of the university. It has to be linked very clearly to the MIS and to our student record system, out to the library, we must make sure that all those points of integration work well. (H5I4)

It has been suggested that this lack of full integration might have arisen because of the close links of Central Computing Systems with Microsoft.

...so you got the feeling that although we were a centrally supported service on paper, we were actually not really been involved with the centralised support.... I was running a conference system that wasn't centrally supported in previous years and that wasn't seen as...
Interviewer: It was campus wide but it wasn't supported by central services?
Respondent: Yes...[name] was employed by our central IT Services so in that sense it was supported by them but it just wasn't integrated into what they were doing because they focused on Microsoft and even now they have a Microsoft training centre so they are really obliged to use all Microsoft tools, software packages so they can train people. (H5I5)

The university has some way to go before achieving full interoperability and the choice of VLE software is an important factor in that process.

Centralisation of services

It appears, from many of the comments made by the respondents, that not all services have been centralised, for example, see the section above on software. Other comments made by some respondents add to this view, for example:

One of the other developments that has happened within this faculty is that we have a faculty IT team now. (H5I3)

However there have been quite a lot of support staff put into faculties, they’re described as IT support staff. (H5I4)

We would set up web sites for people but we don’t actually help them produce teaching materials… most faculties have IT people that they can call on. (H5I5)

Access to the network, computers and support

This aspect of networked learning was not discussed to any extent.

Support

The technology itself is an important aspect of the development of networked learning but along with that goes a need for people to be able to use it effectively and to develop new skills. The Learning Technology Unit has supported networked learning developments and their role appears to be supporting and developing staff rather than in staff training, which seems to be provided by IT services and the individual faculties.

Staff training

The questionnaire responses suggest that there have been minor changes in staff development although there has been an increase in the amount of training provided. One response indicated that training is probably not a major focus of the Learning Technology Unit.

Very minor for the majority. Drop in sessions for students. Some input to staff induction. (H5I5 questionnaire)

Three of the respondents spoke briefly about staff training programmes; voluntary courses are available, and there appears to be some limited training provided by the Learning Technology Unit.

There are courses and programmes… Offered across the institution but departments share good practice …they are voluntary. (H5I4)

… again its literally a kind of form filling, it’s a very simple environment, you fill in a form and put it in a folder or you create a folder and that’s it and then discussion space is important. I’ve tended to find that staff don’t really need training as such. I … feel the lack of talking to them about why they are using it, I really hate that, I haven’t got the time to do that but I think I just have to accept that. So we put guides on the web site. I always make sure it says here’s the web site, here’s, we’ve got… (H5I2)

… one of the other developments that has happened within this faculty is that we have a faculty IT team now and … one of the faculty team members is described as a Web Development Officer and …part of her role is supporting network learning as well as web page development and things like that so we’ve always had technical support here in the department because we’ve always had technology as a feature of the kind of teaching that we do. (H5I3)

Support for staff has been considered in relation to staff training. It seems that the faculties and computing services provide a range of training for members of staff engaging with the provision of online learning. The limited response concerning training indicates that this is not a priority for the Learning Technology Unit, which focuses more on support and development.

Support for staff

It is clear from the responses that the university regards supporting staff as very important, in that it decided to set up and fund the Learning Technology Unit to provide support, advice and expertise for networked learning. The Unit appears to be focussing particularly on helping staff to understand the pedagogical potential of networked learning rather than on supporting staff in the production of teaching materials.

I think there needs to be some thought to be given to the pedagogy. (H5I2)

We decided to create a group that many universities have that we didn’t, which focused on learning and teaching and support so it offered professional advice and expertise … So the idea was from the beginning to make sure that the development … didn’t proceed without very close integration with the learning and teaching professional support that we’ve got… (H5I4)

… we would set up web sites for people but we don’t actually help them produce teaching materials [support for that would be] probably within departments really, or faculties. Most faculties have IT people that they can call on….we …focus on supporting collaboration and interaction between people rather than between people and materials. (H5I5)

Support for students

One respondent spoke about the support for students in the form of training courses. These courses were available for all students to use if they wished. The students did not appear to feel a particular need for these courses and it was suggested that a web site and help desk probably provided sufficient support for most students.

We do student training courses for using the VLE although … increasingly it’s a waste of time because they just use [the VLE]. … you’ve got a majority population who can use IT and can use the web and are not bothered so that makes it even harder for the few that can’t so we do try and provide some training for anybody that feels they need it.…It’s sort of ad hoc but on a departmental basis so we tried the drop in sessions and … nobody came. Even though we publicized it as much as we could … The majority kind of have enough support through documentation and through a help desk that is enough to get them started and do what they need to do. (H5I2)

It is clear that the infrastructure – both in terms of technology and support to staff – has been affected by the introduction of networked learning. In particular, support for staff has been integrated with the support provided for teaching and learning. Support for staff and students has increased.

Summary

The university’s VLE was introduced 10 years ago when networked learning was introduced at the university. There appears to have been a variety of different VLEs and e-learning software in use in addition to centrally supported VLE. There was also a growing interest among staff about other commercially available VLE systems such as WebCT and Blackboard and there appears to be conflicting views about which VLE system might best meet the needs of the university. The other major issue discussed was the integration of the VLE with other university systems. It was clear that the Learning Technology Unit had worked very hard to integrate the current VLE with university systems such as the library, but that this was only a partial solution and it was not fully integrated with the MIS or student information systems. The university has some way to go before achieving full interoperability and the choice of VLE software is an important factor in that process.

The faculties and computing services provide a range of training for members of staff engaging with online learning, but this is not a priority for the Learning Technology Unit, which focuses more on support and development. The university regards staff support as very important, and set up the Learning Technology Unit to provide support, advice and expertise for networked learning, focussing particularly on helping staff to understand the pedagogical potential of networked learning. Training courses are available for all students, but they do not appear to feel a particular need for these courses and it was suggested that a web site and help desk are provide sufficient support for most students.

It is clear that the infrastructure – both in terms of technology and support to staff – has been affected by the introduction of networked learning, and support for staff and students, has increased.