e-Learning Case Studies

Name and e-mail: Rachel Wood (R.Wood@bath.ac.uk)

Keywords (pedagogical): collaborative, participation, discussion, communication

Keywords (technical): forum, Moodle

Discipline: Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering

Year/ability: Postgraduate MSc programmes

Course title: MSc International Construction Management

Background

What took place?

The MSc in International Construction Management (ICM) is a postgraduate programme which provides flexible distance learning to over 350 professionals in the construction industry. It offers the majority of its study online with some residential study in Bath or other international centres.

Providing this flexible distance learning brings challenges.  There are a large number of students on the programme, with more than one cohort per year.  Many students are located internationally and tutors are generally not based on the University campus.  This means there is little traditional face-to-face contact between students and their tutors and so a more limited opportunity for building a learning community.  The flexible nature of the programme and the fact that many of the participants are studying whilst working full-time means that they can find it difficult to maintain momentum in their studies over a long period of time.

What was the role of the technology?

Moodle forums are used to support distance learners on the ICM programme in a variety of ways .

Forums to enhance learning: For each ICM module, a paper-based work file is still sent out to participants (as student feedback continues to show that these are valued) but the content of this file feeds into ‘focus discussions’ in the forums in Moodle.  To encourage participation in these forums, contributions made by students go on to form a small percentage of their assessment for a separate overarching module. Typically, participation in the 8-10 focus discussions within each module will provide students with 5% of their assessment in Consolidating Theory and Practice, so through the 6 core modules in the programme this equates to 30% of the overall assessment.

Forums to build student communities: A programme level induction forum is provided to build students’ confidence in online communication and working practices.  This forum asks students to introduce themselves on a personal level and includes ‘ice-breakers’ not linked to their studies.  At module level, further forums may ask students to introduce themselves on a professional level in relation to the content of that particular module.

There are also forums that are provided specifically for student queries, where they are able to raise any questions they have about the programme or module.  Topics raised often include: assignment criteria and assessment, general study skills, deadlines.  This provides a more efficient way of responding to student queries than on a one-to-one basis because responses are shared with the whole cohort.  It encourages students to raise questions which they might have otherwise held back from asking.

At the dissertation stage of the programme, students are using their student forum to retain links with the student community and share resources and ideas.

Forums to disseminate programme information: The news forum which is automatically created in the initial summary section each Moodle unit is used a means of communication instead of departmental mailing lists.  Only participants that have been assigned teacher access to the unit can post messages to this forum and subscription is forced for everyone in the unit so students can’t opt out of receiving them.   Messages posted to a forum are emailed to the email address a participant has specified in their Moodle profile. By default this is the user’s @bath.ac.uk email address, but many students change this in their profile to their personal or work email address which can make posting a message to the news forum a more direct means of communication.

Outcomes

How did the participants find it?

Students have reported that they learn a lot from sharing professional experience thorough the learning forums and that it helps with their motivation and their engagement with the programme.

Students noted: “I enjoyed the section exercises that made use of my work experience. It made me understand better the knowledge gained through studying” and that the online activities “encourage discussion and opinion within the focus discussions.  I feel there is much to learn from each other’s thoughts opinions.  Also, the module tutor’s posts are very helpful to guide us forward.”

Tutors find that they also benefit from what the students bring to the forums. However, some have found the shift to the teaching and learning practices required from an e-tutor a little challenging.

For administrative staff, moving student queries and communication to the forums has created a more self-supporting student community and so to some extent has reduced their workload in dealing with individual queries.

Issues/problems

What tips do you have for others?

• Merely asking for an answer to a question doesn’t tend to generate genuine discussion.  Why not require students to post a question to the forum OR reply to another student’s post?
• Linking to a resource directly from a forum post is a powerful way of signposting learning materials or programme/module information.
• The role of the forum facilitator (tutor) is crucial in the learning forums and participation is vital to initiate discussions and to prompt student responses.  External tutors now have a defined responsibility as an ‘e-tutor’ within their role which requires this input.  Special attention needs to be given to training tutors moving into an e-tutoring role to help them understand the key skills and values needed (e.g. asking effective questions, prompting further lines of inquiry etc.)
• Experience has shown in this case study that an optimum size for a learning forum is 15-30 students.  Too few makes it difficult to initiate and maintain discussion, too many is unmanageable for an external tutor working on a contract with defined hours.
• Give guidance on setting the student profile – particularly about receiving forum notifications and the difference between No digest (which sends each forum post and reply as a separate email – potentially a high number of emails) and Complete digest (which will send all the posts in one email per Moodle unit at the end of the working day)
• Remember that posts and replies are not emailed instantaneously.  Moodle sends out emails once an hour so participants signed up to ‘No digest’ should receive them within 70 minutes and those signed up to ‘Complete digest’ should receive them by 5pm.
• You can set the subscription options differently for each forum. It is worth considering forcing subscription to the learning forums so that students can’t opt out of receiving updates.  For the student query forums it may be advisable to force subscription initially but allow students to unsubscribe if they want. Subscription to the news forums is always forced by Moodle as a default.
  

Plans for the future

The use of forums to support distance learners (in conjunction with other resources and activities) has made the ICM Moodle units and programme area a ‘one-stop-shop’ for students which they routinely use as a first point of contact for programme news and student support as well as their learning.

The intention is to further enhance the forums in the current ICM Moodle units – to ‘vary the diet’ – by extending the media that are used to deliver information e.g. include audio and video to make them more personal and engaging.

As part of a shift to a more blended learning approach in the two other distance learning programmes, Moodle units will be updated to introduce and enhance the use of forums.

Forums (asynchronous discussions) will continue to be used for compulsory, assessed communication by students (to ensure that all students have equality of access to the discussion whatever their timezone and internet availability). However, a trial of synchronous discussions (e.g. chat, Instant Messaging) that are recorded for later access and review by students is under consideration as a means to promote engagement and motivation with the course materials and other students. 

Name and e-mail: Sabina Gheduzzi (S.Gheduzzi@bath.ac.uk) and Jos Darling (J.Darling@bath.ac.uk)

Keywords (pedagogical): feedback, evaluation

Discipline: Dept of Mechanical Engineering

Year/ability: Y1 – Y5

Course title: all undergraduate and postgraduate taught Mechanical Engineering degree programmes

Background

What took place?

A central collection of unit evaluations, unit information and feedback on exams was collated for Mechanical Engineering students in order to provide:

• generic feedback on exams/assessment which is timely and easily accessible
• information to help students make informed option choices for their next year’s study

What was the role of the technology?

A unit was created on Moodle to host feedback, assessment and evaluation documentation related to the Mechanical Engineering programmes (image 1) including:

• A PowerPoint presentation for students on making option choices
• A snapshot of the SAMIS Online Unit Evaluations for that year’s units
• Unit details – aims, outcomes, taught contact, and method of assessment
• Assessment statistics from the Board of Examiners (image 2)
• Unit Assessment Feedback Sheets (image 3)

The SAMIS block was used to manually enrol all students taking Mechanical Engineering undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes on the unit on Moodle.  Where possible, students were enrolled using the degrre programme enrolment option in Moodle to cut down the administrative task.

A link to the Moodle unit was emailed to all students on the programmes to alert them to the available content and allow them to access it with one click rather than search for it in their list of courses.

Outcomes

How did the participants find it?

Students have been very positive in their responses and discussions at the Student Staff Liaison Committee suggest that it is provision that is well worth retaining.  Between February and May 2010 over three thousand views of the resources held in the Moodle unit were logged.

In particular, placement students found the feedback and evaluation information provided extremely helpful to guide them during the critical stage of making their final degrre programme choice.

The use of Moodle has been particularly beneficial for this cohort as the students are away from campus and it would be unfeasible to ask them to return and attend ‘options day’.  The Moodle unit was very effective in both maintaining their links with the Bath community of learners and giving them a better insight into option choices.

Issues/problems

Some concerns were raised that the provision of such detailed unit and assessment feedback might lead to a higher than usual number of appeals, yet the experience showed that this was not found to be the case.

Although linking to and uploading files in Moodle was relatively simple; formatting these links information within tables could be less straightforward.

What tips do you have for others?

Provide a disclaimer for the unit information provided to pre-empt issues arising from unforeseen changes to units eg: “Please note that while every effort has been made to verify the information provided; content, methods of assessment and staff involved in each unit might vary without notice.”

Plans for the future

Plans are under way for feedback and evaluation to be provided in a similar format in the next academic year.  Open archives of the units may also be provided on Moodle in order to provide a historical record of previous exam feedback so that students are able to cross reference it with past papers for exam revision.