Effective Use of IT: Guidance on Practice in the Biosciences. Teaching Bioscience: Enhancing Learning Series. Lorraine Stefani

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1 Effective Use of IT: Guidance on Practice in the Biosciences Lorraine Stefani Teaching Bioscience: Enhancing Learning Series Edited by Stephen Maw and Jackie Wison

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3 Effective Use of IT: Guidance on Practice in the Biosciences Lorraine Stefani Director Centre for Academic Deveopment The University of Auckand New Zeaand

4 Teaching Bioscience Enhancing Learning is a series of guides intended to be an accessibe introduction to good earning and teaching practice within the context of competing research and institutiona pressures. The aim of each pubication is to provide a persuasive overview of the pedagogic reasons for adopting a particuar practice and support these reasons with sufficient practica guidance and information to turn ideas into reaity. The guides are structured around a common format; Chapter 1 provides a genera introduction to the topic, Chapter 2 advice on how to impement the topic and Chapter 3 more indepth information on the topic and the opportunity to investigate it further. In addition, each guide contains a coection of bioscience case studies highighting how others have introduced the topic into their teaching practice. It is intended that the guides wi be usefu to academics in their first year of ecturing, particuary those who are studying for Postgraduate Certificates in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, as we as to those with many years of teaching experience. Pubished by the Centre for Bioscience, The Higher Education Academy, Leeds LS2 9JT. ISBN 10: ISBN 13: Copyright of this Guide resides with The Higher Education Academy of which the Centre for Bioscience is part. The materia in this Guide is subject to copyright protection and may be reproduced free of charge in any format or media without requiring specific permission, subject to it being reproduced accuratey and not being used in a derogatory manner or in a miseading context. Where the materia is being pubished or issued to others, the sources and copyright status shoud be acknowedged. This permission does not extend to any materia in the Guide that is identified as being the copyright of a third party. Copyright over this materia sits with the origina author. Whist every effort has been made to ensure that the information provided is accurate, it does not constitute ega or other professiona advice. The Higher Education Academy does not accept any ega responsibiity for any errors, omissions or miseading statements (caused by negigence or otherwise). The Higher Education Academy does not assume any ega iabiity or responsibiity for the accuracy or competeness of any information contained in this Guide. Front cover images courtesy of the Centre for Bioscience ImageBank ( Copyright of images, from eft to right: Pau Rycraft Pau Rycraft; Christopher Hunter University of the West of Engand; Mark Levesey Mark Levesey; and Tom Tregenza Tom Tregenza. The Centre for Bioscience ogo, incorporating an adaptation from an origina image of a Menyanthes trifoiata fower Pau Rycraft; adapted with the kind permission of Pau Rycraft.

5 Contents INTRODUCTION...1 CHAPTER 1 Exporing the use of technoogy in teaching and earning...3 CHAPTER 2 A focus on e-earning in the biosciences...11 CHAPTER 3 Assessment of student earning in an e-earning context...19 CASE STUDIES INDEX...25 CASE STUDY 1 The use of handset technoogy in an interactive ecture setting enhances the earning of histoogy...26 CASE STUDY 2 Using Macromedia Fash to design effective earning support resources to teach bioscience...29 CASE STUDY 3 Reay Simpe Syndication (RSS)...32 CASE STUDY 4 Using onine databases and predictive modeing to deveop student understanding of human popuation growth and goba food demand...36 CASE STUDY 5 An IT soution to a pedagogic probem...40 CASE STUDY 6 Using frequent computer-based assessment to set the pace in a first-year bioscience modue...44 REFERENCES...48

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7 Introduction The purpose of this Guide is two-fod: firsty it is intended to provide usefu insights into current thinking about pedagogicay sound uses of IT in teaching, earning and assessment, and secondy to showcase exampes of how technoogy is being used in a variety of ways within bioscience subject areas. Chapter 1 expores some of the key issues associated with the use of technoogy in teaching and earning and describes many of the computer appications commony used in everyday practice. This chapter aso examines knowedge and understanding of traditiona, cassroom-based teaching and assessment practices, the underying pedagogica principes, and their transferabiity to e-earning. Chapter 2 takes an in depth ook at curricuum design for e-earning with exampes drawn specificay from the biosciences. The intention of this chapter is to enthuse readers who wish to enhance their use of IT in teaching and aso to provide some research findings on how students respond to earning in an onine environment. Chapter 3 considers the potentia for computer-based assessment strategies, again drawing on exampes from subjects within the biosciences. This chapter aso highights some of the key principes of assessment that reate both to traditiona and onine assessment strategies. Bioscience Case Studies: the second part of the Guide provides six case studies of e-earning in the biosciences covering a wide range of topics and subject areas such as: using onine databases and predictive modeing to answer questions about goba popuation and food requirements; Reay Simpe Syndication (RSS) using the Internet in innovative ways to enabe students to access, evauate and use information; and computer-based assessment to set the pace of earning. A of the case studies show innovations that are transferabe to other subject areas. Each is written with enthusiasm and passion and gives insight into the probems or issues associated with impementation as we as the successes. Together the individua case studies encompass the theoretica concepts covered in the earier chapters. Expanded versions of the case studies, video cips, further bioscience case studies and supporting materia are avaiabe from the accompanying web site to this guide ( bioscience.heacademy.ac.uk/teachingguides/) 1

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9 Chapter 1 Exporing the use of technoogy in teaching and earning 3

10 Chapter 1 Exporing the use of technoogy in teaching and earning Introduction E-earning is commony understood to mean the deivery of earning experiences assisted by technoogy. These earning experiences can be either synchronous (i.e. in rea time) or asynchronous (i.e. in deayed time). The first part of this Guide wi focus primariy, but not excusivey, on web-technoogies and their use in the biosciences. The case studies in the second part highight a variety of technoogies being used in innovative ways in different subject areas. Why move to a system of e-earning or why incorporate technoogy into courses? The answers to these questions are not simpistic and there are many issues surrounding the impementation of e- earning strategies. However, technoogy does have great potentia and the students of today have grown up with technoogy and have different expectations for their earning experiences. They have a higher expectation that earning materias wi be avaiabe not ony through accessing cassroom-based resources but aso through the use of technoogy. Students are more mobie today and they often combine paid empoyment and study. E-earning aows for earning materias to be avaiabe anytime, anypace. Most importanty, used we e-earning technoogy toos can enhance and assist in the earning experience and this in itsef is a key driving force to expoit technoogy in a pedagogicay sound manner. Most academic subject areas wi use technoogy in accordance with the needs of their discipine and the bioscience subject areas are no different in this respect. What is important in the first instance is to recognise and understand the most common appications of technoogy, buid on these and appy the pedagogica principes appropriate to the discipine to the deveopment of new e-earning components of courses and programmes. The purpose of this chapter is to expore some of the key issues reating to: Institutiona support for embedding technoogy into teaching and earning; Some commony used earning appications; and Pedagogica principes appicabe to both traditiona and technoogy-mediated teaching and earning. What do we understand by e-earning? The question, what do we understand by e-earning? is probematic to answer. In recent years the term e-earning seems to have become shorthand for amost any teaching and earning activity invoving educationa technoogies. This catch-a term for the use of technoogy in teaching may, on the one hand, be perfecty acceptabe. On the other hand, there is a danger that this casua approach can mask the need for the underying phiosophica and pedagogica principes of student earning to be interrogated and addressed if e-earning is to ive up to the buzz words often associated with the concept. These buzz words incude: fexibiity, independent earning, distance earning, student-centred earning, ife-ong earning, virtua cassrooms, virtua aboratories and bended earning (Stee and Hudson, 2001). These buzz words are in themseves an indication of the goba changes in higher education. There has been a shift to mass higher education, increasing eves of internationaisation, recognition of the impact of diverse student popuations and the need to accommodate different earning styes and strategies, and most of a the change of focus from teaching to faciitation of student earning (Stefani and Nico, 1997). In this changed and changing context there is a growing need and enthusiasm for the potentia of technoogy to support student earning. The potentia of technoogy to support teaching and earning in any subject area does, however, create some tensions. Educationaists see computer technoogies as essentia toos of the teaching trade (Sandhotz et a., 1997) that, when used appropriatey shoud have a positive impact on the student earning experience (Berman, 1998). Educationa managers either do not fuy appreciate the compexities of changing the nature of teaching and earning to fuy expoit the potentia of technoogy or they see technoogy from the viewpoint of efficiency gains. To get the very best out of the potentia of computer technoogies, university managers need to recognise the importance of: technoogica infrastructure to the success of the venture; the need for increased burring of the boundaries between the roes and responsibiities of academic and academic-reated staff and the need for strong partnership arrangements between academic staff within their discipines and staff in centra service units. Many academic staff find the idea of changing their conceptions of teaching 4

11 Chapter 1 Exporing the use of technoogy in teaching and earning probematic and time consuming and there can be issues reating to deveopment of the necessary skis to manage teaching and earning mediated by technoogy. High eves of investment in appropriate professiona deveopment are essentia to the effective and efficient use of technoogy in teaching and earning. Using technoogies in teaching provides no guarantee that the student earning experience wi be enhanced because technoogy in itsef is not the panacea to a teaching and student-earning probems and issues. Whatever the medium used for the purposes of faciitating student earning, first and foremost must be a fundamenta understanding of teaching, earning, assessment, curricuum deveopment and design of earning tasks. However, for e-earning to ive up to the buzz words mentioned previousy it must be fuy appreciated by a that the use of technoogy in teaching needs be underpinned by sound pedagogica principes. Appications Many academic staff initiay fee fearfu of technoogy and of adapting their teaching styes and strategies to accommodate technoogy and e-earning inputs. There are three possibe reasons for this. Firsty, academic staff are hard pressed to cope with the mutipe facets of their roes and responsibiities and earning the intricacies of technoogy can be seen as another burden on aready busy peope. Secondy, there is the anomaous situation whereby technoogica advances are aways ahead of our capacity to transform our teaching and earning strategies (Stee and Hudson, 2001). It can seem a never-ending batte just to keep up with the technoogy, never mind the pedagogy. Thirdy, there is evidence to inform us that there is sti a ot of content-driven, transmission-mode teaching occurring (e.g. Badge et a., 2005). To shift the emphasis from teacher-centred, transmission-mode to student-centred, inquiry-based earning demands greater eves of understanding regarding student earning, curricuum deveopment and earning design. Focusing on common uses of technoogy one can see that most peope probaby have a wider range of technoogica expertise than they give themseves credit for. Combining these skis with greater eves of refection on student earning and existing expertise goes a ong way to achieve a transformative mode of teaching. (For further detais on transformative earning see Cranton, 1994). Some common uses of technoogy in teaching and earning are outined here: Everyday use of e-mai It is highy unusua to come across university staff members who do not use e-mai. Amost everyone uses it on a daiy basis as a means of communication. Most students have access to computers and e-mai accounts. E-mai can therefore be used as a means of communicating with students. The better the institutiona infrastructure, the more use can be made of e-mai. Students can be asked to send in assignments as e-mai attachments and can receive feedback on assignments by e-mai. This simpe usage of technoogy is appicabe in any subject area incuding the biosciences. Using the Word Wide Web Most academic staff wi use the Web at some point for finding interesting materias and resources and most students are famiiar with surfing the Web. Surfing the Web can be integrated into any course as part of deveoping students information iteracy skis for exampe. Whie academics worry a great dea about pagiarism and students abiities to copy materia from the Web, it is more productive to invite students to find materias from web sites and to anayse these resources (Stefani and Carro, 2001), than to worry that students wi pagiarise materia found on the Web and put more and more resources into detecting pagiarism. Changing the nature of the curricuum to incude students skis eves in information retrieva, anaysis and evauation can aeviate the pagiarism probem (Carro, 2002; Stefani and Asop, 2005). Use of software packages such as PowerPoint The use of PowerPoint is amost overdone in teaching and earning. In many subject areas it is unusua for students to be subjected to anything other than PowerPoint presentations. However, to have used PowerPoint is to have used technoogy in teaching. Whie there are disadvantages to PowerPoint, which are no different to the mis-use of overhead transparencies e.g. font size too sma, too much text per side and so on, there are aso advantages to be expoited. PowerPoint sides are easiy changed for use in different contexts 5

12 Chapter 1 Exporing the use of technoogy in teaching and earning and they can very easiy be made avaiabe to a students if a Virtua Learning System such as Backboard or WebCT is in common usage within the wider university. Use of a Virtua Learning Environment (VLE) Many universities wi have a VLE, the most common of which are Backboard and WebCT. Whie a VLE is hugey beneficia to universities as an administrative aid for posting student exam resuts and maintaining student records, a VLE can aso be used to support teaching and earning. Lecture notes and PowerPoint presentations for a particuar course can be posted on to the VLE for easy retrieva by students. This can be hepfu for students who were unabe to attend a ecture for exampe, or if the PowerPoint presentations and ecture notes can be posted onto Backboard, WebCT or any other VLE being used, this gives an opportunity to stress to students that they do not need to spend time writing notes, but can focus on istening and responding to questions. Good use of a VLE can go some way to transforming what is actuay happening in the cassroom. A VLE can be used in other ways too, it can be used to encourage greater eves of peer earning. This aspect of a VLE wi be expored further in Chapter 2 of this Guide. Use of interactive CD-ROMs There are many commerciay avaiabe interactive CD-ROMs appicabe to the biosciences. Obviousy, making choices about what resources are suitabe for use with students is dependent upon the intended earning outcomes for any course. For simuations of aboratory experiments for exampe, it may be considered more important to deveop your own CD-ROMs in conjunction with the mutimedia unit within your university. What is important in using this type of resource is how it is used and how the simuation package is integrated with other teaching materias. The above exampes of common uses of technoogy in teaching do not, in themseves, invove major changes in course perception and curricuum design nor do they fundamentay shift thinking with respect to faciitating student earning. Rather they represent convenient uses of technoogy. However, to propery consider the redesign of courses towards a more technoogy-mediated format, and embed e- earning as an integra aspect of the curricuum, there is a requirement to think through the pedagogica principes underying student approaches to earning. The next section wi expore these issues in more detai. The shifting roe of the university teacher Whie there can be no doubt that major advances have been made in the past few years regarding the conceptions of teaching and our understanding of student earning, much of what has been earnt is yet to be transferred successfuy into the context of e- earning. For exampe, just a few years ago Littejohn and Stefani (1999) reported on a survey that indicated many academics view the Web as another means by which they can deiver their ecture notes. There is sti some anecdota evidence to suggest that this view prevais amongst some academics. However, this appears to be due mainy to the fundamenta misconception that the use of new technoogies invoves simpy transferring traditiona teaching methods into an eectronic format, with itte attention being paid to the underying pedagogica impications (Littejohn, 2000). As the case studies in the second part of this Guide wi show, there are now exceent exampes of pedagogicay sound uses of technoogy in teaching in the biosciences. The worst of e-earning courses are nothing more than endess text on roing screens. This mode of e- earning signifies that those responsibe for designing the course had itte understanding of how students earn in a technoogica environment. Rather, they have transferred a teacher-centred, content-driven curricuum from their fiing cabinet to a computer. Whie simpe transference of materia used in more traditiona, cassroom-based teaching contexts on to a web site or into a VLE may be convenient for teachers and ecturers, for the students, it means downoading and printing off text. This does not enhance student earning and in fact can re-enforce a conception of earning premised on the need for a good set of notes to be regurgitated for the purposes of assessment. If no one asks simpe questions such as What is the impact of my teaching on student earning? (within a cassroom context) how then can technoogy be expected to magicay sove a the probems or 6

13 Chapter 1 Exporing the use of technoogy in teaching and earning perceived probems regarding student motivation and engagement? The integration of e-earning or fexibe earning using technoogy is ikey to be infuenced by current conceptions of teaching and it is this aspect of work that needs to be reconceptuaised. Whatever the context of earning, be it traditiona, cassroom-based; distance earning; or e-earning, the purpose of the course or programme, the design, deveopment and mode of deivery and associated assessment strategies must be carefuy considered. To successfuy design any course, the foowing eements are essentia components to interrogate: Background or context. For exampe, department, facuty, institution, student group and teacher. Intended earning outcomes. What the students are abe to do at the end of the course, expressed in active verbs. Learning outcomes must be specific and measurabe. Assessment of student earning. What wi be assessed? How wi you assess for the earning outcomes? Assessment shoud encompass both formative and summative eements. The criteria shoud be cear to the students and they shoud be expicity inked to the earning outcomes). In many situations students shoud be invoved in assessment strategies, for exampe, in negotiating assessment criteria for sef- and peer-assessment activities. Content. Course content shoud be seected to support the earning outcomes and the assessment, standards must be articuated, and course content shoud encompass knowedge, skis and understanding. Course Structure. The teaching and earning strategies shoud be panned, e.g. ectures, practica casses, tutorias, sef-directed earning. Appropriate choices shoud be made taking into consideration students different earning strategies. Cassroom. The earning outcomes can be specified for each earning session and the most appropriate format for earning considered. Is it a traditiona, cassroom-based session or is it a virtua session? Evauation. Pan for how the course quaity wi be evauated; incude mutipe sources of evidence. (Henderson, persona communication) This outine for course design was presented by an academic staff member participating in a postgraduate certificate programme reating to earning and teaching in higher education. The participant teaches on courses encompassing a high eve of e-earning. The reationship between teaching beiefs and successfu adoption of new technoogies In the past it has not been uncommon for curricuum deveopment to occur in the absence of any guiding mode or framework. There has been a tendency for courses to be designed from the starting point of content, foowed by how this content wi be deivered, as in by means of ectures, tutorias or practica casses, with the addition of activities such as group projects. Assessment of student earning has argey focused on knowedge and assessment is often boted on at the end of the ine. There are curricuum deveopment frameworks which can hep shift conceptions of teaching and earning. One such mode is a modification of that presented by Cowan and Harding (1986), shown in Figure 1. This ogica mode of curricuum deveopment has been shown to be a successfu too in many different discipines incuding subject areas within the biosciences (Stefani, 2004). The mode shown, paces the intended earning outcomes as centra to a aspects of course design. If the earning outcomes have not been considered, how can the assessment strategies be aigned? Defining the intended earning outcomes ceary and in accessibe anguage can support students in thinking through their own earning strategies as we as enabing teachers to consider how they wi faciitate student earning to achieve the intended outcomes. The mode is deceptivey simpe in that it is premised on three questions reevant to each stage in the cyce. Figure 1. A ogica mode of curricuum deveopment Anayse EVALUATION Assembe How TEACHING What Why DECISIONS OUTCOMES How ASSESSMENT What Why How LEARNING What Why (Cowan and Harding, 1998; Stefani, 2004) 7

14 Chapter 1 Exporing the use of technoogy in teaching and earning For exampe, inking assessment to the intended earning outcomes raises the foowing questions: How wi the intended earning outcomes be assessed? The earning outcomes shoud incorporate, knowedge, skis and understanding; What wi be assessed? To move away from an excessive focus on course content the answer to this question shoud incude both the product and the processes of student earning; and After consideration of how? and what?, as a point of refection, why have those choices been made? These same simpe questions can be asked a the way round the mode (Stefani, 2004; Cowan and Harding, 1986) and they encourage consideration of the curricuum in broader terms. What is interesting to note about this mode is that assessment is considered once the earning outcomes have been determined, rather than at the end of the cyce. This is why the mode was termed a ogica mode because it differs significanty from a chronoogica mode where the stages are: earning outcomes (or aims and objectives): course content: teaching and finay assessment. A second mode of course (or curricuum) design presented by Biggs (1999) is premised on his theory of aigning teaching, earning and assessment (see Figure 2). Research on student earning indicates that for any course students tend to think about assessment first rather than, as their ecturers or tutors often do, as the ast piece of course (or curricuum deveopment) that needs to be considered. Both of the modes move away from a chronoogica view of teaching and earning. The stage by stage process of curricuum design outined above by Henderson (2005) is another way of representing or conceptuaising Cowan and Harding s mode. Figure 2. Biggs mode of aignment of teaching, earning and assessment Teacher perspective: objectives Student perspective: assessment Teaching activities Learning activities assessment outcomes (Biggs, 1999) An important question to ask is: Wi the modes outined above be hepfu in the context of e-earning? To answer this question requires an anaysis of key features of e-earning. As with traditiona, cassroom-based earning, e-earning (as instruction using technoogy) shoud encompass the foowing attributes: Consideration of the intended earning outcomes for any programme, course or modue; A strategy for assessing for the earning outcomes; Consideration of instructiona methods which wi engage the earners. In an e-earning context, it is essentia that students are not faced with vast quantities of course content on screen. Incusion of exampes of concepts in action, appications of concepts and practice eements with feedback to support earning are key to engaging the earner; Media eements such as text, diagrams, pictures, and video streams to deiver both the content and the earning methods; and The potentia to construct new knowedge and skis aigned with the earning goas. (adapted from Cark and Mayer, 2002) The basic premise of effective e-earning course design is not dissimiar to effective course design for non e-earning courses. However, what becomes more obvious in curricuum design invoving e- earning is that in moving to a new mode of deivery, more emphasis on earning design is required than is taken for granted in cassroom modes of deivery. The significance of earning design wi be the focus of Chapter 2 of this Guide. We designed e-earning programmes present an exceent opportunity to encourage the shift from teacher-centred, content-driven courses to studentcentred, enquiry-based courses with the potentia to motivate and engage the earners. However, before rushing to design e-earning courses, it is important to ask Why e-earning? Is it for the purpose of: Suppementing and compementing cassroombased or face-to-face teaching? For exampe, a bended earning strategy where courses consist of a mix of face-to-face and technoogy use. Fexibiity and accessibiity? Taking into consideration the varied responsibiities of 8

15 Chapter 1 Exporing the use of technoogy in teaching and earning students who may, for exampe, be in the position of working severa hours per week or caring for famiy members; Greater eves of accessibiity of earning in accordance with the concept of the accessibe curricuum accessibe to a students incuding students with disabiities (Hammond and Stefani, 2001; QAAHE 2005); and Pragmatism? For exampe, arge-scae aboratory casses whereby it may be too expensive to have hands-on practica casses or computer simuations which remove some ethica concerns. To integrate e-earning into any curricuum it is necessary to have a sound pedagogica basis for doing so and to design and integrate e-earning programmes in accordance with the institutiona goas for student earning. Modes of student earning based on an underpinning body of research Numerous modes for earning have been proposed within the iterature which are easiy accessibe to academic staff and often suggested as primary reading in accredited postgraduate professiona deveopment programmes for new staff. Exampes of such modes incude Kob s experientia earning cyce (Kob, 1984), Jarvis mode of refection and earning (Jarvis, 1987), Lauriard s conversationa framework (Lauriard, 2002) and Barnett s framework for higher education (Barnett, 1990). Whie it is not appropriate in this Guide to give fu expanations of the simiarities and differences between these theoretica perspectives on earning, a of the iterature referenced is easiy accessibe. A of the recent iterature on teaching and student earning indicates that students earn best if they are encouraged to become activey invoved in the earning process. Courses based on vast quantities of content are known to ead to passive earning and most ikey regurgitation of that content in assessment tasks (e.g. Ramsden, 2003; Prosser and Trigwe, 1999; Biggs, 1999). This is not to argue for courses without content, but course or curricuum content shoud never be the main aim. There is growing evidence to suggest that more academic staff are interested in engaging with and appying earning modes within their own cassroom practice and this is hugey positive. Which mode or modes gain favour with academic and or educationa deveopers supporting academic staff often depend upon the cuture of the institution, the particuar eanings of educationa deveopers and the intended earning outcomes for particuar groups or popuations of students. However, according to Beetham et a., (2001) there is, as yet, itte evidence that these modes are being appied to the deveopment of e- earning courses and programmes. For exampe, internet searches, word-processing and mutimedia presentations are increasingy common practices in many subject areas but it is not cear that the integrated use of computers for promoting critica thinking processes and as a focus for communicative interaction is very common (Loveess et a., 2001). Conoe et a., (2004) have suggested that this may be because many e-earning practitioners find the diverse array of theoretica perspectives aien and overwheming. Another possibe expanation is that academic staff working in partnership with educationa deveopers speciaising in e-earning are not necessariy re-conceptuaising the curricuum for a different mode of faciitating student earning. Many experts in the fied of computer-mediated or technoogy-mediated earning advocate engaged peer interactions with a shared computer activity. As stated by Kimber and coeagues (Kimber et a., 2005), this socio-cognitive view of education recognises the interdependency of communicative interaction, new technoogies, the design of computer-based tasks and focussed activity for earners to become critica thinkers and creators of knowedge. The skis of academic staff in designing earning activities that effectivey appy coaborative inquiry to eectronic tasks for deepening student knowedge remains crucia whatever the subject area, student age or software choices (Kimber et a., 2005). e-earning and coaborative earning One of the issues to take into consideration when considering integrating technoogy into teaching is the socia aspect of earning. In arge casses of students, it may be that many students are sient, never asking questions or responding to questions. However, the cassroom encompasses a mutitude of communicative cues. Students can hear their peers asking or responding to questions, they can pick up cues from ecturers reating to emphasis on particuar 9

16 Chapter 1 Exporing the use of technoogy in teaching and earning topics and from body anguage they can sense eves of engagement or understanding. These socia cues are generay absent in computer-mediated teaching and earning. There are 3 key factors to be considered with respect to changing the medium of earning. Firsty, there is the issue of the mediationa roe of the computer (Biss and Säjö, 1999), as we as the communicative and inteectua dimension of coaboration (Mercer, 1995). For computer-mediated earning to be successfu, it is important to acknowedge the socia dimension of earning. Merey asking students to sit down and interact with a computer, as in seeing ony the computationa use of new technoogies, wi not in any way enhance earning. Secondy, it is becoming more and more cear that ad hoc approaches to curricuum design, deveopment and deivery wi not necessariy adapt easiy to the concept of e-earning. Why is this the case? It is the case because there is sti more focus on course content at the expense of student earning and a reuctance towards the utimate purpose of higher education the transformation of knowedge and creativity in knowedge generation. Effective e-earning encompasses the potentia for students to construct eectronic representations of their knowedge as a way of deepening and communicating their understandings and for enhancing earners critica thinking skis (Kimber et a., 2005). The third point is that academic staff need to recognise a new ski set in course design and be prepared to refect on and acknowedge their own shortcomings in technoiteracy. For the time-being, many individuas may prefer to rey on e-earning experts to hep them through the transformative change but in due course, the widespread use and potentia of technoogy wi dictate that a staff embrace e-earning design. Summary In summary e-earning is not a panacea for a of the issues faced in the modern university. To ive up to the goas of higher education in terms of deveoping independent earners, critica thinkers and creative, knowedgeabe graduates there is a responsibiity to consider the overa earning experiences of a students. Embedding e-earning into the student earning experience means academics must interrogate their own approaches to curricuum design, the deveopment of earning activities and student assessment. This chapter has attempted to highight and expore many of these issues. The next chapter wi focus on current e-earning appications across different subject areas in the biosciences. 10

17 Chapter 2 A focus on e-earning in the biosciences 11

18 Chapter 2 A focus on e-earning in the biosciences Introduction The focus of this chapter is to examine the importance of earning design to the effective and successfu integration of e-earning into the curricuum with a particuar emphasis on e-earning appications within the biosciences. It is important to re-iterate that a mode of e-earning integration which is anchored to the perceived need for student acquisition of marketabe skis for the Information Age does not capitaise on the potentia of eectronic cognitive toos to enhance the earning process or to faciitate students critica engagement with subject content (Kimber et a., 2005). The focus for designing e-earning components of courses must be recognition of both the cognitive and the socia dimensions of earning rather than the appication of isoated technoogica skis. If e-earning is to be successfuy integrated into the overa teaching and earning strategy for any course or programme of study, there is no escape for ecturers/tutors regarding the need to understand key aspects of student earning and earning design. Integrated technoogy use in a course or programme shoud be synonymous with the concept of earning with technoogy. Curricuum design for e-earning Curricuum design for e-earning is often caed Instructiona Design. This is an American term gaining wider currency in discussions about e-earning. The term Instructiona Design is defined as: the systematic deveopment of instructiona specifications using earning and instructiona theory to ensure the quaity of instruction. This terminoogy is rather cumsy. In essence the pedagogica principes of teaching and supporting student earning must be appied to the design and deveopment of onine or web-based modues, courses and programmes of study. Instructiona Design is a usefu term because it encompasses the entire process of anaysis of earning needs and goas, and the deveopment of a deivery system to meet those needs. It incudes the deveopment of earning materias, activities, practice eements (often using technoogy) and evauation of a teaching and earning activities (Cark and Mayer, 2002). In simper terms Instructiona Design means inking earner anaysis to the design and deveopment of resources. The term is introduced in this Guide because of its prevaence in much of the current research iterature on e-earning. It is worth noting that deveopment of e-earning course components may initiay, in the deveopmenta phase, be seen as more compex than designing a course for traditiona, cassroom-based deivery. However, there are two key issues to be considered with respect to this potentia compexity. Firsty, there is sti ampe anecdota and pubished evidence (Stefani 2004) stating that despite the rhetoric and the anguage used in most universities reating to teaching and earning such as: active earning, student-centred earning, fexibe earning and student diversity, students are sti exposed to a content-driven, transmission-mode of teaching, particuary in arge casses. Academic teaching staff do not necessariy interrogate the above terms and modify their course design or their teaching methods in accordance with the meaning of these terms. A further point to note is that Instructiona Design and a it encompasses in the context of e-earning, is much more ikey to be productive if academic staff working in their discipines can work in partnership with staff from a unit such as a Centre for Educationa Mutimedia. Athough it is sometimes the case that one champions of e-earning carry good work forward. Such partnerships make it a the more important that student earning characteristics are taken into consideration when designing onine or e-earning courses. On the socia and cognitive aspects of student earning, whie a transmission mode of teaching is not idea and is known to encourage passive as opposed to active earning (Ramsden, 2003) the ecturer can, nevertheess, gain subte feedback very easiy on what is going on in his/her cass. For exampe, ecturers in the traditiona cassroom can rey on subte visua cues from their students. A quick gance across the ecture theatre reveas who is taking notes, who has tuned out, who might be prepared to ask a question or make a comment. Skifu teachers, even in deivery and transmission mode, can respond to the cues and adjust deivery accordingy. Students too can pick up on how their peers are behaving or responding in the cassroom. With e-earning, there are no such visua cues, therefore the instructiona design must be expicit in the seection, sequencing and creation of earning experiences. Creative abiities and an underpinning knowedge and understanding of student earning are essentia skis for the design of engaging and effective e-courses (Cantoni et a., 2004). 12

19 Chapter 2 A focus on e-earning in the biosciences Linking earner anaysis to e-earning design Most earning theories show that interaction and earner motivation pay an important roe in the teaching and earning process. In an e-earning context what makes the difference is not the technoogy itsef but rather the earning methods enabed and supported by the technoogy. A brief foray into cognitive earning theory may hep the reader conceptuaise the key factors to be taken into consideration when designing e-courses for effective earning: Human memory has two channes for processing information: visua and auditory; Human memory has a imited capacity for processing information; Learning occurs by active processing in the memory system; and Extra knowedge and skis must be retrieved from ong term memory for transfer to the task in hand. (Cark and Mayer, 2002) In simpe terms, the way information is aid out can have a significant effect on the ease with which readers engage with the content and the effort they need to make to extract deeper meaning from the information presented. We designed e-earning courses taking into consideration issues such as anytime, anypace earning, are easy to navigate, incude sef-assessment tasks and are an integra part of an overa course or programme. Student earning shoud be an active rather than passive endeavour but to achieve this, students need to be aware of their responsibiities and be introduced at an eary stage to the expected earning outcomes. There is a tendency to take it for granted that students understand their responsibiities for their own earning. If a substantia change is made in the medium then this shoud be accompanied by an appropriate student induction into the new context. Exampes of e-earning appications in the biosciences i) The web page versus the Virtua Lecture An exceent exampe of good versus bad e-earning design from within the biosciences comes from Chris Evans from the Department of Bioogica Sciences and his coeagues from the Centre for Mutimedia at Brune University. In designing e-earning modues in the subject areas of genetics and reproduction, Evans et a., (2004) tested a hypothesis that materia presented in an interactive, easiy navigabe, computer-based earning system which they caed a Virtua Lecture creates a significant improvement in the student earning experience over identica materia presented simpy as pictures and text in scroabe web pages. In the first instance of the move to computer-based earning, in this exampe, subject content was transferred onto a web page. This web page materia had quite simpy been constituted from expanded ecture notes transated into hypertext mark-up anguage (HTML), formatted into readabe text, with picture images added in. Interna hyperinks were used to take the earner to other pages in the site. The overa emphasis for this type of onine deivery was to ensure content coverage, rather than thinking through the issues of how students earn and designing the course accordingy. From a earner perspective the web page mode of deivery seemed itte different from being asked to read the reevant chapter(s) in a textbook. Unsurprisingy, most students simpy printed off the web pages because this was easier than reading through the arge voumes of text onscreen. Student evauation and feedback on this mode of earning, perhaps unsurprisingy, showed it to be very unpopuar. In contrast to this the deveopment of the Virtua Lecture took into consideration the principes of instructiona design and the knowedge and understanding of student earning. The Virtua Lecture consisted of materia embedded in a speciay designed mutimedia she impemented in Macromedia Authorware (a commerciay avaiabe software package). Principes of good course design were used with a particuar emphasis on usabiity and interactivity. The course materia was we structured into key topics and sub-topics, navigation bars were incuded to enabe students to move easiy through the materias and both interna and externa hyperinks were incuded to enabe students to access or browse additiona materias. The Virtua Lecture was constructed carefuy to be highy interactive with audio and visua feedback components and interactive sef-assessment questions (fu detais of the design principes used are given in Evans and Edwards, 1999). Different cohorts of students experienced these onine modues which varied widey in their design 13

20 Chapter 2 A focus on e-earning in the biosciences principes. A carefu study was carried out to compare achievement eves and the authors presented strong evidence to indicate that onine presentation in a structured, navigabe, interactive earning environment significanty improved the students earning experience. The authors concuded from their endeavours to improve cassroom teaching and to embed e-earning or onine earning into their courses that: whie web pages offer a the advantages of open and distance earning, such as fexibiity of pace, time, ocation for earning and empowerment of students to take contro of their own earning, these advantages are not in themseves sufficient to improve earning. Rather, the onine earning environment needs to be underpinned by sound pedagogica principes (Evans et a., 2004). Reating some of the Instructiona Design points mentioned above to the exampe of the web-page versus the Virtua Lecture approach to e-courses on genetics and reproduction: the Virtua Lecture encompassed both audio and visua feedback components, the notes on the web approach confronted the earner with roing text, too much for students to accommodate without printing off a the materia; the Virtua Lecture incuded interactive sefassessment questions, thus motivating the earners, stimuating earning and affirming earning through the sef-paced assessments in-buit into the programme. Any e-earning course shoud be constructed in ight of how students earn and on the basis of experimenta evidence concerning e-earning features that promote best earning. An error in judgement that is often made is that decisions about how to design e- earning courses are based on the capabiities of the technoogy. This is a technoogy-centred approach to Instructiona Design rather than a earner-centred approach. The exampe described above highights the comparison between a teacher-centred, contentdriven approach to instructiona design versus a student-centred, inquiry-based earning approach. ii) Laboratory simuation experiments Simuations of aboratory experiments are an interesting issue. In many bioscience subjects, ecturers are faced with extremey arge casses. Not ony is it expensive to run aboratory-based, handson practica casses, it is becoming more difficut to ensure positive earning experiences for students. For pragmatic reasons, practica casses cannot be changed and modified on a reguar basis and there are imitations in some subject areas regarding the avaiabiity of up-to-date equipment. There are aso difficuties reating to the composition of the casses. Many students in arge science casses wi not progress to empoyment invoving aboratory work. Some students are enroed in courses that are prerequisites for progression to further study but they are not necessariy excited by these courses. Simuations of experiments therefore seem a good idea. Many simuations of experiments actuay aow students to deveop a range of key skis such as data handing, interpretation, communication and experimenta design. These are a skis vaued by empoyers (Knight and Yorke, 2003) and in some instances these skis can be highighted more through simuations than actua practica experiments. This makes it a the more crucia that ecturers and teaching staff keep in mind the intended earning outcomes of any course and affirm these skis when working with their students. Ian Hughes (Hughes, 2001 and 2002) from the Schoo of Biomedica Sciences at the University of Leeds describes two different types of aboratory simuations. The first is whereby the programme designer has deveoped a set of experiments with a prescribed sequence of events to be presented to the students, more of a visua aid than a hands-on earning experience. A second type of simuation aows the user/earner to determine the sequence of events and aows for anaysis of data produced by the earner. For exampe, in the context of pharmacoogy this woud invove students thinking through the purpose of the experiment or the experimenta parameters and being abe to manipuate the choice, dose and timing of drug administration. This second type of simuation is enormousy fexibe and aows for the design of compex and sophisticated experiments. Hughes, however, reports on an exampe of students using a simuation of a practica experiment rather than a wet ab cass. When the package was used in conjunction with tutoria/discussion sessions student satisfaction based on issues such as ease of use and navigation, appropriateness and eve of content, carity of expanation and usefuness as a earning aid was very high. The students using simuation aso scored highy in an MCQ test on the materia in the package. The key issue here was that the simuation of the experiment was integrated with other teaching materia as part of the course (Hughes, 2001; Hughes, 2002). In an interactive, aboratory simuation situation students can take risks and make mistakes without directy exposing themseves in front of peers and tutors or ecturers. 14

21 Chapter 2 A focus on e-earning in the biosciences Hughes gives an exceent summary of the essentia requisites of teaching packages deivered through the medium of technoogy. They are as foows: Accessibiity and ease of use are of paramount importance; Reiabiity of IT infrastructure is essentia; Computer packages/onine teaching resources must be fuy integrated into courses and their purpose must be made expicit to the students. The overa purpose shoud be in accordance with intended earning outcomes and incude the deveopment of essentia skis as we as knowedge, information and understanding; Assessment of student earning must incude the successfu achievement of the earning objectives and earning outcomes of the course; It is essentia to highight and expain the key skis which can be deveoped using computer packages/earning resources; Students need to understand how to use the materia, what depth of knowedge is required, and how computer aided earning compements earning in other formats; and The roe of the ecturers/tutors is to faciitate the student earning with the aid of resources such as computer packages, not to abandon the students to their own devices. (Adapted from Hughes, 2002) Many simuation packages are now avaiabe commerciay and choices need to be based on intended earning outcomes of a course, reevance of the package and potentia to integrate with other aspects of course content, assessment and modes of teaching and earning. iii) The hybrid course Foowing on from the idea of using computer simuations of aboratory experiments for arge casses, Riffe and Sibey (2005) from Michigan State University report on a hybrid course format which incorporates web-based instruction to enhance earning in arge undergraduate bioogy courses. The format of their high-enroment, introductory environmenta bioogy course was part onine and part face-to-face. The nature of this course was radicay different from their traditiona type of course whereby students were expected to attend a arge number of ectures per week. Observations of the casses showed probems that are a too famiiar: poor attendance, ow attention eves and poor performance by many students. The change in format to a hybrid course was such that ony once per week did students have to attend ectures. However, the design of the ectures was changed from transmission and deivery of content to interactive, probem-soving sessions interspersed with short bursts of content deivery. Students were encouraged to tak to their peers, as in engage in peer earning in cass. In addition to attending once per week, students had to compete bi-weeky, webbased homework probem sets. Each week of the course began with one onine assignment due to be sent to the tutor the night before the active ecture, and a second onine assignment which extended knowedge of concepts covered in cass was due at the end of the week (Riffe and Sibey, 2005). The architects of this hybrid course (Riffe and Sibey, 2005) reported: better attendance at the active-ecture ; enhanced peer-earning as many students communicated with each other over course content; and overa enhanced earning as reated to achievement in end of course assessments. This hybrid course seemed ike an idea situation for staff and for students. Students had more fexibiity and contro over their overa earning, and were more activey engaged and activey invoved. We designed web-based courses can be much more studentcentred than traditiona, transmission-based ectures whereby students beieve earning is imited to taking notes. Web-based courses can encourage students to earn in different ways (Caverey, 2003). In a further re-enforcement of the issue of the importance of a pedagogica underpinning to the success of computer-based earning, Yazon et a., (2002) from the University of British Coumbia stated that there is a cear need for educators to criticay investigate how Information Communications Technoogy (ICT) can be used more effectivey to improve teaching and enhance earning. An essentia part of that investigation invoved training teachers and the students on the pedagogica perspectives and their respective roes and responsibiities in courses where technoogy was extensivey used. Yazon et a., (2002) decided on moving a genetics course in which a majority of the students in the cass remained reuctant to reinquish their reiance 15

22 Chapter 2 A focus on e-earning in the biosciences on passive earning approaches out of the ecture theatre and into the virtua earning environment. They designed a hybrid teaching and earning format incorporating an auto-tutoria, onine version of the course in WebCT. The ecture section of the course was modified to a moduar, sef-directed, onine instructiona format, with sma group, instruction-ed tutoria sessions providing the face-to-face component of the course. The technoogy-mediated version of the genetics course provides 12 onine moduar units with earning activities, probem-soving exercises, advice on earning approaches, and hyperinks to a range of other web-based earning resources. Students move through the modues after competing inbuit formative and summative tests. An additiona exciting feature of this course is that it incorporates an eectronic Buetin Board for student-initiated conversations to occur and a student hep desk for individua and sma-group tutoring. An important aspect of this strategy is that obviousy if students do not have to attend so many ectures, this frees up ecture time and ecture preparation time. This extra time can be used to engage with the students either through the Buetin Board or through e-mai contact. It is, of course, ony fair to say that there is front oading of the organisationa and curricuum design work required to make a this happen. Yazon and her team carried out a study with the students who engaged in the hybrid approach to teaching genetics (Yazon et a., 2002). The outcomes of the study shoud be a sautary esson to anyone who sti beieves that ectures are successfu in engaging students. Most of the students iked the sef-paced nature of the study, the anytime, anypace fexibiity and the more visua approach that the onine course offered in comparison to the passive nature of content-driven ectures. Needess to say, some students did prefer the transmission paradigm. These same students had a deepy ingrained view of what earning is about it is about the expert deivering information which the student wi earn and regurgitate as and when asked to do so (e.g. in an exam). The message here is that students need to understand that their roe in earning is not a passive one. Even students who did not particuary ike the new hybrid course recognised that the web-based approach made them think more and refect more on the key concepts of the subject materia. Aso experiencing education in a course that combines onine and face-to-face teaching conveyed strong messages to the students about the pedagogica significance of peer interaction. The eectronic Buetin Board was considered to be an essentia eement of the earning process. The beief of Yazon and coeagues is that the reduced eve of teacher or tutor contact encouraged students to view their peers as another earning resource. The concept of peer earning is certainy not new, but it can be difficut to engage students in this mode of earning if their strong-hed beief system is that the responsibiity for their earning ies with the teacher. Stah (1999) identified the peer group as the singe most powerfu infuence in undergraduate education, but students must first of a understand this to be the case. Piaget (1971) beieved that co-operation between peers is ikey to encourage rea exchange of thought and discussion. The important word here being co-operation! Too often students are ed to beieve that education is a competitive endeavour, rather than a coaborative process. The work of Yazon and coeagues indicates peer earning can sometimes be more successfuy encouraged in an onine situation than in the cassroom. The presence of the teaching/teacher in onine courses may need to be more ceary defined. The teacher pays a crucia, pedagogica, behind the scenes roe in the overa design of the earning activities and the administration and impementation of the course. The teacher, is in essence, the faciitator of the earning process even though in an onine context they may be perceived to be behind the scene! The issues discussed above affirm the view that students need to be inducted into and prepared for a different earning paradigm. Whie this is very much the case for any earning context many students are probaby of the view that not a courses shoud be taught onine as this woud detract from the other socia aspects of earning. Discussion The e-earning exampes cited so far are intended primariy for independent earning. Whie they do not precude students earning together, there are other exampes of e-earning activities intended to enabe and encourage interaction with other e- earners and e-instruction, for exampe: chat rooms; discussion boards; instant messaging; e-mai and bogs, a offer effective means of peer earning and interaction. Many of these ICT appications can be used for formative and summative assessment of student earning. 16

23 Chapter 2 A focus on e-earning in the biosciences The goa of any course of study shoud be to create powerfu, coaborative earning environments where earning is hoistic and interactive. Student construction of knowedge is the aternative paradigm to the transfer of knowedge from tutor to student. However, according to Barr and Tagg (1995) staff and students need to make significant conceptua shifts in their view of teaching and earning for this new paradigm to become a reaity. Many educationaists beieve the combination of thoughtfu pedagogica practices and technoogy can support a constructivist earning perspective (Lauriard, 2002). If we want to discourage students from passivey assimiating information, course activities and assessment must provide opportunities for students to enact new and effective approaches to earning (Ramsden, 2003). However, a note of caution shoud be added here. Academic staff charged with the overa design of programmes of study must consider carefuy when to use technoogy, how to use it effectivey and why technoogy-mediated earning is appropriate. There is a tension inherent in encompassing e-earning into a course or programme of study. It is quite unikey, particuary in UK universities, that radica decisions wi be made in most institutions to adopt technoogy as the medium for a earning. In other words, few universities wi become cyber-institutions. On the other hand e-earning opportunities for students shoud not be merey for the purposes of ensuring students have had some e-earning exposure before entering into the empoyment market. Integration of e-earning into courses must therefore be done carefuy. Decisions as to whether e-earning is intended to suppement traditiona forms of teaching or to compement traditiona ectures, tutorias etc must be made in accordance with the intended earning outcomes for any programme of study, the earning environment and the earning context. For exampe, if students are simpy made aware that a software package exists and that it can be used for extra study or revision purposes, success is ikey to be imited (if success is determined by eves of engagement). The context and method of use are dominant issues in terms of student use and student satisfaction. Students may fee that if one or two sections of an overa programme of study invove e-earning whereas a other aspects of the course are deivered by traditiona means, the e-earning aspects were mere experiments. Given that students seem to enjoy a variety of different earning situations, bended earning is probaby the goa most universities wi work towards. The next chapter wi expore some aspects of the use of technoogy in assessment of student earning. 17

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25 Chapter 3 Assessment of student earning in an e-earning context 19

26 Chapter 3 Assessment of student earning in an e-earning context Introduction Assessment is widey considered to be the most infuentia factor reated to how students earn (Brown and Gasner, 1999) and yet it seems to be the aspect of curricuum design and deveopment that causes teachers the most difficuties. This may be because in the strenuous efforts to ensure that assessments systems are reiabe, rigorous and cheat proof, that teachers forget to view assessment in itsef as an episode of earning (Stefani, 1998). Often the view is taken that the purpose of assessment is to measure earning rather than to support and improve student earning (Gibbs and Simpson, 2004). The danger with a measurement mode of assessment is that students are ead to beieve that factua reca is what is important rather than understanding. This chapter wi cover four key issues: The importance of assessment of student earning; The advantages and the disadvantages associated with onine assessment; Some exampes of onine assessment in the biosciences; and A note of caution on onine assessment. These key factors infuencing assessment practices in Austraasia are repicated in the UK and other countries (Mier et a., 1998; Rust, 2002; Brown, 2004). The overa focus of this chapter is that of the potentia of technoogy in enhancing our assessment practices. Essentiay the purposes of assessment remain the same, irrespective of whether they are part of a traditiona or onine strategy. Some of the key purposes of assessment are to: Provide feedback on student earning; Grade students; Motivate students to earn; Consoidate the earning that is occurring; Appy abstract concepts to practica probems; Estimate students earning potentia; Guide students in course seection; Provide feedback for academic staff on the effectiveness of their teaching; and Provide information for quaity assurance purposes. (Adapted from Brown and Gasner, 1999) The centra roe of assessment There are now goba movements to re-interrogate assessment practices. Brown (2004) reports that internationay assessment is changing as the nature of teaching and earning in post-compusory education changes. James et a., (2002) outine some of the broad factors that are currenty significanty affecting student assessment in Austraian higher education. These are: The efforts of academic staff to find cost- and time-effective assessment techniques; The prominence of generic skis such as communication, teamwork, and critica and creative thinking as part of the expected outcomes of higher education; The changing nature of students themseves: in their diverse backgrounds, abiities, expectations and engagement with the earning process; and The emergence of new technoogica possibiities for teaching, earning and assessment. Unfortunatey whie it is possibe to identify mutipe purposes for assessment, the range of methods actuay depoyed remain very imited (Jenkins, 2004). Athough it is to be hoped that technoogy and its potentia wi aow for a much greater eve of creativity in teaching, earning and assessment there is currenty a eve of disappointment being expressed. For exampe Trehan and Reynods (2002) have observed that: Exampes of critica pedagogies incuding those situated onine are accumuating but they sedom exhibit corresponding changes in assessment practices. It is imperative that progress is made beyond this position. As James and McInnis (2001) state: Onine assessment represents an unparaeed opportunity for rethinking assessment in higher education. Onine and other forms of computerbased assessment are a natura outcome of the use of information and communication technoogies to enhance earning and are cosey aigned with the objective of providing students with more fexibe programmes and opportunities. 20

27 Chapter 3 Assessment of student earning in an e-earning context The advantages and disadvantages of onine assessment In a period of on-going widening access to higher education, increasing diversity of the student popuation and gobaisation of higher education, onine earning and assessment strategies offer many advantages. Some of that potentia is expressed in the foowing ist: Fexibiity of access (especiay using the Web) in time, pace and the seection of assessment options; Equitabiity, taking into consideration diversity, internationa students reducing time constraints and aowing more opportunity for students to demonstrate their knowedge and understanding; Student-centred earning open access can encourage students to take responsibiity for their own earning; Immediacy of feedback for students in we designed assessments. Case study 6 presents more information on this aspect of onine assessment; The potentia for interactive assessment tasks that are in themseves earning experiences, incuding onine questions that incorporate information-rich images, sound and text; Immediacy of marks and outcomes to staff, for monitoring and adaptation. The potentia to reduce costs and staff workoads through automation of routine assessment tasks; and Enhancement of student earning outcomes which can ead to positive attitudes to earning. (Jenkins, 2004; James et a., 2002; Peat and Frankin, 2002) Ceary researchers in the fied of teaching, earning and assessment beieve that onine assessment promises much. Teachers aso need to recognise that there are major probems that need to be addressed with respect to assessment of student earning and to work towards reaising the potentia that technoogy offers. As we as offering great potentia, there must aso be an awareness of some of the probems onine assessment presents and a wiingness to work through these issues when designing e-earning courses and modues: There is a need for institutions to recognise that deveopment time is essentia for good e-earning to occur and to propery resource departments and educationa deveopment units; There are potentia risks reating to institutiona infrastructure, hardware, software and administrative procedures; Both staff and students need to have the appropriate ICT skis and experience to engage in e-earning and onine assessment; To maintain course integrity, rigorous arrangements must be made to administer onine tests or examinations (McAister et a., 2001); and The potentia for pagiarism and other forms of cheating may be increased with onine assessment this wi be discussed in a ater section in this chapter. A of the issues discussed above appy to onine assessments in any subject area and shoud be taken into consideration at the panning stage of course deveopment. The next section expores some exampes of onine assessment which have been deveoped within the biosciences. Computer-based assessment appications in the biosciences It shoud be noted that there are sti reativey few pubished exampes of onine assessment within the biosciences, but current practitioners wi hopefuy find the foowing exampes intriguing and worth foowing up. i) Mathtutor Mathtutor is a new mathematics e-earning resource for mathematics and science education which deivers diagnostic tests, video tutorias, interactive exercises, animations and printabe text via DVD and the internet (Tariq et a., 2005). Mathtutor is another innovative approach to earning and sef-assessment. Mathtutor has been described in detai by Vicki Tariq from the University of Centra Lancashire who has an extensive research record reating to a concern within the sciences and biosciences about students mathematica abiities. She beieves that university departments shoud be 21

28 Chapter 3 Assessment of student earning in an e-earning context abe to assume that most students can manipuate fractions and decimas, hande powers of ten and be abe to pot and interpret graphs. However, her findings indicate that many students in the science and bioscience subjects are: unabe to manipuate or appreciate numbers and equations, to use scientific notation or to expain and make predictions from data presented in graphs, charts and tabes (Tariq et a., 2005). Tariq and coeagues beieve that a major chaenge is to do something that goes a ong way in a short time to address this earning and skis deficit. Mathtutor has been produced by a team ed by the University of Leeds and the Educationa Broadcasting Services (EBS) Trust who are experts in new media production. A wider team is currenty working in coaboration with the EBS Trust to adapt aspects of Mathtutor for ife science undergraduates. The issue here as articuated by Tariq, Stevenson and Roper (2005) is that mathematics is an exciting subject that shoud be taught in such a way as to compement the discipine (bioscience subjects) rather than being seen as an abstract necessity. This team beieves that rather than present students with a range of maths topics and then use bioogica exampes to simpy iustrate the appication of mathematica concepts that it woud be better to take some existing bioogica topics, case studies and scenarios, present them in a highy visua manner and expore the mathematica concepts and appications with these topics, teaching students and enabing them to practise the maths required for them to master and understand the topic. When compete, this project to adapt mathtutor to the ife sciences wi aow students to work onine to sefassess, diagnose their strengths and weaknesses and integrate the earning of mathematics with actua appications. Fu detais of this innovative project can be obtained from Tariq (2005) and Tariq et a., (2005). Mathtutor contains diagnostic tests for students, around 1,300 interactive exercises, and is described as an easiy navigabe forest of maths packages for cear and easy access. More information on Mathtutor can be obtained from the foowing web site: ii) Web-based crossword puzzes Aan Wise from the Schoo of Heath Sciences at the Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen has written of his experimentation with crossword puzzes (Wise, 2003). Aan beieves that crossword puzzes provide a method of sef-assessment that invoves active earning and may be a peasurabe way to revise. Not ony has he experimented with the use of web-based crosswords, he has aso expored the iterature and conducted his own research on the efficiency of the crossword as a earning too. He has found there is genera agreement amongst both staff and students that crosswords hep students to revise materia that has aready been taught via other methods. There is, of course, software avaiabe to enabe the creation of crossword puzzes and prepare them for use in a web browser. The crossword puzzes have been in use with Nutrition and Dietetics students and in the evauation of this type of earning, revision and sef-assessment, the students indicated that crossword puzzes show them what they need to study more thoroughy and that they woud be happy to see crosswords being used by ecturers in other subject areas. A programme was written in Visua Basic that enabes construction of interactive crosswords in Java Script for use in a web browser. Wise (1999 and 2003) provide detais of crossword construction and student attitudes towards this type of sef-assessment aid. Exampes of Aan s crossword puzzes can be viewed at: iii) Mutipe Choice Questions (MCQs) For those interested in setting MCQs, Dewey (2000) gives an exceent guide to Writing Mutipe Choice Items which Require Comprehension. He beieves that it is possibe to construct MCQs, the answers to which are not readiy guessed, and which, therefore, require students to comprehend basic factua materia. With arge casses in any subject area incuding the biosciences there is a tendency to work towards objective testing in an onine environment because the tests are automaticay graded and provide immediate feedback to the students (Cooper, 2000). Tony Gardner-Medwin has added another dimension to MCQs by requiring a confidence judgement from students (Gardner-Medwin, 1995). After each question students are asked to indicate their degree of certainty in their answer (ow, medium or high). The marking scheme is simpe: 1, 2 or 3 marks for correct answers and 0, -2, -6 marks for wrong answers (depending on the confidence eve). Such an approach raises awareness that uncertain but correct answers, or ucky guesses, are not the same as knowedge, and that confident but incorrect answers deserve specia attention. Jenkins (2004) highights a genetics programme at Wageningen University and Research Centre in the Netherands whereby Questionmark Perception is the software package used to support the generation of formative assessment tests for students. Weeky tests, inked to ectures and required reading are made 22

29 Chapter 3 Assessment of student earning in an e-earning context avaiabe to students. Tests of the same format are repeated as part of the fina examination and account for 10% of the marks. Reports from staff have indicated that students wecome doing formative tests and that it frees up time for staff to focus on other probems. iv) Authentic assessment Technoogy aows the opportunity to break free from tradition and to provide more meaningfu earning and assessment experiences for students. It is possibe to set up group projects for students, negotiate an assignment and ask the students to produce a report or their project outcomes as a web page. Transferring a traditiona, cassroom-based project to an onine project increases the potentia for students to engage in peer feedback and assessment. For exampe in a biochemistry cass, it woud be possibe to present a pausibe scenario and ask students to work in groups to find soutions to the probem. This coud require the student groups to research the probem, share information within and between groups and present their findings in the form of a web-based report to be peer and tutor assessed. Such a project woud encompass a wide array of transferabe skis incuding ICT skis. An exampe of a scenario to be put forward is as foows: a citrus canker has affected 70% of the word s citrus crop. This means that aternative sources of citric acid and citrates are urgenty required. Assess the feasibiity of using a biotechnoogica approach in the production of citric acid. Onine buetin boards coud be used as a medium for the iterative exchange of ideas, creating a framework for socia engagement and peer assessment. This is an exampe of a project which originay was cassroom/aboratory based with students research findings being presented as a poster (Stefani and Tariq, 1996). Projects of this nature coud, without too much difficuty, be adapted to incorporate technoogy. This type of project is becoming more prevaent in a range of subjects (McConne, 2000; Robinson, 1999; Garrison and Anderson, 2003). It taps into students desire for socia interaction in earning and aso encourages them in up-to-the-minute computer appications as we as providing scope for more authentic earning tasks and assessment. Students can be encouraged to communicate by means of a bog. A web-og or bog is a web page containing a series of short, frequenty-updated postings, in chronoogica order; providing a persona pubishing too. The shortage of pubished exampes of onine or computer-aided assessment is not necessariy because there is a shortage of exampes of innovative practice. It is because not everyone who is experimenting with this type of assessment has necessariy considered pubishing their work. However, as these few exampes of assessment and the case studies which foow in this Guide highight, (for exampe see the exceent case study (6) by Richard Rayne and Genn Baggott) there are modes of good practice both in the biosciences and in other discipinary areas. For those interested in engaging students in sef- and peer-assessment in an onine environment, it is we worthwhie exporing the work of Richard Parsons from the University of Dundee. Richard has deveoped an onine system for sef and peer assessment of text according to defined criteria. Whie this was not deveoped primariy for the biosciences it is appicabe to a wide range of subject areas. The system supports students in gaining a deeper understanding of the assessment process by invoving them in a meaningfu way. The system can work as a stand-aone, web-based activity or can be incuded as an exercise within a VLE. This system is fexibe enough to incorporate a number of features such as: The abiity to present criteria to students before they compete an assessment task; A keyword, automatic system of computer marking text; The abiity to comment on the peer s comments (which are then fed back to the peer marker); The addition of images to support the question; and The option to text message students their resuts An innovation ike this fuy supports socia interaction and because it invoves the students in the assessment process, it is ikey to be attractive to them provided of course that they are we prepared for earning in this way (Parsons, 2003). There is sti ampe scope for new deveopments in this area of teaching and earning. The Centre for Bioscience provides the exceent Bioscience Education E-journa: where this type of work can be shared with coeagues working in the same fied. Recent 23

30 Chapter 3 Assessment of student earning in an e-earning context Recent research on onine assessment It is heartening to see more research on the benefits of onine assessment and its impact on student earning. Ricketts and Wiks (2002a), for exampe have carried out extensive research with their students, evauating their performance and responses to onine examinations. The modues studied are in the discipinary fieds of bioogy, business, geography and computing whie the actua subject area is statistics. Interestingy in some discipinary areas students were ess keen on onine examinations than in other subjects. However, it woud appear to be the case that both student performance and student opinion are strongy infuenced by the on-screen stye of the assessment. This type of research is invauabe because it highights the issue of one-size does not fit for a students and heps to guide the design of onine earning and assessment tasks. Ricketts and Wiks (2002b) beieve a number of different factors infuence the students opinions of onine assessment. These factors incude issues such as how we prepared students are for onine assessments, different ski eves in using technoogy and possiby students are infuenced in their beiefs by their own performance. These are a important issues to take on board in endeavours with e-earning strategies. A note of caution on onine assessment Decisions on the scope for onine assessment wi very much depend on the institutiona infrastructure for e-earning. There is much anecdota evidence that institutions are keen to deveop a curricuum which incorporates e-earning in an appropriate manner but fa back on tradition when it comes to assessing student earning. Whie this may be frustrating, there are probaby sound reasons for the situation. In a truy fexibe earning situation where students coud access assessment anytime, any pace, we have to recognise that the most probematic issue is ensuring that those being assessed are who they say they are. It is amost impossibe to ascertain a participants identity when communicating over the Internet. This is not to say the situation is impossibe. Most institutions are campus based and do not aspire to be e-institutions - and therefore, there is no reason why students cannot carry out their summative assessment in a propery supervised computer aboratory. Another reated factor regarding onine assessment is the potentia for pagiarism and other forms of cheating. Of course the argument can be made that if a course is we designed, cheating shoud not be a probem. The Open University, for exampe, uses a combination of onine and traditiona pen and paper testing of students. Some attention has been paid in recent years to the rise in text pagiarism through ease of access to web-based resources (McMurtry, 2001; Hebering, 2002) but itte attention has been paid to potentia probems with focused assessments using instruments such as mutipe choice tests and cacuation questions which are necessary in, for exampe, engineering and science courses. A probem for many subject areas in universities wi be the ack of computer aboratories with enough workstations to accommodate arge casses of students. This means of course that a-at-once assessment with a singe test is not possibe, raising the stakes in terms of students having the potentia to cheat by asking or teing other students about the questions. These issues are not intended to appear negative or dismissive about onine or web-based assessment of student earning but they go some way to expaining why it is that whie great advances are being made in terms of adopting e-earning strategies, there are major issues to be considered regarding e-assessment. There are of course measures that can be taken to safeguard onine assessment. For exampe, if courseware products such as Backboard or WebCT are being used, it is possibe to have good structures around passwords and to set up avaiabiity dates and times for assessments. Aso many packaged courses or products have the capabiity of creating arge question poos for randomised assessment (Ot, 2002) and this can hep to eiminate cheating in arge casses by never having the same order of questions for different student cohorts. However, it is ikey to be the case that the best measure to take to provide students with positive earning and assessment experiences in an onine environment is to continuay refect on the approach used for course design, teaching, assessment and provide ongoing and constructive feedback to students. Theoreticay, the design of examinations rapidy becomes more sophisticated since computers offer the potentia to present students with compex scenarios invoving interactive resources. The use of technoogy coud truy revoutionise both the approach to faciitating student earning and the ways in which earning is assessed. 24

31 CASE STUDIES The foowing section contains a coection of six bioscience case studies. A the case studies have been written by bioscientists who have used IT in their own teaching. The case studies are organised around common headings ( Background and rationae, Advice, Troubeshooting, Does it work? and Further Deveopments ), but each study refects the author s individua stye and preference. The use of handset technoogy in an interactive ecture setting enhances the earning of histoogy Robert Smith and Barbara Cogde, Institute of Biomedica and Life Sciences, University of Gasgow, Gasgow, G12 8QQ. E-mai: R.A.Smith@bio.ga.ac.uk 1 2 Using Macromedia Fash to design effective earning support resources to teach bioscience Matthew Hammerton, Formery Schoo of Appied Science, University of Woverhampton, now at Facuty of Socia Science and Humanities, Loughborough University, LE11 3TU. E-mai: M.Hammerton@boro.ac.uk Reay Simpe Syndication (RSS) Aan Cann, Department of Bioogy, University of Leicester, Leicester, LE1 7RH. E-mai: aan.cann@eicester.ac.uk 3 Using onine databases and predictive modeing to deveop student understanding of human popuation growth and goba food demand Anne M. Tierney, Andrea C. D. Brown and Peter J. Dominy, Institute of Biomedica and Life Sciences, University of Gasgow, Gasgow, G12 8QQ. E-mai: A.Tierney@bio.ga.ac.uk 4 An IT soution to a pedagogic probem Stephen Gomez and David Lush, Facuty of Appied Sciences, University of the West of Engand, Bristo, BS16 1QY. E-mai: Stephen.Gomez@uwe.ac.uk 5 6 Using frequent computer-based assessment to set the pace in a first-year bioscience modue Richard Rayne and Genn Baggott, Schoo of Bioogica and Chemica Sciences, Birkbeck Coege, London, WC1E 7HX. E-mai: r.rayne@bbk.ac.uk These case studies iustrate a range of approaches to using technoogy to teach bioscience. It is envisaged that these cases studies wi provide guidance, inspiration, as we as practica advice on impementing e- earning in the biosciences. There is aso an accompanying web site to this guide ( heacademy.ac.uk/teachingguides/). The web site contains further practica materia to aid the reader in using technoogy in teaching. The site incudes expanded versions of the case studies, video cips, further bioscience case studies and supporting materia. 25

32 Case Study 1 The use of handset technoogy in an interactive ecture setting enhances the earning of histoogy The use of handset technoogy in an interactive ecture setting enhances the earning of histoogy Robert Smith and Barbara Cogde Background and rationae We teach a short histoogy course caed Human Tissues in Heath and Disease to second year science students (Cogde and Smith, 2004). The course is worth 10 credits and occupies one sixth of the students study time during the haf year in which it runs. Each year we have between 250 and 350 students and a the ectures are given twice so that students can have fexibe timetabes. Faced with the probems of the arge numbers of students, and the ack of faciities, time and staff to present histoogica materia using microscopes and prepared sides, we resorted to a mainy poster format during aboratory sessions. The students initiay found this difficut and so we introduced a pre-ab session during a ecture, projecting micrographs and attempting to encourage simpe tissue anaysis by asking questions. The cass proved very reuctant to respond. Even if a few students did offer answers to the ecturer s questions, the remaining 100 or more students remained sient. We fet it woud be a much better earning experience if a the students were abe to take an active part and respond. In order to achieve this we decided to use handset technoogy and run the session in an Ask the Audience format from the teevision programme Who wants to be a Miionaire. How to do it At this time Steve Draper from the Psychoogy Department at the University of Gasgow was pioting the use of eectronic voting systems in ectures (Draper and Brown, 2004) and we were incuded as part of his study. The Persona Response System used is InterWrite PRS (detais at com/interwriteprs.htm). The system consists of infrared handset transmitters resembing sma TV remote controers, which are handed out to the students. We use two portabe receivers which are set up at the front of the ecture theatre in positions where they can receive beams from the handsets used by the students. The receivers are inked to a aptop and the resuts from the aptop are dispayed on a screen via a data projector. We aso use two further screens. Onto one the photomicrographs are projected and onto the other the questions. The use of a Powerpoint format coud reduce this number to one. We have been fortunate in having the hep of a trained assistant who transports the equipment and sets it up. He is abe to set up the receivers and aptop in ess than 5 minutes, which is essentia as we do not have access to the ecture theatre beforehand and another cass of students is due in at the end. The ecturer asks the students questions about the dispayed photomicrographs in a mutipe choice format where there are severa options to choose from. The students seect an answer from one of these options and press the corresponding button on their handset whie pointing the handset at a receiver. Each handset has its own number and when the receiver gets a response from a handset it wi dispay that handset s number in a grid on the screen. The students ook for their number in the grid to check that their vote has been received. The computer aso keeps a tay of how many votes have been cast. If a student votes again during the voting period it wi not register as a new vote. In this way students can ony have one vote. Athough the handsets are numbered a the students responses are anonymous. This is because we have no way of knowing which student has which handset. Anonymity is an important issue as it encourages a reticent student to make an answer without fear of ridicue from the ecturer or feow students. We aow about two minutes for an audience of 200 to vote, athough this time period can be varied. When the coection of votes has finished a barchart appears on the screen giving the number of votes for each option. The ecturer is abe to see immediatey whether the cass has understood an issue. Likewise the student receives instantaneous feedback and can see where they stand in reation to the rest of the cass. We usuay manage to compete between 10 and 20 questions in a 1-hour session. This incudes an initia question which is fairy trivia, designed to check 26

33 Case Study 1 The use of handset technoogy in an interactive ecture setting enhances the earning of histoogy whether the students have grasped how to use the handsets and a fina question asking for feedback on the session itsef. Advice It is important not to et the handset use become more important than the actua content of the pre-ab session. The ecturer must be prepared to return to the previous way of deivering the session if for some reason the technoogy does not work. However it is best to try and avoid this situation so it is hepfu to have someone very conversant with the technoogy to set the system up and operate the aptop during the session. At east one other heper is aso usefu to hand out the handsets and coect them at the end. Athough this is simiar to giving out a handout it does take time with a arge cass. With competent hepers the ecturer is then free to concentrate on engaging with the students. Teaching staff found the system of instant feedback from the students very hepfu. If students answered correcty they were abe to go straight on whie if most of the students had chosen an incorrect option the ecturer was abe to expain why this was a wrong answer. Troubeshooting We have successfuy run these pre-ab sessions for 4 years now with one session and its repeat each year. There have been no difficuties with the technoogy. The system is very easy to operate. On a coupe of occasions we have run short of time due to the sighty ate exit of the previous cass from the ecture theatre and difficuty getting our cass in and seated. It might be ess hasse to use if the receivers were permanenty instaed in the ecture theatre. Indeed this is the case for one ecture theatre on the university campus, but it is not possibe for us to use that particuar ecture theatre. Having portabe receivers makes the system more fexibe and aows a bigger variety of casses (different subjects and numbers of students) within the university to take advantage of the system. Does it work? We have had very good attendance at the sessions with handsets with amost a fu turn out. Recenty there is a perception among teaching staff that secondyear student attendance at ectures is generay poor. Sometimes ess than haf the cass may be present, so our improved attendance eve is a positive outcome. We have aso had very favourabe and perceptive responses to evauations of the sessions from students. One form of feedback was to use the voting system to answer the foowing question: What was for you the baance of benefit versus disadvantage from the use of the handsets in the pre-ab tutoria session? Typica responses to this question from the cass of 2002 are shown in Figure 1. The pot shows that 90% of the students fet they either definitey benefited or that the benefits outweighed any disadvantages. Figure 1. Evauation of the use of handsets during a pre-ab session Number of students We aso used a separate, anonymous, web-based questionnaire with some open-ended questions. One question was What do you consider were the benefits, if any, of using the handsets for the students/ ecturers? Beow are some of the typica answers: Definitey benefited Benefits outweigh any disadvantages Neutra Response More disadvantages than benefits Definite negative net vaue Made sure you paid attention since you woud have to submit an answer. Aso heped see how you were doing compared to rest of group. Students coud be interactive and ecturers get instant resuts of questions and cass percentages. You had to give the answer that you thought was right if you got it wrong it wasn t embarrassing because you weren t giving the answer verbay. It gave you an idea of the knowedge you aready had before the test and it definitey added a fun eement! We aso asked what were the disadvantages. Most of the students said none and a few commented on 27

34 Case Study 1 The use of handset technoogy in an interactive ecture setting enhances the earning of histoogy the setting up process. There were aso a coupe of comments, such as the one beow, about the students not taking the system seriousy: I didn t think there were any disadvantages for the students. I think it might have been annoying for the ecturers when peope just mess about with them. However, in reaity this was not a probem for us, given that the system was set up to count ony one response from each handset. As ecturers we fet that the use of the handsets enhanced this particuar teaching session. We were particuary keen to get the students to ook at the photomicrographs and to earn to identify the various tissues and ce types. Using the handset technoogy encouraged a the students to make judgements about what they were ooking at and to become activey engaged in the materia in a way which otherwise woud not have been possibe. Further information Mattey (2003) and Draper and Brown (2004) have carried out an extensive evauation of the use of eectronic voting systems in a variety of casses at the Universities of Strathcyde and Gasgow respectivey. An informative video showing the use of the system in a statistics cass can be accessed via Steve Draper s web site (Draper, 2005). 28

35 Case Study 2 Using Macromedia Fash to design effective earning support resources to teach bioscience Using Macromedia Fash to design effective earning support resources to teach bioscience Matthew Hammerton Background and rationae Macromedia Fash emerged in 1997 as a simpe on-screen animation package caed FutureSpash. Since then, it has expanded into an extremey powerfu too for designing and depoying a whoe range of media content both onine and offine. Fash MX was aunched in 2002 with expanded features and enhanced toos aowing for the production of extremey effective earning objects. The program gives earning technoogists and academics the power to use innovative approaches to earning design conforming to the specific resource deveopment guideines e.g. Web Accessibiity Guideines. The University of Woverhampton has deveoped severa Fash resources and used them successfuy in teaching. Case studies i) Virtua Crime Scene Investigation Forensic Science is an extremey popuar subject offered at the University of Woverhampton and partner coeges. Athough the course uses speciaised rooms to stage mock-up crime scenes, opportunities for their use are imited by timetabing probems. Furthermore, the rooms ony aow for creation of a imited range of reaistic mock crime scene scenarios. For these reasons, simuated crime scene scenarios with combined assessment exercises were produced deivering the foowing benefits: Effective crime scene training over a shorter period of time; Repacement of the costy and time-consuming practice of creating mock crime scenes for the purpose of training and assessment thus improving the efficiency of staff time; Easy access to the performance of every individua who uses the product aowing for corrections of any misconceptions and more effective and timey feedback; and Access to crime scene scenarios aowing students to demonstrate skis earnt in a rea situation. These onine resources were deveoped by combining video, sound, images and panoramas to enhance student s experience in assessing a reaistic simuated crime scene. Assessment of student knowedge is via a series of questions interminged with video cips and crime scene information. Specific feedback is given after every question with genera feedback at the end. The main reasons for using Fash in this project were: Integration of the majority of mutimedia fie formats: Rich interactive earning experiences can be buit due to the program s abiity to import and integrate video, sound, graphics and images in a number of formats. Fash fies can aso be embedded in each other aowing smaer earning objects to be produced and shared between arger earning objects or programs. Sma fie sizes: Fash can deiver high quaity animation from sma fies. This aows for quick access to earning objects even for students on modem connections. This performance can be enhanced through the program s abiity to stream ony reevant information, as and when it is needed. ii) Virtua Learning Centre Tour The University of Woverhampton s Harrison Learning Centre provides resources and support to the 14,000 students entering the University from a wide range of educationa, socia and cutura backgrounds. The physica ayout, the wide range of subjects, mutipe enquiry points and the combination of eectronic and printed sources can be overwheming to the new student. The virtua tour guide to the Harrison Learning Centre and its resources has been produced to overcome this situation and promote engagement and active earning. The tour uses mutipe navigation options enhanced with advanced new media web features to incude 3D graphics and animation. The tour has been embedded into the Techniques in 29

36 Case Study 2 Using Macromedia Fash to design effective earning support resources to teach bioscience Biosciences study skis modue and is used to teach both generic and subject-specific ibrary skis to our students. The main reasons for using Fash were: Advanced graphica representation of compex concepts: Due to the quaity of the drawing toos and the ease with which on-screen graphics can be animated, Fash gives the user a reaistic way of representing compex subject concepts. Accessibiity: The program provides features to support compiance with Web accessibiity guideines by aowing for auto-abeing of buttons, tab-order contros and access to assistive technoogies such as screen readers (MacGregor et a., 2002). The program s fexibiity in earning object design means that the end user has the abiity to choose how they want the information to be presented. iii) A formative assessment exercise and interactive onine aternative to a aboratory-based demonstration in food microbioogy Demonstration of microbioogica methods used in the anaysis of foods is an essentia part of the University s Food Microbioogy course. However, in recent years, aboratory avaiabiity has become imited. Therefore, the production of an interactive onine resource to simuate and enhance these aboratory-based demonstrations seemed a natura progression. The programme combines interactive graphics on microbioogica methods with a formative assessment exercise. The resource deivers the foowing benefits: Providing a stimuating earning experience and encouraging a deeper approach to earning; Contributing to widening access and providing the opportunity for distance based earning; Improving efficiency of staff/student contact time; Aowing sef-paced study; Providing student feedback on progress; Acting as a cear guide as to academic expectations; and Promoting independence in earning. The main reasons for using Fash in this project were: Interaction: Fash has been used in this earning object due to its abiity to record student actions and respond to them immediatey. These responses are recorded onto a database to aow for further taioring of support for each student. Other reasons for using the program incude: Compatibiity and consistency: Learning objects produced in Fash wi dispay consistenty across different screen resoutions, browsers and operating systems and on different devices from the desktop computer to the mobie phone. Re-usabiity: The program has severa attributes that speed up the production process of e-earning resources whie aiding a consistent appearance across earning objects. Symbos and components, the buiding bocks (assets) of any Fash fie, can be re-used in severa earning objects, whie sti maintaining design fexibiity. Many e-earning tempates and components have been produced and are freey avaiabe on the web. A assets of a Fash fie are stored in the fie s ibrary permitting easy access to the fie s resources. Advice on using Fash When producing Fash earning resources, there are a number of issues that need to be considered. These can be summarised as: The pug-in: In order to view Fash earning objects, a browser pug-in (or payer) is required. This pugin is shipped with the atest browsers and operating systems and detection scripts aow for quick and easy downoad of the pug-in if required. With over 97% of a internet-enabed desktops wordwide containing the Fash pug-in in 2005, the pug-in is now the word s most pervasive software patform (Macromedia, 2005). Learning curve: Athough the program is reativey simpe to use, harnessing its fu range of features incuding component production and ActionScript programming can take a whie due to the power and freedom that Fash provides for the deveoper. Usabiity: Due to the ease with which animations can be produced and the freedom that Fash gives to the deveoper, there has been a mass of gratuitous animation and unusabe resources created that serve itte purpose for the end viewer. This has caused infuentia usabiity pundits to criticise the benefits of using Fash stating that it hinders more than it heps (Niesen, 2000). Athough, this is mainy directed at web site production, it is an important issue that needs to be considered when producing any type of Fash resource. The main question being: Is Fash the best 30

37 Case Study 2 Using Macromedia Fash to design effective earning support resources to teach bioscience too for the production of this earning object? Deveopment time: Fash incudes severa attributes (symbos, components and tempates) that speed up the deveopment of earning objects. Nevertheess, when comparing Fash against Microsoft Powerpoint for the production of animations, using Powerpoint is ikey to require ess time and effort. However, when considering the effectiveness of that animation for the student, then using Fash is ikey to produce a better resut. Troubeshooting There are currenty two main books avaiabe on the deveopment of e-earning resources using Macromedia Fash. Castio et a. (2004) provide an introductory ook at using Fash MX to create e-earning materia. They discuss how to use the program s e-earning tempates for effective assessment and interactivity. Bardze (2003) is a more advanced book which ooks at combining Macromedia Fash with Macromedia Dreamweaver and Codfusion to produce custom made earning resources. For genera troubeshooting Reinhardt and Dowd (2002) provide information on a aspects of Fash MX from the program s fundamentas to the buiding of dynamic appications. Does it work? Questionnaire responses indicate that effective earning materias can be generated using Fash. The majority of Forensic Science students found the Virtua Crime Scene Investigation to be beneficia to their studying (95%) and they wanted to see further supporting materia in other modues produced using the program (100%). A few of their comments for the resource were: We thought out, exciting, ogica and interesting! Good program, interesting, compements the ectures we, informative, woud be good for other forensic modues to incude programs ike this. For the Learning Centre Tour, 82% of students questioned stated that the Learning Centre Tour graphic representation has aowed them to work out where resources in the Centre can be found, this being the main earning objective of the tour. A of the students who used the Food Microbioogy resource either strongy agreed or agreed that this type of materia shoud be used to support ecture materia. The programme was considered by 75% of the students to be a good repacement for a aboratorybased demonstration. In concusion, Macromedia Fash provides an effective too for the production of earning support resources ranging from simpe simuations to fu bown appications (e.g. PebbePad, the e-portfoio program used by the University of Woverhampton). The features and toos of the current program (version 8) give the educator the power to be truy creative, and wi undoubtedy be expanded in subsequent versions. Links to materia Virtua Learning Centre Tour: earningcentre/virtua_tour.htm Acknowedgements The author woud ike to thank the foowing staff for their hep in producing this case study: Dr R Sutton; K Trueman (Crime Scene Investigation); Dr H Gibson; J T Waton (Food Microbioogy assessment) and J A Granger (Learning Centre Tour). 31

38 Case Study 3 Reay Simpe Syndication (RSS) Reay Simpe Syndication (RSS) Aan J. Cann It is difficut to beieve ony some 15 years have passed since the origin of the Word Wide Web. Internet technoogy has deveoped at a pace which shows few signs of sowing. One feature of the browser wars of the 1990s was the deveopment of what became known as push technoogy (aso caed webcasting or netcasting). The feature of this approach is the use of a server to deiver or push information to a cient rather than waiting for the cient to request specific information. In a short time, economic forces drove this technoogy to become heaviy commerciaised. This, together with bandwidth imitations for many users resuted in this approach to information deivery faing out of favour for a whie. RSS is an exampe of push technoogy and its origins began with the pubication of the first RSS protoco (Resource description framework Site Summary) in Within two years, severa revisions of this and the BBC, to provide access to rapidy changing news stories (Wikipedia: RSS, 2006). More recenty, bibiographic databases and academic pubishers have aso begun to offer RSS feeds of the atest pubications (Tabe 1). To date, the most common way to access RSS feeds has been with an aggregator, a program which aows readers to subscribe to feeds, check for new content at user-determined intervas, as we as retrieve and dispay the content (Wikipedia: Aggregator, 2006). A Googe search ( for news aggregator returns a arge number of possibe choices, many of which are free. This capabiity is aready present in advanced web browsers and is due to be buit in to future versions of Microsoft Internet Exporer. From a pedagogica viewpoint, athough integration of aggregator function into web browsers is an advance, it sti requires that users make an Tabe 1. RSS Feeds From Academic Pubishers Biomed Centra Ce Nature Journas New Scientist PNAS USA Science Other RSS Journa Feeds PubMed xm&stye= xm/02_newsfeed.xs A non-excusive ist of some academic journas which pubish RSS feeds. Typing the journa name pus RSS into a Googe search frequenty has a positive resut. protoco had been pubished and the methodoogy had become known as Reay Simpe Syndication. The deveopment of this technoogy coincided with the start of webogging or bogging (McAndrew, 2006). RSS aowed boggers to provide a summary of their output to readers in a readiy accessibe form. In 2000, the use of RSS was aso taken up by severa major news organisations, incuding Reuters, CNN, active decision to access information rather than having it presented directy to them. For this reason, I wi describe the methods I have used to integrate dynamic RSS content into existing web pages and VLEs used by students. This approach enriches the content of what woud otherwise be static pages and has the capabiity to turn a simpe web page into a destination which repays frequent visits. 32

39 Case Study 3 Reay Simpe Syndication (RSS) The BBC News web site ( provides a rich source of current information for students. Each of the main pages (e.g. Education, Heath, Science/Nature and Technoogy) dispay a sma orange RSS ogo (Figure 1). Cicking on this image wi aow the reader to view or subscribe to a preconfigured feed of information reating to the topic. The drawback of this source is that even within a particuar section of the BBC web site, the range of items is extremey broad, amost certainy beyond what is ikey to be of interest for a particuar course or modue. The soution to this probem is to buid keyword-specific RSS feeds. Unfortunatey, this feature is not currenty avaiabe directy from the BBC News web site, but is offered by other onine services such as Googe News ( com) and Yahoo News ( At these sites, it is possibe to enter a search term and buid an RSS feed from the resuting output. This means that it is possibe to define RSS feeds for any topic of interest, targeted as broady or as narrowy as required. Figure 1. RSS Logos On most sites, cicking on these images wi dispay an RSS feed. Athough powerfu, keyword-specific RSS feeds sti suffer from the disadvantage that they require students to view the information via a news aggregator or specific browser. In my experience, the maximum pedagogica benefit of using these resources comes from integrating them directy into existing HTMLbased teaching materias. This can be done using freey avaiabe scripts to capture and convert keyword-specific RSS feeds into HTML code. No particuar technica abiity is required to achieve this beyond a basic knowedge of HTML and the abiity to create web pages into which the materia can be integrated. A Googe search for RSS HTML dispay reveas a arge number of free resources avaiabe onine to convert RSS feeds into HTML. These rey on a combination of Javascript and/or PHP to convert the RSS code into HTML, but a users need to do is copy and paste the URL of the RSS source into a webform, format if required, cick a button and paste the resuting output into the desired ocation. Some of these scripts are designed to be downoaded and run on a oca web server but many are freey avaiabe to use onine. The advantage of the former approach is that an author can have confidence that the script wi remain avaiabe since it wi be running on a machine over which they have some contro, the disadvantage being that instaation of the script and some configuration may be necessary. The advantage of the atter approach is that no tinkering is necessary, but the avaiabiity of the converted feed is subject to the vagaries of the Internet. There are some ega considerations surrounding the use of RSS feeds for teaching. The first issue is copyright permission. A of the major sites which pubish RSS feeds wi have a Terms and Conditions document somewhere on the site. This must be read and compied with. Sites which pubish RSS feeds go to the troube of doing so because they want peope to use them. The usua condition of use is that the dispay contains an attribution and sometimes a ink back to the RSS source. Another issue is that no matter how tighty defined the search terms, it is not possibe to competey contro the content which wi be dispayed. On occasions, unpredictabe, seemingy improbabe and potentiay offensive content may be dispayed! One soution to this probem is by use of a standard discaimer which contains a statement such as this institution is not responsibe for the content of externa internet sites, and does not endorse opinions expressed or services provided at those sites. Such a poicy needs to be negotiated and agreed at a oca or institutiona eve. Exampe 1: The Update Box I have deveoped this stye in my onine ecture notes for fina year students in order to integrate four different streams of dynamic information into a concise format (e.g. micro.msb.e.ac.uk/3035/ Poxviruses.htm, scro to bottom of page, Figure 2). The News component dispays a keyword-specific Yahoo or Googe News feed rendered as HTML by an embedded Javascript as described above. The Pubications component dispays the RSS feed for a preconfigured PubMed search for the topic of interest, converted by the same script. The two Search inks give access to preconfigured Googe and PubMed searches taiored to the subject of the page. This gives students access to a weath of constanty updated information without further intervention and forms the source materia for onine discussions and essays. I have deveoped the Update Box format as an HTML component which can easiy be dropped into any existing web page and tweaked to refect the content of the page. 33

40 Case Study 3 Reay Simpe Syndication (RSS) Figure 2. The Update Box A format which integrates four different streams of dynamic information into a concise form. Exampe 2: Index pages with dynamic content Compare the appearance of, for exampe, the BBC News web page ( to the top eve page on your own web server. It is easy for academic web index pages to be highy static pointers to onine content with no educationa vaue in themseves, and to present students with a boring entry point to what is supposed to be an engaging educationa journey. To avoid this, I incorporate reevant keyword-specific Yahoo or Googe News feeds into such pages (e.g. micro.msb.e.ac.uk). This means that the dynamic content of the page wi have automaticay updated each time a student visits it, and wi hopefuy engage the student s attention and interest. Onine earning materias compete for students attention with commercia pages which are coourfu, dynamic and fun. Like it or not, to compete successfuy with these distractions, academics need to empoy the same toos, such as RSS, which give rise to the siren ca of other internet sites. Keep them coming back! Exampe 3: A VLE Destination hearts and minds The fina exampe I wi discuss is that of a Virtua Learning Environment (VLE) site which is not inked to a particuar course or modue, but instead is intended to support students on a particuar degree course. Students are not forced to visit the site it is not inked to assessment! In order for them to do so, the site must have sufficient vaue to them to visit it vountariy. I have empoyed various means to achieve this objective. Students have part ownership of the site - they can create their own homepages to introduce themseves to their peers on the degree course. They can aso use the discussion boards to interact with other students and members of staff. The site aso has a dynamic news page which contains a number of keyword-specific RSS feeds reevant to the degree course (Figure 3). Incusion of this type of content is aimed at making this site a destination, in the current web jargon, rather than just an information pacehoder, and in doing so, promote academic achievement, incusivity and empoyabiity of students. 34

41 Case Study 3 Reay Simpe Syndication (RSS) Figure 3. RSS Integrated into a VLE Destination Site A VLE site which compements a degree course. Dynamic content is integrated into the site (red arrows). After subscribing to and dispaying RSS feeds, the next step is to pubish your own feed. There are a number of reasons (apart from pure ego!) for which this might be pedagogicay usefu. You may want to take contro of dynamic information you woud ike students to be aware of. Effectivey, your feed wi be an academic webog (bog). The simpest way to achieve this is to start a bog at one of the free onine sites such as or one of the many other free bog hosting sites a Googe search wi revea. Most of these sites automaticay generate some form of RSS feed which you can try to persuade students to sign up to! Aternativey, you may want to use your own RSS feed to push information such as course news, reminders and notices to students. In this case, it is probaby desirabe to pubish in-house rather than via a pubic bog. There are two ways to create a custom RSS feed. The current RSS standard (RSS 2.0) is a fairy straightforward XML format which it is possibe to write by hand using a text editor (RSS 2.0 Specification, 2005). The best way to get started is to ook at the source code of an existing feed, e.g. A more sophisticated approach is to use an onine service or a software package to write the code for you. Again, many of these resources are free and a arge number wi be reveaed by a Googe search for pubish RSS. With a minima amount of effort to set up appropriate feeds, incorporation of dynamic information into onine earning materias via RSS can reap huge benefits in inking academic study to the rapidy changing word into which students emerge binking, cutching their degree certificates. 35

42 Case Study 4 Using onine databases and predictive modeing to deveop student understanding of human popuation growth and goba food demand Using onine databases and predictive modeing to deveop student understanding of human popuation growth and goba food demand Anne M. Tierney, Andrea C. D. Brown and Peter J. Dominy Background This ab session forms a three-hour practica session for Leve 1 Bioogy students. These students study bioogy in first year, aong with chemistry or science fundamentas and one other subject, which need not be a science subject. The intended earning outcomes are: To give practica experience with web-based data mining and the manipuation of data in a spreadsheet; and To focus attention on the pending crisis in word food suppy. And at the end of the end of the practica, students shoud be abe to: Describe how the human popuation and goba food demand wi increase over the next century; Identify the difficuties that word agricuture wi face in meeting this demand; Deveop an understanding of the potentia soutions to the food suppy probem and the environmenta, socia and poitica issues that these wi generate; and Extract data eements from arge web-based data sets, import them into a spreadsheet and perform a range of manipuations, incuding graphica dispay of data. The ab aows students to access onine data and manipuate them to answer questions about goba popuation and food requirements. Students gain experience in handing data from accessibe onine databases and manipuating these data in Exce spreadsheets. They are aso exposed to data from reiabe sources. This is an important issue, as most students rey on the Internet for source materia, and often are not discerning as to the source of that materia. The students aso gain experience in using a predictive mode to ook at the growing probem of goba food production and demand, and ooking at means to try to sove it. The mode throws up interesting questions as to how food production can actuay be increased to support popuation growth. How to do it a) Data coection Students are directed to the United Nations Food and Agricuture Organisation (FAO) web site data coections page ( From the Agricuture data coection students are asked to coect the foowing data sets: OPTION COUNTRY ITEM ELEMENT YEAR OUTPUT Crops, primary Word Cereas, tota Production present CSV fie Crops, primary Word Roots & tubers, tota Production present CSV fie Crops, primary Word Puses, tota Production present CSV fie Crops, primary Word Oicrops primary, tota Production present CSV fie Livestock, primary Word Meat, tota Production present CSV fie Crops, primary Word Cereas, tota Yied present CSV fie Land use Word Land use Permanent 1961-present CSV fie pasture 36

43 Case Study 4 Using onine databases and predictive modeing to deveop student understanding of human popuation growth and goba food demand The data are returned in a spreadsheet with fie type.csv. For the exercise to work, it is vita that students save the fie as an Exce fie (.xs) and rename the worksheet. To find out which species of crops are incuded as cereas, students can obtain a ist by going to the database query page and submitting the foowing query: FAOSTAT database query page Item Cereas, tota [1Hg=0.1kg], so cerea yied vaues must be divided by 10 to give equivaent vaues to meat yied.) The five food items isted in the tabe above represent ~90% of tota goba food production. The vaues for each of the categories are added together to give approximate tota food production vaues for 1961-present. These data are added to the Food Production graph. The graph shows that tota food production is not increasing. The students then ook at word popuation figures and extract the popuation data from the FAOSTAT database: OPTION COUNTRY ITEM ELEMENT YEAR OUTPUT Annua time series Word Popuation estimates Tota present CSV fie The ist returned by the query incudes wheat, rice, barey, maize, pop corn, rye, oats, miet, sorghum, buckwheat, quinoa, fonio, triticae, canary seed, mixed grain and cereas nes. b) Data manipuation graph potting The students pot the categories of food production on a graph, adding appropriate abes and tites. This graph shows that cereas contribute the majority of food produced in the word, and aso shows the reative contributions of each category. Students aso pot another graph with cerea yied on it. By comparing the food production and yied graphs, students can see that since 1996, tota food production has been eveing off, due to the fact that yieds have reached maximum. Any further increases in production wi be due to yied increase from more intensive farming methods. Putting aside the environmenta issues associated with intensive farming methods, it may be possibe to introduce more intensive farming in the deveoped word, but because of cost and resource impications it is difficut to see how intensive farming methods coud be empoyed to any great extent in other areas. Going back to the yied data, students can compare the yied for cereas with meat yied. There is no direct data for meat yied in the FAOSTAT database, so to cacuate meat yied, students take meat production and divide it by the and under permanent pasture. Students shoud note that the units are not directy comparabe and make corresponding adjustments. (Land Use is given per 1000Ha, meat production is given in Mt and cerea yieds are given as Hg/Ha This returns data per 1000 popuation. This figure is copied into the worksheet and adjusted to give tota popuation figures. This is used to cacuate tota food production per capita. Students pot a new graph using the figures for popuation, tota food production and food/year/ capita. They are then instructed to extrapoate the ines for these sets of data to predict changes up to From the resuting graph it can be seen that word popuation wi continue to increase whie tota food production wi remain at around the same eve, resuting in a decreased vaue for food/year/capita. From the graph students can see that in 2050, estimated word popuation wi be ~15 biion individuas (estimated to be the carrying capacity of the panet) and food production wi have faen to ~200kg/year/capita. Therefore, food demand cannot be met if current trends continue. Current popuation growth is cacuated at ~1.3%, whie food production growth rate is ~0.5%. c) Predictive modeing Students are directed to open a second, preformatted spreadsheet caed food suppy.xs. They are asked to enter the vaues for popuation growth and food production growth rate into the mode. Using these figures students wi see by 2100 there wi ony be ~140kg/year/capita food compared to the present vaue of ~230kg/year/capita. The students are then asked what changes can be made to agricutura production to increase the amount of food produced. Students are given scenarios and 37

44 Case Study 4 Using onine databases and predictive modeing to deveop student understanding of human popuation growth and goba food demand asked what wi happen if certain measures are put in pace. Firsty, they are asked to change the yied of arabe farming, by using Current Best Yied for a arabe and. This gives a predictive figure of ~500kg/capita/ year in 2100, compared to ~690kg/capita/year in 2003 (These are Best Yied figures, obviousy, much of the and under cutivation does not operate at these eves). For these resuts every piece of and woud have to be under maximum yied of cutivation. This is not sustainabe and the ong-term consequences of environmenta probems such as nutrient runoff and saination of arabe sois resut in a oss of agricutura and. Students change the yied back to the current average figure and then try to increase food production by converting pasture and to arabe and (bearing in mind the reative contributions that cereas and meat production make to tota food suppy). Converting approximatey haf of the avaiabe pasture to arabe production resuts in a disappointing increase from 140 to 165kg/captia/year in To convert any more pasture woud not be feasibe as much of the and used to graze animas is unsuitabe for arabe farming (e.g. Scottish Highands, Wesh Mountains, both used for sheep production). Since converting pasture to arabe and makes very itte difference, the students are directed to convert rainforest to arabe production. If approximatey haf of the avaiabe rainforest is converted to arabe production, the food suppy in 2100 rises to about 175kg/capita/year. Again, a disappointing increase given the controversy and consequences of rainforest deforestation. Students are directed to increase yieds again using increased and from pasture and rainforest. If they doube current yieds, they can increase food production to ~450kg/capita/year in The ony way students can reaisticay increase food production using current crops is to convert haf the pasture AND haf the rainforests to arabe and AND doube current yieds. It is unreaistic to suppose that intensive farming methods can be empoyed wordwide, destruction of the rainforests is not an option, much of the and used for anima production is unsuitabe for arabe cutivation and grain yieds are aready at their maximum. Therefore, students are asked to think about aternative methods of increasing food suppy. The expectation is that they wi consider genetic modification of pants (e.g. introduction of sat or drought toerance) and the deveopment and cutivation of new/minor crops such as sorghum. Troubeshooting It is important to marry the practica exercise with the ectures, which provide a sound grounding in the issues surrounding goba food production and increasing goba popuation. When the students attended this practica cass, they had aready had the ectures and were famiiar with the topic. It woud have been difficut for them to grasp the point of the exercise without the background information. This shoud not be used as an exercise in earning to use Exce, but shoud focus on the scientific data behind the exercise, and the probems that may arise in the future due to pressure on word resources. When deveoping the exercise, we put in detaied instructions on how to gather each ine of data, and add them to an Exce graph, data set by data set. Students did not find it easy to foow page upon page of these instructions, so this year we have simpified things by aowing students to gather a the data before embarking on the graph drawing and data manipuations. This aows students to progress on to the modeing part of the cass, where they can see the consequences of increasing popuation and changing patterns of and use. Probems that we faced were mainy in the use of Exce. Many students faied to save the.csv fie as an Exce spreadsheet, or to rename the worksheet, which resuted in them being unabe to manipuate the data unti this was corrected. Students who were proficient in Exce charged ahead with the exercise without paying much attention to the data that was being gathered. As some of the data come from sighty different sources, when students came to ater manipuations, some of the categories had sipped sideways, so that data from a particuar year were not aways in the same coumn for each data set. Conversey, students who were not comfortabe using spreadsheets found the exercise too demanding, and got ost in the instructions we provided. During the first year that the exercise ran, the students spent so much time on the data coection that they did not have much time to get to the data manipuations and predictions using the predictive mode. The protoco was rewritten to simpify the task of data gathering and the ab run for a second time. A substantia number of students sti strugged with the data manipuations, so it was decided that for Leve 1 students, they shoud 38

45 Case Study 4 Using onine databases and predictive modeing to deveop student understanding of human popuation growth and goba food demand be given the spreadsheet aready popuated with the data, and asked to retrieve ony one category of data and add this to the spreadsheet. Hopefuy this wi shift the emphasis of the exercise from that of using Exce, to one of understanding goba food suppy. The number of computers avaiabe to students is aso a potentia probem for us. At the moment we run the ab so that students share a computer between two. This has the advantage that students with a weaker grasp of Exce can be heped by a partner with more experience of the package. Ideay we woud wish the students to work on the probem individuay, athough sharing computers does resut in more discussion. The ab works in that it shows that there may be soutions to the predicted food crisis, but aso shows the mora diemma that wi be facing humanity in the future. It is aso imperative that ab eaders and graduate teaching assistants are famiiar with the technica issues surrounding the ab, such as saving fies in the correct format, to faciitate the progression of the students through the exercise. Future Deveopments With much in the news at the moment of the impending oi crisis, this mode coud be adapted to aow students to study the changes in oi reserves, energy consumption and aternative sources of energy. A more sophisticated predictive mode is in deveopment, which wi aow changes to appear more graduay. At the moment, when figures change, they appy from now which is unreaistic. 39

46 Case Study 5 An IT soution to a pedagogic probem An IT soution to a pedagogic probem Stephen Gomez and David Lush The probem and context The Facuty of Appied Sciences (FAS) has run Sandwich degree programmes in Appied Bioogica Sciences for over 30 years. Few doubt the importance of the pacement year for the workpace experience gained, but we have aso found statistica evidence that pacement students subsequenty perform better academicay not to mention enhanced empoyabiity prospects on graduation. Empoyers, understandaby, prefer graduates with experience of the workpace during their academic programmes. Despite these advantages, and having visited pacement students and seen evidence of higheve earning e.g. names on research papers and presentations at conferences we were concerned that our pacement year was not propery recognised in terms of academic credit. We therefore decided to rectify this by fuy integrating the pacement within our degree structures by awarding academic credit. Our soution Our suggestion to accredit the pacement year was met by a range of reactions from about time to it can t be done and it undermine the academic integrity of the whoe degree. Most opinions were negative and concerned a variety of aspects: How woud pacement credits be accommodated within the degree? If assigned Leve 2 credits, then how woud students cope in Year 2 with the expectation of gaining credits in the Sandwich year? If Leve 3 credit was assigned, then the taught content in the Fina Year woud be reduced. The case for change It is tempting to continue with existing systems for historica reasons, even when they are adequate rather than idea. Our assessment of pacement earning, we fet, fe into this category. Pacement students were aocated a Visiting Tutor (VT), but communication tended to be sporadic, with contact made haf-way through the pacement to arrange a visit and once again at the end, but with itte forma guidance during the pacement period itsef. This reaxed approach refected the notiona credit-rating assigned to the year. The visit generay affording the VT their first opportunity to discover what the student was doing, turning it into more of a fact-finding operation than an evauation. Aso, the specia nature of the visit did not refect the student s day-to-day work. Essentiay, there was itte opportunity for the VT to guide the student or support their earning. We aimed to: The pacement occupied time outside forma academic earning, so awarding academic credit was inappropriate; T&L quaity assurance procedures had no equivaent for pacement earning; Our pacements are diverse in terms of type (e.g. hospitas and industry) and geographica ocation (e.g. UK and USA), so how coud consistent standards be appied in a costeffective manner? and Monitor students earning in an iterative fashion to steer and provide feedback; Produce a transparent pedagogica mode based on that of taught modues, thereby assessing student workpace earning with sufficient rigour to satisfy our academic procedures for the award of academic credit; Award HE Leve 3 (fina year) credit; and Be sufficienty fexibe to cope with the diversity of pacement experience. 40

47 Case Study 5 An IT soution to a pedagogic probem We wanted whatever system we produced to be based on accepted practice. We went back to first principes and the generic criteria for awarding credit for taught modues, namey: Credit vaue (10, 20, etc.); Notiona earning time (with 1 credit equivaent to 10 notiona earning hours); Learning objectives or outcomes; Leve of earning (credit-eve descriptors defining the expectations required of students at each eve of their earning, e.g. SEEC eve descriptors); and Assessments providing evidence that the earning objectives had been met satisfactoriy. VTs needed a cear and simpe communication channe estabished between the two geographicay-separated, stakehoders to monitor students; ideay, this woud aso incude the work supervisor; Communication via the posta system was seen to be sow, time-consuming and administrativey cumbersome. Athough emai addressed the issue of speed, difficuties in organising and administering the pacement modue via this method remained; and How coud we expect students successfuy to take an active part in the formuation and justification of earning at L3 when they had ony experienced L2? The pedagogic system we deveoped to accredit workpace earning refected these criteria. Any identified task was described in terms of: A tite; A brief description; Learning outcomes (LOs); Generic/transferabe skis; Specific skis; Justification of eve of earning (using eve descriptors); and Assessments or evidence that the LOs are met. This format is essentiay a modue description, so students are effectivey required to write their own individua modue. The generic structure within this approach makes it suitabe for workpace earning in degree programmes of differing discipines, not just science. Administrative and pedagogic chaenges In theory, this scheme appeared workabe but there were a number of chaenges to impementing such an approach: In our approach, the student, through negotiation with the work supervisor and academic tutor, sets the earning outcomes and produces the evidence used to assess their attainment. This refects the paradigm shift from the traditiona roe of the earner as passive recipient to one where the earner takes active responsibiity for, and ownership of, the earning objectives. But how coud this process be managed? The IT soution Task-orientated earning is best captured in a portfoio. However, such an individua, detaied approach to the assessment of work experience coud incur a significant administrative overhead. Modeing pacements in terms of the moduar metaphor described earier makes their detaied description ideay suited to a database soution and, furthermore, managing this detai via the Internet coud address the probem of geographic separation. Therefore, we deveoped a nove eectronic-portfoio (e-portfoio) system, caed Profie, to deiver this moduar approach to the recording and assessment of pacement earning. Each student was given access to a secure e-portfoio within which he/she competed web-forms in order to deveop and describe his/her unique earning agreement, as we as web-forms to define seected work activities in terms of the criteria for academic credit; to support assessment, evidence of earning coud aso be upoaded. Each student woud have individua Learning Agreements, tasks and evidence due to the unique nature of the pacement; Different user roes The student, being the main user, was considered as the owner of his/her portfoio. Certain other peope coud aso gain access to the portfoio at the invitation 41

48 Case Study 5 An IT soution to a pedagogic probem of the student, the two main ones being the work supervisor and academic tutor; these peope had separate ogins and coud view the materia in the portfoio and communicate with the student, providing ongoing feedback. Users with these roes coud aso sign off work eectronicay (as described beow). The invovement of the other stakehoders in this way aowed students earning to be both monitored and modified to hep them reach their agreed earning goas. This combination of remote tracking and feedback proved idea for students on pacements that were both diverse and dispersed. Within Profie, a communication too aowed messages to be posted so that a stakehoders in any particuar pacement coud see the questions posed and the suggestions made. Security To ensure that the work being reported by the student was indeed his/hers, a sign-off faciity was incorporated whereby the work supervisor confirmed the authorship and standard of the student s work. The VT aso signed-off to confirm that the work had met academic requirements. To accommodate the sign-off faciity, we produced a nove system whereby on the same form different form eements coud be restricted to different types of users. For instance, for the majority of forms, the items on the form were restricted to the student to compete except for signoff checkboxes used soey by the work-supervisor and tutor. This nove approach permitted the natura simuation over the internet of famiiar, paper-based processes invoving forms. Fexibiity and devoved management The system features devoved management in that appointed administrators can set up their own independent e-portfoio areas for their students, and contain their own custom web-forms and standard web pages designed to meet their own particuar needs. The system repicates generic features of paper-based administrative systems: Distribution. A web-form can be reeased to a particuar type of user. Hep. Standard web pages can be deivered to assist users. Sub-sections. Parts of a web-form can be reserved for fiing in by other users. Attachments. Upoaded fies can be eectronicay staped to a web-form. Hand-in. Web-forms can be eectronicay signed off which ocks their content. Profie e-portfoio forms The homepage serves as the ogin page to the e-portfoios and contains a few inks to take visitors to expanatory web pages. For users of the system forms come in 2 categories The Learning Agreement (LA) web-form aows the student to ay out his/her earning during the pacement period. The activities during pacement are described in terms of tasks, with each task representing a earning opportunity. For science students, typica tasks may invove: earning a particuar aboratory technique or procedure; data anaysis or synthesis; forma presentations and report writing. The LA webform consists of severa sections: student id fied; ist of tasks; task deadines; sign off and submit (which saves any vaid changes). The Task web-form is used to document the individua tasks contained in the LA; one form per individua task. Like the LA, the Task web-form consists of severa sections which are again separated into smaer sections. Whereas there is ony one instance of a LA, the Task web-form was made conabe in that students coud make as many copies of this form as required. As with the LA there is a student id fied, a section to describe the task, time period for the task, brief ayman description and intended earning outcomes. Hep and exampes are avaiabe to guide students. Making students aware of the transferabe skis they use on pacement is an important aspect and students have to seect the skis they have used from a ist of: Communication, Information technoogy (IT), Appication of numbers, Working with others, Improving own earning, Probem soving and Professionaism. For each of these skis, a checkist of saient features is provided which students check off as appropriate. There is aso a text area where students expain how that ski is invoved in the task (not every ski needs to be justified for every task, ony those that are appropriate). Students may aso ist any skis specific to the task in hand. Students need to provide evidence to support the caims they are making and they can upoad any eectronic fie, such as: Word, Exce, PowerPoint, or text documents, image, audio and video fies, etc. 42

49 Case Study 5 An IT soution to a pedagogic probem The portfoio forms part of the assessment for awarding academic credit at L3. The students, therefore, are required to justify individua tasks at this eve. They are assisted in this by the Criteria for Leve 3 section on the web-form. Seven areas are covered: Knowedge and understanding; Ethica issues; Anaysis; Synthesis; Evauation; Appication and Autonomy in ski use. Again for each category, an expanation is provided as we as a text area to be competed by the student expaining how the task is justified. Tips/things to ook out for Don t be put off by negative comments by coeagues; Use criticisms to strengthen your case; Look to outside your immediate situation to see if your idea can be appied esewhere. Quite often when others take up your ideas, coser coeagues wi fee eft out; and Bring detractors on-board to hep you deveop ideas. What probems/issues have arisen? Workoad issues; and Sustainabiity. Does it work? Yes. Uptake amongst coeagues across the HE sector is very high. The strengths in the system incude: fexibiity, generic, sharing good practice, setting up a community, no botte-necks, it is free: under the terms of FDTL4 the system is offered free to the HE sector. Further deveopments With the rise in number of peope adopting the system we need to track cient requirements and the progress of the work. We are deveoping a Profie Incubator to assist interested parties in producing their materias and reams. Generic nature of Profie e-portfoio The simpe, Googe-esque, front page (Figure 1) masks the tremendous capabiities of the Profie system which aows users to customise web-forms to meet their own needs. From its origina aim of offering an e-portfoio, the functionaity has increased to provide users with a highy customisabe and fexibe knowedge management system used for work-based earning, PDP, CPD and managing administrative tasks such as ethics, heath and safety and other governance matters. If you wish to use Profie, pease contact: profie@uwe. ac.uk Figure 1. Profie front page 43