Staff Engagement with e-Learning Support

Staff engagement with e-Learning support I think is one of the biggest challenges to e-Learning practitioners, from a resource perspective it appears to be managing the balance between face-to-face support and online guidance. 

Academic colleagues understandably like face-to-face support as it gives them an opportunity to unpack the issues they want addressing and for those providing support, it gives them the opportunity to illustrate approaches either verbally or by providing specific examples online. However, sometimes providing a solution that somebody can take away within them and use unsupported, can occasionally be difficult and one consultation meeting can turn into many. This has a resource implication for any e-Learning support units, although the outcome will be a very satisfied customer, which is what we are always trying to aim for? Increasingly, e-Learning support is tasked with engaging the many not the few, with limited resources, this means that there needs to be consideration with respect to addressing the issue of  providing good customer support in an efficient manner.  On top of this increasingly, e-Learning support units are developing online guidance with the hope that this will help to ebb some of the face-to-face traffic, however, the challenge here is how to signpost this support and how design it a way that colleagues can easily find what they want.

e-Learning support has to be multifaceted, it may involve a number of services and a number of resources. A couple of years ago I did a masters dissertation  on  the "Influences on the Use of Blended Learning within Learning and Teaching" these were my recommendations. 

Recommendation	Rationale
The University should develop a rewards framework that includes recognition of innovative practice in blended learning:	Presently academic rewards within the University recognise mainly staff research, despite the Dearing Report emphasising the importance of good teaching. Hence, there is more pressure on staff to build their research portfolio than to evidence innovative learning and teaching.
The University should provide business models that relate to teaching staff developing blended learning approaches, which includes consideration with respect to staff time.	The University should provide clearer guidance on how Faculties can facilitate the structuring of staff workloads to integrate the development of blended learning approaches.
The University should focus staff development on the pedagogic approaches to using blended learning.	The University should use a range of mechanisms to enable this, such as, workshops, online training, bespoke training, events and e-learning champions. This should also include easy access to examples of best practice.
The University should provide clearer guidance on how to access support with respect to the use of technology within teaching and implementing blended learning approaches.	The University should clearly disseminate the range of support that is available to staff and how to obtain this support in order to manage staff expectations .
Faculties should carry out an annual skills and attitude survey with respect to the use of technology within learning and teaching and the adoption of blended learning approaches	This should help Heads of Learning and Teaching to develop a picture of how staff are progressing within the Faculty together with identifying attitudinal barriers.

SCORE Workshop New Models for Education and Training built on Open Educational Resources

This is an overview of the presentations at Score's 1 day workshop Anglo-Hispanic "New Models for Education and Training built on Open Educational Resources"  which illustrated how UNED (National Distance Education University) in Spain and the Open University in the UK, are exploring the issues of accreditation and badging via the use of OERs within the context of Open Learning. The main issues that arose from the day were enabling accreditation via the use of OERs, something that is being addressed by the OER University and developing open flexible learning processes within universities that address the challenges that individuals currently face in a complex and unpredictable society.

Innovation in practice at UNED and Centro Superior Para  La Ensenanza Virtual Presenter: Daniel Torres, Director of CSEV

The CSEV purpose is to provide access to its online learning activities to other universities and institutions. To address needs and demands of business and society, via a portfolio of courses and services, which are either open or can be purchased. The CSEV manages educational innovation projects for universities and training insitutions, taking an open and collaborative approach. Stakeholders are involved in each project depending on their availability and interest and innovation is core, their key philosophy with respect to an "Open Innovation Community", is that any community member can be trained, and can contribute and and enrich the community by the adoption of new roles. There are multiple pathways and participants have access to skills that can improve their professional skills, build their businesses and in some situations help them become tutors. The areas that it focuses on are:

• Digital world skills
• Digital skills for entrepreneurs
• Digital skills for teachers 
• Digital skills for internationalization 

Using:

• Open self directed learning
• Massive Online Courses MOOC
• Social Learning
• LMS 

Impact of Open Educational Models On Institutions Antonio Moreira Teixeira Universidade Aberta (Portugal)

The LECH-e Project, Lived Experience of Climate Change E-learning focuses on open educational practices. The presentation argued that there was a limited reuse of OERs, because of quality issues associated with user-generated content, with respect to integrating it within course content. Additionally, there is the challenge of integrating learner generated learning so that it can be included in the formal and qualification processes. The presentation challenged that open educational practices "imply a radical transformation in higher education organisation cultures", such as:

•  de-regulating teacher practice
• looking at new forms of assessment, more outsourcing of teaching and technical work
• establishment of sustainable systems that include low cost education for all 
• the establishing a community of trust with respect to cross-boarder online learning. 

It introduced the concept of an institution without time or space open to anyone who needs to learn and suggested that the challenges educational institutions needed address were:

• linking with a global network of knowledge production, reproduction and transmission - recycling rather than regenerating
• moving away from a factory producing graduates to a learning shop provide access to various types of certification and accreditation and learning outcomes  

New Models at the OU Andrew Law 

The OU is bringing together its services such Learning Space, OU programme web sites e.g Frozen Planet iTunes U etc. so that users can access these resources from one point, Open Learn. The OU's Open Learning/Learning Space is important to the OU and its business model as it ties the social mission of the OU with the business, as it provides users with free access to learning content as well as promoting the OU. The presentation, also, provided an overview of how google search optimisation raised the profile of the OU and the OU's use of analytics for identifying potential students. It concluded by introducing the potential of an incubation service for a small fee where learners can get a taster of a course before signing up. 

Resilience Thinking, Social Learning and Open Innovation Platforms Simon Buckingham Shum, Senior Lecturer in Knowledge Media 

Lord Puttnam OU chancellor has asked if it is time to admit that the current education system is not working and whether there should be a change of emphasis to inspiring children so that they can inspire and challenge us (Introduction to the Learning Futures Programme www.learningfutures.org). Referring to Claxton and Lucas (2009) which questioned the epistemic mentalities and identities that can help people thrive in a complex, changing, ambiguous world, it suggested the problem is that individuals have limited capacity to deal with unprecedented complexity and uncertainty and proposed that society is in a transitional period. It offered an approach to dealing with this situation by changing one element, using OERs as learning resources within the context of open social learning as they are sustainable and resilient. However, even though OERs and open social learning can offer flexible learning opportunities, there is a need to address the issues of credible accreditation and poor feedback on published resources. It suggested that these issues could be addressed with badges initiatives, APEL and the development of a sociaotechnical infrastructure to tie evidence of impact back to an OER, author and consumers. The presentation, also, introduced the soon to launched the OU's Social Learn platform that has the key features of:

• aggregated user profile
• activity-based user defined toolkits
• the look and feel of social media platform 
• is open and interoperable

Learners and educators can make contributions at different levels, such as asking and answering questions, building paths to answering questions, adding reflections, and integrating resources at any of these points. 

The OER University: collaborating, innovating and educating Presenter: Gabi Witthaus, SCORE Fellow, University of Leicester

The OER University  aims to provide free learning to all students worldwide using OER learning materials with pathways to gain credible qualifications from recognised education institutions. It is rooted in the community service and outreach mission to develop a parallel learning universe to augment and add value to traditional delivery systems in post-secondary education. Through the community service mission of participating institutions it will open pathways for OER learners to earn formal academic credit and pay reduced fees for assessment and credit. (taken from the web site) The founding partners are  Athabasca University, OER Foundation, Otago Polytechnic and the University of Southern Queensland, all the partners are accredited by national accredited bodies. The university addresses the issue of providing access to OERs that do not provide accreditation and as identified by UNESCO,  the large number of adults which are eligible for university but cannot afford it.  The OERu students are, international, a large proportion are in the US, some are potential future fee payers and some are “under-served” adults in the local community. The OERu curriculum sources are produced by individual partner institutions, or via partner collaboration or found elsewhere e.g. Saylor Foundation.  Assessment is delivered via a variety of methods such as, portfolios, challenge exams, assignments and essays, monitored at home exams, workplace assessment and APL. Accreditation and credit transfer, range from learner agreements between partners, which is fairly open to identical outcomes which is less so.  The business model,  for the participating partners includes  increased enrolments;  it is less than 0. 5% of the institutional offerings; cross-subsidising from elsewhere in the institution; government funding or sponsorship; capping the number of students; providing grants for learners.  A range of student support approaches have been presented such as, fee paying one-to-ones; FAQs; social networking platforms; using existing outreach support; workplace mentors; support embedded in the materials and possibly the emergence of student support industry. When asked why partners had joined OERu a number of reasons were given, including, social inclusion, staff development, collaboration,  meeting employer needs and institutional marketing.