Forum .LRN Q&A: the European Commission for the European Commission for the eLearning Programme

Thanks very much for your query, I/we at the Center for Digital Systems at the Freie Universitaet Berlin are looking into this (http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/programmes/elearning/call_2305_en.html), too, and as we would need, say, 4 partners and I am looking for at least two Dotlrn partners, I first reply in this forum.

You are right, as I understand it, that the "Virtual Campuses" category is not about developing platforms, but, as they write, the sharing of experiences, lessons learned, identification and dissemination of good practices for e-learning. Our group thinks our particular interest would be in working with universities attempting to developing university-wide implementations -- discussing not simply the successes of our "early adopters", but also, how we might involve a larger percentage of faculty: scalability being a highly relevant criteria. We think this would involve a variety of studies, preparation of detailed case studies, publication of these studies on a public website, conferences, etc. that would play to our common interest in sharing good practices.

I think we might be able to do this in away that would be directly relevant to the Dotlrn community by including two institutions such as ourselves with a centralized commitment to commercial applications, such as Blackboard, and two institutions using open source alternatives. For those of you who don't know, I implemented Dotlrn at my institution on a limited basis before taking a job with the central elearning outfit, which is using Blackboard, but remain active with a small group of dedicated Dotlrners.

By developing this project, in part, as a comparison of open source and commercial systems we could then test one or another interesting hypotheses. First, we might explore how there may be different implementation/support/learning cultures associated with them. For example, I have observed that my Dotlrn colleauges typically respond to problems with a "can do" approach that sees the technology as a work-in-progress and not a black box that is very slow to change. As the application criteria includes a component for evaluating not only quality assurance and assessment, but also, "financial related issues," we might actually be able to explore some "bottom line" issues -- issues that many institutions currently using commercial applications are keeping a close eye on. We might also look at specific application features/interface designs, such as how Dotlrn's group-oriented interface, compares or how its fabulous switchable multi-language interface facilitates international cooperation, etc. In sum, we could develop a research enterprise that devoted to problems of successful implementations more generally and at the same time would allow candid evaluation of open source and commercial lms system strengths and weaknesses.

I might add for the purposes of illustration that I am presently adapting an excellent survey of e-learning strategies from the Pennsylvania State World Campus, http://www.ed.psu.edu/acsde/Workload_Man.ement_Strat_5.pdf, to our purposes, including, the preparation of brief summaries of some 20 things instructors might do to increase efficiency and learning. This roadmap allows faculty to survey what might be done in bite-sized pieces and then apply for support to experiment with as they see fit. This is a user-oriented approach that is based on good teaching practices and how they might be rethought using lms systems: I am starting not from any particular technology, but from working with teachers concerned with using the technology to make their jobs easier and increase student learning.
This close-in approach, I have found, gives faculty welcom conceptual and methodological guidance, brings them closer to their students and to the technology, and does so in the context of a research activity that results in detailed case studies that are readily shared.

So, how far have you looked into this? How far might we do this on our .LRN Q & A? Might there be another European (it must be EU, and probably not a second German university) university, or developer firm associated with a university, that we might be interested in as well? I would be willing to take the lead in writing up the application, but we are operating in a very limited time-frame: the application has to be in Brussels on the 4th of July, meaning at our respective University administrations a week earlier, meaning we have about a week to hammer out the overall concept and details. Anyone else interested?

All the best,

Bruce

Many thanks for your reply! The call for proposals seems to be targeting universities, and our university is interested in the specific problem of exploring university-wide implementations, but I also think that, as Van Weigel argues, that the orientation of students using lms systems might be significantly enhanced by oriented them towards the professional/corporate applications and practices (knowledge management) that, presumably, lie directly in the student's futures. Al's recent post on the customization of Dotlrn for Harvard (and from what I hear, the use of Dotlrn by BP and others) suggests that much is to be learned from the professional context. It might be an interesting angle to explore LMS design and use in the universities in this respect. For the moment, however, I have the problem of finding university partners, and if you any advice on this I'll be grateful!

Thanks!

Bruce

Fabulous! Thanks very much for answering the query! It looks like we now have two other major universities with impressive numbers of users and sophistication in e-learning, so we are now four, and that's probably enough to outline our very preliminary expressions of interest thus far and maybe draw out one or two others in the next couple of days … there are significant sums involved so there is room for more! Briefly, the provisional "wish list" I've drawn up thus far -- and I am presuming that we'll be amending this considerably -- includes:

1) Detailed case studies. Creating and managing groups of student and experienced researchers in detailed user studies, plus the authoring, editing, and publication of these studies, including their translation into detailed recommendations for changes in practice, implementation design, and documentation.

2) A commitment to change. Establishing a research environment (and funding and management strucure) where research results and suggestions can be evaluated, implemented and tested, and the results publicized in a transparent way.

3) Researching, mapping, and changing organizational strategies. Establishing an institutional commitment and procedures to encourage innovation at the managerial levels. This would likely involve soliciting the expertise of consultants in corporate knowledge management (Collison & Parcell, "Learning To Fly" and Dixon's "Common Knowledge: How Companies Thrive by Sharing What They Know" are my current references to an extensive literature here).

4) Developing e-learning networks. A grass-roots variation of #3, but above and below institutional management levels, including the development of e-learning cohorts at the level of instructors and instructors/students and across institutions. Thus, in my institution, support for "early adopters" willing to take a leading role in the training of cohorts of student assistants, soliciting the cooperation of their colleagues, and committing themselves to tutoring, coordinating meetings, writing up reports, being an audience for others, and otherwise being part of a team. On the inter-institutional level, perhaps our organizing a series of exchanges among our institutions whereby we take turns writing up case studies of each other's initiatives, translating these studies into local terms, and experimenting with our local implementations will lead our respective e-learning departments and institutions see it as part of their mission to consider seriously the advice of partner institutions on a routine basis. We would, of course, build a project website the records and expresses our project's goals and design.

5) Interface customization and design. While the project criteria is not specifically about application design, the section "3.5 Computer Support Collaborative Learning" in the excellent article you have linked above demonstrates how our applications embody "lesson learning" in their design (and the signal advantage of including institutions using open source applications is the possibility to incorporate learning and change in the interface and data modeling.

6) Sustainable e-learning infrastructure. As I understand this, (and again, I'm new to much of this and so invite others to correct me and build on this sketch) the concern here is for winning enough faculty and departmental support from demonstrable successes can win long-term individual and institutional commitment. This would involve researching how a strategy devoted to "early wins" might be sustained. Since by nature and design some of the new strategies can not now be known, the management problem is to insure adequate flexibility, supervision, and reporting so that there is a significan risk-taking component built in.

7) A rich reporting/publicity function. I read with great interest your section "3.4 Virtual Communities", identify with the problems of "making the members of the educatoinal community aware that they are the main protagonists of the process" and the criteria of "persistence, shared assimilation, interactivity and participation" -- problems and principles upon which I am sure there is wide agreement -- and what I'd like to see is a multi-levelled online resource where users can find not simply a case study, but interviews, implementation strategies, checklists, and whatever other tools might be devised such that an instructor who says "ok, sounds good to me, I've got limited time but I'll work with you on this," can come up to speed, find what he or she needs, and experience at least an initial success in a very short period of time and with compartively little effort. I have a Spanish-speaking professor and "early adopter" colleague who is eager to be a part of this and will guarantee that our people can access all of your documentation as well as conduct interviews with you and your people. This is a problem not only of learning and implementation design, but of documentation, advertising, marketing, etc., and building a team of writers and salespeople who can assist designers and planners in dissemination and implementation. We have some marketing and writing wizards on staff that we could put together with yours, or those you might employ, so that great ideas are put to the test in a timely fashion.

All the best,

Bruce

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Dear Colleagues:

At this point we have six institutions (Athens, Berlin, Madrid, Maastricht, Valencia, and Vienna) expressing interest in the general lines of the discussion on the Dotlrn forum and various individual emails. However, after further research and consultation I've come to the conclusion that the original idea of addressing the "Virtual Campus" section of the EU application guidelines in terms of the the first priority on page 8, relating to dissemination of good practices, was flawed: upon closer inspection, I now believe this priority is strongly associated with the second priority, supporting European virtual mobility projects building, and as this would involve administrative policies at the highest levels of university administrations, and as I believe most of us have a far more limited responsibilities for e-learning, I felt I must rethink the matter. I should also add that the idea of building an exchange of e-learning courses and materials has not won the support of some of the colleagues either. So, after study and much brainstormed with my colleagues, I now offer you an alternative, and I hope original enough a proposal, that might win for its originality and relevance.

I propose that we now consider a project in the "Transversal Actions" section, which means less money available, but something closer to the interests that I understand many of us to share in the making of existing technologies more effective by paying closer attention to the user experience and do so by focusing on the unique and often crucial role that student assistants and tutors play as they are closer to user groups and experiences than many of us professionaIs, constitute the pool of our future colleagues, and in many instances do much of the detailed work that professionals and instructors might initially design.

We would create a formidable cohort of research assistants tied closely to our operations and, if managed properly, tying our operations together with a rich, experience-sharing and coordinated communications framework.

An analysis of the bottom line might be the best place to start looking at the details. We would demonstrate our institutional commitments by each of us taking on the overhead costs of providing office space, computers, and seminar supervision. The EU would demonstrates its commitment to the student researcher cohort and their networking by devoting almost all of the grant money to them in the form of stipends. For 450,000 EUR we could pay 25 researchers to work 60 hours per month for 11 months per year and include an allocation of 750 EUR each for a conference trip per year so they have some face-to-face networking contact, too.

I am proposing that we create in each of our institutions a research seminar composes of 5-6 student assistants/researchers (depending on how many institutions we have), develop something of a common curriculum for them, coordinate their work through an online workspace, online workshops, and conference activities, and thereby add to our implementations a strong research component, a strong user-advisory function, strengthen our staff training, and as experience shows that, when properly supported, they are capable of preparing detailed case studies and contributing actively to forums, enable more sophisticated and continuous communications among our institutions, and for the EU public, too.

We would develop a two-level research design.

On the level of the study of relevant research literatures, we could hire three experts per semester in the fields of knowledge management, classroom assessment, participation/observation sociology, interaction research and design, instructional design, case study writing, and so forth to lead virtual seminars (12 x 3,000EUR or 36,000EUR). By publicizing these workshops and their results, this would offer the additional benefit of providing the EU e-learning community with a bi-monthly review of current research.

On the level of implementation research, would suggest that this be tied closely to classrooms (for blended learning institutions) and courses (for the distance learning institution). The researchers would develop detailed case studies, discuss them in their respective institutional seminars, present them in the project online forums and be required to comment on each other's presentations, and write up final reports. As we identify common concerns (such as the sequencing of learning activities, the development of e-learning workflows, and the application of project management research to course planning), we could effect even tighter coordination.

This particular suggestion would readily address a number of the criteria featured in the "Transversal Actions" category in the call for proposals as well as the relevant sections in the "Creating, sharing and reusing e-Learning Content" paper this call cites as directly relevant on the call's page 7.

For the former, on page 9 of the call itself, we would start with the section on "fostering a thriving 'Community of practice' for end-users …" and organize the seminar in a way that students are required to submit and comment on each other's case studies on a regular (basically, daily) basis, and thereby both demonstrate how the community "thrives" and create an extensive documentation of the activity in the process.

Also from this section, we might concentrate on the "development of methods and services for self-evaluation and peer review of digital content for learning, emphasizing the pedagogical value and context for use," and here I might add that we at the FU can recommend the adaptation of "Classroom Assessment Techniques", which we have found highly successful in such a seminar this past fall (available on my page: http://home.arcor.de/civici01a/programming/indexdev.htm).

From there we might survey the relevant sections of the "Creating, sharing and reusing e-Learning Content" report, perhaps beginning with the "more active role for the user" section on page 9, calling for "involvement of the user in the specification of the learning content development process and matching approaches to innovative pedagogical models which are better suited to the learning scenario."

An argument that might go far to win the award is to acknowlege that many of our operations are so production-oriented by institutional design (typically, we are service operations, not research operations), that the EU would be addressing limitations in current institutional arrangements. Further, we could argue the centrality of student/user roles in the production process as it is. For example, in the "supporting the practitioners" section on page 10, there is a call to "support teachers with easy to use tools having the relevant functionality to support the processes involved in creating high quality learning experiences," and where I suspect the use of student assistants for training, if not doing much of the work, is the rule. To wit: to address the "need to create a community of teachers developing learning objects across Europe so they can exchange them," I can think of no better way to insure frequent contributions to the time-consuming task of regular (daily? every second day?) posting to online forums than to delegate the responsibility to students. Finally, we could argue that many have acknowledged that the leading edge in e-learning application design has shifted from functionality to interaction design, and specifically, close-in studies of user experiences. On this note, we could argue that, if anyone were to offer advice on the "building of an information environment around the student" that the EU says is a priority, it would be the student.

I could readily go on in detail (compare "Issue 2" on page 11), but I think the overall suggestion, and its import, should be quite clear.

If you are interested in something like this, the thing to do is to respond with your ideas for how this seminar, common platform, and list of tasks these students might perform. If we are to meet the deadline, we will want to develop responses to this proposal as soon as possible, by Friday at the latest. If you are not interested, kindly let me know that, too. What do you think?

I'm looking forward to hearing from you soon!