Learners in the Co-creation of Knowledge

Proceedings of the LICK 2008 Symposium

Edinburgh 30 October 2008

Barceló Carlton Hotel

These proceedings have been edited by:

Andrew Comrie
Nicholas Mayes
Terry Mayes
Keith Smyth

Published by Napier University in association with TESEP, January 2009

Napier University
Craiglockhart Campus
Edinburgh
EH14 1DJ

© Napier University / TESEP

All rights reserved

ISBN: 978-0-902703-85-8

The responsibility for the content of these papers lies entirely with the
individual authors, and not with the conference organisers. The
proceedings of the LICK 2008 Symposium have undergone full refereeing.

Papers can also be downloaded from the TESEP website at:

www.napier.ac.uk/transform

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Acknowledgements
It is with gratitude that we thank all those who contributed to the LICK 2008
symposium and to the publication of the proceedings, in particular:

Supporters
The Scottish Funding Council
Dr Peter Easy, Senior Vice Principal (Academic Development) Napier University

TESEP Partners
Edinburgh’s Telford College
Carnegie College, Dunfermline

Keynote Speakers and Closing Remarks

Professor Dr Betty Collis
Dr Martin Oliver
Professor John Cowan

Organisers, Evaluators and Facilitators

Heather Sanderson, Kerson Associates Ltd
Anne Wardrope, Napier University
Christina Mainka, Napier University
Panos Vlachopoulos, Napier University
Morag Gray, Napier University
Julia Fotheringham, Scotland’s Colleges, Scottish Further Education Unit
Fred Percival, Napier University
Liz Foulis, Carnegie College

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4
Foreword
The idea for a symposium around learners being actively involved in the co-
creation of knowledge (LICK 2008) resulted from a programme of work
undertaken between 2005 and 2007 which explored the way in which learning
and teaching methods can be transformed through truly learner centred
pedagogy. The project, “Transforming and Enhancing the Student Experience
through Pedagogy” (TESEP)1 was funded by the Scottish Funding Council2 under
its e-learning transformation programme3 and was led by Napier University,
Edinburgh. The project involved two colleges: Edinburgh’s Telford College; and
Carnegie College (previously Lauder College).

LICK 2008 was held at a time when many universities and colleges are
changing the way they teach in order to meet the increasingly diverse needs
of their learners, to improve the quality of the student experience by
encouraging deeper learning and encouraging learners to voice their views on
teaching methods and encourage and support students to develop the
independent and collaborative skills, and other attributes, that will stand them
in good stead for future employment and for lifelong learning. These changes
are being driven by government priorities for skills development, widening
access and participation, quality enhancement and lifelong learning.

LICK 2008 was also held at a time when the educational value of what we can
loosely refer to as 'Web 2.0' technologies are being reviewed and their
potential for providing students along with their tutors with new ways to
contribute directly to sharing and developing knowledge in ways that were
never before possible are being explored.

Judging from the amount of interest that was received in this symposium
(both to attend as a delegate and/or contribute a paper to the proceedings),
there is clearly a will to change learning and teaching practices and much
interest in developing pedagogical approaches that are truly learner centred,
and which are enriched by creative and appropriate use of emerging
technologies to engage, involve and empower learners in the co-creation of
knowledge. For many, this remains a major challenge and an area where
there will continue to be debate and further research.

I hope these proceedings will encourage many to reflect on their teaching

practices, learn from the practice and experience of others and actively
change their own practice and adopt learner centred approaches and embrace
current and emerging technologies.

Andrew K Comrie
Director, TESEP

1
www.napier.ac.uk/transform

2
www.sfc.ac.uk

3
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearningsfc.aspx

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Contents:

SECTION ONE – KEYNOTE PAPERS

Betty Collis, Emeritus Professor, University of Twente, the

Netherlands
A Pedagogy for Learners in the Co-Creation of Knowledge and the
Problems that Confront it in Practice 10

Martin Oliver, London Knowledge Lab, Institute of Education,

University of London
Perspectives on Co-Creating Knowledge with Learners 18

SECTION TWO – PAPERS

Nicola Whitton, Manchester Metropolitan University

Alternate Reality Games for Developing Student Autonomy and Peer
Learning 32

Hamish Macleod, Jen Ross and Siân Bayne, School of Education,

University of Edinburgh
Co-Creating a Programme: The MSc in E-Learning at the University of
Edinburgh
41

Panos Vlachopoulos, Napier University

The Nature of E-Moderation in Online Learning Environments 48

Linda Creanor, Caledonian Academy, Glasgow Caledonian

University
Meeting Student Expectations: Are They Already in Control? 58

Joseph Maguire, Susan Stuart and Steve Draper, University of

Glasgow
Student Generated Podcasts: Learning to Cascade Rather Than Create 67

Angela Benzies and Jane McDowell, Napier University

Academic and Professional Service Staff Collaboration to Foster
Independent Learning 78

Cathy Sherratt, Edge Hill University

Autonomy & Authority: Creating a Learning Community Online 91

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Keith Smyth and Christina Mainka, Napier University
Embedding the TESEP 3E Approach in the Professional Development
of Educators: a Case Study of the MSc Blended and Online Education 98

Colin Gray, Napier University

Choice, Collaboration and Web 2.0: What We Can Learn from the
Student Experience of Technology-enhanced Education 109

Richard Hall, De Montfort University

Can Higher Education Enable its Learners’ Digital Autonomy? 119

Steve Draper, University of Glasgow

Learning and Community 132

Paula Roush and Ruth Brown, London South Bank University

Social Networking and Authentic Engagement: Students
as “Produsers” 145

Mark Johnson, University of Bolton and Graham Hall &

Miranda Edwards, Coleg Harlech
Technology, Transparency and Communication in Institutions:
Social Software in the Splice Project 153

Dr Karla H. Benske, Frank Brown, Dr Jane Mckay, Kathryn

Trinder and Ruth Whittaker, Glasgow Caledonian University
Welcome to (Y)our Second Life: a paper based on a workshop run
at the LICK Conference 2008 on providing peer mentoring and
transition support within the virtual world of Second Life
at Glasgow Caledonian University 161

SECTION THREE – CLOSING THOUGHTS

Nicholas Mayes
The Open Plenary Discussion 174

John Cowan, Napier University

Postscript 177

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 SECTION ONE

KEYNOTE PAPERS

9
A PEDAGOGY FOR LEARNERS IN THE CO-CREATION OF
KNOWLEDGE AND THE PROBLEMS THAT CONFRONT IT IN
PRACTICE

Betty Collis

Emeritus Professor, University of Twente, The Netherlands

Consultant, Moonen & Collis Learning Technology Consultants
bettycollisjefmoonen@gmail.com

Abstract
Web 2.0 describes both a philosophy of user contribution and control and
sharing with others as well as the software tools that facilitate the philosophy.
While many are seeing the potential benefits for education the instructor may
not be aware of practical ways to implement the philosophy within a higher
education programme. This paper responds to this need by presenting a
taxonomy of learning activities that involve learners in the co-creation of content
for themselves and others. Examples from practice illustrate each node of the
taxonomy. Regardless of the relationship of such contribution-oriented activities
to Web 2.0, they can be seen as good pedagogy from both research and social
perspectives. However, despite their motivation, there are many barriers that
confront contribution-oriented learning activities from actually being carried out
in mainstream practice in higher education. These barriers relate to quality
assurance, from instructional and institutional perspectives. Can the potential for
learners in the co-creation of knowledge overcome these barriers in practice?

Web 2.0 and its potential in higher education

What are Web 2.0 tools and services? The phrase Web 2.0 was first used in 2004
to refer to Web-based services emphasizing online collaboration and sharing.
Howe (2006, p. 60) categorizes four general types of processes within Web 2.0
applications that reflect these ways of interacting:

 for sharing user-contributed content

 for evolving community-developed tagging and organizational schemes for
sets of user-contributed content
 for developing content collections by the user community
 for finding not only objects but trends and overviews of contributions

User contribution possibilities are common throughout all of these Web 2.0
processes. The processes represent new ways of making, sharing and using
digital documents. For higher education pedagogical approaches that involve
students making contributions that are used for learning resources by others
represent one way of applying Web 2.0 in practice. Such collaboration
approaches are being called a key emerging technology for higher education
(The New Media Consortium & the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative, 2008).

A contribution-oriented approach can be motivated by educational and social

principles rather than any specific reference to Web 2.0. From an educational
perspective, the learning model reflects an extension of Sfard’s two “metaphors
for learning” (1998)--learning by acquisition and learning by participation--with
the idea of participation by contributing to a shared knowledge base.

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Contribution-oriented pedagogical principles are similar to Kearsley and
Shneiderman's (1998) Engagement Theory, and to Action Learning (Simons,
1999).

A contribution-oriented approach to learning activities also has a strategic

motivation. The need for participation and contribution reflects current
developments in society. Internationalisation, the world becoming a global
community, the fact that individuals can expect to work in different settings and
as members of multifaceted teams, and the need for social skills and
communication skills: all are commonly described as characteristics of living and
working in a Knowledge Economy that are rapidly gaining in importance (The
World Bank Group, 2003). In corporate settings, global networks and other
forms of knowledge-sharing communities are key tools in learning from the tacit
knowledge of others in the corporation. This learning comes from finding
relevant examples and resources contributed by others in the company, asking
others in the community for help or clarification, or by joining in debates and
discussions on how to generate solutions for workers’ real problems. In
professional contexts, for learning communities or communities of practice,
digital workbenches increasingly serve major roles in the ways in which people in
a common company or professional group interact and learn from each other
(Wenger, 2005). Thus a contribution-oriented approach making use of Web 2.0
tools and reflecting Web 2.0 principles is also preparation for the professional
workforce.

A taxonomy of learning activities reflecting Web 2.0 contribution

principles
Discussions of the applications of Web 2.0 principles to education are frequently
organised around types of Web 2.0 tools and environments (i.e., blogs, Wikis,
podcasting, and other forms of social software, see for example, Alexander,
2006). For the instructor this may not be a helpful approach. Even a phrase
such as contribution-oriented pedagogy may be hard to translate into practical
examples for one’s own teaching situation. The taxonomy of learning activities
shown in Figure 1 has been developed to help instructors to identify concrete
learning activities that could be usable in their teaching without expliciting
discussing either technology or an educational philosophy. We have developed
the taxonomy out of our own experiences as instructors and have validated it
with different groups of instructors in both higher education and corporate
learning (Collis & Moonen, 2001; B. Collis, 2006).

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Figure 1. Taxonomy of contribution-oriented learning activities
The Level 1 activities are the simplest to visualize and implement. Here the
students only need a platform that they can all contribute to in order to build a
set of artefacts that can be used for learning. Some examples are:
Level 1.1 Find and contribute:
• Appropriate Web links or references to extend the study material
• Examples of concepts or issues

Level 1.2 Create/Capture and contribute:

• Interview results
• Summaries of readings
• Questions that arise during project work and discussions
• One’s own reflections, concerns, ideas
• Video/audio clips

Level 2 activities go a step further. After the collection of contributions has been
gathered, subsequent learning activities involve using the collection.

Levels 2.1 & 2.2 Locate/Compare & contrast among the contributed resources
• Find groupings and trends; visualize them in a concept map or other
sorting scheme
• Identify particular contributions that best illustrate or extend the study
materials
• Compare and contrast your own entry with those of others; identify
similarities and differences
• Select key themes that emerge from the personal reflections or
interviews and discuss

Level 2.3 Add to, extend the collection with

• Frequently asked questions (with answers)
• Practice exam questions (with explanations)
• Index terms, glossary entries
• Web links (adding something that can update or replace a previous
entry)
• Add comments or extensions to previously submitted items (such as to
Wiki entries)

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 Level 2.4.1 Collaboratively create a new product for one’s own classmates or
those in later generations of the same course
• Hints and tips for others studying the same materials
• Resources for peer coaching during the course
• Case studies from participants’ own work and experience to be studied
by others during the course
• Video/audio clips of interviews or examples to illustrate and extend the
study materials

Level 2.4.2 Collaboratively create a product for others outside of the course
or module
• A resource collection for practitioners, available via the Web
• A collection of information for a community or for local industry
• Materials for students in local schools to interest them in an area of
study

The Level 2.4 contributions are the most interesting educationally and socially as
they involve contributing to the learning of others beyond the boundaries of a
specific course or module (reflecting what Kearsley and Shneiderman, 1998, call
Engagement Theory). As an example, C. Collis describes how such an approach
can be a valuable tool for building partnerships between a university faculty and
local businesses (C. Collis, 2006)

Barriers for practice

Thus, we have a rationale and we have specific examples of how to implement
the rationale in practice. But can we expect widespread change in educational
practice? In our experience, the answer is no. We have discussed this in terms of
collisions between such an approach and student and organisation expectations
of learning (Collis & Moonen, 2008). A major problem is the mismatch in terms
of what students (and institutions) expect from a course or module. Zurita
(2006) has noted that such changes in pedagogy may not fit the expectations of
the students, and thus may not be positively valued by them. Zurita found that
students are “more prepared to have a teacher-centred course than a learner-
centred course….and felt uncomfortable” when expected to design learning
materials for themselves and their peers” (p. 6). This is reflected in a recent
survey of Finnish university students who saw themselves as only passive users
of Web 2.0 applications (i.e., non contributors) in learning contexts (Kynäslahti,
Verterinen, Lipponen, Vahitivuouri-Hänninen, & Tella, 2008). We call these
Mindset barriers:

Mindset-change conflicts
Students have said to us “Why don’t you just give us what we are
supposed to learn? That would be much more efficient” and even more
sharply, “It’s your job to teach us”. These sorts of comments reflect a
mindset about the role of the teacher as the one responsible for the flow
of quality-assured study materials, and the role of the students as the
ones responsible to know what is in those study materials in order to pass
a test or do an exercise.

Other barriers to implementation from the instructor’s perspective include:

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 Management burdens
A key characteristic of contribution-type activities is that the instructor
does not know in advance what the students will contribute and thus has
to study carefully what is contributed. Thus, if instructions are not clear
and explicit about what is expected, in terms of scope, origin, criteria,
length, and presentation, the management burden can become enormous.

Assessment-related issues
Assessment is the major challenge for the instructor in a contribution-
oriented pedagogical approach. By definition, there are no pre-determined
“right” answers, but instead will be different degrees of appropriateness
on different dimensions. Students are, understandably, highly sensitive to
potential ambiguities in grading and marking.

Intellectual-property considerations
In the university setting, issues of intellectual property make the
processes relating to building on other’s contributions complicated.
Students need guidance and coaching on how to properly use and cite the
work of others, a particular problem when the cutting and pasting of work
in digital form is technically so simple.

Time burdens
A contribution-oriented approach takes more time for the instructor than a
traditional course, not necessarily more time before the course, but
certainly more time during the course. It takes more time to manage and
assess contributions that bring in new ideas and experiences than it does
to manage and assess assignments where everyone does the same
exercises and should come to the same result.

To these instructor-specific barriers can be added those coming from the

institution. There are at least four, potentially conflicting, perspectives on
quality from the institutional perspective that can influence the uptake of Web
2.0 tools and processes in higher education practice. These perspectives relate
to accreditation frameworks, expectations from external stakeholders, quality
concerns relating to learning resources and experiences endorsed by the
institution, and issues relating to IT policy.

Universities are under increased pressure to demonstrate quality around

common standards (European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher
Education, 2005). Thus any move towards a co-contributor pedagogy supported
by Web 2.0 technology must also be monitored within the quality assurance
perspectives important to the institution as an accredited degree-granting
organization. Quality assurance processes give particular attention to the
institution’s procedures for student assessment. The European Association for
Quality Assurance in Higher Education (2005) notes that each institution must
have student assessment procedures that have “clear and published criteria for
marking” and “are subject to administrative verification checks to ensure the
accuracy of the marking procedures” (p. 17). The same concerns that face
instructors and learners relating to appropriate assessment of contribution-
oriented pedagogies will also be felt by the institution when it has to defend the
validity and reliability of assessment practices for such activities. Student
criticisms of assessment practices are taken seriously in quality assurance

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reviews. If students feel negative about the quality of learning activities and the
way their performance is assessed, this will negatively reflect on the institution.
In addition, from an institutional perspective, there are other stakeholder
perspectives that challenge the value of student-created or contributed
resources. Those who supply universities with scientific content (library
services, textbook and academic journals publishers, academic bodies, and
researchers themselves) take great care with the accuracy and quality of the
resources they produce. The risk that students will find and produce material
that is inferior and disseminate this as evidence of the scholarly level of
discourse at the university is a major negative factor confronting the uptake of
Web 2.0 processes and underlying ways of working in higher education. Conole,
de Laat, Dillon, and Darby (2006) note that “the increasing use of user-
generated content in the form of sites such as Wikipedia is challenging the
traditional norms of the academic institutions as the key knowledge expert and
providers” (p. 102). Institutions will be predictably concerned about public
scrutiny of student contributions as well as issues relating to intellectual
property.

The institution’s IT policy can also be a barrier, especially when a commitment

has been made to a Virtual Learning Environment system (VLE) and the VLE has
only limited facilities for supporting a contribution-oriented approach. . C. Collis
(2006) notes how complicated the support of her contribution-oriented activity
became for the instructor:

“Students need a well organized resource environment, in which the

expectations of the course and appropriate support materials are
available. They also need groupware tools, such as shared workspaces;
tools for document version control and distributed annotation, feedback,
and editing; tools that allow them to manage their own work-in-progress
and at the same time make work ready for assessment accessible to peer
reviewers and faculty before going public. They need tools to manage
their shared agendas and for different forms of communication. They also
need skills in communication via a web environment in terms of
presentation design and user-interface considerations. In addition,
students must be allowed admin or at least instructor-level access to
certain areas of the institutional course-management system so that it is
used more as a groupware environment than a course-presentation
environment” (p. 6).

Considerable liaison between the instructor and the IT support services of the
institution will become necessary as long as standard tools such as the campus
VLE do not support students seeing each others’ contributions or subsequently
building upon them.

Is there a way forward?

Given these many barriers, the likelihood of uptake of a contribution-oriented
pedagogy is low. However, for the motivated instructor we have compiled a list
of recommendations for managing contribution-oriented learning activities to
reduce the management load (Collis & Moonen, 2008). Some of these
recommendations are:
• Be clear in the written instructions on the Web site for any contribution-
type activity. Indicate clearly how much, in what form, the contribution

15
 should be and where in the Web environment it should be submitted. If it
is a group submission, make it clear who should submit on behalf of the
group. Provide a model or example. If possible, include a template to
download, fill in, and upload with the contribution.
• For complex contribution activities, split the activity up into stages and
give marks for each stage, thus three submissions of 5 points, 10 points,
and 20 points instead of one final score of 35 points. In this way, students
will better understand what you are looking for and can incorporate your
feedback into the next stage of the work. This is particularly important for
group projects.
• If an assignment involves adding to another student’s previously
submitted work, find a way to differentiate the work of the different
students and maintain both students’ names on the resulting product.
• Ensure that the students see you as a fellow learner. Pick up on ideas in
their contributions and build on them in your reflections in the course Web
site. Show that you are excited by what they find, for example new Web
links, and what they produce as new resources for others.
• Block time each week for communication, feedback and management
relating to the contribution-oriented activities.

With these sorts of management strategies the motivated instructor can

probably implement at least a simple form of contribution-oriented learning
activity (Level 1 in Figure 1) within his or her own course, assuming there are
not insurmountable technical barriers in terms of institutional IT policy.
However, dealing with institutional scepticism or disapproval of student
contributions as learning resources will remain difficult for the instructor.
Mindset change will be hardest of all.

The good news is that the tools for contributing and sharing are now easily
available at least outside of the official IT suite of the higher-education
institution. Using Web 2.0 technology to create and share one’s thoughts and
productions is a common-place activity for an increasing number of students and
also instructors. At the moment this activity generally takes place outside the
scope of formal education. The affordances of Web 2.0 tools and applications
make sharing via Web environments an attractive pastime; hopefully a tool such
as the taxonomy of learning activities presented in this paper can help match
this potential to learning-related goals. Technology should not drive pedagogy,
but a contribution-oriented pedagogy can become much more feasible and
scaleable in practice using Web 2.0 tools.

References
Alexander, B. (2006). Web 2.0: A new wave of innovation for teaching and
learning. Educause Review, March/April 2006, pp. 33-40. Accessed 20
October 2008 from http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0621.pdf
Collis, B. (2006, 04 September). Formal and informal learning: Bridging the gap.
Presentation at the Supporting Sustainable e-Learning Forum (SSeLF),
Edinburgh University, Scotland.
Collis, B., & Moonen, J. (2008). Web 2.0 tools and processes in higher
education: Quality perspectives. Educational Media International, 45 (2), 93-
106.
Collis, B., & Moonen, J. (2001). Flexible learning in a digital world: Experiences
and expectations. London: Routledge.

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Collis, C. (2006) The Brisbane Media Map: Connecting students, industry, and
university through authentic learning. In Proceedings of the 7th International
Information Technology Based Higher Education and Training Conference,
University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia. Accessed 20 October
2008 from http://eprints.qut.edu.au/archive/00004718/
Conole, G. de Laat, M., Dillon, T. and Darby, J. (2006). JISC LXP: Student
experience of technologies: Final report. Accessed 20 October 2008 from
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/elearningpedagogy/lxp
_project_final_report_nov_06.pdf
European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education. (2005).
Standards and guidelines for quality assurance in the European Higher
Education Area. Helsinki, Finland. Accessed 20 October 2008 from
http://www.enqa.eu/files/BergenReport210205.pdf
Howe, J. (2006, December 25). Your Web, your way. Time Magazine, Vol. 168,
No, 26, pp. 60-63.
Kearsley, G., & Shneiderman, G. (1998). Engagement theory: A framework for
technology-based teaching and learning. Educational Technology, 38 (5), 20-
24.
Kynäslahti, H., Verterinen, O., Lipponen, L., Vahitivuouri-Hänninen, S., & Tella,
S. (2008). Towards volitional media literacy through Web 2.0. Educational
Technology, 48(5), 3-9.
New Media Consortium & the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative. (2008). The horizon
report: 2008 edition. Accessed 20 October 2008 from
http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2008-Horizon-Report.pdf
Sfard, A. (1998). On two metaphors for learning and the dangers of choosing
just one. Educational Researcher, 27(2), 4-13.
Simons, P. R. J. (1999). Three ways to learn in a new balance. Lifelong
Learning in Europe, IV (1), 14-23.
Wenger, E. (2005). Communities of practice: A brief introduction. Accessed 21
October 2008 from http://www.ewenger.com/theory/index.htm
World Bank Group, (2003). Lifelong learning in the global knowledge economy.
Accessed 16 May 2005 from
http://www1.worldbank.org/education/lifelong_learning/lifelong_learning_GK
E.asp
Zurita, L. (2006, 10-12 April). Learning in multicultural environments: Learners
as co-designers. Paper presented at Networked Learning 2006, Lancaster,
UK. Accessed 21 October 2008 from
http://www.networkedlearningconference.org.uk/past/nlc2006/abstracts/pdfs
/P26%20Zurita.pdf

17
PERSPECTIVES ON CO-CREATING KNOWLEDGE WITH LEARNERS

Martin Oliver, London Knowledge Lab, Institute of Education,

University of London

Abstract
What does it mean for learners to be involved in the co-creation of knowledge?
This paper explores different interpretations of this phrase and identifies
implications for research and practice. Firstly, it is contextualised in terms of
different theories of learning, leading to a distinction being drawn between
pedagogical and political implications. Pedagogical implications raise questions
about what is learnt and how efficiently; this includes questions about the role of
learners and teachers. Political questions focus on the kinds of knowledge valued
in the context of higher education, and the way in which this includes or
excludes practices. A case is made for the continued value of disciplinary
knowledge. The paper concludes by differentiating between problems to be
solved and issues that teachers will have to continue to consider.

Introduction
In this paper, the idea of learners co-constructing knowledge is examined.
Firstly, the epistemological assumptions and implication of the phrase are
considered. Next, the practical, pedagogic implications are discussed. These are
differentiated from political implications, concerning the status of knowledge in
higher education and the consequence inclusion or exclusion of groups and
practices. Finally, the paper concludes by identifying the implications of this
discussion for teachers and researchers.

Epistemological background
Current interest in learners actively producing knowledge is widespread; it is
reflected in writing about pedagogy (Mayes & de Freitas, 2007), has formed the
foundation for movements such as problem-based learning (e.g. Savin-Baden,
2000) and has been strongly associated with the development of what has been
described as Web 2.0 (e.g. Barnes & Tynan, 2007).

However, the idea that learners are involved in knowledge creation is not new. It
has long been the hallmark of social accounts of learning, and is reflected in
many of the central texts in this tradition. For example, it formed a foundational
assumption in Vygotsky’s work:

Every function in the child’s cultural development appears twice: first, on the
social level, and later, on the individual level; first between people
(interpsychological), and then inside the child (intrapsychological). This
applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the
formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual relations
between human individuals. (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 57)

Such a perspective immediately positions the learner as an active agent in the

process of producing knowledge; it is engaged with, not simply absorbed. This
idea persists; for example, in 1997, Wenger’s account of Communities of
Practice rests on a very similar principle:

18
 Although claims processors may appear to work individually, and though their
jobs are primarily defined and organized individually, processors become
important to each other. […] They act as a resource to each other,
exchanging information, making sense of situations, sharing new tricks and
new ideas, as well as keeping each other company and spicing up each
other’s working days. (Wenger, 1997, pp. 46-47)

More radically, the same idea can be seen in the writing of educators such as
Freire (1970), for whom dialogic, problem-posing approaches to education were
seen as a necessary alternative to the ‘banking’ metaphor that he believed was
perpetuating inequalities in society.

There are of course differences between these positions. For example,

Vygotsky’s account of children’s development positions the learner as
encountering knowledge that already exists outside of their experience; Freire
emphasises knowledge as being constructed through a transformative process of
reflection on personal experience; and Wenger describes how knowledge is
acquired through apprenticeship to experts and held to account by peers.
However, all of these accounts have in common that knowledge is created
through social processes and the learner plays an active role in this engagement.
Moreover, knowledge is always social: there is not private knowledge and social
knowledge, with one somehow differentiated from the other. Knowledge has to
be understood as a social achievement. Wenger makes this point in his
discussion of practice, which he positions and a knowledgeable activity:

The concept of practice connotes doing, but not just doing in and of itself. It
is doing in an historical and social context that gives structure and meaning
to what we do. In this sense, practice is always social practice. (Wenger,
1987, p47)

But this creates a problem for the phrase, “learners in the co-construction of
knowledge”. From a social constructivist perspective, learners are always co-
constructors of knowledge, because this is what ‘knowledge’ means. In effect,
the phrase is a tautology; it loses its power to celebrate a particular kind of
learning, or discriminate between practices that might be thought of as ‘good’ or
‘bad’ approaches to engendering knowledge. Learners remain involved in a
process of co-creating knowledge whether they are involved in a lively debate,
copying text from a board or staring out of the window during a dull lecture.
Exactly what they are learning may differ in each of these cases, of course;
Wenger makes this point about the claims processors in his case study (1998).
When instructed to use a form they cannot understand, they learnt that they are
not a central part of the organisation they work for. Their learning is expressed
in terms of their professional identity, and in particular, in terms of their
exclusion from particular kinds of community or involvement. Nonetheless, the
process through which they learn this is still a social one.

What this highlights is a gap between epistemology and pedagogy. Viewing

learning as social does not mean that all learning is designed from a social
perspective. Indeed it is perfectly possible to try and encourage – or even
require – social participation in a way that actively discourages learners from
engaging (Gulati, 2008). It is this gap between design and process – between
pedagogic intentions and learning – that will be considered next.

19
Pedagogies of co-construction
Even though, from a socio-constructivist position, learners may always be co-
constructing knowledge, the kinds of knowledge they are building in different
contexts will be different. They may also find it easier to build particular kinds of
knowledge in some contexts than in others. This gives rise to practical questions
about which kinds of social contexts might be best at supporting particular
learners as they try to develop their understanding or ability in some way.
Arguably, there are two ways in which these questions might be answered:
analytically and empirically.

Analytical assessments of co-construction

Almost any socio-constructivist theory or model could be adopted as the basis
for an analytic critique of whether particular pedagogic practices would be good
at supporting co-construction. For example, Laurillard’s conversational
framework (1993) – a model based on Pask’s conversation theory – identifies
twelve kinds of action that constitute learning:

1. Teacher describes conception

2. Student describes conception
3. Teacher redescribes conception in light of student’s conception or action
4. Student redescribes conception in light of teacher’s redescription
5. Teacher adapts task goal in light of student’s description or action
6. Teacher sets task goal
7. Student acts to achieve task goal
8. Teacher’s setting provides inherent feedback to the student on their actions
9. Student modifies action in light of feedback
10. Student adapts action in light of teacher’s description
11. Student reflects on interaction to modify description
12. Teacher reflects on student’s action to modify description

Laurillard goes on to argue that learning will be impeded if some of these steps
are unsupported, and provides an analysis of different media in terms of these
actions. This analysis is decontextualised, based on what could be described as
ideal types rather than historical cases; so for example, lectures are classified as
supporting teachers’ descriptions of conceptions, even though specific lecturers’
practices might involve more participatory activities.

Analytic approaches such as this often lead to advocacy of a particular pedagogic

approach, or to an argument against over-reliance on others. So, for example, it
is possible to trace a line of argument from the phenomenographic work
differentiating between teacher-oriented and student-oriented conceptions of
teaching (e.g. Trigwell, Prosser & Taylor, 1994) through the discussion of “guide
on the side” approaches to teaching and on to advocacy such as Salmon’s model
of e-moderation (2000). Whilst any particular line of argument might be
internally consistent, a different starting point could easily lead to different
approaches being advocated; arguably, each will have its merits but would
remain open to the criticism that, from some alternative perspective, it neglects
or over-emphasises other aspects of the learning process. Analytic approaches
are still important, providing designs or explanations, but cannot unambiguously
answer the question of which pedagogies are best suited to supporting learners
as they co-construct knowledge.

20
Empirical assessments of co-construction
An alternative to the analytic approach is to focus on empirical questions. This is
not to suggest that empirical work is opposed to theory; on the contrary, any
empirical work instantiates a theory, whether that theory is made explicit or not.
However, it can be seen as differing in its orientation to theory. Broadly, the
kinds of analysis described above could be understood as applying theories or
models to plans or examples of practice, whereas empirical work is more
commonly oriented to building or refining theories or models from such
examples.

There are many instances where this process is made visible, and empirical work
serves to develop our understanding of social practices and their consequences
(Cook, 2002). It is self evident that not all kinds of teaching result in the same
things being learnt equally well by all students. For example, Vygotsky (1978)
introduce the idea of the Zone of Proximal Development, describing the tasks
which a child could not perform on their own but which they could with the help
of a more able peer. This idea has led to studies of ‘scaffolding’ learning,
introducing structures or systems that can support learners. One line of research
within this has been the idea of timely interventions in learning, in the form of
contingent teaching (Wood, 2001). The consequence of this is advocacy of a
particular pedagogic approach on the basis of an empirically-developed
theoretical model.

Such studies usually require some performance of learning as the basis for
judgements about the value of a particular approach or intervention. Often, this
is performance on a test or for an assignment. But this is not the only way of
measuring learning. Assessment may be a particularly important influence on
what students learn (Biggs, 1999), but if it is to remain valid, it should reflect
what is taught. If one accepts that changes in the way students are taught has
any qualitative effect on what they learn, then arguably, principled changes in
teaching should be followed by related changes in assessment.

Equally, it may be that some other measure than test performance is deemed to
be the most appropriate way to demonstrate learning. For example, adopting
Wenger’s perspective (1998), people would be deemed to have learnt particular
social practices successfully once they are accepted as a competent member of a
relevant community of practice. From this perspective, questions of retention
and progression might be better indications of learning than performance on a
standardised but decontextualised test. Similarly, much recent government
policy in the UK has advocated the importance of student motivation (e.g. DfES,
2005:4, emphasising motivation as a way of engaging “‘hard to reach’
learners”), and almost by default, many educational evaluations focus on
whether students liked some new approach or other.

This, however, raises issues that cannot be addressed pedagogically. What is the
most appropriate measure to use when trying to determine the effectiveness of
some pedagogic intervention? At a fundamental level, this calls into question
what counts as learning, and knowledge, and how we come to judge a learner’s
claims to knowledge as legitimate. It is this issue of legitimacy that will be taken
up in the next section.

21
The politics of co-construction
Considering how best to judge the appropriateness of particular pedagogic
approaches raises the question of what learners are learning. This in turn has
implications for what is accepted as evidence of learning.

This can be illustrated using Wenger’s case study of claims processors in an

insurance company (1998), introduced earlier. These individuals were expected
to process insurance claims using a form prepared by financial specialists.
Because they did not understand the financial model that the form represented
they simply had to enter data and report the output. Their learning was about
their professional identity, and specifically the marginal position they held within
the organisation. This exclusion from responsible, authoritative discussions is
what the form came to mean to them.

Learning exclusion and marginalisation in higher education

Wenger’s case may illustrate exclusion in a professional workplace, but does this
have relevance for higher education? Arguably, in light of recent governmental
policy, it does. Higher education has been criticised for being elitist and
exclusive, and a participation rate of 50% of those aged 18-30 was set for 2010
(DfES, 2003). This, combined with drives towards managerialism and public
accountability, have produced concerns about how teachers can cope with
massification, diversity, student retention and the assurance of the quality of
provision. This, it has been argued, has resulted in a more industrial model of
higher education, in which many students are seen as in deficit, or as a problem.

In a mass system, students are no longer constructed as scholars to be

handcrafted, but as entities in an industrial process. Access policies have created
a moral panic over standards and ‘dumbing down’. There are contamination
fears expressed in the idea that massification and the entry of ‘non-traditional’
learners presents a threat to academic standards. (Morley, 2003, p. 130)

It seems unlikely that viewing students in this way will result in them being
active co-constructors of valued knowledge.

It is also worth noting the ways in which technology has been implicated in this
structuring of the system of higher education. The Dearing report, which has
been identified as one of the key policy documents about technology and higher
education in recent years (Conole et al, 2007), provides an interesting example
in this respect.

The new interactive media, offering adaptive feedback and student control have
the potential to support independent study, but only if fully developed, tested
and maintained. […] Many staff would seek to spend some of their time on
development of learning materials, because these will enshrine the core of their
teaching. […] IT methods must achieve their promise of greater efficiency both
by improving the quality of student learning, and by amortising the cost of
development over large student numbers. (NCIHE, 1997: Appendix 2)

This account seems curiously detached from the pedagogic discussions outlined
earlier; an economic rationale dominates the discussion and leads to advocacy of
resource-based learning as the best hope for a system faced with ever-
diminishing levels of resource per student. There is no suggestion that this is a

22
necessary evil or is second-best in some way; indeed the almost religious
connotations of teachers ‘enshrining’ their knowledge in resources portrays this
as a positive and virtuous way forwards.

However, closer reading of the report reveals a less desirable picture (Smith &
Oliver, 2002). In relation to technology, students are portrayed as passive,
except at the point at which they choose a course of study. (Courses are
described primarily in terms of costs and outcomes, in line with the wider
economic argument in the report.) Once a choice has been made, they are
‘developed’, but are not talked about as being active in this process. The
implication is that their education is something done to them by higher
education. Moreover, lecturers are not associated with teaching at all, except as
something that they will have to give up in order to focus on developing high-
quality resources. A gulf is created between teacher and learner; no sense is
given of how this very remote mediation can be overcome to foster a meaningful
sense of ‘co-construction’.

This line of planning was taken still further in the business case for the UK’s e-
University:

As the learner progresses through the courseware, there is the opportunity to

ask questions by selecting the associated ‘chat’ channel in the toolbar. In
response, a chat window opens and the learner is greeted and invited to
describe the assistance sought, in text form. The person who answers the
questions is part of a call centre and is specifically trained to answer
questions about the courseware. […] If the mentor is unable to answer a
question, it is referred to a tutor with superior subject expertise, who returns
a full answer to the learner by e-mail within a set period.
(PriceWaterhouseCooper, 2000)

Any sense of relationship between teacher and learner is stripped away (because
it is too costly), the only sense of interaction being at several removes, via
email, and without much sense given of opportunities for dialogue.

It is hardly surprising that recent writing about Web 2.0 technologies – the
“social web” – carry with them a sense of optimism and interest in rekindling the
social elements of higher education (e.g. Franklin & van Harmelen, 2007).
However, it would be all too easy to assume that simply providing social
software will solve the social problem; the situation is likely to be far harder to
resolve than this.

By leaving the freshman seminar at the margins of institutional life, by treating

it as an add-on to the real business of the college, institutions implicitly assume
that they can “cure” attrition by “inoculating” students with a dose of educational
assistance without changing the rest of the curriculum and the ways students
experience that curriculum. Unfortunately, like other addons, such strategies do
little to reshape student academic experience. (Tinto, 1999:7)

It is clearly not enough just to make such technologies available, nor even to
exhort students to make use of them. Instead, if the situation represented in the
policies above is to be avoided, it will require reconsidering how we view and
treat students.

23
Creating structures of inequality
Positioning teachers as information providers and learners as needing
information is pedagogically dubious; learning is obviously more complicated
than simply consuming – or merely accessing – information. However,
positioning learners as somehow in ‘deficit’ is only part of the problem. The root
of the problem lies in the systematic separation of teachers from students in the
first place.

Focusing on ‘the learner’, and on ideas such as ‘learner needs’ or ‘student

responsibility’, can become a means not only of shifting responsibility, but also
of pathologising, labelling and containing people in relation to different
constructions of ‘difference’. (Haggis, 2006)

This process – an example of ‘othering’ students so as to emphasise their

difference from us – can be seen in many of the assumptions that form the
foundations of research, policy and practice. For example, Laurillard’s
conversational framework is a valuable and widely used point of reference for
practice, research and policy in the field of e-learning. However, even this valued
model presents a systematic difference between teacher and learner: teachers
are the ones who structure tasks, control the environment for learning and direct
the learning process. This inscribes inequality into the model. It has also led to
confusion: in the revised edition of her book (2002), the figure is extended to try
and account for students’ interactions with their peers, to try and explain how
more collaborative pedagogic practices operate.

This situation could easily be avoided. Changing the figure’s labels – for
example, to ‘person one’ and ‘person two’ – would show a difference in what
each of the people involved in some example of learning needs to do without
fixing them into one position or the other. Nor would there be any need to
complicate the figure by trying to incorporate other students as a special case.
Even treating the terms as descriptions of practices, rather than people – so that
individuals could swap between them at different times, depending on the
situation – would be sufficient to avoid commitment to an essential division
between ‘us’ and ‘them’ that then needs to be bridged.

What this example illustrates is a problem with how our definitions and
assumptions have shaped our understanding of current practices. It would not
be necessary to involve learners in the co-creation of knowledge if they had not
previously been excluded from this by definition.

Critical responses to assumptions of difference

Even if essential differences between students and teachers have been assumed
in the way higher education is currently structured, constructive responses are
evidently possible. One response would be to draw on Freire’s work (1970) on
the pedagogy of the oppressed, for example. Although this was originally
developed in relation to perceived political injustice and involved the
development of adult literacy, it has been taken up in or adapted to suit a broad
array of educational settings (Gadotti, 1994). Freire explicitly contrasted the
‘depositing’ (or “banking”) metaphor of education that he saw in formal
educational contexts with an approach based on problem-posing, the purpose of
which was to confront people with the inequalities and injustices that others saw

24
in their situation and then to support them as needed in their engagement with
these issues. He explains these approaches in terms of their tendency to
‘humanise’ or ‘dehumanise’ – to treat people as capable and active or else
somehow as less than fully human, and in particular, as less capable than the
person acting as a teacher.

Freire’s pedagogy still involves differentiating between people, but this

differentiation is based on historical context and perspective, not absolute
capability. Teachers are different from learners in that they have the
responsibility to bring issues to learners’ attention, and then to help them if they
need it. However, it is this process of raising awareness through problem posing
and support that makes them a teacher; they are differentiated by how they act,
not by immutable qualities that define who they are. Learners may well go on to
teach, and teachers may well go on to learn. This practice-oriented perspective
seems to offer a new way of thinking about the practice of co-constructing
knowledge with learners, which will be returned to below.

Implications for the practice of co-constructing knowledge

The preceding discussion portrays a structural inequality in higher education and
one possible response to it. However, as with any generalisation, there are
exceptions to this pattern. People are already co-constructing knowledge, and in
many cases are doing so in situations that do not presuppose structural
inequalities. Problem-based learning (Savin-Baden, 2000), for example, can be
used to share problems with learners that are directly relevant to professional
contexts; action learning sets involve learners sharing problems and possible
solutions with others who are typically treated as equals; and doctoral reading
groups may involve groups of staff and students grappling with issues in current
research.

These examples focus on postgraduate or professional learning; however, such

practices can also be seen elsewhere in the curriculum. Creative disciplines such
as art, architecture and design, for example, may require students to prepare
work for ‘crit’ – an open process of comment in which peers, tutors and even the
public can offer feedback. There are also examples undergraduate students
being asked to undertake research projects (e.g. Zamorski, 2002). However it
can be difficult just to expect students who have no prior experience of working
in this way to do so for the first time. In Freirian terms, having internalized the
image of themselves as needy and in deficit, the first problem they may need to
overcome will be to rethink how they see themselves in relation to formal
educational.

There are implications for people acting as teachers, too. Re-conceiving of

learners as being different in their historical situation, rather than in kind,
highlights a need for teachers to identify similarities and points of connection
with them. One way of doing this may be to keep in mind the dilemmas and
difficulties that form part of all disciplinary research.

The alternative seems to be that the embedded, processual complexities of

thinking, understanding, and acting in specific disciplinary contexts need to be
explored as an integral part of academic content teaching within the disciplines
themselves. Part of the complexity of disciplinary processes is their contested

25
nature; it is unlikely that two academics even in the same field would articulate
and model such processes in exactly the same way. (Haggis, 2006)

Viewing engagement with a discipline as a common journey (the original

meaning of ‘curriculum’) – albeit one that the teacher is further along than the
learners they are working with – may help re-establish a sense of connection.
This is true whether or not students end up like their teachers or go on to do
something quite different; that is a matter of exit from a discipline, rather than
its approach, which forms the heart of most curricula. Certainly writers such as
Rowlands (2000) have made strong arguments for the importance of disciplinary
orientation to being a good teacher, and to being able to communicate a sense
of passion to students.

However, an appeal to disciplines is not a simple solution to this issue;

disciplinary knowledge can be seen as being excluding and problematic.
Brookfield (2007), for example, has argued that conventional disciplinary
knowledge has served to exclude groups and perpetuate privilege – what he
describes as the ‘whitestream’, by analogy to ‘mainstream’ but emphasising the
political and cultural nature of decisions to value particular kinds of knowledge.
He argues that attempts to diversify curricula by bringing in alternative positions
can be understood as examples of ‘repressive tolerance’, in which ‘otherness’ is
acknowledged but still positioned as ‘not normal’. Rather than eliminating
inequality, he argues, such pedagogic approaches perpetuate it. The only viable
alternative, he suggests, involves abandoning conventional knowledge in order
to focus on alternative approaches.

This radical alternative to conventional approaches to higher education is difficult

and unsettling. It calls into question the purpose of higher education and the
values that it serves. Nonetheless, it raises important questions about legitimacy
and inclusivity, and countering it means being clear about why particular kinds
of knowledge (and knowledge production) are considered appropriate or
inappropriate.

Clearly, not all forms of knowledge are equally valued in higher education. It has
long been recognised, for example, that disciplinary communities judge what
counts as knowledge in different (if sometimes overlapping) ways (e.g. Hirst &
Peters, 1970). Yet such traditions manage to co-existing and respect each
others’ differences, even if controversies and disputes exist (Becher, 1989).
Collectively, they also face common issues in deciding which kinds of knowledge
claims and knowledge-building practices they feel should be permitted within a
formal educational context. Is ‘remixing’ resources an example of “copy and
paste literacy” or an act of plagiarism (Perkel, 2006)? Does a participative, Web
2.0 model of knowledge building value ‘common sense’ and ‘wisdom of the
crowd’ over principled and disciplined knowledge in an inappropriate way
(Franklin & van Harmelen, 2007)? Should there be differences in the way that
students use technology in formal education compared to how they are
comfortable using it at home (Selwyn, 2006)?

Questions such as these illustrate how disciplinary scholars are actively policing
the boundaries around what they are willing to accept as ‘knowledge’ within their
domain. This has obvious implications for how learners may act and what
resources they may draw upon as they try to co-construct knowledge with

26
others in a formal educational context. However it must be recognised that these
are important questions. Sometimes it is necessary to distinguish between the
kinds of practices that are appropriate inside and outside of formal education
(e.g. Lankshear and Knobel, 2004). If disciplinary knowledge gives useful
purchase on the topics and problems it pertains to, then it is important for the
whole enterprise of higher education that it can continue to do so in a way that
has integrity. Having integrity is not, in itself, the issue. The problem arises
when disciplinary communities can offer no acceptable defence for their choice
to exclude particular kinds of knowledge work, either because the reaction is
unjustified or because the alternative has not been adequately considered.
Moreover, as practices of knowledge construction continue to develop within
societies, disciplinary communities will have to carry on debating the boundaries
they create, the practices they exclude and the people whom they permit to see
themselves as outsiders as a consequence of this.

Conclusions
As can be seen, consideration of the idea of co-constructing knowledge with
learners produces several challenges. At the level of epistemology, the phrase is
relatively unproblematic, but gives little purchase on precisely what learners
learn or how best they go about learning it. Pedagogically, matters are more
complicated, in that questions arise as to which approaches are better than
others in achieving particular ends, with conclusions being produced either
analytically or empirically, or both. Politically, however, the phrase raises several
controversies. There are questions about what learners should be learning in the
first place; the legitimacy of different approaches to co-constructing knowledge
(for example, when something counts as plagiarism); and about the differences
that are assumed to exist between people who are teaching and learning.

Arguably, it will be possible empirically to claim that progress has been made in
terms of the pedagogic questions. Particular theoretical perspectives or
measures of ability can be used to judge levels of success over time, even if
debate persists about whether this theory or measure is the most appropriate
one to be using. The same cannot be said of political issues, where positions
about what should count as a credible way of producing and claiming knowledge
need to be taken and defended. Political issues will require revisiting over time
to ensure that positions remain appropriate.

Practically, however, it is our perspective on learners and teachers – how

we think of and talk about them – that may represent the most pressing
challenge. Viewing learners as ‘in deficit’ or as passive consumers immediately
creates barriers to the possibility of co-constructing knowledge with them.
Instead, rather than treating learners and teachers as essentially different kinds
of things, it may prove more productive to view them as people with different
experiences, interests and responsibilities, and to conceive of teaching in terms
of practices that people perform in a given situation, rather than as categorical
roles. After all, teachers are people too, and whilst they may have more
experience of engagement with their discipline than their learners, the difference
is one of degree rather than kind. Taking this perspective, co-constructing
knowledge with learners becomes a much more approachable challenge: when
faced with disciplinary problems, teachers are learners too. If we have a
common endeavour, what reason would there be for teachers and learners to
prevent each other from trying to construct knowledge together?

27
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29
30
SECTION TWO

PAPERS

31
ALTERNATE REALITY GAMES FOR DEVELOPING STUDENT
AUTONOMY AND PEER LEARNING

Nicola Whitton, Manchester Metropolitan University

Abstract
This paper discusses the educational potential of alternate reality games (ARGs),
a relatively new game format that takes place both online and in the real world
over a number of weeks, and combines narrative and puzzles to develop a
collaborative community. In this paper, first the concept of ARGs are described,
including their history and composition, and their potential pedagogic benefits
are discussed in relation to constructivism, student autonomy and peer learning.
Then the paper provides a case study of the Alternate Reality Games for
Orientation, Socialisation and Induction (ARGOSI) project at Manchester
Metropolitan University, which used an ARG for the development of digital
literacy skills. Finally, the paper concludes by highlighting some of the potential
challenges of using ARGs in education.

Introduction
This paper will provide an overview of the concept of alternate reality games
(ARGs) and discuss their pedagogic potential in higher education. A case study
of the Alternate Reality Games for Orientation, Socialisation and Induction
(ARGOSI) project, which developed an ARG for students at Manchester
Metropolitan University, will be described and some emerging findings
presented. Finally, the paper will conclude with a consideration of some of the
practicalities and issues of using alternate reality games for teaching and
learning in higher education.

Alternate reality games are a comparatively recent genre of game; the first fully-
formed ARG is widely considered to be a game called The Beast that was created
in 2001 as a promotional vehicle for the Steven Spielberg movie AI (Hon, 2005).
Alternate reality games have been described in web magazine CNET as “an
obsession-inspiring genre that blends real-life treasure hunting, interactive
storytelling, video games and online community” (Borland, 2005). Michael
Smith, the CEO of Mind Candy, creators of PerplexCity, one of the best known
and most popular ARGs in the UK, describes the genre as ‘part story, part game
and part puzzle’ (Brightman, 2006).

ARGs provide a fictional game world and narrative that is interwoven with real
people, places and events. They engage players with a series of interactive and
collaborative challenges and puzzles that contribute to finding out more about
the storyline as it unfolds. Martin and colleagues (2006) describe this interwoven
nature of the real, online and fantasy world, saying that ARGs “take the
substance of everyday life and weave it into narratives that layer additional
meaning, depth, and interaction upon the real world. The contents of these
narratives constantly intersect with actuality, but play fast and loose with fact,
sometimes departing entirely from the actual or grossly warping it” (p6). A
crucial element in the design of alternate reality games is the notion that ‘this is
not a game’: an alternate reality game will often not advertise itself as a ‘game’
and it is up to the players to distinguish between reality and fiction. There is no
explicit distinction between the real world and the game world, sites within the

32
game will often be indistinguishable from genuine sites, and the creators of the
game often go to great lengths to ensure that they are anonymous and uphold
the secrecy of the game.

Stewart (2006), lead writer of The Beast, suggests four defining characteristics
of ARGs: that they have an ongoing storyline, which is broken up and the
players need to assemble over time, piecing together the narrative from multiple
sources as the game unfolds; that they make use of many different media types
to act as a delivery mechanism for the game, such as print, telephone, blogging,
social networking sites, email, web pages, radio, television, advertising, and
actual people; that they provide a collaborative environment in which players
are required to cooperate to solve the puzzles (either because the puzzles
explicitly require more than one person or because they are so hard and cover
so many domains of expertise that it is unlikely that one individual will be able to
solve it alone); and that they create an environment where the audience interact
with the game world and are responsible for shaping it – the game itself changes
over time in response to the activities of the players.

It has also been argued that essentially, there are three integrated components
in alternate reality games: exposition, interaction and challenge (Phillips, 2006).
Exposition is the story, plot, and events that drive the game, the characters and
their motivations, and they world they live in. This narrative is presented both
online and in the real world, using real people and places with fictional events
overlaid. Interaction takes place in the form of a dynamic dialogue between the
players and the game characters and this creates the ability for players to shape
the game world by creating ongoing mythology around the game, by
communicating both with other players and with characters within the game
(this can also be carried out through a variety of media including chat, email,
telephone, messaging and live events). Challenge provides the game-play: the
puzzles, ciphers, riddles and collective achievements that provide purposeful
activity to the story and create an ongoing motivator and continued immersion
in the game world.

Since their inception, there have been many types of alternate reality game
produced, including promotional, grassroots (games that are produced as fan
sites or works of fiction for their own sake), productised (i.e. commercial),
single-player, and educational (Barlow, 2006). They have been used to advertise
products, films, computer games, music and television series. Although much of
the most significant ARG development has occurred with developers creating
games as viral marketing initiatives, they have parallels with other genres,
drawing inspiration from literature (in particular the adventure game books
popular in the 1980s and interactive online fiction), movies, urban treasure
hunts, internet hoaxes, role-playing games (RPGs), and massively multiplayer
online role-playing games (MMORPGs). ARGs are niche and generally appeal to a
small proportion of the population, but those individuals who do become
involved typically show extremely high engagement with the game, giving up
large amounts of time and going to extreme lengths to get involved and
complete the challenges.

33
The pedagogic benefits of ARGs
In recent years there has been rapidly increased interest in the potential of
computer games for learning, primarily for children but also in the context of
adults in higher education. The increasingly diverse student population has led to
a rethink about ways of teaching and learning that are appropriate, and
computer games can offer many pedagogic benefits. While they can be
motivational for some students, not all HE students will find games intrinsically
motivating and, in fact, many perceive such games as a ‘waste of time’.
However, if designed and used purposefully, when students are convinced of the
efficacy, a key feature of games is their ability to create engagement, a factor
that contributes to effective learning, through compelling stories within
immersive environments, with high levels of interaction and feedback.

Certain computer games can also be viewed as constructivist learning

environments (Whitton, 2007) where students can learn by constructing their
own understandings of the world, by problem-solving and personal discovery.
They can provide the opportunity for learners to explore immersive virtual
worlds using rich media, create realistic and purposeful contexts for practising
skills that can be applied to the real world, and provide a forum for working with
other players to achieve shared goals. They have the facility to create a context
for problem-solving experiences, allowing groups of students to work together to
tackle real-life, multi-disciplinary problems.

Computer games can also support collaborative learning, enabling students to

work together creatively, build on individual strengths as part of a team, develop
critical thinking and negotiation skills, and test their ideas against the ideas of
others. Multi-user gaming communities commonly provide platforms for
collaboration and learning from others. Studies of Massively Multi-user Online
Role-Playing Games have found evidence of the potential for learning a range of
group skills (Ducheneaut & Moore, 2005). They can also support the Experiential
Learning Cycle (Kolb, 1984) by providing authentic and active experiences in
which students can gain knowledge, receive feedback, reflect on the outcomes,
and apply to the real world (although, in practice, games are poorer at
supporting reflection and application and these processes are commonly
supported through additional activities in the context of educational games).

Alternate reality games provide many of the same pedagogic advantages of

computer games in general: they are collaborative, as players are required to
work together to solve the puzzles, active and experiential, and provide an
authentic context and purpose for activity, both online and in the real world. By
presenting a series of challenges and an unfolding narrative alternate reality
games create puzzlement and mystery, stimulating engagement, and as ARGs
also generally take place over several weeks, or even months, they provide the
space for reflection. Lee (2006) describes the advantages of ARGs over types of
computer games for learning, noting that players act as themselves rather than
playing a fictional character, social interaction and collaboration is required, and
that there is anecdotal evidence that ARGs have equal appeal for both males and
females.

34
Moseley (2008) presents seven pedagogic benefits of alternate reality games:

1. They facilitate problem-solving at all levels in the form of a graded

challenges, and enable students to pick up their own starting levels of
competence and start from there.
2. There is steady and ongoing progress and tangible rewards (usually in
terms of a leader board, prize artefacts such as badges or grand prize).
There is also potential for relating these rewards to assessment.
3. They employ narrative devices such as characters, plot and story (which
don’t have to be fictional or fantastic but can fit into real-world themes
such as history or news) to stimulate curiosity and engagement.
4. Players have the power to influence the outcomes of the game, in terms
of plot direction, storyline and game-play. This increases engagement and
their stake in and ownership of the game.
5. Regular delivery of problems and events, which is key to maintaining
engagement, allows the game to be modified as it progresses, and
provides space between events for students to reflect.
6. There is the potential for a large, active community to be built around the
game, with a group that is self-supporting and provides scaffolding and
advice for new players.
7. They are based on simple, existing technologies, and because they rely
predominantly on existing web technologies, they do not require the high-
end production values and therefore do not need the same levels of
technical expertise or expense to produce as commercial games. This
makes them a much more practical and feasible game-based option for
education.

A second point on the use of existing technologies is that because players

experience a number of different types of media, and are expected to use them
to solve challenges and create artefacts, there is the added learning outcome of
familiarising the players with a wide range of internet technologies.

Alternate reality games have an additional advantage, in that they can be easily
modified or changed to accommodate a different overarching storyline that may
be more appropriate for different age groups, locations or subject disciplines. As
they are based on a series of challenges, the challenges can be loosely coupled
with the overall story and different challenges used depending on the learning
outcomes required – in effect it is possible to create a whole library of challenges
that relate to learning outcomes in different subject areas. The whole ARG model
easily lends itself to re-use and re-purposing, particularly in the areas of key
learning skills, such as information literacy, digital literacy, critical thinking, and
creativity, and skills for supporting the development of students as autonomous
learners (e.g. goal setting, confidence building, motivation, development of
identity as a learner).

ARGs also have the potential to be valuable tools for supporting student
autonomy because they can be structured and run over several weeks or
months, and they can support the use and gradual removal of scaffolding and
increased difficulty. Players have to manage their own time during game play,
fitting in physical events and activities with online ones to suit themselves. The
collaborative community around the game is self-directing and players have to
choose how and with whom they work on particular challenges; many challenges

35
are open-ended (e.g. the creation of artefacts) so it is entirely up to the players
to be creative about how they approach them.

Alternate reality games also provide a range of opportunities for facilitating peer
learning, They start to blur the line between player and game designer, because
participants are involved throughout in shaping the story and contributing to the
narrative in a way that goes beyond simply ‘playing the game’. A common
feature of ARGs is also their ability to create self-sustaining communities with
established players supporting and mentoring new players, which could have the
potential within higher education to provide a framework for peer mentoring, for
example by second-year students running a game for first years.

The ARGOSI project

The ARGOSI (Alternate Reality Games for Orientation, Socialisation and
Induction) project was a JISC-funded collaborative project between Manchester
Metropolitan University (MMU) and The University of Bolton (UoB), starting in
April 2008 and finishing in March 2009. It provides an example of the use of an
alternate reality game developed specifically to support students in higher
education.

The project aimed to provide an engaging alternative way for students to

acclimatise themselves to university life. By using techniques from game-based
learning and the design of digital narrative to stimulate curiosity, provide
appropriate challenges, the project team developed a game that runs over the
first eight weeks of the university term. This game – ViolaQuest – consists of a
series of challenges that are designed to map on to information literacy learning
outcomes as well as providing the opportunity for students to work together,
meet other people and get to know the city of Manchester.

A current issue in higher education is that of student retention and the link to
effective induction. Formal induction activities, such as library skills, tend to be
short, run in inflexible face-to-face slots, and, because they are run at the start
of the year necessarily use tasks that are not contextualised for students, and
for which they have no perceived need at that time. Socialisation and orientation
activities, which are commonly based around pubs, do not always suit students
from different backgrounds and cultures. The ARGOSI project aimed to provide
an engaging and purposeful alternative to traditional methods of introducing
students to university life, providing a context for exploring Manchester and
meeting other new students. While it was hypothesised that ARGs could be used
to teach a whole range of curriculum-based learning outcomes, for this project
the pilot also focused on a single area of induction content – library and
information skills – as a proof of concept. It was not intended that the ARG
developed would ever take the place of the traditional student induction but that
it will provide an alternative aimed at students whose needs are not necessarily
being met by the induction model currently provided.

In keeping with other ARGs, ViolaQuest is built around a series of challenges

that need to be solved collaboratively to reveal the underlying narrative. The
challenges focus on orientation within the city and socialisation with other
players, the ongoing story provides coherence to the challenges, and the
collaborative community provides a forum for students to share information,
provide hints for each other and work together. In addition, there are a number

36
of ‘curriculum’ challenges that are directly mapped to the learning outcomes
from the library induction and integrate peripherally into the main story. The
rationale behind this loose coupling of narrative challenges and content
challenges is so that a modular approach can be adopted and different content
challenge sets produced and used depending on the context in which the game
is deployed.

The ARGOSI project developed an integrated online gaming environment,

drawing together appropriate and relevant online tools, including the use of
character blogs, Facebook, web sites, and email. This game environment
provides a mechanism for registering users, delivering challenges, showing who
has completed each challenge, and public and private communication. The story
behind ViolaQuest is centred on an MMU student who had found an old letter
from one of her ancestors, that hints of a secret society and hidden machine. It
is then up to the players to solve a series of challenges to uncover the six pieces
of an old map that will give them the clue to the location of the machine, on the
way uncovering what the society was for and the purpose of the machine.

Key to the ethos of the project is student involvement in the development

process and the development methodology is focused around regular testing
days in which aspects of the game design, such as playability, usability and
accessibility, are tested and refined based on feedback from the participants.
This model of rapid iterative prototyping, testing with users, modification and
testing supports the user-centred development of the software and ensured that
the user voice was heard throughout the development. Findings from a series of
interviews after early testing indicate that there are four primary reasons that
the players engaged in the game: Completing (finishing all the challenges),
Competing (being first and fastest to complete), Curiosity (finding out how the
story unfolds), and Communicating (talking to and working with others). These
factors were a useful tool in the final game design as it highlighted a need to
balance these factors, for example a leader board was added to the game
functionality to provide an element of competition, which had not explicitly
existed in the game design previously.

The testing of this design model is one of the research outputs of the project,
which will also be considering whether an Alternate Reality Game is an effective
and appropriate medium for enabling students to meet the intended learning
outcomes of the library and information skills induction, create social networks
during the induction period, improve their confidence in navigating the city and
university campus, and engage in, and enjoy, the induction experience. Other
issues that will be explored include evaluating the success of the development
process for an educational ARG and the cost-effectiveness of the project overall.

37
Conclusions
Although there are clearly benefits to the notion of using alternate reality games
in education, there are also developmental, logistic and pedagogic challenges
that need to be addressed in order to create and manage a successful
educational ARG in the context of university education.

Relying as they do on the imaginative use of existing low-end technologies tools

such as blogs, social networking sites, Web 2.0 applications, email and ‘the real
world’ to create the gaming environment, the development of an ARG is
relatively straightforward compared to the typical development cycles of
computer games. However, because they rely on an engaging narrative
interlinked with a robust series of challenges they still require a broad cross-
section of creative skills in web development, game design, graphic design and
storytelling, as well as the necessary subject expertise to ensure that challenges
are appropriately mapped to learning outcomes (i.e. students will achieve the
intended learning outcomes from playing the game as well as the gaming
outcomes).

Fundamental to all ARGs is a compelling plotline that is sustainable and will act
as a backbone for the game, drawing players in by stimulating curiosity and
moving them on as the story progresses. Although this narrative may develop
over time it must be robust and flexible enough to accommodate variations to
the story while retaining a degree of internal logic. In the case of the ARGOSI an
expert in digital narrative was brought in to outline the types of plotline that
might be suitable and had a critical iterative cycle of plot development in order
to produce the final story. In addition to a strong story ARGs require many real
world and online assets to facilitate game play, for example ARGOSI required
the creation a challenge web site, character blogs, and fake websites used as
plot devices, as well as numerous prop documents including diary pages, maps
and engineers’ drawings. The assets must be plausible as they help to drive the
game forward and can be time consuming to produce and require the input of
someone with graphic design skills.

From a logistic point of view it would be difficult to run an ARG with too few or
too many participants. The game needs a critical mass of players in order to
make meaningful collaboration possible and to allow the social network of
players to develop naturally (with the ultimate goal that it will become self-
supporting). One of the emerging issues from the ARGOSI project is recruiting
players and maintaining prolonged engagement over the period of the game in
such a way that established players have enough to do while new players are
not overwhelmed. There are also issues with too many players as during the
running time a core team are needed to monitor the game interaction, reveal
clues and pieces of the story, create blog postings and interact with the players
in many other ways; if there were too many participants this would require a
level of administration that could not necessarily be delivered.

The ARG-like nature of the ViolaQuest game created as part of the ARGOSI
project had to be compromised in a number of ways so that it could be used
safely and effectively within an educational setting. One of the key features of
grassroots ARGs is the idea of ‘this is not a game’ where the boundary between
real life and game play is intentionally blurred, and where players are sometime
unsure about whether artefacts are part of the game or not. Although ViolaQuest

38
uses many virtual and real world gaming spaces over the course of the game,
players are never in doubt about whether they were still playing or not, and it is
clear that the game is associated with a particular educational institution. The
provision of a safe and accessible learning environment was considered more
important that adhering to the ‘this is not a game’ aesthetic. There is a related
concern that it can be argued that the appeal of ARGs is that they are outside
the mainstream, and by legitimising them in a university context educators are
in danger of removing their very essence and indeed the fun of participation.

Another consideration is that the use of ARGs in an educational context is likely

to always remain niche. A similar pilot scheme at the University of Brighton
concluded that the ARG ‘provides an interesting alternative to existing
mechanisms for introducing students to certain types on information or services.
This format does not appeal to all students, but is very effective for those that
like it.’ (Piatt, 2007, p2). Given that ARGs may be a tool that enables
universities to support students whose needs are not being met by traditional
induction, it is then important to consider how big the niche needs to be before
an ARG becomes a cost-effective tool. If enough students who would otherwise
withdraw from university are being retained due – in part – to an induction that
meets their needs then ARGs would still be an effective, if niche, alternative.

A final point is the relative newness of the ARG genre in terms of academic
research and the lack of papers published in the area. If they are to be
considered as an effective pedagogic tool in the field of higher education, and
achieve mainstream acceptance, it is important that their effectiveness in terms
of learning and student engagement is rigorously researched by the academic
community.

References
Barlow, N. (2006). Types of ARG. In A. Martin, B. Thomson and T. Chatfield
(Eds) 2006 Alternate Reality Games White Paper. International Game
Developers Association.
Borland, J. (2005). Blurring the line between games and life. CNET news.com
[Available online]
http://ecousticscnet.com.com/Blurring+the+line+between+games+and+life/
2100-1024_3-5590956.html (accessed 12 October 2008).
Brightman, J. (2008). Perplexcity – the real life MMO. Gamedaily. [Available
online] http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/features/perplex-city-the-real-
life-mmo/68538/?biz=1 (accessed 12 October 2008).
Ducheneaut, N. and Moore, R. J. (2005) More than just ‘XP’: learning social skills
in massively multiplayer online games. Interactive Technology & Smart
Education, 2, 89–100.
Hon, A. (2005). The rise of ARGs. Gamasutra. [Available online]
http://gamasutra.com/features/20050509/hon_01.shtml (accessed 12
October 2008).
Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning
and Development. New Jersey, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Lee, T. (2006). This is not a game: alternate reality gaming and its potential for
learning FutureLab. [Available online]
http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/

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Martin, A. and Chatfield, T. (2006). Introduction. In A. Martin, B. Thomson and
T. Chatfield (Eds) 2006 Alternate Reality Games White Paper. International
Game Developers Association.
Moseley, A. (2008). An alternative reality for Higher Education? Lessons to be
learned from online reality games. Paper presented at ALT-C 2008, Leeds,
UK.
Phillips, A. (2006). Methods and mechanics. In A. Martin, B. Thomson and T.
Chatfield (Eds) 2006 Alternate Reality Games White Paper. International
Game Developers Association.
Piatt, K. (2007). studentquest 2006 a.k.a. ‘Who is Herring Hale?’. Summary
Project Report: University of Brighton.
Stewart, S. (2006). Alternate Reality Games. [ Available online]
http://www.seanstewart.org/interactive/args/
Whitton, N. (2007) An Investigation into the Potential of Collaborative Computer
Game-Based Learning in Higher Education. PhD Thesis. [online]
www.playthinklearn.net

40
CO-CREATING A PROGRAMME: THE MSC IN E-LEARNING AT THE
UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH

Hamish Macleod, Jen Ross and Siân Bayne, School of Education,

University of Edinburgh

This paper considers the interaction of students and tutors as the basis of the
emergent, or co-created, nature and outcomes of the Masters Programme in E-
Learning in the University of Edinburgh’s School of Education1.

The Programme was launched in September of 2006, although a number of pilot

instances of the foundational course (Introduction to digital environments for
learning) had been run before this. The Programme is taken entirely at a
distance, with almost all of the communications between students, tutors and
the administrative structures taking place online. Completion of the full Masters
requires students to take six courses selected from an array of ten presently
available (with others under development) and to undertake a research
dissertation. There are also exit routes to a Postgraduate Certificate (on
completion of three courses) and a Postgraduate Diploma (six courses).
Although it is possible to complete the Programme in one year of full-time study,
the vast majority of students are participating part-time. At time of writing,
there are about 120 students enrolled on the Programme, and the first four
research dissertations have been received.

The Student Group

We consider the principal strength of the Programme to be the quality and
variety of the students who participate. The Programme has been able to recruit
both junior and senior colleagues, from roles variously administrative, academic
and technical within their institutions and organisations. Participants come not
only from higher and further education, but also from government and corporate
training and development settings, and from commercial and non-profit
organisations that provide educational and technical services to customers. Most
work in large or medium-sized organisational settings with the possibility of a
rich technical infrastructure behind them, but some are independent consultants
or trainers who have to carry the burden for their own technical support. The
group is self selected to have a certain minimum level of technical fluency, as
the ability to communicate online using a browser and email, and to create
written work using a word processing tool are assumed. It is still possible
however, and will continue to be possible for reasons of equity, to apply for a
place at the University of Edinburgh using a paper application form. Despite
their general technical competence, albeit across a wide range of experience and
expertise, some are openly anxious about their relationship with technology, and
its impact upon them, their professional relationships and identity.

This variety presents first of all a very profound problem for the design of the
courses making up the Programme, but also a very real strength.
Because of the vast array of experience and knowledge represented in the
group, the role of the designer of a course, and also that of the tutor who brings
1
http://www.education.ed.ac.uk/e-learning/

41
that design to life (often and ideally the same person in our distributed and
interdisciplinary team), is most usefully seen as that of an orchestrator of
experience and interaction (Caine & Caine, 1994, p. 5). While all of the courses
encourage a period of introductory social communication in the interest of
promoting group cohesion, and of putting people at their ease within the group
such that they will feel able to engage with the activities which follow, the very
act of setting forth one’s background experiences, professional needs, and
personal aspirations establishes a rich intellectual marketplace (the notion of
“bazaar” might convey it better) in which the curriculum of the Programme can
constantly be examined, elaborated and redefined.

The Programme Team; Tutors and Designers

Like the Programme students, those contributing to the teaching team bring a
varied array of backgrounds, both in terms of academic domain and in
experience of the application of technologies in support of both campus-based
and online learners. Of particular note is the involvement of colleagues from the
University’s educational development unit, and information services, reflecting
the conviction of the need (whether online or off-) for collaboration across
professional role boundaries in the support of adult learners.

The general role of the tutor is that of participant and facilitator, learning along
with the students. Different courses model different approaches to the design of
the online learning experience, as individual designers and tutors come to
develop their own online voices (Spector, 2007) and cultivate a presence within
the virtual space of the course (Garrison and Anderson, 2003). The Programme
has provided us with fascinating opportunities to explore just what it is that the
online tutor has to do (Macleod and Ross, 2007).

The Domain of Concern; Online Learning

Teaching a programme about the technological support of learning is a
particularly rewarding experience. The topic is rapidly evolving and changing,
and is inherently interdisciplinary and collaborative. Because the students are
participating in their studies through the medium under study, they can be
expected to be more than averagely engaged in the work, and exploratory in
their orientation towards it. Further they are more tolerant than many other
groups might be when it comes to the vagaries and unreliability of the
communication media, as a big part of their agenda is to learn about teaching
with technology by experiencing for themselves first hand just what it feels like
to be a learner dependent on technology. Lessons can be learned from
unsuccessful approaches and, while we strive to set forth a well planned and
organised programme of experiences, the openness of our students to
experimentation does tend to dull the worst excesses of conservatism. The fact
too that all of the courses making up the Programme were conceived and born in
their online instances, rather than being translated from existing campus-based
offerings, has meant that there have been few assumptions to be challenged, or
traditions to be overturned.

The Curricular Content

The teaching team and the participating students share in the evolution of the
curriculum of the Programme, the students for the most part bringing their
professional and intellectual needs, and the teachers being, at least potentially,
the sources of new ideas of how to act in and think about the world. These roles

42
are, of course, frequently reversed, and represent more a matter of the location
of responsibility than of the outworking of things on any given day. It is the
responsibility of the students to bring practical and intellectual curiosity, and it is
the responsibility of the teachers to ensure that learning takes place. But the
expectation is that students will contribute resources for one another’s learning
as will the teacher. These resources will come in the form of discussion, and the
formulation of searching questions, in the telling of stories about experience, or
in reference to valued reading materials. The interactive nature of such
exchanges makes it highly likely that the arrival of a particular insight offered by
one, will fall into a “teachable moment” (Stewart, 1993) being experienced by
another.

The course “content” provides a structure into which such collaborative

exchanges can exist. A dedicated “consumer” would derive some benefit by
merely following the preordained pathway established by the course designer’s
vision, but a course can only come alive through a participation which involves
contribution as well as consumption. In some areas of enquiry, progress will be
driven by the exploration of a landscape for which the teacher believes that he
or she holds a map, but this will usually be found to be more a matter of degree
than kind. Considering the evidences available about the nature of learning may
require more directed guidance in matters of academic tradition (things that a
student would be expected to know) than, for example, exploring the
contribution of games and play to learning.

The design of the course, and particularly the tasks to be undertaken,

determines the angle of insertion of the learner into the intellectual space, but
the trajectory through that space may very well differ quite significantly from
one student to another, or between instances of a given course. This is
principally what we mean and understand by ‘co-creation’ of knowledge, and in
the section that follows we will discuss the ways in which our technologies and
teaching practices support such co-creation.

That said, it seems to be the case that there is often a pattern of convergent
evolution; that important issues will out, and that one thing does have a habit of
following another. Students from one cohort would most likely recognise the
journey that another cohort was taking. In addition, however unconventional we
may feel our Programme to be, we are located within a conventional higher
education institution, where students are assessed by tutors. We have tried to
mitigate this in part by inviting students on some courses to nominate additional
assessment criteria for their assignments, which can take the form of a
traditional or web-based essay, a wiki or blog, or any format that students can
imagine and persuade their tutor to assess. In past years assignments have
been presented as a Second Life2 “sky box”, a Socratic dialogue, and a
multimedia web essay, to name but a few.
However, to speak lightly of learning tasks does mask the important fact that
some of these tasks are assessed, and that assessment contributes to the final
grade awarded to the student. The tension between the flexibility that we
encourage students to feel they have in taking their own path, and the
assessments which constitute unavoidable markers along that path, has on one
2
http://secondlife.com/

43
memorable occasion resulted in a difficult but interesting event between student
and tutor on a course exploring game-based learning, where the student
undertook within an assessed blog space to induct his tutor without warning into
an alternate reality game of his own devising (see Macleod and Knock, 2007).
The tutor’s difficulty in deciding how to mark this innovative piece of work which
nonetheless definitely did not meet the assessment criteria for the assignment
brought home for us the limits of our, and our students’, freedom in relation to
assessment. Though this was a unique event in our experience of the
Programme so far, it does highlight some of the challenges we experience when
we try to make co-creation a basic principle of our pedagogy.

This is an area we are, as a Programme team, interested in continuing to

explore, because even as our teaching and learning evolves rapidly in online
spaces, assessment is less amenable to change. We sometimes feel we are
pushing at the edges of a space that remains, at its centre, fundamentally the
same in its relations of power between tutor and student, and its construction of
learning as prescriptive and heavily focussed on the individual. This is not easily
resolved, even by the extensive use we make of collaborate tools and
environments. We are fortunate in our subject area, however, to have time and
excuse to have these conversations with students, and to encourage them to
consider, for themselves and their own students, where the boundaries of co-
creation might lie.

The Technologies in Use

The kernel of the technological support for the Programme is a conventional
virtual learning environment (VLE). For our purposes this is WebCT, which is the
institutional platform used at the University of Edinburgh. The VLE is used as the
first point of contact for the students with a given course, including their access
to any prescribed reading, and the orientational information provided by the
tutors. It is also the route by which we engage with them in the submission of
their assignment work, and in the return of feedback and grades. It is also
used, in many courses, as a place where asynchronous text discussion takes
place.

We see the VLE as a jumping off place as well as a destination however, beyond
which we encourage students to explore the educational relevance of a wide
range of Web tools, and especially those that we see as contributing to the ethos
of the Programme. As students progress through the Programme, they have the
opportunity to work extensively with wikis, social networking, virtual worlds,
social bookmarking, mapping, and many new and emerging technologies.
A primary example is the case of the weblog, or blog3. The foundation course is
structured around an assessed reflective blog, which is worth 50% of the final
mark for the course. The blog encourages students to experiment with ideas and
voice as they engage in a semester-long conversation with their tutor. Tutors
comment regularly on blog posts throughout the semester, and then give the
student a mark at the end based on the blog’s success in meeting the
assessment criteria (drawn from the postgraduate common marking scheme).
As students’ experience of using their blog increases, and they become more
3
For our weblog we use a locally installed instance of the educationally oriented
social networking system ELLG.

http://elgg.org/

44
confident with the medium, we expect and encourage them to open their writing
to a wider audience of trusted colleagues. Importantly, the growing of the blog,
and the widening of the circle of readers, can be under the control of the blog’s
author right up to the point at which the blog is opened to the world at large.
Even then, control of publication is such that some materials can remain private,
and others retained for access by only a select group.

Some uses of technology are in support of social cohesion within the group. We
use the social networking site Facebook among ourselves as a Programme team,
and invite out students to join us. While there is no compulsion to participate,
we feel that our students need to be aware of the social networking
phenomenon, and the place that such resources may play in the lives and social
practices of their own students and colleagues. Increasingly however, we find
that Programme participants have already established a presence in Facebook
before they join us. We also introduce and encourage the use of instant
messaging systems such as Microsoft Messenger or Skype. In some courses and
at some times we use, or see used, these tools for the express purpose of
engaging in a synchronous tutorial conversation, but more often the
manifestation of presence provided by such tools supports light-touch sociability
and conviviality, and opportunities for convocation and consultation. This is the
distance programme’s substitute for bumping into one another in the corridor.

The technology of discourse and debate has classically been the asynchronous,
threaded discussion forum. Through this medium students are encouraged to
compare notes on their readings, to explore their understanding of what they
have read, and to seek guidance from tutors and peers. A group blog has also
been used for this purpose.

A wiki provides an ideal medium for students distanced from one another to
engage in collaborative writing and the co-creation of understanding around a
topic. When a course-initiated project calls for this interaction we facilitate the
use of a particular wiki tool that we have identified (PBWiki 4). But we see that
students are increasingly selecting and using their own preferred tools in support
of ad hoc collaborations and communications, elaborating their own digital modi
operandi. The rhetoric of “smart mobs” seems particularly apposite here
(Rheingold, 2003). A number of students have displayed their creativity by, in
response to a course assignment, demonstrating how the functionality of a
conventional virtual learning environment can be recreated for the support of a
small group of learners by the judicious lacing together of freely available web-
based element. This creativity has been particularly manifest in the context of
our course on digital game-based learning, where students have constructed
elaborate and engaging exploratory learning experiences for their colleagues
based on existing web sites and services.

The wisdom of even relatively small crowds (Surowiecki, 2004) can be

harnessed for research purposes through the use social sharing, tagging and
recommendation tools like del.icio.us and Diigo. The simple expedient of using a
unique, course-specific tag allows students to leave trails of their web researches
for colleagues to follow. Once the advantage of collaboration in this way has
4
http://pbwiki.com/

45
been established, the students are encouraged to participate in the wider
“flocking” behaviour that such collaborative tools make possible.

Student response to the Programme

The Programme seems to be well received by the participating students. All
members of all of the courses are invited, at the end of the course, to complete
a web-based evaluation exercise, rating their experience of the course on
dimensions such as overall quality, value of participation, interest, intellectual
and practical demands, and appropriateness of workload. For the most part,
responses are highly positive, and comments received enable the Programme
team to address any areas of concern. Where problems exist, there are rarely
any surprises, as what the students raise as a concern has usually already been
a manifest concern registered by the teachers. And while the end-of-course
evaluation exercise provides a source of final and summary feedback, the nature
of the ongoing online engagement between students and tutors means that
structural problems can be raised as and when they arise, and addressed
immediately.

A further innovation on the MSc, made possible by technology, is the inclusion of

all students on the Programme in the staff/student liaison committee that
ordinarily would be attended by one or two student representatives from each
year. Students are able to contribute anonymously or under their own names, as
they choose.

While the retention of students is a concern for any programme of study,

student withdrawal has always been found to be a particular problem for courses
involving distance participation (Simpson, 2003). By this metric too, our
Programme appears successful. While it is always difficult to untangle the
multiple reasons that exist for a student’s decision to discontinue participation
on a programme of study, including health and personal circumstances, our
retention rate must be estimated as being upwards of 95%.

Conclusion
We have learned a great deal from our students, about the nature of learning
and teaching in theory and in practice, about the conduct and possibilities of an
online programme of study, and about the various organisational, pedagogic,
technical and social dimensions of supporting the online learner. The challenge
will be to build on these foundations without loss to the openness and flexibility
of what we hope to be an innovative programme, and a stimulating and creative
working environment for students and tutors – co-researchers – alike.
Evidences are that we can achieve this successfully and legally within the
structures and assessment regulations of even an ancient institution.

References
Anderson, P. (2007). What is Web 2.0? Ideas, technologies and implications for
education. (Bristol: JISC). Retrieved: 21 September 2007.
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/services/services_techwatch/techwatch/tec
hwatch_ic_reports2005_published.aspx
Caine, R. N. and G. Caine (1994). Making connections: teaching and the human
brain. Menlo Park, Calif., Addison-Wesley Pub. Co.
Garrison, D. R. and T. Anderson (2003). E-learning in the 21st century: a
framework for research and practice. London, RoutledgeFalmer.

46
Macleod, H.A. and Knock, A. (2007) Mischief, power and play: when to pull the
plug on diverging student-tutor agendas. Society for Research in Higher
Education Conference, 11th – 13th December 2007.
Macleod, H.A. and Ross, J. (2007) Structure, authority and other noncepts:
teaching in fool-ish spaces. Ideas in Cyberspace Education (ICE) 3; 21-23
March 2007.
Rheingold, H. (2003). Smart mobs: the next social revolution. Cambridge, MA,
Perseus Publishing.
Simpson, O. (2003) Student retention in online, open and distance learning.
London, Kogan Page.
Spector, M.J. (2007) Finding Your Online Voice: Stories Told by Experienced
Online Educators. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc, 2007.
Stewart, D.L. (1993) Creating the Teachable Moment: An Innovative Approach
to Teaching & Learning. Mcgraw-Hill.
Surowiecki, J. (2004). The wisdom of crowds: why the many are smarter than
the few and how collective wisdom shapes business, economics, societies,
and nations. London, Little, Brown.

47
THE NATURE OF E-MODERATION IN ONLINE LEARNING
ENVIRONMENTS

Panos Vlachopoulos, Napier University

ABSTRACT
Recent publications in the field of e-learning highlight the importance of the
“moderator’s” approach to developing students’ online learning. They identify
that the major challenges for online teachers arise from the diversity of roles
which moderators are required to undertake. However, little is reported
about the roles e-moderators actually adopt in different learning contexts, and
how these range between ‘teaching’ and ‘facilitating’. This paper focuses on the
ways in which different e-moderators in higher education approach online
learning with students. It reports the findings of a recently completed PhD study,
which set out to observe, describe and analyse the distinct interactions between
learners and e-moderators in four case studies taken from two research settings.
A grounded theory approach was used to analyse and interpret the data. This
generated a comparative insight into diverse moderation practices, and the
consequent actions and reactions of e-moderators and students. In this study e-
moderation was found to be directly influenced by the programme aims and the
design of the students’ tasks, which informed the purpose of moderator-student
interaction. Furthermore the observed pre-established relationships between the
various actors involved in the discussions directly influenced the style of
moderator’s intervention and the ways in which students responded. Herein,
distinct differences in relation to the nature of e-moderation in online discussions
were identified and discussed.

BACKGROUND
Teaching and learning in online or blended asynchronous learning networks
(ALN) has been one of the main focuses of educational practice and research
over the last fifteen years. The primary goal of research in the field of ALN was
the process of learning and the pedagogy that supports effective learning
(Benbucan-Fich, Hiltz, and Harasim, 2005). The process of learning and the
pedagogy in an ALN have been examined by a number of researchers in the field
of computer mediated communication (Harasim, 1990; Henri, 1992; Newman et
al., 1995; Gunawardena et al., 1997) and online tutoring or latterly e-
moderation in particular (Mason, 1991; Paulsen, 1992; Berge, 1995; Salmon,
2000; Garrison & Anderson, 2003). The work of these authors suggested that
computer-mediated communication (CMC) may facilitate deep and meaningful
learning and that the online learning experience may be enhanced by effective
online tutoring by a moderator. It appeared that a key word to describe the role
of the online teaching staff in CMC was that of the facilitator.

In CMC literature, the issue of online facilitation appeared from the early ‘90s,
initially as an attempt to describe, as opposed to understand, the role that
educators play online. At that time, Mason (1991) was among the first scholars
who characterised the roles that teachers play online. She distinguished online
tutor’s roles in three major categories. These were the organisational role, the
social role and the intellectual role. Within each of these roles, the tutor
facilitates the learning of the students. Within the organisational role, the duty of

48
an online tutor is to set the agenda for the conference. This involves presenting
the objectives (also referred to as outcomes) of the discussion, the timetable,
the procedural rules and the decision-making norms. Then in the social role, the
tutor is responsible for the creation of a friendly, social environment for learning
by sending welcoming messages at the beginning of the course and encouraging
participation throughout. Providing much feedback on students’ inputs and using
a friendly, personal tone are considered equally important. However, the most
important role of the online tutor, according to Mason (1991), is that of the
educational facilitator. As in any kind of teaching, Mason argues that the
moderator should focus discussions on crucial points, ask questions and probe
responses to encourage students to expand and build on comments.

Moderators, according to Paulsen (1992), perceive their role in educational

computer conferencing in the light of their basic theories and philosophies
toward education (e.g. adult education theories and social learning theories).
Paulsen (1992) recommended that online tutors should identify their preferred
pedagogical styles based on their educational orientation. This orientation then
influences their chosen pedagogical style. The adopted style then leads to a
chosen moderator role and subsequently their preferred facilitation techniques.

Berge (1995) added a fourth and transient dimension to the roles of the e-
moderators, namely the ‘technical’ role. The facilitator (or e-moderator),
according to Berge, must make participants comfortable with the system and the
software which the conference is using. The ultimate technical goal for the
moderator is to make the technology transparent. When this is done, Berge
suggests that the learner (and moderator) may then concentrate without
technological constraint on the academic task at hand.

The value of the above initial attempts to describe the roles that tutors play
online has been widely recognised. Many researchers embarked upon the
aforementioned characterisations of online tutoring, which are further elaborated
in various studies as aspects of online tutoring are mapped alongside educational
theories (e.g. socio-constructivism) leading to the proliferation of conceptual
frameworks and models for online tutoring (e.g. Anderson, et al., 2001; Salmon,
2000) as well as a series of guide books aimed to assist tutors with their online
teaching (e.g. Bender, 2003; Collison, et al., 2000; Ko & Rossen, 2004;
MacDonald, 2006; Salmon, 2002). The essence of online facilitation and
moderation in the aforementioned pieces of literature was not so much the
effective use of the technology (although technical moderation is not
underestimated), but rather the ways in which tutors may intervene online with
a purpose. The purpose for online facilitation, nevertheless, may vary,
depending on the particular context in which the online teaching and learning
takes place. The literature has suggested a number of different contexts which
may influence the purpose of the online facilitation. These include fully online
distance and blended learning modules.

So the often asked question that concerns the role of the tutor in either fully
online or blended learning modules is whether traditional tutoring principles can
be adapted to meet the needs for online tutoring. However, there is no
consistency in the published answers. Garrison and Anderson (2003) argued that
‘it makes little sense to replicate or simulate traditional face-to-face approaches
to online learning’ (2). Yet Siemens and Yurkiw (2003) maintained that the ‘skills

49
and knowledge for tutors online are similar to those needed in a classroom
(132). The difference lies, of course, in how these skills are practised online and
if and how ‘teaching’ and ‘facilitating’ online differ. In fact this latter statement
was recently re-affirmed by Salmon (2007:172) who suggested that ‘there is no
evidence so far that there is an easy pathway between instructivist and
constructivist approaches to online moderation’.

In addition to the above theoretical review, and taking a more practical

standpoint, it can be said that:

A. Unfortunately, to date, the various papers, and the suggested frameworks

and guide books for online tutoring offer limited practical understanding as to
the ways and the practical complexities within which different members of staff
adopt or are required to adopt one role or another in asynchronous learning
environments.
B. There has been a rather limited interest in naturalistic studies wherein e-
moderated discussions are part of an on-going course or module for students in
higher education (Vlachopoulos & McAleese, 2004). Moderation has been mainly
studied as an activity on its own, in settings which included either mature or
motivated students. However, the generalities emerging from there, and which
are aired about e-moderation in general, need to be qualified in terms of course
aims and the learning outcomes towards which that moderation sets out to
facilitate progress
C. The term ‘e-moderation’ can be and has been used in different ways,
meanings and contexts, although these all involve someone (usually a teaching
person) interacting online with students. How this over-generalised concept of e-
moderation fits within the higher education practice of teaching, tutoring or
facilitating is still an issue to be scrutinised.
These are the challenges with which this paper aims to engage the reader and
providing them, where possible, with a deeper insight or at least some thought
provoking questions in relation to e-moderation. It aims to do this by presenting
some of the findings that emerged from the analysis of four case studies (Yin,
1994), that formed part of a recently completed PhD. Each case study
concentrated on the successes and failures for each one of the fours e-
moderators involved.

THE STUDY
The PhD study reported here (Vlachopoulos, 2008), observed, described and
analysed the distinct interactions between e-moderators and learners in real life
research contexts in two higher education institutions in the UK.

In the first setting, in an English university, one tutor and 17 students from
different countries participated over a period of one academic semester in a
blended Master’s course in ‘Communications, Education and Technology’. This
was delivered using a mixed-mode (or blended) approach of face-to-face
tutorials and sessions in a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). The students
worked online with their tutor, at times a guest expert and a second tutor, all of
whom adopted the role of “e-moderator”. The students and e-moderators used a
threaded discussion model, wherein all users had the option of responding to
one another directly.

50
Research setting one provided the opportunity to explore three distinct cases of
‘e-moderation’ practice, involving respectively a novice e-moderator, who was
also the tutor of the module; and two e-moderators (invited, guest moderators)
working together on the same task; and to compare the reactions of the same
group of students to the aforementioned e-moderation approaches.

The second setting was an undergraduate course within a Scottish university.

One lecturer and 25 students participated over a period of one academic
teaching term in a blended course, delivered using a combination of traditional
face-to-face teaching and an asynchronous virtual learning environment (VLE).
This choice involved an interesting naturalistic (real world) setting, featuring an
experienced lecturer who had decided to become an e-moderator. Students and
lecturer met every week face-to-face for two-hour “lecture” sessions. Two
further hours were engaged in an online student-centred-learning (PBL) tutorial,
where students and the lecturer (now as an e-moderator) tackled previously
declared case studies according to clear instructions and deadlines.

Research setting two gave the opportunity to explore the online moderation of
group discussions by an e-moderator who was also the face-to-face lecturer of
the same students; and hence to relate e-moderation and its impact on
students’ interactions to the achievement of PBL goals.

METHODS
Vlachopoulos (2008) assembled his data from:

a. A pre-course student questionnaire which collected demographic

information and information about the students’ attitudes towards on-line
learning, and their experiences of using computers and online discussions
b. Three sets of interviews with the e-moderators;
c. Focus group interviews with students at the end of the moderation period,
to discuss the usefulness of the moderation;
d. The transcripts from the online discussion board;
e. A series of verbal protocols recorded by the e-moderators using the ‘think
aloud’ approach (Ericsson & Simon, 1984), to provide information about
the e-moderators’ activity and plans.

His study concentrated from the outset on interactions, responses, reasons for
postings, and influences on student learning and development, where these
could be identified. He analysed the data, using grounded theory procedures
described in Strauss and Glaser (1967), comprising open, theoretical and
selective coding. The process started with an open coding, using NVivo 2. The
data were split into discrete parts using the ‘meaningful unit’ approach (Chi,
1997). During the coding process, theory memos were written to record the
development of concepts and categories. Those memos included information
obtained from the verbal protocols and the interviews, which contained elements
of the e-moderators’ feelings and intentions. The coding process ended when all
segments of the transcript had been allocated a code. Consequently the themes
and theoretical hypothesis only emerged after his analyses of coded interactions
within the discussion boards.

There were two coded schemas developed as part of the analysis process. One
coding schema conceptualised e-moderation practice as either ‘process’ or

51
‘content’ focused for both the e-moderators and the students. The e-moderation
of the process referred to the e-moderator’s interventions in the process of
contributing to the direction of an online discussion, whereas the e-moderation
of the content referred to e-moderator’s interventions in the content of the
discussed topic during the online sessions. The students’ codes ‘process’ referred
here to the different postings which the students made with the help of a
moderator to take forward the online discussion towards the completion of a
suggested task, for example by providing feedback to each other about how to
discuss an issue or instructions on how to make a decision online. In contrast
‘content’ refers to the development and assembly of ideas, topics, questions
which the students discussed. All the categories, which offer a first description of
the e-moderation activity, were then triangulated with data emerged from
another (second) level of coding, which was developed by tracing back what
was reported in the other forms of data, such as the interviews and the recorded
data.

All messages were re-coded in respect of the purpose of interactivity, using a

classification system which emerged from the voices of the participants
themselves (when justifying the reasons for responding or not to other’s
messages); and from the established literature in the field of online interactivity
(Henri,1992; Rourke, et al., 1999). In short, this second classification system
comprised the following categories:

• Group Proactive (Student or tutor looks for a response from someone in

the group – anyone)
• Group Reactive (Student or tutor responds to one of the above, or some
other message, playing reply back to group)
• Individual Proactive (Student or tutor looks for a response from a
specific contributor, and even asks for it)
• Individual Reactive (Student or tutor responds to one of the above, or
some other message, from and then to a specific contributor)
• Quasi-Interactive (just threaded (follow-up) message where tutor or
student acknowledges previous message but continues with a new
idea/concept
• Monologue (A new thread. No evidence of interaction with any other
participant)

This coding process allowed a more complete story of e-moderation to be heard,

through a clear picture of how moderators and students had behaved in
particular situations.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

From the beginning of this investigation into e-moderation practice, the role of
the moderator and the consequent nature of the moderator’s interventions in the
online discussions were identified as key issues. This was true for the literature
survey, and in the findings which emerged from the tutors’ and the students’
data in this study.

This research found that the moderators in all four case studies declared an
intention to adopt a learner-centred style of e-moderation. All four moderators
mentioned that they would prefer to adopt a facilitator’s role, with the students

52
being in the core of the online discussions. They declared so during their first
interviews.

More specifically, in case study one the moderator wanted her learners to go
about the process of learning autonomously, and to reach conclusions
autonomously (and with little influence from a teaching person). In case study
two, the moderator, who did not in any case have tutorial responsibilities, aimed
to promote thinking and independent learning by making thought-provoking
comments and asking worthwhile questions. In case study three, the moderator
aimed to follow a more directive approach by modelling ways of dealing with the
task given to the students, hoping that in this way the students would develop
the skills to complete the task effectively, and to an acceptable standard. Finally,
in case study four, the moderator claimed to have opted for a Problem-Based
Learning (PBL) approach to promote deeper thinking regarding difficult
engineering issues.

The moderators in this study had emphasised that they would base their e-
moderation interventions on their own teaching philosophies, on their
expectations of the students, as well as on the prescribed roles described in the
activity descriptions for each case study. Further, they all recognised the
importance of training, experience or briefing in helping them prepare for e-
moderation. As such, this sounds like nothing new; but the ways in which these
intentions and plans were actually executed in the online discussions prompts a
searching for a re-consideration of the way in which tutors may adopt an
intended moderator’s role, once they go online.

In the related literature, the tutor or e-moderator was generally seen as a

facilitator, whose role was to assist the students to become independent learners
- usually through a scaffolding process (Garrison & Anderson, 2003; Mason,
1991; Palloff & Pratt, 2005; Pata, et al., 2005; Salmon, 2000). It was strongly
suggested, therefore, that in online learning the teacher should no longer be in
full control, and that learners should actively take responsibility and should start
to coordinate and regulate their own learning (De Laat, et al., 2007). The
literature survey had also indicated that, in online asynchronous learning, the
tutors need to develop a particular set of skills and competencies to “teach”
effectively online, and should do so develop through participation in training
sessions for e-moderators (Goodyear, 2001; Salmon, 2000). The most well-
referenced competencies for an e-moderator include the ability to engage and
motivate students in an open and friendly manner (Goodyear, 2001; Salmon,
2000); to appear to care about the students online (Bender, 2003; Garrison &
Anderson, 2003); and to be able to provide prompt feedback, but also to
challenge the students with questions (Anderson, et al., 2001). Many of these
competencies for online tutors, of course, are not specific only to online tutoring
but apply to tutoring in general (Laurillard, 2002).

In practice, the moderators’ intentions in the present studies did not match
either the ideal moderator’s profile which the related literature illustrated and
which, in varying ways, the moderators who were studied had hoped to embody
– or even their declared intentions. None of these moderators succeeded in
effectively engaging the students online, nor in promoting the desired student-
centred learning.

53
All the above advice offered in the literature was affirmed to some extent (and
often in the breach) by the findings in this study. It is worth pointing out that a
substantial part of the literature in e-moderation and online tutoring was written
by persons who have been researching their own innovative educational
practice, reporting and often only describing findings which were not derived
directly from existing naturalistic contexts, and which included no data about the
outcomes of that practice in terms of student learning. There seem to have been
no studies to date which have reported analysis of findings regarding the
learning and development consequent on moderation by tutors working on
credit-bearing modules. Such tutors will have had to accommodate added
pressures to meet the needs of the curriculum and those of their learners. They
are also usually required to adopt multiple roles within their institutions (for
example, the role of the programme leader, the facilitator and the assessor).

With the above in mind, the present findings raise some important issues about
the nature of e-moderators’ interventions and the ways in which tutors adopt
and adapt their roles in ongoing modules in HE. One factor here is the set of
eschewed principles upon which the moderators decided their intended overall e-
moderation approach, coupled with the changes made to that, in practice. The
other is the impact of the observed e-moderation approach on the students’
engagement in the online discussions, and on their consequent learning.

In relation to the first issue, there is some evidence from all four case studies to
suggest that the decisions upon which the moderators each based their
moderation approach were primarily influenced by their understanding (or not)
of the key principles and potential of student autonomy in online learning. The
observed mismatches between the ‘ideal’ and the reality were perhaps the
result of different views on the part of those concerned regarding what form
‘moderation’ should take, and of what an online discussion should entail in terms
of student and tutor effort, interactions and learning outcomes. Similar dilemmas
were also reported in the literature by tutors new to e-moderation (Bennett &
Marsh, 2002; Bennett & Lockyer, 2004). The moderators in the present study
expected that the students should contribute pro-actively to the discussions in
their groups, and put in the necessary effort to deal with both the process and
the content of the tasks. In contrast, the students expected, or at least desired,
that the e-moderators should be active in leading the way. Consequently part of
the tutors’ consequent activity comprised efforts, overt or covert, to rectify this
lack of shared acceptance and understanding of purpose, roles and activity – and
should probably have featured in the preparation for the activity. For the extent
to which the principles of an e-moderation approach is based are made explicit,
and understood, and are agreed beforehand by both moderators and students,
seems certain to influence the way in which the moderation activity will and can
develop.

As far as the issue of the impact of the general nature of the e-moderation on
the students is concerned, it could be said that an important factor which
influenced the range of interactions between the students and the tutor or the
guest moderators in the case studies which were studied was that of online
‘dynamics’.

For the students in the four studies, there were various pre-established power-
relations with the tutor-moderator, the guest-moderator and those students who

54
sometimes adopted a moderator’s role. In all of these dynamic relationships, the
students reacted in different ways. A tutor-moderator was the one who, in the
eyes of the students, would eventually, informally and formally, assess the
content and process of the discussion, and who thus appeared to have the final
say in a judgment of moderated activity. A guest or expert moderator was
perceived and acknowledged for their expertise in the content or the process,
but their views might need to be validated by the tutor-moderator. This was
particularly evident in case studies two and three where, although the two
moderators (as expert and guest moderators respectively) were active in
content interventions, their guidance in the process was only accepted and
followed after the tutor-moderator had intervened to approve their suggestions.
Finally, a student-moderator (or quasi moderator) may be a colleague with no
greater expertise than the other students, but with the willingness to lead or at
least work harder towards the completion of the task. Having a student-
moderator, however, may result in the tricky situation, where everybody else in
the group will count on the student moderator to complete the task for the
group.

It thus became apparent that when deciding the role(s) of the tutor or the
teaching person in online discussions, great care should be taken in the way this
role will be explained, genuinely understood and eventually agreed by the
students. That is because on the one hand many students still lack the skills to
‘resist’ the tutors’ directions; and on the other hand, in the absence of the
tutor’s presence, students may be suspicious of anyone else wishing to fulfil this
role (Anderson, 2006). For example, in this study most of the students did not
critically question or challenge any of the four moderators. Instead students
appeared to be trying to follow their moderator’s instructions in order to
complete the tasks. Similarly, in case studies two and three, the students were
very reluctant to follow the suggestions of the guest moderators, unless these
were supported by the tutor-moderator.

Despite some early warnings in research related to computer-mediated

communication (e.g. Jones, 1995) about the importance of considering issues
such as the online dynamics, the literature offered very little information or
advice on this topic. These findings made it clear, however, that online
discussions are not a power-free zone (Anderson, 2006). Online interactions
normally take place in contexts ‘authorised’ and ‘defined’ by the tutor spaces;
and the way in which the tutor or any other teaching person is perceived by the
students plays a significant role in the way students interact with them.

CONCLUSION
This paper summarises some evidence to suggest that there may be important
differences to be aware of with regard to the general nature of the e-moderators’
perceived - and understood and practiced - roles and their consequential impact
on the students’ motivation, level of participation and engagement with the
discussions. The observed nature of the e-moderator’s interventions has
emerged as having a strong influence on how effectively the students engage
with online discussions. The moderator may be committed to a student-centred
approach and to allowing learners to take responsibility over their own learning.
But this self-responsibility is still defined, monitored and even (clearly) judged
by fellow tutors who are in a position to both allow and disallow students the
exercise of such a responsibility.

55
Thus doubt may be cast on the over-generalised concepts of ‘teaching presence’
(Anderson, et al., 2001), and on the definition of ‘e-moderation’ offered by
Salmon (2000). ‘Teaching presence’ asserts that learners and tutors may
establish the teaching, learning and cognitive conditions for the learning
development to occur in a collegial manner. However the findings of this thesis
have shown that the presence of the tutor e-moderator, and their
eschewed principles of teaching had a marked influence on the students’
engagement in the discussions. Furthermore, the definition offered by Salmon
(2000), which suggested that an e-moderator can be ‘anyone’ who presides over
an e-meeting, certainly is not in accord with the evidence of this study. All the
evidence from the students’ interviews and their online postings suggested that
there was a need and usefulness in having a pro-active, reflective moderator
who had the skills to engage the students and to motivate them to participate in
online discussions. And the reflective reviews by the e-moderators of the
experiences certainly reaffirms their conviction that they were attempting to do
more than preside, and felt that their intended role went far beyond presiding.

References
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Composition, 23, 108-124
Anderson, T., Rourke, L., Garrison, D. R. and Archer, W. (2001) ‘Assessing
teaching presence in a computer conferencing context’, Journal of
Asynchronous Learning Networks, 5, 1-17
Benbunan-Fich, R., Hiltz, S. R. and Harasim, L. (2005) ‘The online interaction
learning model: An integrated theoretical framework for learning networks’
In Hiltz, S. R. and Goldman, R. (ed.) Learning together online: Research on
asynchronous learning networks, Mahwah, New Jersey, Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates, Chapter 2.
Bender, T. (2003) Discussion based online teaching to enhance student learning:
theory, practice and assessment, Stylus Publishing, Sterling, Virginia.
Bennett, S. and Lockyer, L. (2004) ‘Becoming an online teacher: Adapting to a
changed environment for teaching and learning in higher education’,
Educational Media International, 41, 231-244
Bennett, S. and Marsh, D. (2002) ‘Are we expecting tutors to run before they
can walk?’ Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 39, 14-20
Berge, Z. L. (1995) ‘The role of the online instructor/facilitator, in ‘Facilitating
computer conferencing: Recommendations from the field’, Educational
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Chi, M. (1997) ‘Quantifying qualitative analyses of verbal data: A practical
guide.’ Journal of the Learning Sciences, 6, 271-313
Collison, G., Elbaum, G., Haavind, S. & Tinher, and R., G. (2000) Facilitating
online learning – effective strategies for moderators, Atwood Publishing,
Madison WI.
De Laat, M., Lally, V., Lipponen, L. and Simons, R.-J. (2007) ‘Online teaching in
networked learning communities’, Instructional Science, 35, 257-286
Ericsson, K. A. and Simon, H. A. (1984) Protocol analysis: verbal reports as
data, The MIT Press., Cambridge, MA.
Garrison, D. R. and Anderson, T. (2003) E-learning in the 21st century: A
framework for research and practice, Routledge Falmer, New York.
Glaser, B. and Strauss, A. (1967) The discovery of grounded theory, Aldine,
Chicago.

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Goodyear, P., Salmon, G., Spector, M., Steeples, C. and Tickner, S. (2001)
‘Competencies of online teaching: A special report’, Educational Technology
Research and Development, 49, 65-72
Gunawardena, C. N., Lowe, C. A. and Anderson, T. (1997) ‘Analysis of global
online debate and the development of an interaction model for examining
social construction of knowledge in computer conferencing’, Journal of
Educational Computing Research, 17, 395-429
Harasim, L. (1990) Online education: perspectives on a new environment,
Praeger, New York.
Henri, F. (1992) ‘Computer conferencing and content analysis’ In Kaye, E. (ed.)
Collaborative learning throuh computer conferencing: The Najaden Papers,
Berlin, Springer-Verlag.
Jones, S. (1995) ‘Understanding community in the information age’ In Jones, S.
(ed.) CyberSociety: Computer-mediated communication and community,
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage., 10-35.
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Company, Boston.
MacDonald, J. (2006) Blended learning and online tutoring: a good practice
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1 at http://www.emoderators.com/papers/mason.html.
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dilemma solving in network-based role-play’, Learning and Instruction, 15,
571-587
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presence in asynchronous, text-based computer conferences’, Journal of
Distance Education, 14, 51-70
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57
MEETING STUDENT EXPECTATIONS: ARE THEY ALREADY IN
CONTROL?

Linda Creanor, Caledonian Academy, Glasgow Caledonian

University

ABSTRACT
There has been a considerable amount of interest by many stakeholders in the
ways in which new generations of learners increasingly view technology as
central to everyday life, leading to speculation about what this expectation might
mean for formal education. Such speculation has often been based on anecdotal,
rather than empirical, evidence. To counteract this, recent studies have set out
to investigate more closely learners’ attitudes towards, and use of, technology
for learning. This paper describes one such study, the Learner Experience of e-
Learning (LEX), which aimed to explore how learners in further, higher, and
adult and community learning contexts use technology effectively to support
their learning. The findings indicate that learners are adopting various strategies
to ensure they retain a degree of control and choice over how, why and when
they engage with technology for learning.

INTRODUCTION
Encouraged by government strategy, technological advances and changing
student and employer expectations, universities and colleges now invest
considerable portions of their budgets in implementing technology to support
learning. A significant part of this spend goes towards institutional virtual
learning environments which provide a secure and homogeneous online space
for course information, digital resources, communication and e-assessment
(Browne et al, 2008). Meanwhile, outside the formal learning environment, the
socio-technical landscape is experiencing rapid change and new generations of
students are growing up with technology as a central feature of their everyday
lives (Seely Brown, 2000).

Many commentators have speculated on what this might mean for formal
education, predicting that the learning and teaching environment will need to
change dramatically if it is to address the expectations of these digitally literate
learners (e.g. Prensky, 2001, 2006; Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005). Others are less
convinced, pointing to the unnecessary ‘moral panic’ that such conjectures
promote (Bennett et al, 2008). Despite the relatively short history of technology
enhanced learning, speculation on its potentially revolutionary impact is not a
new phenomenon. It was captured effectively by Mayes (1995) who likened it to
the film Groundhog Day in which the main protagonist had to re-live one day in
his life several times over in an unsuccessful attempt to change its outcome.
Mayes asserts that,

“We are frequently excited by the promise of a revolution in education,

through the implementation of technology. … yet curiously, tomorrow
never comes.” (1995: 21)

Nevertheless from an institutional perspective, the advent of Web 2.0

technology, 3D virtual worlds, the widespread use of mobile devices and the
ever increasing number of freely available social software tools have opened up

58
a huge range of options for students, and as such, can be viewed as major
challenges to institutional control (Anderson, 2007). In order to provide the
optimal learning environment for students, it is vital for both institutions and
teachers to be better informed about learners’ experiences and expectations of
technology for learning.

Recognising this, the UK’s Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) began a
new research focus by commissioning a scoping study of the relevant literature
(Sharpe, Benfield, Lessner & De Cicco, 2005). This revealed that the great
majority of technology enhanced learning studies presented a tutor or
institutional perspective, with very few adopting a completely learner-centred
viewpoint. It also highlighted that most of the research had been carried out in
a higher education context, with other post-16 sectors poorly represented.

“There is a dearth of studies into how learners in mainstream post-

compulsory learning experience the increasingly ubiquitous use of e-
learning technologies and approaches within a generally campus-based
learning context.” (Sharpe et al, 2005: p3)

In acknowledgement of the fact that technology for learning is only one aspect
of usage, the scoping study recommended a holistic approach to researching the
learner experience which would look beyond the confines of individual
programmes of study or specific technologies to encompass the full impact of the
digital age on the lives of post-16 learners. The Learner Experience of e-
Learning (LEX) study was the first to take up the challenge (Creanor et al, 2006,
2008).

This paper will begin by outlining the innovative research methodology which
underpinned the study before going on to provide a flavour of some of the key
themes which emerged from learners’ accounts of their lived experiences.
Finally, it will reflect on how an appreciation of the learner perspective may help
us to move towards a more collaborative approach to the co-creation of
knowledge and educational resources through the effective use of technology.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The four members of the research team brought complementary perspectives to
the study, representing both higher education (Glasgow Caledonian University)
and the further education and adult and community learning sectors (The Open
Learning Partnership, London). Further valuable insight and guidance was
provided by the original scoping study team and the experienced LEX project
consultant. Given the holistic nature of the study and the clear focus on personal
experience, it was agreed that a grounded theoretical approach was required. A
decision was taken to adopt an interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA)
methodology which had previously been used in the psychology and health
disciplines (Reid, Flowers & Larkin, 2005). IPA depends on a very open interview
method, and to ensure that learning technology remained central to the
discussion we also implemented a new technique in the form of ‘Interview Plus’ 1
whereby a digital learning artefact such as a blog, discussion board or web

1
The term Interview Plus was first coined by Helen Beetham, consultant to the
JISC e-pedagogy strand

59
resource was introduced towards the end of an interview to re-focus discussion
around the participant’s current learning experience.

IPA seeks to explore lived experience by eliciting detailed personal stories. It is

based on the premise that individuals are expert in their own experience, and as
such, will provide valid accounts. Its interpretive nature means that evidence
should emerge from an interpretation of the participant’s account rather than
from previously established hypotheses. We did not begin the LEX study with
any pre-conceived assumptions therefore, but rather allowed the participants to
bring to the fore aspects of their experience which held particular significance for
them. (Smith & Osborne, 2003).

The 55 participants (55% female and 44% male) represented 3 universities, 4

further education colleges and 2 adult and community learning providers from
Scotland, England and Northern Ireland. They ranged in age from 17 to over 60,
with the majority (89%) rating themselves as confident or partly confident
computer users.

Through a robust process of analysis, the extensive data was gradually refined
to a series of high level categories which captured key emerging themes under
the headings of life, formal learning, technology, people, and time. Below these
were a further five sub-categories of control, identity, feelings, relationships and
abilities. Table 1 shows an extract from the conceptual framework which
illustrates the intersections between the categories, each of which is evidenced
by learner quotes.

Control Identity Feelings Relationships Abilities

It's the same way with
learning to use
You get a wee boost
computers and
I'm beginning to the first time you do
software packages… It
rely less and less something, you get a
tends to be very Because to …so my [group] we
on other people ‘oh right, I've done
hands-on and people me a … design always text each other
showing me what that myself’ and then
like to just touch it and is a creation and say, oh are you
to do. Instead of you get that wee
TECHNOLOGY

feel it and experience like a painting coming in at this time

being afraid of confidence boost and
it. A friend of mine or you know, or we’ll meet at this
technology on the you'll go to the next
bought a new phone drawing and if time and so it looks on
computer, I'm step, you know. The
last week and she I did it on the the face of it from the
beginning to learn, first time you kind of
spent the entire day … computer it university website that
well its not as bad hit a brick wall … you
just exploring it, do would sort of we haven’t been
as it seems, take go ‘aargh’ but when
you know, working out lose, I think it communicating all year
your time, if you you do it the first time
how everything works would look but we have, it’s just
make a mistake it you think ‘I did that’
and what way you too clinical. outside of that board…
doesn't matter, and then move onto
want it to work for
just do it again. the next thing. It's
you. It's very much an
definitely worth it.
interactive touchy-
feely thing.

Table 1: Extract from the conceptual framework

The remainder of the paper will focus on a just a few of these key themes with a
particular focus on issues relating to learner control and choice. A more
extensive description and critique of the methodology can be found in the LEX
Methodology Report (Mayes, 2006).

60
LEARNERS’ VIEWS

Generations
Our sample reflected the fact that the student population is not as homogeneous
as some commentators might lead us to believe. Yet despite the diversity in
educational contexts and demographic profiles, the data analysis revealed
several commonly recurring themes. Unsurprisingly perhaps, generational
differences were expressed in a way which indicated that the participants were
highly aware of their contrasting attitudes towards, and experiences of,
technology.

“…. you take it for granted because our generation has grown up with it …
it’s always been there and we’ll just use it.” Lynsey, young undergraduate
student

The variation in levels of familiarity appeared less marked in the formal learning
context however and did not appear to be viewed as a major barrier. Indeed
several learners reported that, while they may have lacked confidence with
technology at the start of their course, they believed they were now using it as
effectively as their peers.

“I'm beginning to rely less and less on other people showing me what to
do. Instead of being afraid of technology on the computer, I'm beginning
to learn, well it’s not as bad as it seems, take your time, if you make a
mistake it doesn't matter, just do it again.” Michele, mature trade union
online learner

“It’s actually helping me with my kids as well because … now we can

discuss things and look at things together, without it going right over my
head.”
Paul, mature undergraduate

This sense of achievement was reported by learners as beneficial, not only to

their learning, but also to their sense of self-esteem. The fact that a by-product
was often the creation of closer connections with peers, friends and family was
seen as an added bonus.

Ownership Issues
The use of personal mobile devices, particularly phones and laptops, was
widespread amongst participants, with 86% describing themselves as frequent
mobile phone users. This in itself was not unexpected, however what was
striking was the depth of attachment and ownership expressed by the learners.

“I couldn't live without my mobile phone …”

“Mobile phones are another way of communicating because everyone has

a mobile phone on them …”

“I use my laptop, I take it away, it's attached to me, I couldn't survive

without it …”

“I always have my phone and iPod with me …”

61
Nevertheless, beyond contacting fellow learners to arrange meetings or to seek
some course-related information, there was little evidence that participants were
using their mobile phones, PDAs or iPods to support learning. Indeed very
mixed views were expressed at the idea of downloading learning-related
podcasts or receiving text messages from tutors, with several suggesting that
they would see this as an infringement of their personal devices which they had
carefully customised to suit their own needs. Others recognised the potential
benefits and welcomed the opportunity to access learning resources more
flexibly. Where participants did choose to take advantage of their personal
devices to support learning, they often did so in unexpected ways, which, from a
lecturer’s perspective, could even be viewed as subversive.

“We’ve made a promise that if one of us isn’t there, we’ll record the
lecture for them and send them it later.” (Lynsey, first year
undergraduate)

Overall, participants displayed very strong preferences. These attitudes may be

partially due to the fact that only 4 of the 55 learners interviewed had actually
experienced learning on a mobile device, and therefore had a limited
understanding of how it might be applied. Nevertheless, the strong feelings
expressed suggest that we should not take for granted learners’ acceptance of
their personal devices being exploited for formal learning purposes.

Finding and Sharing Resources

The participants made it clear that the internet was their first port of call for all
types of information, including academic resources. At the same time however,
they recognised that the validity of these resources could be questionable.

“You never know if the knowledge is actually good or not, so I'm always
worried that I'm handing something in which is completely just one guy’s
opinion, but it looks really professional, but maybe he's a complete
liar....”
Laura, young first year undergraduate

Participants recognised that they needed support from their tutors to make such
judgements. There was also a perception that although younger learners might
be more adept at using online resources, the mature learners adopted a more
balanced approach and were prepared to use a wider range of resources.

“...with the generation nowadays there’s more tendency to rely on the

computer, whereas with me, I will use a computer but I realise it's a tool,
not the be all and end all, and I also go and get books. I think that's
where the big difference lies with my reports.” Paul, mature
undergraduate

It was evident that for many of the participants, creating and sharing resources
with peers, friends and family was also commonplace.

“I would take thirty, forty photos in one evening and before I even go to
bed that night I upload them onto my Messenger page and everyone I
know, all my friends, at night, they just go straight onto my Messenger

62
 page and all my photos are online then.” Emma, young undergraduate
student

There was little supporting evidence to suggest that this type of activity was
being transferred to the formal learning context. What was reported however
was a strong sense of commitment to sharing information with fellow learners
within the framework of collaborative learning activities.

“On the discussion board … it's sharing information with others. As the
data builds up on it each year the students come along and they can …
share that same bank of information.” Undergraduate focus group
member

The creation of multimedia materials such as video and audio files was less
widespread among participants but when it was reported, it was often with the
specific purpose of sharing with friends and family. This type of activity
generally took place outside their institutional learning environments and was
not acknowledged or recognised by tutors, suggesting that there may be scope
for building on such skills by promoting more effectively the co-creation of
shared resources for learning.

Learner choices
Where learners were less convinced of either the value of online activities or the
technology used, they often chose to opt out.

“You can also if you want, have a discussion over [the VLE] but I tend not
to use it because, well, the teachers take a while to get back and it's not
very personal ‘cos everyone can read what you write.” Alan, third year
undergraduate

Neither was this solely the preserve of younger learners. Mature learners also
expressed strong views about their engagement with learning activities and were
prepared to undermine their tutor’s expectations by making personal choices
about how much or how little they would contribute.

“You can choose I find, you can interact as much as you like or you can
do the minimum, particularly if its activity based, so if you've got to prove
that you've been in the discussion forums you just keep that to a
minimum to prove you've done it.” Rebecca, mature ACL learner

Participants frequently reported by-passing the institutional systems which

tutors expected them to use, and instead switched to other preferred modes of
communication such as instant messaging, texting, or social software sites such
as Facebook or Bebo.

There was strong evidence that where learning was deliberately designed to
encourage autonomy, learners reported that their engagement was more intense
and that their learning was significantly enhanced. The learning log or e-portfolio
approach provided one such example.

“[The learning log] is probably the most enjoyable bit I’ve done. It’s your
own learning, it’s all what you write which is … more interesting to you.

63
 You can relate it to your own experiences and … you’ve got a free role,
you can write whatever you want … there’s no wrong answer ‘cos it’s how
you interpret it.” Nick, undergraduate student

There was also evidence that this sense of engagement and ownership had a
wider, positive, influence on learners’ self-directed learning strategies.

“the learning [log] obviously was for one course but I found myself
applying it to all my other disciplines and courses and bringing everything
together into it.” Undergraduate focus group member

In direct contrast, other more prescriptive learning tasks often engendered

frustration with the structure and pace of online activities, and once again the
learners made it clear that they had a sophisticated awareness of the balance of
power.

“... it just depends on how the course provider lays out the course and
how they allow you to access the course because of course they still
control how you learn and at what pace you learn, even though access
tends to be controlled by me. Obviously, they don't dictate you must be
there every Tuesday between 9 and 11 for instance. That's the part that
you can control, the rest of it is up to the course provider.” Rebecca,
mature trade union learner

The impact of effective course design in affording student control and developing
learner autonomy is a central issue for both learners and tutors. Achieving the
right balance is challenging, but participants were unambiguous in their view
that face-to-face and technology-enhanced learning activities should go “hand-
in-hand” and that the tutor remained central to their e-learning experience.

“This kind of technology is only as good as the tutor that's behind it.”
Kirsten, postgraduate student

CONCLUSION
As a limited one year study LEX cannot claim to speak for all learners, but by
taking a deep approach to researching individual experiences it has achieved its
aim of providing a platform for learners to describe their feelings, attitudes and
approaches towards technology for learning. It has provided valuable evidence
to inform our growing understanding of how a wide range of post-16 learners
are exploiting both institutional and personal technologies in support of learning
and established that the effective use of technology is not solely the preserve of
younger generation. Given the disproportionate increase in mature learners in
higher education (Mayes, 2007) this is an important issue. The LEX Final Report
also underlines the significance of control and choice in the learner experience,
stating that,

“Heightened enthusiasm was evident in their voices as they described how

they made decisions over technologies, learning environments and
approaches to study. Indeed, where these opportunities were not
available, learners took delight in describing the strategies they had
adopted to circumvent recommended guidelines. There was clear

64
 evidence of the impact on motivation which such a strong sense of
ownership provides.” (Creanor et al, 2006: 27)

Overall the findings indicate that despite variations in background and

experience, learners display the following common characteristics when using
technology effectively for learning:

• they are highly motivated and are prepared to make significant efforts to
overcome technical barriers

• they learn to deal with strong emotional reactions towards technology

• they are highly skilled networkers, knowing who to contact as well as

where and how to find information and support

• they are prepared to make their own decisions about which technologies
to use, and how and when to use them

• they are creators of a new ‘underworld’ of digital communication which is

mainly invisible to tutors, and which often blurs the boundaries between
life, leisure and learning.

Increasing evidence points to the fact that empowering learners can enhance
learning through deepening engagement and encouraging self-directed learning
(Rust et al, 2003; Nicol, 2006). By acknowledging learner use of personal
technologies, involving learners more in the design of learning activities &
assessments, and integrating learner-created resources, we can build on and
learn from the wide-ranging technological skills and strategies which learners
increasingly display. This, of course, presupposes a high degree of trust and
mutual understanding among learners, tutors and peers.

“For me, I would just expect people who'd committed to the course to do
the course, and to speak up if they've got problems. It’s just the basics of
life: be nice to one another, don't condemn anyone because they did
something differently or they asked a dumb question. I wouldn't expect
[the tutor] to have to monitor the forum, I would expect it almost to be
self-monitoring …” (Jenny, ACL learner)

Evidence from LEX suggests that our learners may be prepared, but it seems
that we have some way to go before we are in a position to fully meet their
evolving expectations.

References
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education, JISC Technology and Standards Watch Report, available online at
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_method_final.pdf
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self-regulation and learning technologies, in Markauskate, M.. Goodyear, P.,
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understanding the net generation, in Oblinger D. and Oblinger J. (eds),
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%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.htm
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STUDENT GENERATED PODCASTS: LEARNING TO CASCADE RATHER THAN
CREATE

Joseph Maguire, Susan Stuart and Steve Draper, University of Glasgow

ABSTRACT
There is currently an explosion of exploratory uses of podcasts in education, but
only a few where the students, rather than the staff, produce the podcasts.
Where it has been done, it has mainly been for students where the technology
itself was also relevant to their studies (e.g. computing science or media studies
courses). Here however we report on one of these on a course for ‘non-
technical’ students from the faculty of Arts. These students were required to
produce a single video podcast for their third-year philosophy course. The
requirements to present something useful to fellow students and to master a
new and fashionable technology are well designed to augment self-confidence
and self-efficacy, to engage students, to equip them with a skill that may
enhance their employability, and to foster deeper learning. However a basic
reason for student generated content of this kind is that authoring for other
students (rather than for marking by a staff member) should give impetus to
deeper thought about the content. This would not only cement existing
knowledge but also supplement it with new perspectives and considerations.
Sceptics might argue differently, claiming it to be a gimmick to boost course
numbers. However, crafting a report, essay or regurgitating facts on exam day
involve different learning experiences and skills to that of giving a persuasive
presentation to a large audience.

Keywords: student generated podcasts, podcasting, educational technology.

INTRODUCTION
Podcasts, as a free audio or video delivered directly to an iPod needing no more
than one-click to activate, have attracted a large and very wide-ranging
audience. Naturally, many individuals and organisations now want to make use
of this powerful platform and their desire has driven costs down while
simultaneously enhancing usability.

The initial barriers to recording, editing and distribution have been broken, and
the most popular iPod can now record audio straight out-of-the-box without the
need for any additional accessories or software. When the iPod is next
synchronised the recording will be automatically transferred to the system where
it can be edited in seconds – adding copyright-free jingles and / or sound
effects, if so desired. From there, distribution is just one more click away.

The recent explosion in exploratory uses of podcasting in education alone is a

prime example. The main focus up to now has been on lecturers recording their
lectures, seminars, and laboratory sessions for their classes, a practice proving
popular not only with students (Draper & Maguire, 2007) but the general public
as well (Wojtas, 2006). There has been investigation into student-generated
content but this is often connected with information technology (Frydenberg,
2006), web design (Lee, McLoughlin & Chan, 2008) or media production 2.

21
Assistant Professor at Duke University, Daniel H. Foster used podcasts as part
of an exercise in his ‘Radio and Theatre of Mind’ course.

67
However, there has been little attention paid to those who are still learning,
those future experts, who are disconnected from the world of science and
technology. The average Arts student studying divinity, history, literature or
philosophy is likely to spend more time poring over ancient texts and penning
discursive essays than, say, creating a video podcast.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown is an exception, graduating from the University of

Edinburgh with a Ph.D. in History, he recently released a podcast detailing the
action he and his cabinet would take in tackling the global financial credit crisis3.
This significant step not only represents Number 10’s recognition of the
importance of the platform, but also of the need to spend precious time crafting
its content, a content that is not only clear and concise but short, simple and
shaped for a wide audience which may not be particularly interested in politics
but which is, nevertheless, concerned about the latest crisis.

This is a new medium for powerful and international public speaking, and public
speaking is, in its turn, a transferable skill, that many students, not simply Arts
students, no longer practise. This could be easily remedied using podcasts.
There is no reason why a collection of “digital natives” (Prensky, 2001), such as
Arts students, could not construct a small video presentation on a topic of
interest to a large diverse audience. Thinking about the content itself, their
potential audience, whether publicly available or privately presented to their
peers in class, and how it will be presented should all serve to refine a student’s
critical thinking and presentation skills. In this paper we report an innovative
educational case with exactly these features: student-generated podcasts, video
rather than audio-only, by philosophy students with no subject-related
fascination with or training in modern technology, yet who are presumed to be
“digital natives”.

We will start by examining the course objectives and how to address them in a
suitable assessed exercise. We then consider three potential assessed exercises
and their respective outcomes before settling on one for use as a group
assignment. The abilities required to successfully complete the exercise are
determined alongside the strategies necessary for equipping students with these
abilities. Performance on the exercise will be determined through an objective
marking scheme that we have designed which not only provides flexibility for the
marker but clear criteria for the student. The exercise is then trialled as part of
the assessment of a third-year non-technical philosophy course and the
feedback produced by the students which is largely favourable. We discuss the
potential to repurpose products of the exercise as new learning and recruitment
materials, and discuss what might be changed to improve the experience and
learning opportunities for this particular class.

EDUCATIONAL RATIONALE
This particular learning activity needs to address several issues that are
expressed in the course objectives.

1. The content needs to be a critical rehearsal, re-expression, or application

of material the students had already covered in the course, with the

32
Downing Street Podcast - http://www.number10.gov.uk/podcast - 30/10/08

68
 additional aim of deepening understanding rather than covering more
topics.
2. Creating material for fellow students is a natural way to frame this. As
has long been understood by, for example, Piaget, you expect your
teacher to understand what you mean and compress expression in order
not to bore her, while peers naturally require fuller and more careful
explanation. This is learning by teaching, as in the surgeons’ slogan for
continuing professional development: “See one, do one, teach one”. The
traditional university activity for this is the seminar where students in turn
present a topic, but the drawback of this method is that it often
degenerates with students paying little attention to each other’s
contributions, and it usually doesn’t leave a record that can be re-used by
students when it comes to essay preparation or revision. More recent
incarnations of this particular genre are Collis & Moonen’s student
generated content approach [See, for example, Collis & Moonen, 2005
and Spires & Morris, 2008], and “computer supported cooperative lecture
notes” in which student teams contribute sections to a class-wide
collection of notes on web pages. The latter had been used in earlier
courses in this institution.
3. This is also natural to do by means of group work, where each group,
rather than each individual, produces a presentation. The discussion
within the group is a more immediate peer process with the same virtues
for deepening personal understanding. It is also independently
worthwhile as a skill valued by many employers.
4. A second major employability skill is communication; and particularly,
being able to communicate in multiple formats, not merely by essay-
writing or speaking up in seminars and tutorials. Podcasting is a novel
medium that, in itself, might be a worthwhile skill under this heading.
However, a more general issue, which this exercise was intended to
develop, is the consideration of how the medium (the format) can be best
used to communicate with the intended audience and the course-specific
content.

ASSESSED EXERCISE
The assessed exercise has to encompass the four key elements outlined in the
previous section: rehearsal of course content, creating material for fellow
students, group work, and communication. It needs a simple and elegant
distribution platform that is easy to grasp within the limited time available and
with the, possibly, limited technical knowledge possessed by the student.
Distribution platforms such as cassette or versatile discs are too expensive and
complicated for students to grasp in a small amount of time. A cheap and
simplistic alternative is a distribution platform which utilises the power of the
Internet, for example, YouTube or podcasts. Although YouTube is a popular
platform the quality is low, especially text and graphics, and requires a
dedicated and fast data-connection. This is not true of podcasts: not only can
the audience download content to their device in advance but that content can
be of a far superior quality. We therefore chose podcasts as our distribution
platform.

The outcome, the video-podcast, is a product for the distribution platform and
should be no more than ten minutes long. Although students have only six
weeks to complete the exercise, the length of presentation is to force them in to

69
presenting ideas clearly and concisely. In developing the assessed exercise we
considered three possible courses of action:

• introductory course (audio) A ten-minute introductory presentation for the

course. The exercise would consist of five episodes or lectures, lasting no
more than two minutes each.
• revision guide (enhanced audio) A ten-minute revision guide for a course
topic. The exercise would likely consist of two episodes, five minutes each
in length, one that focuses on revising lectures while the other would
focus on seminars.
• presentation on a course-specific topic of choice (video) A ten-minute
presentation on a course-specific topic of choice. This would be a single
episode, with the future intention of consolidating all podcasts into a
single podcast.

Initially, the first outcome seemed like the best option because it didn’t require
any significant knowledge or technology to produce and would be useful for
future students. Unfortunately, it would only require surface knowledge of most
course topics and might present too thin a notion of course content. The second
option attempted to address this problem by asking students to focus on a
particular aspect of the course and to use appropriate images to emphasise
points. This enhanced audio approach would see students synchronise audio with
images and offer DVD-style chapters for sub-topics. This would not only result in
a product useful to current students but also strengthen existing knowledge in
the student producing it. However, there are two foreseeable problems with this
approach: (a) specialist knowledge of software, and (b) lack of reflection on the
other elements of presentation like, body posture, facial movements, and
physical location. We want students to think about the language they use,
including their body language, and what they want the viewer / listener to
understand at the end of their presentation. This would all be most easily
available in the third course of action: video presentation on a course-specific
topic of the student’s choice.
Option three is slightly harder to achieve than audio but easier than enhanced
audio. It is likely that most students will not have the specialist knowledge or
software required to produce enhanced audio podcasts but will already know
how to produce videos using their mobile phone or webcam and, in many cases,
how to edit them using appropriate software. Option three is also the most
suitable for mirroring the course objectives and promotes an awareness of
audience and importance of appearance.

ABILITIES
The assessed exercise can be subdivided into three activities: preparation,
production, and distribution. Each activity requires its own unique set of abilities
with which each student must be equipped – during teaching hours, i.e.
seminars and workshops – if they are to do well.

Preparation
Unsurprisingly preparation, in terms of both time and energy, is the most
expensive activity within the whole exercise, and it is explained to the students
that, if they are to communicate successfully with their audience, they must
prepare their chosen topic thoroughly. This should not be too much of a
problem; they will have had lectures and seminars on all the major themes, and

70
they will have been directed towards course- and subject-specific reading and
research papers. Furthermore, the notes they will have taken in seminar
discussions should provide the perfect foundation for some interesting and
energetic discussion and the presentation of alternative points of view. They will
also know that, contra Aristotle’s belief that the true is always more appealing
than the false, these arguments must not only be sound but also stimulate the
audience. The aim is to make their presentations persuasive without feeling like
a lecture, which is quite a difficult thing to achieve in any medium.

Group work presents may challenges, not least of which is each member finding
his or her own rôle in relation to a dynamic set of relationships. This is
something that cannot be taught in this, or possibly any other, class; but what
the course coordinator can do in this class is impress upon the students that
their group is unlikely to strike the perfect balance in its first meeting and,
similarly, they must adopt an iterative approach to planning and writing the
script for their presentation, starting with a basic outline for their video and
fleshing it out over many attempts. They need also to run through their
presentation more than once, perhaps even having several dry runs to
determine the best format for their final recording.

Production
Producing a short ten-minute video presentation with the latest hardware and
software will require few new technical abilities. The groups were advised to
achieve as much as they wanted with the hardware (for example the
camcorder), and avoid the software (the editing suite) as much as possible. The
simple reason for this is that editing film is an expensive and complex stage in
production, and in this case it would really only mask the project’s objective.
Avoiding editing, with the exception of, perhaps, stitching together small
segments, is entirely possible with thorough planning. The groups attended a
one-hour workshop on how to use university equipment, but they were also
advised that they could record and edit their video using their own hardware and
software, for example, a mobile phone and iMovie. In addition to these
workshops each group had open contact to the course convenor to discuss
content, and access to one-to-one technical support for up to six hours, during
the production stage of their video.

Distribution
The distribution platform is podcasts. In order to utilise this platform a simple
text file, an RSS feed, is required. The feed contains information about the video
such as its title, synopsis and length. The structure of the feed is similar to that
of a webpage and requires knowledge of extensible mark-up language or XML
and how to use it. A briefing on the basics of this language was outlined at a
one-hour workshop. After the initial briefing students were asked to organise
themselves into their groups and to write the RSS feed for their video
presentation. They were asked to do this using pen and paper while some
example RSS feeds where shown on an overhead. The group’s efforts were
checked, corrected if necessary, and confirmed before the end of the session.
This meant students could type their RSS feed with the confidence that it was
correct.

MARKING SCHEME

71
The assessment would ultimately be awarded a passing grade of A – D or a
failing grade, E – N. The grades are mapped to a 22-point scale outlined by the
University. The lowest passing score is nine (D3) progressing upwards to a
maximum of 22 (A1). The assessment itself represents 25% of the final course
award.

Figure 1: Marking scheme

The final marking scheme was created specifically for the assessment, consisting
of five elements: RSS feed, video file, time-spent, content and log report.
The first four components are dependent upon each other, which is to say that,
failing to complete one results in failure in all.

Three of the components have a binary score, zero or one, they are: RSS feed,
video and log report. These components are not actually scored but their
satisfactory completion is recorded. If a student submits an invalid RSS feed,
poorly recorded video, or incomplete log report they will still be awarded one
point. However, this is not true if any of these components are corrupted,
damaged or clearly neglected. A simple example would be a student spending a
reasonable amount of time crafting a beautiful video and log report and
submitting both without an RSS feed. The student in this case has submitted a
video, not a video podcast. They would score zero for the first component,
resulting in 0 x 1 x 3 x 7 = 0, that is, a zero and fail overall. Thus, a student
must submit an RSS feed and video. The technical wizardry or competence
displayed in either component does not matter, since a student will only be
recorded as submitted or not submitted. Students showing forethought will not
waste time with visual effects and podcast tricks but focus on the content.

The two remaining components, time-spent and content, are scored in the range
zero to three and zero to seven respectively. These components are the most
important, and a high score in both will result in a very high score overall.

Ideally a group should work approximately 15 to 21 hours, with each member

contributing five to seven hours of their concentrated time. This might be
prescriptively divided up into 15 hours crafting content, three hours production
and three hours post-production. The time-spent component reflects this 21-
hour period but is not rigid. The marker can use their own judgment to assess

72
time-spent by considering all elements of information within the log report, the
storyboard and the scripts.

The content component from seven to zero reflects the grades A, B, C, D, E, F, G

and N. Thus, an award of five points is equal to a C. The grade or score for
content does not necessarily reflect the final grade. The interplay of components
could easily, and did in some cases, increase the final award. A simple example
would be a high-score of three for time-spent, five for content and, if we accept
all other components have been submitted, this would result in a final award of
16 points or a B2. The interplay between components provides room for the
marker to deliver the most appropriate grade while providing confidence and
criteria to the student.

THE STUDY
A group assignment was set on a third year philosophy course, with 24 students
in groups of two or three, to produce a video podcast on a course-specific topic
of their choice. The assignment was worth 25% of a student’s final course
award. The students had six weeks to complete the assignment and were
required to attend all seminars and two one-hour workshops, to equip
themselves with the necessary skills to complete the exercise. Groups were
advised they had six hours of one-to-one technical support from a trained
member of staff and had access to state-of-the-art podcast production
equipment but were also informed they could use their own equipment. Access
to equipment was tightly regulated, with no group allowed access after six hours
of use. This was a further attempt to emphasise the importance of planning and
content over presentation, but also to maintain a level of consistency in the
assistance afforded each group. The groups were required to submit all their
scripts and storyboards along with a typed RSS feed, their video in MP4 format
and log reports, one for each member of the group. The log report contained
several questions, some personal, some feedback, and some aimed at extracting
any technical or group difficulties during the exercise. The log report also asked
students, if they so wished, to produce a score for their fellow group members
along with a justification for that score.

A contingency plan was prepared for use in the eventuality of a complete

breakdown in the planned activity. The plan required the module coordinator to
film groups presenting their ideas. This recording would then be peer-assessed,
both intra- and inter- group.

FEEDBACK
Students on the course were initially rather hesitant, as is natural, about
embarking on a task for which they had little previous experience. We had
assumed that, with the prevalence of mobile phones, video-podcasts and
YouTube that they would have been more familiar with video technologies, but in
fact they were not. On reflection, we should not have expected anything else
because the students in this course had, and continue to have, the same attitude
to the creation of web pages, something they also do in a course which runs
prior to this one. In the first five years of their undertaking this sort of project
their attitudes have changed very little, nearly every student reports
experiencing a steep learning curve but also a strong sense of achievement
when their group’s web-pages are made available to the class and they can learn
from one another for essay-planning, revision, and examination preparation.

73
We assumed that the video-podcast exercise would be more appealing to
students because it would tap into, an assumed penchant, for video-recording
and editing. The course coordinator had similar feelings, as can be seen from the
quote below.

“I thought the dynamical form of giving a short spoken

presentation on a topic would be more appealing, especially
when it can be adapted and enriched in so many interesting and
imaginative ways.”
Course coordinator

However, actual academic performance and student feedback ran counter to our
assumptions. Although the students’ performance was no better or worse than in
previous years, products of the assessed exercise rarely embodied the
enthusiasm and creativity we had expected and hoped for. Instead groups
stayed largely on familiar ground producing, what amounted to video recordings
of the individuals collectively reciting essays. This is not to say that there were
not moments of inspiration but they were fairly few and quite far between.

The highest scoring group had sat down together and worked everything
through to the last detail. They then booked some time in the studio, recorded it
all in one go, did some editing, added some backing music, and had the project
completed ahead of time. The project had a clear connection to one of the
central themes in the course – identity and moral responsibility in cyberspace –
and the content was well argued and concise. At the other end of the scale, the
group who got the lowest score admitted to not having spoken together about
the project before they went to make their recording. Their topic
– representation and misrepresentation in space and cyberspace – was vague,
they made some drawings (which bore little relation to the project), then
scanned the drawings, added them to Keynote and made their video-podcast
using slides rather than their own planned action. The course is very rich and
stimulating, but this group had thought about the project so little that their
recording ran for less than seven minutes and a considerable portion of that was
their credits.

It could simply be that our own enthusiasm carried us along and our
expectations were set too high, but it is clear that, although our students are no
different from any others in their high use of mobile phones for communication,
they are not “digital natives”. However, we are not entirely forlorn. Table 1
reveals some interesting points extracted from log-reports. Three things of
particular note stand out: (a) all students own a dedicated mobile phone and
music player, (b) the majority perform poorly at basic digital tasks such as
accessing a wireless access point, and (c) the majority of students enjoyed the
exercise.

Question Yes No

74
Do you own an iPod? 10 4*

Do you own a mobile

14 0
phone?

Do you browse the web

on your mobile phone? 1 13

Do you use any of the

university’s wireless 8 6
access points?

Did you enjoy the

12 2
exercise?
*all own Sony brand digital audio player.

Table 1: Interesting questions from the log-report, N = 14.

The students were not only asked if they enjoyed the exercise but elicited what
they thought about it in general, some interesting responses:

“I thought the exercise was really interesting and allowed us to

express what we have learned in a different way.” Student 1
“Coming up with a subject was challenging, making and editing
was hard work but rewarding and at times, fun.” Student 2
“Good, challenging. Very technical and for people who didn’t
like technical things... quite hard.” Student 3

It is still unclear what students found more challenging: technically producing a

video or reformulating content for an audience. The products of their efforts
suggest both, but this could be because the assessed exercise introduced two
new elements for non-technical students: technical tools and producing content
for an audience to assess in terms of its pedagogical worth.

REPURPOSING
The videos produced by the groups can be repurposed and used as revision
material for students, preparatory material for future students or marketing
material for potential students.

Revision
There should be little to no effort required in repurposing videos as revision aids.
The videos produced by groups should really reflect a revision process by the
students themselves. The salient sections of interest and key concepts should be
easily extractable and concise. The short ten-minute videos represent the
perfect start and end to a study session, and a student could easily refresh a
topic of study by watching the video while commuting to the University Library,
and before they enter the Library they know the key topics, concepts and
relevant papers. They gather their resources, spend some hours reading and can
then compare their thoughts and notes to those presented on the video. If they
have missed anything or have had an original thought – they can tackle it at the

75
next study session. Idealistic maybe, but for such a powerful learning resource
to be the by-product of an assessed exercise is really quite wonderful.

Unfortunately, the real concern in repurposing videos as revision aids is the

quality and value of their content. If all videos are published without using
performance as a filter, there is potential for students to have misplaced
confidence in videos that are stylish and enjoyable but which lack core content.
This may mislead students during a stressful examination period, especially if
significant differences exist between course content and that expressed in the
video. However, if only the videos scoring 15 / B3 and above are published, we
inadvertently reveal a student or students’ grade to others, and we breach their
right to privacy.

These reasons, amongst others, prevented us from repurposing the videos as

revision aids. However, future iterations of the learning design could incorporate
advice from Collis & Moonen (Collis & Moonen, 2005).

But perhaps an alternative would be to use the video-podcasts to introduce new

students to the course. For this purpose there could be no risk in only using the
best.

Marketing
Video is a strong marketing resource, far more accessible than a well-written
essay. Prospective employers, students, their parents and an increasingly large
international audience can see at a glance the quality of learning and teaching at
the university, not only through the content of the video but the approaches
used as well.

Unfortunately, this strength is also a weakness. Video is far easier to criticise

because it is accessible and popular. Whereas literary work is tried, tested and
respected as an assessment medium, videos for non-technical subjects are not.
This is because too little is known about them in this context by learning and
teaching practitioners and there is no reason to expect a different response from
the public since they, like us, will need to be convinced.

CONCLUSION
In conclusion we should consider the question of whether or not it was a mistake
to introduce a significant exercise that was for the students a novel task in both
its format and the tools required, and in its nature as a learning activity, with
students producing content for a different audience, not just for a teacher to
mark. The marks show that many of the student groups focussed on either
mastering the technology or on producing intellectually worthwhile content, but
not both. However, the higher scoring groups did manage to address both and
this might have been because they, other groups had done the comparable
webpage exercise in a previous course – one of these students even reported
that they had “really enjoyed this course especially the opportunity to create a
web-page and a podcast which is invaluable knowledge I can take into any job
I may have in the future.” This suggests that students need practice at this
learning activity, just as with most others, but that they improve rapidly with
practice: unique, unrepeated types of assessment lead to generally poor results.
Given the employability-related learning aims of exercising communication skills

76
and especially in multiple formats, then introducing more such exercises rather
than dropping them would seem to be the way forward.

Bibliography
Collis, B. & Moonen, J. (2005). ‘An on-going journey: Technology as a learning
workbench’. University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands. Available
http://www.BettyCollisJefMoonen.nl
Draper, S.W. & Maguire, J. (2007) ‘Exploring podcasting as part of campus-
based teaching’. Practice and Evidence of the Scholarship of Teaching and
Learning in Higher Education v2, no.1 pp.42-63.
Frydenberg, M. (2006) ‘Principles and Pedagogy: The Two P’s of Podcasting in
the Information Technology Classroom’. The Proceedings of ISECON 2006.
v23, (Dallas): §3354. ISSN: 1542-7382.
Lee, M.J.W., McLoughlin, C. & Chan, A. (2008) ‘Talk the talk: Learner-generated
podcasts as catalysts for knowledge creation’. British Journal of Educational
Technology v39, no.3 pp.501-521.
Prensky, M. (2001) ‘Digital natives, digital immigrants’. On the Horizon v9, no.5
pp1-6.
Spires, H. & Morris, G. (2008). ‘New Media Literacies, Student Generated
Content, and the YouTube Aesthetic’. In Proceedings of World Conference on
Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2008, pp.
4409-4418. Chesapeake, VA: AACE.
Wojtas, O. (2006) ‘Kant get no satisfaction, try iTunes new No 1’. Times Higher
Education Supplement. 15th December 2006. Front Page.

77
ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL SERVICE STAFF COLLABORATION
TO FOSTER INDEPENDENT LEARNING

Angela Benzies and Jane McDowell, Napier University

Keywords: Active learning, information literacy, transformation, pedagogy,

social constructivism

ABSTRACT
This paper outlines how the project ‘Transforming and Enhancing the Student
Experience through Pedagogy’, used a social constructivist pedagogical approach
to support active learning and information literacy development within a module
in engineering design management, with the intention of improving both student
experience and assessment performance. The result was greater engagement
with the body of knowledge, increased peer collaboration, and appropriate
deployment of technology to facilitate the learning, teaching and assessment in
the context of on-campus delivery, supported by discipline-based information
literacy input from a librarian. In taking forward the lessons learnt the authors
present the current work on more systematic development of scholarship skills
across programmes of study by The Society of College, National and University
Libraries (SCONUL) and Glasgow Caledonian and Napier Universities, and argue
that collaboration among academic and professional services staff is essential to
the success of such ventures in transforming the student experience.

INTRODUCTION
Napier University was the lead institution on a higher/further education (FE/HE)
collaborative project entitled ‘Transforming and Enhancing the Student
Experience through Pedagogy’ (TESEP), which started in 2005 and finished in
July 2007. It was one of six E-learning and Transformational Change projects
supported by £6m from the Scottish Funding Council, the overall aim of the
programme being to support effective and significant change in technology-
supported learning, teaching and assessment practice within institutions and
across the FE and HE sectors, partly to ease the transition between two. A
community of practice approach was taken with each practitioner participating in
a sub-project within their own institution and contributing to the shared
knowledge of the group throughout the project’s operational phase. Work done
across the whole project was collated at the end into the TESEP Transform
website (Napier University, 2007a) to serve as both a showcase and a resource,
and the intention was to use the experience gained and resources developed to
continue with the transformation work beyond the project’s official end date.

Napier University’s Learning, Teaching and Assessment Strategy emphasises the

role of the development of scholarly skills in the achievement of its aims and
clearly sets out the intention that students should be playing an increasingly
active and responsible role in their own learning, including the development of
these scholarly, research and transferable skills (Napier University 2008). The
TESEP project provided a vehicle for the further exploration of this area and the
opportunity to develop pedagogical approaches, tools and techniques that could
be subsequently embedded in mainstream curriculum development and teaching
practice.

78
THE TESEP PROJECT
Vision and aims
Several issues pointed towards the necessity of examining how pedagogically-
driven technology-supported learning could be used to transform educational
practice at institutional level including political developments such as the
widening access agenda, and practical issues such as the need for greater
flexibility of delivery. Students’ familiarity with technology and the desire to use
it to help them access leaning in a manner appropriate and attractive to them,
the need to update the technical skills of staff and the absolute requirement to
apply technology in an educationally sound manner, gave the impetus for
experimenting with a range of tools and methods for learning, teaching and
assessment and its support. TESEP did not promote a techno-centric approach
but rather one where technology was recognised as an enabler.

A central tenet of TESEP was that learning should be designed to give control to
the learners themselves, hence the project’s strapline, ‘Learners in Control’.
While the amount of control appropriate for each stage of study may vary, it is
certainly the case that such learner control is necessary for truly active learning
to take place and, consequently, if this is to happen learners must be adequately
prepared and confident to accept the associated responsibility.

Pedagogical foundations
TESEP advocated a social constructivist pedagogical approach, i.e. one where
the human activity of constructing knowledge and meaning from one’s
experiences is conducted within a social context and comprises such activities as
collaborative research, and peer tutoring and assessment. Technology added
another dimension to this in that it enabled some of the necessary research,
communication and collaboration, and the project aimed to utilise innovative
tools and techniques, tailored for the specific requirements of the particular
student group. Although it was not a requirement that the redesign was
constructed as problem based learning, there were overlaps with this approach
and some institutional projects did adopt it.

Organisational structure
The project was run by a professional project manager supported by a project
management team comprising senior staff from each participating institution and
led by a project director. In addition a project team of institutional e-pedagogy
experts, an external consultant, an evaluator and an accessibility advisor
supported a community of twenty practitioners drawn from a variety of discipline
areas. Regular workshops, individual assistance, reflective blogs and an
electronic community forum provided the mechanisms for project coordination,
support and sharing of knowledge. All practitioners had access to case study
outlines, models, learning designs and reflective diary material from their TESEP
colleagues which assisted in transferring across lessons learnt in one project to
another.

THE NAPIER TESEP ENGINEERING PROJECT

Project aims
The engineering TESEP project was centred around a module entitled ‘Case
Studies in Design Management’ which covers analysis of successes and failures
in product design, examination of the effect of organisational structure on design

79
performance, quality management and use of computer based tools for design
process support, all leading to the development of best practice exemplars for
good design management. The module is part of the BSc (Honours) in Product
Design Engineering which is accredited by the Institution of Engineering
Designers (IED) and the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET). As
TESEP started there were approximately sixty-five students across all years of
the programme and seventeen taking this year three module. There were four
contact hours per week which were used as a flexible mix of lectures, tutorials
and seminars, supported by paper-based materials that were used in the form of
a study guide. Students made formally assessed presentations on selected
topics related to design management and also submitted an individual design
management exemplar for their final summative assessment. While the module
concept had been commended by its external examiner and its operation was
not problematic, it was recognised that the students’ use of learning resources
could be improved as their engagement had been variable and there had been
little technology use within the module. The TESEP project, therefore, provided
an ideal opportunity to enhance what was already a valuable module, by making
the student experience more enjoyable, by promoting greater student
engagement and peer collaboration, and using appropriate technologies to
support this in the context of on-campus delivery. There was also the
opportunity to address the relatively common problem of lack of engagement
with management topics by engineers who perceive that they are not as relevant
as their technical subjects.

Approach
The redesign was done alongside the broader training and staff development
activity of the TESEP project community, initial implementation on the module
was carried out in semester two of session 2006/07, and the tools and
techniques were also applied as appropriate to other semester one modules of
that session. The changes in delivery were designed to encourage more student
activity outside class, some of which was centred around tutor supplied
materials, and to put greater emphasis on students adding to this through their
own individual and group research. The technology focus initially was on using
video to help with the assessed presentations, and use of library databases for
researching presentations, though more extensive use of technology was
planned for subsequent sessions, including WebCT Vista discussion boards and
wikis. Blogs and audio technology were also investigated and implemented on
other engineering modules, with the aim of using such technology to support
both student and staff tasks; for example, voice recognition software was used
to improve the quality of assessment feedback for students.

The intended outcomes for the redesign of the Case Studies module were:

• More motivated, engaged and active students

• Better quality output from learning tasks
• Evidence of deeper student knowledge of the subject area
• More student confidence with use of technology for learning and
assessment
• Maintenance of good progression rates and improvement in the quality of
work

80
 • More effective staff teamwork, using skills of academics, educational
development experts, and library staff to optimise the learning and
teaching experience

The TESEP model did not focus on content creation, which is where much
resource is often directed in e-learning development, but on the design of
learning activities and promotion of active student engagement in a variety of
tasks, including finding and analysing content, discussion and peer collaboration.
Explicit development of information literacy skills was designed into the learning
framework, which was not simply generic, but focused around the specific
discipline and assessment tasks. Thus a progressive development of learner
independence was facilitated over the period of the module delivery with the
academic and a librarian guiding the students through structured activities,
providing the expert knowledge to make the exploration fruitful.

Student Views on Technology-Supported Collaborative Learning

The details of the changes envisaged were discussed with students taking the
module and their views on collaborative e-learning and technology usage were
gathered by means of a survey. Key results are described below:

‘100% said they liked the idea of using technology to help with teaching
and learning and 94% reported it worked well and helped them to learn.
70% indicated that they would like to use additional technologies to those
used to date, e.g. podcasting, although some had difficultly using the tools
already provided due to lack of time or knowledge. Around 24% were
happy with the level of technology usage, either because they felt that was
adequate, or because it was more than that used in other modules.
Students recognised the benefits of technology, particularly immediacy,
ability to work any place any time, having a repository of information and
being able to potentially obtain information in different formats, and 65%
believed that technology supported an interactive approach to learning.
88% also reported that they learnt more from working in a group to
prepare presentations and on courseworks, as opposed to just participating
in lectures and tutorials, citing benefits including: increased confidence,
being able to learn from each other, developing abilities with research,
more in depth learning, and being forced to work at a consistent pace
throughout the module’ (Benzies, 2006).

Practice (i.e. formative) and final (summative assessment) presentations were

captured on video and each student group was given a DVD. The first time this
was done it was very labour intensive for the lecturer, who did all the production
and post-production processing tasks, but in the second iteration the students
were given the video cameral and a technician did the DVD production. This
worked much better in terms of managing workload, students enjoyed the
process more and were better engaged and, perhaps consequently, they seemed
to value the video feedback more highly than in the initial run.

Actual Results
The video feedback certainly did seem to improve performance on the
presentation element of the assessment and anecdotal evidence indicated that
this student group was also able to transfer the good presentation performance
across to other module work.

81
However, there were still gaps in scholarly skills as evidenced by assessment
performance in the individual written work and this was somewhat disappointing.
This could have be tackled by reinforcing the preparation for research activity
and investing effort in writing skills development, though it is believed that the
TESEP project experience shows that such deficiencies cannot be turned round
within a single module and that a more comprehensive approach to building
scholarly skills is needed, requiring input from Year 1 and across the
programme, to progressively build learner competence.

Setting expectations of active learning early on is a major factor in successful

use of technology and collaborative working methods in modules and
programmes. For example, where students feel that they are being asked to do
more work in a module organised according to a technology-enhanced, social
constructivist model than in their other modules, they may express a wish to
revert to a more passive form of learning. Therefore, it is suggested that to be
effective, TESEP principles need to be used consistently across programmes and
institutions, rather than be dependent on individual practitioners, and that
institutions should review their curriculum from a learners’ perspective.

SCHOLARLY SKILLS DEVELOPMENT

The Need for Action
If it is accepted that Universities are scholarly communities, then a key aim must
be to develop scholarly skills in all students so they may fully participate in the
community, including the skills of enquiry, analysis, critical thinking and writing.
Sitting under the umbrella of scholarly skills are information literacy skills and
these were the focus of the library staff involved in the TESEP Engineering
project at Napier. The authors’ approach was a combination of a skills and
socialisation rather than a ‘new academic literacies’ one, though the learning
was negotiated and situated within a specific discipline context (Lea and Street,
1998).

Within the current university context the direct responsibility for the provision of
information literacy skills rests with the five full-time subject specialist librarians,
known as Information Services Advisors (ISAs), who are assigned to one or
more Schools. Approach and level of engagement with academic colleagues
varies between the disciplines, and an individual academic’s own view on the
value of information literacy skills development and its particular place in their
module determines if and when such skills are emphasised in the learning,
teaching and assessment activity. All this can lead to imbalance and gaps in the
curriculum, especially in cross-discipline programmes. Other related work with
academic staff has revealed the need for professional development for that
group in the area of information skills, though this problem is largely
unacknowledged and therefore hidden. Previous individual arrangements
between library and academic staff are now complemented by more targeted
staff education including showcase events at lunchtimes or internal staff
conferences and sessions within the Academic Development professional
development programme. This is considered important in ensuring that
professional services and academic staff share a common understanding of
information literacy development and resources so all may efficiently work
towards embedding scholarly skills within the curriculum, thus giving students
the tools to engage with active and independent learning.

82
The TESEP project work revealed the extent of the gap in information literacy
skills among these year three students and, as they were believed to be typical
of the general student population at Napier, confirmed the need to effectively
prepare students for the challenges of independent learning in a more
systematic manner. The particular source of the difficultly in researching for
their learning and assessment tasks was that these students had received no
formal information literacy training since having a short lecture as an induction
input from library staff in first year and, without the TESEP project intervention,
would not have had any support in this regard before beginning their honours
year projects. In the context of the TESEP project the immediate challenge was
to upskill these students as rapidly as possible, which was carried out by means
of the academic and professional staff working together to assess the key
information literacy skills required, with reference to the assessment task and
the elements within the Seven Pillars model of information literacy produced by
The Society of College, National and University Libraries (SCONUL). The
technology aspects of information literacy are specifically cited by SCONUL,
stating that the “definition of information skills in higher education reflects twin
dimensions of the ‘competent student’ and the ‘information literate’ person, and
that “higher education in the UK should be more proactive in contributing to the
debate about the learning implications of an ‘information society”, hence the link
to the e-learning development aspirations of TESEP (The Society of College,
National and University Libraries, 1999). Also, effective and efficient
management of information, including the ability to determine veracity,
understand, extract meaning and then use appropriately, represents an
important employability skill.

SCONUL has continued to update the Seven Pillars model and it forms the basis
of many information literacy frameworks at UK HE institutions. The model
outlines a range of information and IT skills against a path of progression from
first-year undergraduates through to post-graduate researchers.

83
Figure 1 SCONUL Pillars

During the TESEP work, the academic and librarian had to quickly decide the
skills the students needed, rather than consider this in the wider context of the
requirements of the programme. By using practical group work and instructor
led demonstrations in a computer laboratory it was possible to teach some new
information literacy skills and proceed quickly to engage the students in some
independent learning. However, while perceived to be useful and enjoyable by
the student group, this short intervention had limited success in improving the
overall quality of the individual written assignment, which still showed room for
improvement in terms of evidence of scholarly skills generally. If information
literacy skills had been developed progressively during previous years, it is likely
that the students would have had not only the practical abilities but the
confidence to engage further in more active, independent learning and that
would have improved their assessment performance.

Post-TESEP Work: Approaches and Models

Involvement in the engineering TESEP project renewed staff focus on the
delivery of information literacy skills and also on the benefits of collaboration
between academic and professional staff. One of the practical initiatives
undertaken was a pilot project with School of Built Environment and Engineering
academics to develop online learning objects that may be imported into the
institution’s virtual learning environment (VLE) module websites; these objects
include narrated video demonstrations (created using Camtasia software) that
show how to access elements of the library resources such as electronic
databases. It is hoped that as the learning objects project continues, students
will become involved in updating and creating some of the objects themselves.
This complements the work done on the Information Skills Online resource,
IN:FORM, that was co-created with around 60 students, and includes their
student voices, (Napier University, 2007e).

It seemed also that the time was right to start developing an institutional
information literacy framework, mapping information skills criteria against levels
7 to 10 of the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) levels (The
Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework Partnership, 2007). The criteria
were selected by using not only the SCONUL Seven Pillars, but also the
emerging work of the National Information Literacy Framework for Scotland,
which has been developed from research at Glasgow Caledonian University and
is particularly useful as it links learning outcomes using SCQF and shows how
scholarly skills can be linked and embedded within a curriculum. It could also
support initiatives associated with the recent focus on fostering research
teaching linkages as means of enhancing graduate attributes (The Quality
Assurance Agency for Higher Education, 2006). The initial draft of a Napier
Information Literacy Framework, which details recent library initiatives and
resources for scholarly skills development, has been formally presented at the
Faculty and University Learning Teaching and Assessment Committee meetings
and at a staff conference. While this has prompted several interested responses
from those attending, it would seem that this information has not yet cascaded
further down to the rest of the academic staff. The mapping of skills against
SCQF levels and Napier library resources may be seen in Appendix A.

84
SCONUL proposed “that the development of the idea of ‘information literacy’
requires a collaborative and integrated approach to curriculum design and
delivery based on close co-operation between academic, library and staff
development colleagues” and this approach was taken to an extent within the
TESEP engineering project. The recent development of the Napier Information
Literacy Framework is helpful in moving on from TESEP, but only proposes how
collaboration may be done, rather than achieves it, and further work is required
to ensure that graduates acquire the necessary information skills as they
progress through their programmes. In terms of promoting staff collaboration,
the approach taken by Newcastle University in the development of their
Information Literacy Toolkit and Forum is of interest. Academic staff can choose
from a range of online learning objects mapped across curriculum and student
levels and they run an Information Literacy Forum, consisting of a group of
interested academics and library staff, which feeds back into the development of
the toolkit and fosters better collaboration.

Towards Concurrent Curriculum Design

Collaboration may be defined as academic staff providing input to library
initiatives such as those detailed above but it is suggested that this limits the
visibility and benefits of such work and instead a more strategic approach is
required. The authors propose that university policies and procedures apply the
principles of concurrent engineering to promote ‘concurrent curriculum design’,
i.e. a process whereby modules are designed concurrently with programmes and
in conjunction with professional services staff to facilitate the designing in of
academic literacy skills development across each stage and longitudinally
throughout each programme. The major barrier to this in the minds of some is
the modular system which encourages a narrow focus on individual module
development by discipline experts within subject groups, rather than a holistic
view of programme provision that plans progressive development of discipline
and scholarly skills. Even when modular systems did not exist and it could be
argued that it was easier to facilitate ‘joined up thinking’ among individual
academics developing a programme, it was not usually the case that scholarly
skills development was planned in a systematic manner.

At Napier the move to 20 credit modules and the redevelopment of the academic
year has created opportunities to establish strategic priorities and embed the
key lessons from TESEP in the guidelines for programme and module design,
including the development of scholarly skills (Napier University, 2007b). This
major curriculum development exercise, which was completed in session
2007/08, required each School to create a ‘culture’ or ‘ethos’ document in which
it stated how it would deal with the following aspects of provision:

a) continually improving learning, teaching and assessment;

b) embedding employability and personal development planning (PDP);
c) internationalising the curriculum;
d) addressing the need for scholarly skills;
e) supporting diversity.

A redesign of Week 1 activities allows basic information literacy skills

development to be incorporated there, while others are best embedded with the
assessment work later on in the programme, which emphasises relevance to the
discipline. To help make consideration of outcomes explicit, each module

85
descriptor has a section corresponding to the five priorities above in which
module leader may outline their approach.

The introduction of a matrix management structure clarifies how the academic

development and student experience functions operate, with management of
these undertaken by School Directors, Faculty Associate Deans, and Vice
Principals. The ISAs are available to meet with Directors of Student Experience
and of Academic Development, as well as Programme and Module leaders to
discuss these competencies and plan how outcomes can best be met for each
student group. The information literacy framework may also prove useful for
Personal Development Tutors as they discuss personal and academic
development more generally with individual students.

CONCLUSIONS
The case is made for systematic development of scholarly skills in order to equip
students for active learning and is reflected in TESEP’s learner support and
conclusions papers (Napier University, 2007c and d), and the management
structure, policy and procedural framework now exists within Napier to achieve
the concurrent curriculum design described above. It is therefore up to those in
positions of academic leadership to translate this into on-going, operational
practice that is reflected in subsequent programme planning and review, in
addition to annual module appraisals, and to effect a change in culture to deliver
on the statements in the 20 credit ethos documents. Genuine concerns and
constraints must be acknowledged and overcome but, if successful, the proposed
approach should ensure a more satisfying learning, teaching and assessment
experience for students and staff, and be reflected in improvements in the
profile of graduates. However, this aim will be compromised if there is not
genuine collaboration among staff and recognition of the specialist skills that
each can contribute.

References
Benzies, A. (2006) Teaching Engineering with Technology. In: Harris, DMJ,
Clarke, RB, Ahmed, W and Morgan M (ed) Proceedings of The 23rd
International Manufacturing Conference, August 30 – September 1, 2006,
University of Ulster, Northern Ireland. Newtownabbey, University of Ulster.
Irving, C., and Crawford, J. (2007) A National Information Literacy Framework
Scotland (Working Draft). [Internet], Glasgow, Glasgow Caledonian
University. Available from:
http://www.caledonian.ac.uk/ils/documents/DraftFramework1g.pdf [Accessed
17 October 2008]
Lea, M. and Street, B (1998) ‘Student Writing in Higher Education: An academic
literacies approach’. Studies in Higher Education, 23:2, pp.157-172. London,
Taylor and Francis.
Napier University. (2007a) TESEP Transform. [Internet], Edinburgh, Napier
University. Available from: http://www2.napier.ac.uk/transform [Accessed 17
October 2008]
Napier University. (2007b) The 20-Credit Handbook. [Internet], Edinburgh,
Napier University. Available from:
http://staff.napier.ac.uk/NR/rdonlyres/3EA9FCCE-9A50-415A-A779-
52D8BDB07656/5118/20CreditHandbookOnline2.pdf [Accessed 17 October
2008]

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Napier University. (2007c) TESEP Evaluation Report: Learner Conclusions.
TESEP Transform [Internet], Edinburgh, Napier University. Available from:
http://www2.napier.ac.uk/transform/evaluation_report/files/conclusions_lear
ners.doc [Accessed 17 October 2008]
Napier University. (2007d) TESEP: Rethinking Learner Support. [Internet],
Edinburgh, Napier University. Available from:
http://www2.napier.ac.uk/transform//Rethinking_Learner_Support.pdf
[Accessed 17 October 2008]
Napier University. (2007e) Information Skills Online [Internet], Edinburgh,
Napier University. Available at: http://www2.napier.ac.uk/inform/main.html
[Accessed 17 October 2008]
Napier University (2008) Learning, Teaching and Assessment Strategy:
promoting learning for achieving potential. [Internet], Edinburgh, Napier
University. Available from: http://www2.napier.ac.uk/ed/pdf/LTA_2008.pdf
[Accessed 17 October 2008]
Scottish Funding Council (2007) TESEP Project report. [Internet], Edinburgh,
Scottish Funding Council. Available from:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/elearningsfc/sfcbooklet
tesep.pdf [Accessed 17 October 2008]
The Society of College, National and University Libraries (SCONUL) (1999)
Briefing Paper: information skills in higher education. [Internet], London:
SCONUL. Available from:
http://www.SCONUL.ac.uk/groups/information_literacy/papers/Seven_pillars
2.pdf [Accessed 17 October 2008]
The Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework Partnership (2007) Scottish
Credit and Qualifications Framework [Internet], Glasgow, Scottish Credit and
Qualifications Framework. Available at:
http://www.scqf.org.uk/AbouttheFramework/Overview-of-Framework.aspx
[Accessed 17 October 2008]
The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (2007) Research-
Teaching Linkages: Enhancing Graduate Attributes [Internet],
Glasgow, The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education. Available
at:
http://www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk/themes/ResearchTeaching/default.as
p [Accessed 17 October 2008]

87
APPENDIX A Table 1 Year 1 (SCQF Level 7)

Outcomes: To recognise a need for information. To develop an awareness of

the basic information sources available at Napier , recognising when and how to
use these. To acknowledge the use of information sources via standard
referencing methods
ACTIVITIES AND SKILLS Maps to Library (NULIS) –
SCONUL possible delivery
Information methods
Skill
Develop an awareness of the basic Skill ΠBasic C&IT/NULIS
services offered by the university Week1 induction
campus libraries including locations PowerPoint;
and opening hours
Locate the main campus library for
the programme of study
Be capable of accessing the library Skill 
catalogue (NUIN) and the electronic INFORM - library’s
portal (NUINLink) both on and off online information skills
campus programme
Have a basic awareness of at least Skill 
one major subject resource Library web pages
appropriate for the programme and including subject guides
year of study
Know where to locate module reading Skill  NULIS Online learning
lists objects.
Recognise the individual elements in Skill 
ISA led lecture(s)
a bibliographical reference
Appreciate the difference in content Skill  ISA led practical
between books and journals workshop(s)
Select items from a reading list, Skills , 
knowing how to locate these using ISA/Lecturer-led PBL
the library catalogue and/or portal activities.
Know how to borrow, renew and Skill 
request library items GUS – Get Ready for
Gain an appreciation of information Skill  University Study online
quality and how to evaluate it package [Wider Access]
Appreciate the need to evaluate the Skill 
use of internet based information
sources (who, what, when, why?)
Be aware of the concepts of Skill ‘
referencing and plagiarism
Know where to locate, and how to Skill ‘
use, the appropriate referencing
system for the programme of study

88
APPENDIX A Table 2 Year 2 (SCQF Level 8)

Outcomes: To recognise a need for information to fulfil a particular task. To

develop insight and experience in searching a limited range of subject based
information sources. To appreciate the need to select and evaluate the
information retrieved, referencing it where appropriate.
ACTIVITIES AND SKILLS Maps to Library (NULIS) –
SCONUL possible delivery
Information methods
Skill
Identify the information required for a Skill Œ
particular task
Specify the information required in the Skill Ž INFORM - library’s
form of significant keywords and online information skills
synonyms programme
Select a limited number of appropriate Skill 
sources to search Library web pages
Construct a search strategy Skill Ž including subject
appropriate to the resource being used guides
and the time available.
Consider the use of search techniques Skill Ž NULIS Online learning
such as Boolean, truncation and objects
wildcard searching; how to cope with
too much/too little information; how to NUINLINK - guides &
apply search limits . instruction
Select suitable references and know Skill 
how to access these by linking/saving/ Databases – guides &
printing instruction
Differentiate between the quality and Skill 
nature of information retrieved from ISA led lecture(s)
different sources using standard
evaluation techniques including ISA led practical
relevance, level, currency, bias, workshop(s)
authority.
Use the retrieved information where Skill ‘ ISA/Lecturer-led PBL
appropriate, to construct reference activities
lists and bibliographies, applying the
required referencing system for the
programme of study
Have an awareness of the concept of Skill ‘
copyright for personal study

89
APPENDIX A Table 3 Year 3/4 (SCQF Level 9/10)

Outcomes: To construct information strategies to meet a wide range of

information needs. To develop insight and experience in searching a wide range
of subject based information sources. To evaluate the information retrieved,
reflecting and redefining the information search where appropriate. To consider
the storage and retrieval of bibliographical references. To appreciate methods of
current awareness appropriate to the area of study
ACTIVITIES AND SKILLS Maps to Library (NULIS) –
SCONUL possible delivery
Information methods
Skill
Design a systematic plan to retrieve Skill Œ
and review literature to meet a INFORM - library’s
particular information need online information
Analyse the information requirement, Skill Ž skills programme
constructing a list of major and minor
concepts in the form of significant Library web pages
keywords, phrases and synonyms. including subject
Determine search limits. guides
Construct a comprehensive search Skill Ž
strategy/(ies) appropriate to the NULIS Online learning
resources being used and the time objects
available.
Apply advanced database search Skill Ž NUINLINK - guides &
techniques, considering the use of instruction
controlled vocabulary and/or cross
searching. Databases – guides &
Critically evaluate search results, Skill  instruction
modifying the search plan where
necessary Endnote - guides &
Consider an appropriate method for the Skill ‘ instuction
storage and retrieval of search results,
i.e. importing/exporting results to and ISA led lecture(s)
from bibliographical reference
management software. ISA led practical
Be aware of how to access material Skill  workshop(s)
outwith Napier using the Document
Supply service and/or through the use ISA led info on subject
of external library access schemes. based current
Use the retrieved information, where Skill ‘ awareness sources &
appropriate, to construct reference lists services
and bibliographies, accurately applying
the required referencing system for the JISC Legal
programme of study
Determine a strategy for maintaining Skill ‘
current awareness in the area of study
Have a working knowledge of the Skill ‘
ethical and legal constraints involved in
using published/unpublished
information

90
AUTONOMY & AUTHORITY: CREATING A LEARNING COMMUNITY
ONLINE

Cathy Sherratt, Edge Hill University

Abstract
This paper explores how we might create or develop a learning community
online, and the implications of this for the role of the online tutor. Opinion is
divided regarding the ideal conditions to support the emergence of learning
communities, although there seems good agreement regarding the usefulness of
the online medium to support a social constructivist approach.

A typology of expressed needs for tutor support is presented and discussed as a

possible means to assist tutors in nurturing online learning community. Issues
of ‘authority’ and peer support are also explored.

Introduction
This paper will explore how we might create or develop a learning community
online, and the implications of this for the role of the online tutor. In the
postgraduate programme in Clinical Education at Edge Hill University, a multi-
disciplinary professional development course for clinical educators, delivered by
means of 'blended learning', the Course Team have embraced what can be
termed a ‘social constructivist’ approach. Thus, the course has been designed
and taught using discussion as a major element of the learning experience (see
Brookfield & Preskill, 1999, 2005), and we therefore place great emphasis on
encouraging interactivity within the programme.

We use an asynchronous online discussion forum within our Virtual Learning

Environment (VLE) – simple and familiar technology, and in distinct contrast to
Hung and Chen (2001), we find that it works in supporting the development of
dialogue. When it works well, we can see a real learning community emerge,
which could, perhaps, also be thought of as a ‘Community of Practice’, as
proposed by Wenger (1998). This learning community allows us to realise our
social constructivist ideals, with students supporting, interacting with, and
learning from each other.

Henderson and colleagues (2007) however, remind us that Communities of

Practice cannot be designed, but must be allowed to emerge - although they
admit that we can assist their emergence by careful architecture, a point
supported by Wilson and colleagues (2004), when they identify that there is a
subtle difference between a spontaneously-arising Community of Practice and
the more formally constituted ‘Bounded Learning Community’ that as tutors we
try to create within an educational setting.

However, it is interesting to note that several years earlier, Johnson (2001) had
proposed that a Community of Practice can emerge within what he described as
a ‘designed community’, and so it would appear that our course context should
not be seen as a barrier to community formation.

Meanwhile, more recently, Hara and Hew (2007) have questioned whether the
same success factors hold good for a community that is deliberately created

91
rather than one which spontaneously emerges – an interesting consideration
when we are seeking to develop a learning community within the artificial
confines of an educational programme.

Online Interaction
So what can the online tutor do to promote the formation of learning
communities? And what is our role? Woo and Reeves (2007:15) remind us that
“One of the key components of good pedagogy, regardless of whether
technology is involved, is Interaction”, and this, therefore, appears to be a good
starting point in considering how we might encourage the formation of a learning
community.

In earlier work (Sherratt & Sackville, 2006) we explored discourse within the
online discussion board in our postgraduate programme, identifying the
achievement of true dialogue online, rather than the unconnected statements, or
‘serial monologue’ which a number of authors have commented on (see, for
example, Henri, 1991; Pawan et al, 2003; and Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007).

Goodfellow and Hewling (2005) have complained that “Participation as a

pedagogical synonym for learning has long been a key feature in the discourse
of computer-mediated communication in education”. Meanwhile, Woo and
Reeves (2007:18) have also reminded us that “social constructivists do not
maintain that all conversation and discussion occurring anywhere anytime are
meaningful for learning”!

However, whilst it is true that consideration of the content and context as well as
frequency of postings is necessary in order to gain a full picture of the overall
online learning experience, nevertheless, it is also clear that active engagement
within the online discussion board can contribute significantly to the learning
both of individual participants and the group as a whole. Furthermore, Rovai
(2002) has suggested that interaction is a major factor in creating a learning
community. Thus, despite the comments of Goodfellow and Hewling (2005),
noted above, nevertheless, interaction and the achievement of dialogue within
the online discussion board can only be considered to be advantageous.

Peer Facilitators and Social Interaction

In the Edge Hill Clinical Education programme, participants are divided up so
that they work in groups, or ‘Learning Sets’, of no more than 15 members.
Students do not choose their group, but rather, they are allocated to their
Learning Set, so that wherever possible, each Learning Set is ‘balanced’ to
contain an equal ratio of males and females, and a similar spread of different
professions (e.g. doctors, dentists, nurses, paramedics).

In previous work, we have noted that the presence of what we have termed
“peer facilitators” has a huge impact on the development of dialogue (Sherratt &
Sackville, 2006), and if we accept Rovai’s (2002) proposition, noted above,
regarding the importance of interaction, then this therefore impacts significantly
on the formation of a learning community. Indeed, facilitating actions from
peers can clearly be seen to have a different impact than interventions from
tutors, and the dynamic created within the group is therefore also different.
Following on from this, we have also found that groups which are ‘tutor-focused’
do not develop dialogue or indeed group identity in the same way as more peer-

92
focused groups, a point also supported by Garrison (2006), leading us to
speculate further on the significant advantages of achieving peer-to-peer
dialogue.

Our speculations are supported by Thompson and MacDonald (2005: 244), who
point out that “conversation is pivotal to interaction”; while Garrison and
Cleveland-Innes (2005) suggest the importance of ‘social presence’ for the
development of online discourse. Dixson and colleagues (2006) also note that it
is important that students should feel comfortable to make social postings.
Meanwhile, Daniel et al (2003) go further and propose Social Capital as a vital
component of the learning community – although one might equally argue that
the social engagement of the group is an artefact of the existence of a sense of
community rather than in any way causal in nature.

Salmon (2000) asserts that social interaction is caused, in part, by e-

moderators' interventions. It has also been argued that tutors can influence the
engagement and interaction of students in the online discussion forum simply by
the frequency with which they intervene in discussion (Mazzolini & Maddison
2003); whereas the content of tutors' postings does not particularly influence
student engagement (Mazzolini & Maddison, 2007) – a proposition which is by no
means supported by the findings of Celentin (2007:55), who suggests that “in
order to build real knowledge during the discussion the tutor should post
different kinds of messages”.

Where a rich dialogue is achieved, online discussion has clear transformative

potential, as Garrison & Kanuka (2004) have suggested. For example, in a
recent module (CPD461), the students commented that “It was a superb
demonstration of Wenger’s communities of practice”, and further identified “a
‘Eureka’ moment” in their understanding of e-learning. (Networked Learning
Community CPD461, 2008.)

But the question remains, as indeed we have also asked elsewhere (Sackville &
Sherratt, 2008) – are all of these students actually ready to be transformed?
Meyer and Land (2005) remind us that transformation can involve a very
uncomfortable journey, and also that many students tend to remain instead in
‘pre-liminal space’. This, then, begs the question as to whether all students are
also ready to become self-directed learners.

And so, despite our explicitly articulated social constructivist pedagogy, and the
opportunity for students to work together (and with tutors as peers), it appears
that not everyone agrees that the peer is a role that tutors should adopt.
Indeed, one of the CPD461 students complained of a “paucity of active input
from tutors” (Networked Learning Community CPD461, 2008), based on the fact
that substantially more ‘triggers’ were posed by students than by tutors –
despite the obvious benefit that the students had become more self-directed in
their learning, rather than remaining reliant on tutors to push forward their
understanding.

The Role of the Tutor

This, then brings into question the tutor’s role as a ‘guide on the side’,
suggesting that some participants and commentators, at least, expect a more
active and directed input. Furthermore, Swan (2002: p32) proposed that

93
“instructors’ activity is an important factor in the success of online learning”.
More recently, Garrison and Cleveland-Innes have also commented (2005:
p137) “we find the leadership role of the instructor to be powerful in triggering
discussion and facilitating high levels of thinking and knowledge construction”;
and Celentin (2007) has advised that guidance from tutors will enhance the
achievement of meaningful learning. So contrary to our earlier-expressed ideal
of peer-facilitated learning, this implies that much more control should rest in
the hands of the tutor, leading to the position of the tutor as an authority figure.

On the other hand, Rovai (2002) reminds us that self-directed learners will not
respond well to an authoritarian approach on the part of the tutor; and Garrison
(2006:30) further suggests that “students need to assume some control or
ownership of the discussion”. Meanwhile, Carusi (2006:5) has proposed that
“the social relations become de-hierarchised: the teacher is no longer the central
– and ‘higher’ – authority, and learners collaborate with each other, each
learning through doing and each cooperating rather than competing with others
in pursuit of a shared goal”.

So should tutors aim to assume the role of co-learners, or is there something of

an expectation that we will undertake and maintain more of an authoritative
role? And how does this activity on the part of the tutor encourage the growth
of an active and supportive online learning community?

Students’ Expressed Need for Tutor Intervention

As noted above, members of my course team have been actively exploring
issues around online discussion for a number of years. In my own current,
ongoing study, I have explored the expectations and expressed needs of our
students for intervention and support from tutors, particularly in the online
discussion forum.

From this, a simple typology has emerged (Sherratt, 2008), shown in Figure 1,
below, which identifies whether students expect to work collaboratively, possibly
without “interference” from tutors, or perhaps welcoming them as peers (see
Quadrant A of Figure 1); or whether students are more tutor-focused, looking to
the tutor as an authority figure who will provide the ‘right’ answer, as shown in
Quadrant D of Figure 1.

Interestingly, we can see what we have termed ‘peer facilitators’ clearly located
in Quadrants A and B of Figure 1 (below), and it might be suggested, therefore,
that these two quadrants are where we will find conditions to support the
emergence of a learning community.

One might further speculate that if a group contains a majority of individuals

characterised to Quadrants C or D of the typology (see Figure 1, below), then it
will be extremely difficult for any sort of community to develop.

94
 Figure 1: Students’ need for tutor intervention in online discussion

This typology is also discussed in greater detail elsewhere (Sherratt, 2008), and
is a result of ongoing work. However, it already offers the tutor some insight
into the differing needs to be found within a single cohort, and as such, can offer
an explanation of why some groups might function ‘better’ and more
collaboratively than others, even within the same course context.

Once applied to future groups, it aims to assist the tutor to achieve the correct
level and type of intervention to support and stimulate students, without leaving
students feeling unsupported on the one hand, or stifling discussion and thereby
reducing both discourse and collaboration, (as Garrison (2006) points out), on
the other.

However, it should also be borne in mind that these categories appear to be

dynamic rather than static. Thus, the next challenge we face is how we can
identify where students sit in this typology, and then, what actions we can take
as tutors, to move students into a more self-directed phase of their learning
(represented here by Quadrants A and B). This is the subject of ongoing and
future work.

Conclusion
In this paper, I have explored some differing views on learning communities in
the online context, and have asked how tutors might help to facilitate their
emergence. I have referred to some of my current work in progress, and
proposed that the simple model to describe students’ expressed need for support
and intervention from tutors might offer some useful insights for the online
tutor. And I have suggested that by responding appropriately to students’

95
individual needs, and helping them to move into Quadrants A or B of the model,
we could more regularly and consistently to help to achieve a learning
community where students (and indeed tutors!) work collaboratively, learn
together, and act as co-constructors of knowledge.

But there is no certainty. Indeed, Charalambos et al (2004:138) have reminded

us that “There is no step-by-step approach that guarantees successful
community building.”

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and Techniques for University Teachers. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
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EMBEDDING THE TESEP 3E APPROACH IN THE PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATORS: A CASE STUDY OF THE MSC
BLENDED AND ONLINE EDUCATION

Keith Smyth and Christina Mainka, Napier University

INTRODUCTION
This paper explores the design of Napier University’s MSc Blended and Online
Education (MSc BOE), a part-time fully online programme for education
professionals seeking to further develop their pedagogical and practical
knowledge of technology-enhanced teaching and learning. The MSc BOE was
developed in parallel to the work that Napier University was undertaking as the
lead partner in the cross-institutional Transforming and Enhancing the Student
Experience through Pedagogy (TESEP) project. TESEP was driven by a ‘learners
in control’ ethos in the work it undertook to embed pedagogically sound, yet
creative and transformative ways of using current and emerging technologies to
enhance teaching, and particularly learning, across the partner institutions.

The 3E Approach was one of the main tools developed within TESEP as a means
of illustrating to practitioners what an embedding of the ethos and pedagogical
principles adopted by TESEP might look like in practice, within the redesign of
their own courses. The 3E Approach, and particularly the emphasis this places
on increasing learner control and autonomy through enhanced, extended and
empowered learning opportunities, was adopted as the blueprint for the design
of the MSc BOE. After outlining the TESEP project, and exploring the essence of
the 3E Approach, this paper describes how the 3E Approach was embedded in
practice within the MSc BOE with a specific focus on the three core modules.

After considering the views of participants on the MSc BOE, this paper concludes
by reflecting on the challenges of implementing the 3E Approach within the MSc
BOE, and also how it is influencing future programme developments.

THE TESEP PROJECT

Funded by the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) as one of six projects in their £6
million e-learning transformation programme, the TESEP project was undertaken
as a joint initiative between Napier University in Edinburgh, Lauder (now
Carnegie) College in Dunfermline, and Edinburgh’s Telford College.

TESEP commenced in 2005 and officially concluded in summer 2007, although as

the focus of this paper suggests various initiatives instigated or informed by the
work of TESEP continue apace. This is appropriate given that a primary aim of
TESEP was to introduce and nurture the development of a perspective and
approach to technology-enriched learning and teaching that would become
increasingly embedded within the institutional culture of the partner institutions
within the funded lifetime of TESEP, and which would ultimately continue to be
self-sustaining and transformative beyond the conclusion of the funded period.

‘Learners in control’ was the ethos at the heart of TESEP. In essence this
reflects the belief that we can most effectively help our learners to develop the
professional and broader knowledge and skills they need though providing
opportunities for greater learner autonomy, supported through engagement in

98
local and wider learning communities that use current and emerging
technologies in meaningful ways that reflect how knowledge is being created and
shared in today’s world (Mayes, 2007). While a detailed consideration of this
ethos and the philosophy it is grounded within is not the purpose of this paper,
there are important challenges and implications here that include: changing
tutor and student roles; the need to think beyond the VLE to consider what we
can broadly refer to as ‘Web 2.0’ technologies offer in educational terms; and
recognising the more democratic and empowered way in which knowledge is
being shared and constructed in networked global society.

TESEP was concerned with addressing these issues, but more importantly the
opportunities they offered, by tackling them within pedagogic approaches that
could further enhance and, wherever possible, transform the learning and
teaching experience in ways that were sensitive to today’s and tomorrow’s
student, the needs of the tutor, and critically also to institutional needs and
challenges. Reflecting wider debate in the sector, these challenges were seen to
include widening access, pro-actively responding to increasing student diversity,
and the development of employability skills and other key attributes required in
the professional environment. Each partner institution also identified specific
areas for enhancement they wanted to focus on within TESEP, e.g. collaborative
curriculum design, FE-HE articulation, and placement-based learning.

In seeking to address the issues outlined above to meet the kinds of aims and
challenges described, TESEP was simultaneously about curriculum design, staff
development, and institutional policy and strategy. A key element of the work
undertaken involved an initial wave of practitioners from across the partner
institutions being seconded to TESEP for one or two days a week, to work on
designing or redesigning one of their own courses. Staff were drawn from a
range of subject areas including computing, art, joinery, accounting and
economics, nursing, drama, and engineering, with the courses being worked on
spanning SCQF (Scottish Credit Qualifications Framework) levels 4 to 11.

In being tasked to redesign an existing course or design a new one in a way that
embodied the TESEP ethos, the practitioners (who chose which course to focus
on, and ultimately how their course would be designed or redesigned) were
supported through a multi-faceted, blended staff development experience. This
set out to role-model the kinds of pedagogical approaches that TESEP was
seeking to promote and further embed, and involved cross-institutional mentor
groups, participant-driven workshops and online events, informal sharing of
ideas and resources, and engagement with ‘critical friends’ (pedagogical
specialists, staff developers, technology experts) from the FE and HE sectors.

The freedom and choice given to the seconded practitioners in terms of what to
work on within the context of the TESEP project, and many of the ways in which
they were supported in doing so, are mirrored within the nature of the MSc BOE.

A fuller exploration of the TESEP project, including practitioner and institutional

stories, can be found within the range of reports, papers and interactive case
studies that are available at http://www2.napier.ac.uk/transform.

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 TESEP 3E APPROACH
The pedagogical foundations for TESEP were very much rooted in the social
constructivist perspective, and emphasised the need for greater learner
autonomy and control within learning communities where peers may be learners
on the same course, and also peers in wider local and global contexts.

As detailed in Mayes (2007), allied to this broad view was the idea that current
and emerging technologies, and particularly forms of social software, could
enable individuals and groups elsewhere to play a role in helping to discuss and
refine the understandings within the community, and could also help the
learning community itself to take increased ownership for finding and creating
the materials and ‘artefacts’ that would support their learning.

While there is clearly a resonance here with Siemens’ (2004) theory of

connectivism, and Leadbeater’s (2008) more recent treatise on ‘We-think’ as a
mass innovation phenomena, TESEP was concerned specifically with the
possibilities offered by bringing together a social constructivist model of learning
and teaching with emerging technologies in FE and HE course contexts. To this
end, the practitioners were encouraged to work towards an embedding of the
following five principles in the design or redesign of their courses:

• Ensure every learner is as active as possible. Design tasks that

address the question: how can we challenge learners to think more deeply about
what it is they are learning?
• Design frequent formative assessment. Encourage the learner to test
their understanding regularly and ensure they get responsive feedback including
from peers.
• Put emphasis on peers learning together. Create small groups who
will work together to produce something – a report, a lesson, a demonstration.
Consider where groups can teach each about their chosen topics. Try to
engender a sense of ownership.
• Consider whether learning tasks can be personalised. Allow the
individual learner, or a small group, choice over what is to be achieved.
Negotiate with learners wherever possible. Aim for project/resource/discussion-
based learning – not direct instruction.
• Consider how technology can help to achieve these principles.
Online, learners can be actively carrying out tasks, taking formative tests,
producing class resources or group outputs, discovering new content for
themselves, and through social software discussing and sharing all this with each
other, the tutor, and other peers and experts.

The overarching aim of putting these principles into practice was to realise the
‘learners in control’ ethos of TESEP as fully as possible within a particular course
context. However the concept of putting learners in control, and the related
notions of empowerment and transformation, are challenging to address and
were met by many important questions from practitioners. These included
questions around how much control is enough?, how do I build upon what I’m
already doing well?, what are the implications for tutors and students?, and what
do these kind of changes to learning and teaching look like in practice?

100
To help address these questions, and make the possibilities clearer, the TESEP
project developed the 3E Approach. This envisaged, with examples and further
guidance, the kind of transformation in learning and teaching encapsulated
within the TESEP ethos as involving a continuum of enhanced, extended and
empowered learning opportunities (described more fully in Smyth, 2007).

Shown in overview form in Figure 1, the 3E Approach tries to clarify the kinds of
ways in which it is possible to make changes to teaching practice that provide
learners with more control over their learning, and the role that technology can
play in supporting this process. In doing this, it attempts to show that
transformation in learning and teaching practice can be seen as an iterative
process for the tutor and their students, involving progressive changes that
move the learner further towards finding, using, creating and sharing knowledge
in ways that reflect the kinds of individual and collective responsibilities they will
have in the professional and broader societal contexts they are preparing for.

Enhance Extend Empower

Simple adjustments to teaching New and further developed Teaching is re-designed to

practice that give more opportunities that require learner ensure that learners needs
responsibility to learner to make key decisions about how and interests drive the
and what they learn learning experience

The active learner The engaged learner The autonomous learner

Peer support Collaborative

opportunities practice

Comparable kinds of tasks as they might be implemented at each stage

Student-led online Online discussion tasks

Online problem forums seminars generate rather than
improve tutor/peer support complement core content

Links to relevant online case Students source and debate Students produce an online
studies for students to explore their own case studies online case study on a chosen topic

Classroom lessons involve Classroom lessons are A problem-based project

group break-out tasks for alternated with weekly provides the focus for learning
investigating key issues research and report tasks from the outset

101
 Figure 1. TESEP 3E Approach

In this respect the 3E Approach can be seen as a ‘framework’ within which to

think about the design of a course and progression within it, although an equally
important point is that any course could offer a mix of opportunities at any of
the 3E stages based on what is appropriate for the subject, student group, tutor
and desired outcomes in question. This point about appropriateness is a critical
one, as is the view that while the Empower stage may be viewed as the ideal to
aim for, changes in practice at any of the stages are equally valuable when
viewing transformation in learning and teaching as a developmental journey.

There are clear parallels within the 3E Approach with long established
pedagogical theories and concepts, for example cognitive apprenticeship and
scaffolding (Brown et al, 1989; Collins et al, 1991), and furthermore the
literature is rich with models and frameworks designed to aid interpretation of
specific pedagogical principles (e.g. Van Merrienboer et al, 2002; Biggs and
Tang, 2008). While in this respect the 3E Approach is on long established
ground, it certainly proved to be a useful means for articulating and exploring
the aims of TESEP with the practitioners the project worked with, who seemed to
feel it was an accessible way to engage with the ideas it encapsulates.

Beyond the ways in which the 3E Approach informed the course redesign within
the context of the TESEP project), the 3E Approach has subsequently been
adopted in various ways by the TESEP partner institutions. At Carnegie College
the 3E Approach now forms the basis of the Learning and Teaching Framework,
while Edinburgh’s Telford College are currently revising their Learning, Teaching
and Assessment strategy around the 3E Approach and its related implications for
their provision. At Napier University, the 3E Approach has formed an important
part of the guidance given to staff in moving from a 15 to 20 credit modular
system, has been the focus of staff workshops, and has been integral to the
development, nature and outlook of the MSc Blended and Online Education.

MSC BLENDED AND ONLINE EDUCATION

Napier’s MSc BOE (http://www2.napier.ac.uk/ed/boe/) is a part-time, fully
online programme for FE and HE tutors and other educational professionals
seeking to learn more about technology-enhanced learning and teaching,
regardless of whether they are completely new to this area or are seeking to
take what they already do further. Launched in 2007/08 after a successful pilot
the preceding year, the MSc BOE has a diverse cohort that includes staff
developers, e-learning managers, lecturers, teaching fellows, and consultants.

Developed in parallel to the work being undertaken on TESEP, the MSc BOE
shared a common ethos with the TESEP project. The programme is collaborative
and practice-based, and from the outset participants work collectively and
individually on projects that are relevant to their own roles and interests, and
which include case studies, design and implementation projects, and evaluations
of technology-supported learning and teaching initiatives.

There is an element of choice and negotiation in every task undertaken, and

current and emerging technologies are used in ways that model good practice
and facilitate engagement within and beyond the geographically dispersed

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programme community, which includes online interaction with invited guest
experts and engagement within other online groups and communities.

The intention is very much to provide an ‘immersive’ experience that allows

practitioners to learn about blended and online education while simultaneously
experiencing both what it is like to be an online learner, and applying their
developing understanding within their own work contexts. In this respect, the
programme team view the MSc BOE as a natural extension to the kind of
learner-centred staff development experiences in technology-supported teaching
and learning that have been increasingly called for over recent years (e.g.
Littlejohn, 2002; Oliver and Dempster, 2003; Mainka, 2007), and which the
TESEP project itself was seeking to provide for the practitioners it supported.

The extent to which the MSc BOE is designed to meet developmental and
professional needs was recognised in June 2008 by the Staff and Educational
Development Association (SEDA), and any participant successfully completing
either of the three exit awards (PgCert, PgDip, MSc) now receives their own
individual accreditation against SEDA’s Embedding Learning Technologies award.

3E IN PRACTICE ON THE MSC BOE

While the ideas the 3E Approach encapsulates are consistent at a broad level
with the philosophy and rationale of the entire MSc BOE programme, the three
core modules that comprise the PgCert element of the programme, and which
provide the basis for the other exit awards, were deliberately designed according
to the 3E Approach. The intention here was to build in opportunities for
participants to assume more control of their own learning within the programme,
so that over the course of the three core modules each individual, regardless of
where they were starting from, could become more fully autonomous as a
blended and online educator by the end of the third core module.

By ‘fully autonomous’ this does not mean expert and self-sufficient within every
aspect of blended and online education, but instead well equipped to assume
ownership of their own practice, with a rounded knowledge of what is
appropriate within their own contexts, and an understanding of how to keep
abreast and sustain their own development in blended and online education.

Enhance Extend Empower

Introduction to Blended and Supporting the Blended and Curriculum Design and
Online Education (Module 1) Online Student Experience Development for Blended and
(Module 2) Online Learning (Module 3)

Thought Discussions Student-led seminars Engagement in online

professional communities

Groups identify Groups redesign chosen

Groups agree issues to focus and research own aspects of PgCert BOE or
on within case study allocated case studies alternative course
on individual preferences

Negotiated individual project Negotiated individual project Individual project involves

can be conceptual in design (design option) involves some developing entire blended/online
element of implementation unit/short course as negotiated
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 Figure 2. 3E Approach on the PgCert BOE

The three core modules for the programme which also comprise the PgCert BOE,
are: Introduction to Blended and Online Education (IBOE); Supporting the
Blended and Online Student Experience (SBOSE); and Curriculum Design
and Development for Blended and Online Learning (CDDBOL). Figure 2
provides an overview mapping of key aspects of the core modules to the 3E
Approach.

The three core modules are typically undertaken in the order shown, and while
each module features tasks and activities at each of the stages of the 3E
Approach, at a broad level of design the modules in their normal sequence map
to the successive stages of the 3E approach (Enhance, Extend, Empower).

A feel for how this works in practice is provided through considering the Thought
Discussions element of the IBOE module, which as the first module is primarily
focused on providing ‘enhanced’ learning opportunities. The Thought
Discussions essentially involve participants tackling a choice of questions relating
to the theme for a particular unit, and sharing their views, experiences, or
perspectives on associated readings, news items, or examples with the wider
group. The Thought Discussions are tutor facilitated, and work well as one
important way for each new cohort to begin engaging with the subject area, and
provide a good introduction to online discussion for those completely new to this.

Moving on to the second module SBOSE, where there is a focus on providing

‘extended’ learning opportunities, the Thought Discussions give way to student-
led seminars. This involves typically two participants coming together over their
preference or interest for a particular topic or theme, and designing and
facilitating over two weeks an online seminar for the group to take part in. Each
pairing is given advice from an assigned tutor, but their tutor remains hands-off
and, along with other members of the programme team, assumes a position of
being a participant within the seminars which are self and peer-assessed.

There is a clear move from experience to applied practice and skills development
between these two discussion-based activities for modules 1 and 2. Within
module 3 CDDBOL, there is a further shift towards autonomy when the
participants are required to identify and begin engaging with an online or online-
supported professional community that could help support their continued
learning and development away from the programme, which is particularly
important given that some participants may exit with their PgCert after module
3. The professional communities the participant chooses to engage with can be
educational communities within their own subject area, or within the broader
area of blended and online education. By coming back into the module to share
what they have found, everyone is then exposed to a range of communities that
may offer developmental opportunities beyond their time on the programme.

Other examples provided in Figure 2 show the 3E transitions between different

forms of case study projects, and individual design and development projects.

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In addition to the increased control participants take over their own learning, it
will hopefully be evident from Figure 2 that participants take increased
ownership of the programme itself, for example through the student-led
seminars discussed above, and in redesigning previous elements of the
programme as they become more experienced as online educators. This idea
that the programme itself is ‘up for grabs’ as a focus for discussion and critique
is fundamental to the nature of the programme, as is the idea of the programme
and as safe, collegiate platform for practicing and developing online tutor skills.

In tandem with increased control participants take over their learning and
aspects of the programme, the programme team themselves move between
tutoring, facilitating and ultimately co-learning roles. The programme tutors as
co-learners is another critical element to the outlook of the programme, which is
after all for already experienced educators, and which is seeking to meaningfully
exploit the promise and democratising potential of emerging technologies.

On the MSc BOE, while the VLE provides a central presence it is but one of a
range of spaces participants work within and across that includes blogs, wikis,
Second Life, and social bookmarking applications. Participants are also free and
actively encouraged to explore applications available elsewhere, and are
supported in harnessing them effectively within individual and group projects.

In addition, there is a focus within the programme on the potential to use

emerging technologies for what the programme team currently (perhaps
clumsily) refer to as ‘legacy learning’ opportunities. This involves each new
cohort working collaboratively by choice (this task is not assessed) on a learning
‘artefact’ that can support themselves, but which can also be passed on to new
members of the course community. Examples of artefacts produced so far
include a wiki-based glossary of key concepts, and a social bookmark collection.

In all of the preceding discussion of TESEP, the 3E Approach and the MSc BOE,
there is repeated mention of learning communities, professional communities,
course community and so on. While sensitive to the debate around what
constitutes a ‘learning community’ or ‘professional community’ (without inferring
they are the same), and whether such communities can be created or create
themselves, the view of the MSc BOE programme team is a pragmatic one.

The programme team accept Wenger’s (2008) view of a community of practice

as “groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do
and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly”, and view the course
cohort as a form of community of practice that has come together around a
shared professional interest in blended and online education. A course
community may be viewed as a temporary one, or alternatively a community
which has specific mechanisms for renewing its membership over time. Either
way the MSc BOE course community is certainly developing into an effective,
engaged and collegiate one whose members are beginning to support and share
with each other beyond the confines of the formal course content and spaces.

This is in many respects something that may be hoped for as natural outcome of
embedding what the 3E Approach represents into a programme of this type. It
certainly evidences the kind of learner autonomy the programme aims to
support the development of. It is also indicative of another view within the

105
programme team around the issue of ‘learning communities’, which is that it is
possible to ‘design in’ to a programme opportunities for Lave and Wenger’s
(1991) legitimate peripheral participation to occur, whereby novice members of
the community assume a more central position of expertise over time. Indeed,
the transition from active to engaged to autonomous learner within the 3E
Approach, and the way the MSc BOE tutors increasingly assume co-learning
roles with the programme over time, are both instantiations of this perspective.

PARTICIPANT VIEWS
While studying on a programme like the MSc BOE is not going to be without
challenges, not least due to the continual engagement over time that is required,
the programme aims to be fully transparent about what is required from
participants, and why the programme is designed in the way it is.

This seems to be well understood and appreciated by participants, and feedback

to date seems to indicate that the design and approach taken on the programme
is providing the kind of immersive, collegiate and developmental experience
intended through applying the 3E Approach to the design of the programme.

While further evaluation of what is still a young programme is an ongoing

concern, illustrative comments that are representative of general views include:

“I wanted to become a ‘Tutor 2.0’ – someone who can exploit the capabilities of
Web 2.0 technologies and critically utilise state of the art blended and online
learning pedagogies to create and maintain a learning environment befitting
21st-century learners’. The programme more than fulfils this for me.”

(John Sinclair, Senior Lecturer, Napier University)

“This is a very hands on course with many different ways of reaching the learner
and catering to many different learning styles, supported by current research
articles in this area…This will help me to design and deliver blended learning
more effectively, hopefully without making the mistakes of past initiatives.”

(Dr Steve Wilkinson, Principal Lecturer, Leeds Met University)

IMPLEMENTATON CHALLENGES
The levels of engagement within the MSc BOE, and the tangible benefits that
evaluation and coursework indicate are being experienced, is encouraging
evidence that the design of the programme is supporting learning as intended.

Despite this, there have been challenges and revelations in embedding the 3E
Approach within the design of the programme, and more generally in facilitating
a programme of this kind. One is in helping to prepare participants to learn in
increasingly more empowered ways, in contexts where current and emerging
technology is to be a meaningful enabler of effective learning. This point is a
general one that will apply across many course contexts. However in the
context of the MSc BOE, in which a rich range of technologies are to be used as
meaningful enablers and where the meaningful use of technology is in itself a
topic for study, finding ways to enable participants to quickly overcome technical
issues to engage in the pedagogical ones has been particular concern. This has
been tackled by ensuring that the first week of any module is dedicated to

106
technical and general module orientation, in which a series of ‘light’ activities are
used to ensure the main tools to be used are explored, and that participants and
the programme team have useful opportunities to interact informally.

The online discussions across the programme quickly become extremely busy,
and there has been a focus here on helping participants negotiate these levels of
activity in a meaningful way. To enable every participant to gain all they can
from their time on the programme, and ensure it meets their own development
needs, it has also been important to take time to help each participant to plan
ahead particularly in relation to negotiated individual projects. This requires
some discussion early on in the programme, and at points throughout, and has
been aided by the introduction of Personal Development Tutor arrangements.

An obvious question to ask of a programme like the MSc BOE is the amount of
development and facilitation time it requires from the programme team. The
main challenge here has been in getting the overarching framework and
progression between modules right. Although there is an inevitable front-
loading in development time and tutor-led activities for module 1, through its
alignment with the Enhance stage of the 3E Approach, through subsequent
modules the programme shifts considerably for the tutors towards being more
heavily focused on facilitation and being participants themselves.

On the tutor as a participant, or co-learner as previously described, one thing

that has become very apparent is that within a course such as this, or indeed
any course that attempts to use emerging technologies to their full empowering
potential, there is a need to think beyond the now well-established distinction
between “sage on the stage” and “guide on the side” (e.g. Jones, 1999;
Mazzolini and Maddison, 2006), and even more recent conceptualisations of the
tutor’s role as a “ghost in the wings” (Mazzolini and Maddison, 2006).
Pedagogical practice that fully embraces the notion of learner control, and which
harnesses the empowering possibilities emerging technologies offer learners to
share and help shape perspectives in a more democratic way, mean that the
‘tutor as co-learner’ provides a new end point on the ‘sage on stage’ to ‘guide on
side’ continuum, and another role for the tutor to mindfully think about playing.

CONCLUSION
Within the MSc BOE the 3E Approach has provided an invaluable framework for
embedding the kinds of progressive pedagogical practice the TESEP project was
committed to promoting within the professional development of educators. One
hope is that in turn the practitioners on the programme will embed some of what
they have experienced and explored within their own teaching and learning
contexts. Designing the MSc BOE according to the 3E Approach required careful
consideration and the meeting of particular challenges, but the usefulness of the
3E Approach as a framework for thinking about course design is continuing to
inform current developments on the MSc BOE. This includes through exploring
ways in which to build in further ‘legacy learning’ opportunities, and further
opportunities for engagement in wider professional communities. Perhaps most
indicative of the direction the programme may take in a further embedding of
the 3E Approach, and associated philosophy, is the development of a module
that will take the ‘learners in control’ and ‘tutors as co-learners’ concepts to the
next level by allowing participants who have successfully completed their PgCert
BOE to become co-tutors for new cohorts coming on to the programme.

107
References
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Brown, J.S., Collins, A. & Duguid, P. (1989) Situated cognition and the culture of
learning. Educational Researcher, 18(1), 32-42.
Collins, A., Brown J.S. & Holum, A. (1991) Cognitive apprenticeship: making
thinking visible, American Educator, Winter, 6-11 and 38-46
Jones, C. (1999) From the sage on the stage to what exactly? Description and
the place of the moderator in co-operative and collaborative learning. ALT-J,
7(2), 27-36.
Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991) Situated learning: legitimate, peripheral
participation. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Leadbeater, C. (2008) We-think: Mass innovation, not mass production. London:
Profile.
Littlejohn, A. (2002) Improving continuing professional development in the use
of ICT. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 18(2), 166-174.
Mainka, C. (2007) Putting staff first in staff development for the effective use of
technology in teaching. British Journal of Educational Technology, 38(1), 158-
160.
Mayes, J.T. (2007) TESEP: the pedagogical principles. Last retrieved
August 29th, 2008 from
http://www2.napier.ac.uk/transform/TESEP_Pedagogical_Principles.pdf
Mazzolini, M. & Maddison, S. (2006) The role of the instructor as a guide on the
side. In J. O’Donoghue (Ed.), Technology-supported learning and teaching: a
staff perspective (224-241). London: Information Science Publishing.
Oliver, M., & Dempster, A.D. (2003) Embedding e-learning practices. In R.
Blackwell & P. Blackmore (Eds.), Towards strategic staff development in
higher education (142-153). Maidenhead: SRHE and Open University Press.
Siemens, G. (2004) Connectivism: a learning theory for the digital age. Last
retrieved August 29th, 2008 from
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Smyth, K. (2007) TESEP in practice: the 3E Approach. Last retrieved
August 29th, 2008 from
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Van Merrienboer, J.J.G, Clark, R.E. & de Croock, M.B.M. (2002) Blueprints for
complex learning: the 4C/ID model. ETR&D, 50(2), pp.39-64.
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CHOICE, COLLABORATION AND WEB 2.0: WHAT WE CAN LEARN
FROM THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE OF TECHNOLOGY-ENHANCED
EDUCATION

Colin Gray, Napier University

INTRODUCTION
In the past few decades higher education has gone through a huge amount of
change. Two of the factors in this change which have led to dramatic upheaval
are:

1. Widening Access

2. Mode of Delivery

1. The widening access movement of the past decade and beyond has led to
the present day’s hugely diverse student population. In the mid ‘90s the
Tomlinson Report (FEFC, 1996) called for the promotion of ‘inclusive education’,
and this idea led to national programmes such as the Department for Education
and Skills’ Excellence Challenge in 2001. This morphed into the Aimhigher
scheme (DirectGov, 2008) which now operates at the local level all over the
country, helping young people access higher education. Additionally, the
HEFCE’s widening participation funding programme supports schemes which give
many students from disadvantaged backgrounds the opportunity to study. With
this increasing diversity, however, comes a much more varied set of learning
styles, abilities and background knowledge.

Teaching styles must change to accommodate this diversity, but since this
particular group have not attended HE in the past we have no experience to
draw on with which to make this change. The only people who can describe
how these people learn best are the learners themselves: we need to hear the
student voice.

2. The current generation of learners are well used to collaborating and

communicating online via the multitude of social networking sites and other Web
2.0 applications that litter the internet. A Becta report published this year
(Luckin, Logan, Clark, Graber, Oliver & Mee, 2008) stated that “learners’ use of
Web 2.0 and related internet activities is extensive” when looking at children
between the ages of 11 and 16. 74% of those surveyed have social networking
accounts and 78% have uploaded material to the web. Given these statistics
educators are understandably trying to harness these tools in an attempt to
engage the learner, but as the Becta report goes on to state, these statistics
refer to personal use only and learners are still unfamiliar with the use of Web
2.0 technologies for educational purposes. Furthermore, their use of Web 2.0
may be prolific but it is relatively unsophisticated, consisting mainly of content
consumption rather than creation (Luckin et al., 2008). As a consequence it is
impossible to assume that this familiarity with the technology will facilitate an
easy transfer to working with and creating materials in Web 2.0 in an
educational context.

109
“The experts in learner experience are the learners” (Creanor, Gowan, Trinder &
Howells, 2006) and only a student can say what works for them when using
internet technologies in an educational context. In order to use these
technologies to their best advantage we need to hear the student voice.

CASE STUDY CONTEXT

This paper gives an outlet to the student voice in the context of a fully online
Masters level course taught at Napier University called Blended and Online
Education (BOE). At the time of writing the students on the MSc BOE had
completed two modules of the course, the first being Introduction to Blended
and Online Education (IBOE), and the second being Supporting the Blended and
Online Student Experience (SBOSE). At the beginning SBOSE the students were
given a choice as to what form their individual project would take. The first
option was a development project based on their current work - to produce an e-
learning object or teaching plan of some sort - and the second was to maintain a
weekly blog throughout the module recording their thoughts and reflections on
the course, the teaching methods and their learning processes. A number of
students chose to keep a reflective blog and the resulting material formed an
invaluable resource containing detailed student opinions on fully online learning
drawing from both aforementioned modules. Further details on the blog
assignment are given in the Reflection and Control section.

Furthermore, virtually all communication and discussion on the course was

carried out via online message boards thus recording a further wealth of
information regarding how the students felt about the teaching methods used
throughout.

This paper draws mainly from the author’s blog reflecting on life as a student on
the course. It was maintained weekly over nearly two months of the SBOSE
module. Also included is one quote from a discussion posting made by the
author during the previous module, IBOE.

Two particular subjects taken from this particular student voice were chosen as
focuses for this paper:

1. Issues with online group work and collaboration

2. The benefits of online reflection and student control

THE TROUBLE WITH COLLABORATION

The first subject this paper will examine is that of student collaboration using
both synchronous and asynchronous online communication tools.

Group work is an often used and valuable learning tool in both face-to-face and
online learning (Palloff & Pratt, 2004) but in a fully online context collaboration is
made difficult by geographical distribution. The MSc BOE includes a number of
group assignments, however, so this difficulty had to be surmounted using the
communication tools available, both synchronous and asynchronous.

In the SBOSE module students were required to complete a 10-week

collaborative task which consisted of an investigative report into an area of

110
student support at their own institutions. This report could then be delivered
online, for example a group-edited wiki or a narrated presentation. Groups
consisted of between three to five people and in general no more than two of
each group lived in the same geographical location. Groups were given the
choice as to how they would communicate but were encouraged to regularly
meet using synchronous communication software, Elluminate being one
example.

Elluminate is part of the current range of synchronous communication tools

allowing live speech, text chat and desktop sharing. Groups can communicate
while viewing various types of materials, from documents to web sites, making it
a suitable platform for group academic work.

The following student voice (Quote 1) is taken from a reflective blog post made
by the author near the beginning of the group project:

“…the group work project began nearly two weeks ago now and the
learning contracts were due in at the end of last week. Well, ours has
only just been finished and hard work it was…

One of the greatest advantages of online collaboration, you would

imagine, is the flexibility it affords. People being able to collaborate from
remote locations - any time, any place. But we’ve discovered that it’s just
as difficult, perhaps even more so, to arrange meetings between
geographically remote participants. And then, tie in the difficulties of
unreliable connections, broken microphones and unwieldy software and
the difficulties only multiply.

…I have to admit I’ve always preferred asynchronous. I’m on the

computer for the majority of every working day and I’ve got used to
checking the boards a few times a day, so I can generally respond
quickly. It also means that on the occasions when I’m out doing
workshops and attending meetings I’m never missing vital synchronous
meetings. I do admit synchronous communication has some advantages,
but the extra stress and hassle of arranging and running meetings does,
to me, negate these advantages.”

Student Voice: Quote 1 – An early student opinion on online group

work.

Initially, when comparing synchronous and asynchronous communication, it may

seem common sense that synchronous is more powerful due to its real-time
nature, thus allowing the rapid discussion of a topic. The literature on this
matter currently carries views on both sides, however. Some say that
synchronous communication is more suited to social uses such as building a
sense of community and has many weaknesses that are overcome only by
combining it with asynchronous communication (Cox, Carr & Hall, 2004).
Others, like Mercer (2003), argue that synchronous communication “significantly
contributes to developing more authentic group collaboration and knowledge
building”. In the case of this paper, the student voice above seems to agree
with the former view.

111
The first piece of evidence leading us towards the requirement for asynchronous
communication is that the student states that a major requirement for his group
was flexibility, both in terms of time and location, but synchronous
communication takes away this flexibility, allowing attendance from any location,
but not at any time. He states that there were times when he missed vital
synchronous meetings due to other commitments. Asynchronous collaboration
allows the true flexibility mentioned above, allowing remote participants to
communicate truly any time, any place. Obviously the participants pay for that
flexibility in the form of a far higher time lag but, as stated by the student, this
lag didn’t seem to cause a difficulty.

This finding could perhaps be attributed to the evolving nature of people’s work
and leisure time, with many now having constant access to the internet during
both. It has already been discussed that 74% of children aged 11 – 16 have
social networking accounts (Luckin et al., 2008), thus making them significant
users of the internet. Therefore the HE students of the future, and perhaps the
current cohort, will spend a large part of their week on or near a computer,
allowing the constant ability to check bulletin boards, email, wikis and blogs. In
this context, asynchronous communication can and often does proceed at a
reasonably fast pace. There will always be some that spend less time on and
are less enthused towards their computers but statistics show that the number
of internet users is growing and so these people are becoming more rare
(National Statistics, 2008).

The following student voice (Quote 2) was taken from a reflective blog post
made by the author after the group project was completed. It sums up the
author’s view as a student having completed an online collaborative task:

“…The trials and tribulations of getting four people together online at the
same time have been far more numerous than I would have expected.

…we also agree that an hour online is probably equivalent to around a 15-
minute face-to-face meeting, through both technical issues and practical
limitations of the medium.

…asynchronous communication has been continuing without any problem

and the time-lag between posts has been causing no problem at all. One
thing that may explain this is the fact that we agreed at an early stage to
have a daily post by the group chair, even if just to say, “Hi all, hope you
have a good day today.” This encouraged you to go online every day to
check the board as there was always something there to read.”

Student Voice: Quote 2 - Summing up the student experience of

online group work.

Two interesting points can be taken from this statement: the first is how
inefficient the group seemed to find synchronous communication, and the
second is the group’s novel approach to asynchronous communication.

Taking the first point, the inefficiency of synchronous communication in this case
may be explained by various technical issues that plagued the use of Elluminate
throughout the module. Elluminate requires that Javascript be enabled and a

112
microphone and headphones set up in advance. Discussions often started with
5-10 minutes of teething problems and small problems would creep in
throughout. This was also compounded by the fact that by default only one
person could speak at a time, making communication less efficient. Students did
experiment with two-way communication but time-delays in the software made
this confusing and frustrating to use at times.

These problems would most likely lessen as students become more used to
using the software. A possible solution could include further training in the use
of whatever synchronous communication platform is chosen. An alternative may
be an initial non-assessed group project, thus allowing learning time with less
consequence.

The second point raised by the student voice in Quote 2 is that the group here
seemed to come up with their own way of maintaining asynchronous
communication which could be useful in other contexts. A common failing in
discussion forums is lack of participation breeding lack of participation. As the
Pedagogy and Learning Technology says, there is ‘nothing more off-putting than
an empty message board’ (Smyth & Mainka, 2006). By assigning someone to
post a message every day they encouraged group visits even if only from a
social point of view. This would lead to quicker responses when important
messages were posted and so led to the fast paced asynchronous
communication referred to in Quote 2.

While much of the evidence above points towards asynchronous communication

being a more powerful medium in online group work, it would seem that
synchronous communication should always have a place in certain contexts. It
would seem difficult, for example, to offer a presentation from a speaker and a
following Q&A session in an asynchronous form. JISC have proven this is
possible, however, running not just a seminar but a fully online conference for
the last two years on the subject of Innovating Online Learning (JISC, 2007a).
Keynote presentations are delivered via the web including written speeches and
Powerpoint slides, and attendees can view the presentations over the period of a
couple of days and discuss the ideas via discussion boards. Evaluations run after
both events showed that they were very well received with 87% voting the
presentations and papers as very good or excellent and 81% voting the
discussions as very good or excellent (JISC, 2007b).

REFLECTION AND CONTROL WITH WEB 2.0

In the introduction it was discussed how each student on the SBOSE module was
given the choice as to what type of individual project they would complete: a
reflective blog or a development project. The reflective blog’s purpose was to
provide a narrative relating the thoughts and processes gone through by the
student from week 4 until week 10 on the module and show how this would
affect future work in the area. It was a requirement that at least one post was
made per week and that a sum-up post was made at the end. The student could
choose to make the blog public or to keep it private – the author chose the
public option. The development project on the other hand required the student
to create a tool, resource or other type of intervention which would improve
student support on any course with which they were involved. The student
developed the tool over the same time period as the blog and would hand in the
tool itself along with a written explanation for assessment. Overall, the two

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options were very different and provided a serious element of control for the
student.

The following student voice (Quote 3) is an excerpt from the author’s very first
reflective blog post demonstrating the thought processes resulting from such a
choice.

“[Here are] the reasons why I chose to do a blog for this part of the
coursework…

I’m terrible at learning by rote. I need to think about things, process

them and reorganise them in my head in order to remember anything. . .
I’ve read a fair bit of the recommended readings, and felt that I took it in
at the time, but a week later I can’t recall most of the detail. If, however,
I’ve made a discussion posting on the subject in the day or two after
reading it which requires a bit of processing then I recall it for far, far
longer. Therefore, blogging it is for this course – hopefully this will force
me to reflect on my readings more often and therefore retain a lot more
information!

I will hold my hands up and proclaim, I am very much a strategic

learner… I will attempt to keep my work to a minimum while still attaining
a good grade. …when choosing whether to do a blog or a development
project, I could visualise a number of things on which I am working just
now which [are] required for my work in any case… But, the purpose of
taking this course is to learn of course! …so I took the conscious decision
to do a blog based on the fact that it would force me to read more and
reflect more, hopefully learning more.”

Student Voice: Quote 3 - The student’s thought process when

asked to make a choice.

The following is an excerpt from the very last post of the same student reflecting
on how the blog has worked as a learning tool and assessment method.

“…Throughout this module I’ve been constantly thinking about my next

blog post and taking notes of various things to talk about. …I’ve learned
that writing about issues and ideas is a very valuable process for me and
prompts much deeper thinking than I would ever have imagined.

I mentioned that I hoped that this process would push me out of my

strategic learner mindset… Because I have come to really enjoy writing
the blog I have been persuaded to follow up interesting looking links or
references in the hope of finding good material to write about. I suppose
the blog gives me an extra incentive to learn… as I gain the reward of
writing good, informative posts… Even if a learner didn’t enjoy writing as
much, I wonder whether the pressure of having their work broadcast to
the whole class would prompt wider research and deeper learning.”

Student Voice: Quote 4 - The results of taking control.

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Various parts of both quotes 3 and 4 seem to highlight one of the main
advantages of using blogging in a learning context – the encouragement and
motivation to reflect. The importance of reflection is demonstrated by the TESEP
project in its Pedagogical Principles document which emphasises that “teaching
by telling doesn’t work” (Mayes, 2007). The student must be encouraged to
follow a constructivist learning path – to reflect on materials and form their own
mental maps of information learned. This is a process requiring the student to
connect the dots, tie it in with previous knowledge and re-present the
information (Kearsley, 2008) and this exact process is described by the student
above when creating their blog postings.

Encouraging this deeper reflection is often a difficult task. The dialogue above,
however, seems to demonstrate two factors by which blogging specifically can
produce this encouragement:

1. Enjoyment drawn from explaining thoughts and ideas – in essence the

satisfaction of teaching and contributing to the wider world.

2. The pressure created by having to ‘perform’ to an audience and having

your work visible to the wider world.

Both points above depend on the cohort of students creating a network of blogs
which are all visible to each other, unlike some students on the MSc BOE who
kept their blogs private. If this network is in place, however, the student voice
above would seem to indicate that public blogging can provide a highly effective
way of motivating the students to take part in reflection.

Backing this up is the student voice below (Quote 5) taken from one of the
author’s posts on the discussion boards in the first module, IBOE:

“[Group work] can seem pointless sometimes to students, if the task is

obviously created just for that lesson and has no value elsewhere. It
seems we need to find tasks which affect the outside world, and this is
perhaps why the use of Web 2.0 technologies has taken off so rapidly.
Suddenly we have an easy medium for creating products - blogs, wikis,
YouTube - which can be seen by the outside world and help the student
contribute to a realm that they value, the world wide web.”

Student Voice: Quote 5 - Giving students work of value.

This is a very interesting student voice in that it demonstrates one reason why
students are engaged and encouraged by the use of Web 2.0 technologies – it
allows the perception that their work has value in the wider world. From the
quote above we can see that students consider the web a place of value and
something worth contributing to, as also demonstrated by the large percentage
of school students subscribed to social networking sites building and maintaining
real relationships (Luckin et al, 2008). The affordances and control offered by
Web 2.0 technologies, such as easy content creation and dissemination, allows
the tutor to create tasks which involve students contributing to this world in a
real sense. These findings seem to agree with Kearsley and Schneiderman’s
(1999) Engagement Theory which advocates greater engagement in students

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when work is placed in an external context, or given value outside of the
classroom. Both student voices shown in this section seem to advocate that
blogging and Web 2.0 in general can easily facilitate this type of contextualising
and control of the outside world leading to greater engagement.

Another point that could be drawn from quotes 3 and 4 is the idea of a learning
partnership between student and tutor. By offering students a choice in how
they are assessed they are brought into the decision making process, thus giving
them a sense of control and ownership.

This is an idea demonstrated by Knowles’ Theory of Andragogy (Knowles, 1984)

in which ownership and control encourages more responsibility in the students,
thus producing deeper engagement. Control and responsibility are also key
concepts in the TESEP project’s 3E approach which advocates handing over
much more power to the learner, or to empower the student as the third E
promotes (Smyth, 2007). The 3E approach requires that the “learners needs
and interests drive the learning experience”.

In Quote 3 the student demonstrates that when given the responsibility to

choose between two different assessment methods they took the decision
seriously and chose the path which would most benefit their learning. It could
be speculated from the evidence in Quote 3 that having made this choice the
student felt more ownership of the task and felt greater motivation to perform
well, leading to more research and better blog posts.

Naturally, the question arises of whether the average student will always take
the responsibility of their choice seriously, or will they simply expend vast
amounts of time and energy (far more than they do on the coursework) finding
the path of least resistance? It could be argued that provided both assessment
choices are written to meet the course assessment requirements then the choice
will benefit at least some students in the way demonstrated above and simply
not affect others. Those that choose what they think is the easiest will still
satisfy assessment criteria, but those that choose responsibly will gain
ownership and control and hopefully perform better as result.

The area of student control is, of course, not restricted to the area of online
learning and learning technology, but it enters the context of this paper when it
is considered that ownership and the aforementioned value of work could
amplify the effect of each other. It was discussed previously that Web 2.0
technologies allow students to publish their work in the wider world, thus adding
value to the product and increasing their desire to “perform” well. It could be
speculated that the extra element of ownership generated by having a hand in
setting that learning task would amplify both the sense of value and the desire
to ‘perform’. Therefore, Web 2.0 technologies could be seen as an ideal platform
for providing control to the student as the sense of value and ownership would
work hand-in-hand. This is something which cannot be fully confirmed by the
data in this paper but which would be interesting to explore in the future.

CONCLUSION
As discussed, this research was considered worthwhile due to the dramatic
changes in both the type of learner attending higher education and the changes
in delivery method used to teach them. The experiences of the student herein

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can help to point educators in the right direction when developing courses to
engage more diverse cohorts and to teach well over different delivery methods.
Firstly, with regards to collaboration, this paper has indicated that the student of
the future will prefer academic communication to proceed via an asynchronous
medium provided that certain approaches are followed in its use. The large
benefit of synchronous communication – the ability for quick, real-time
responses – is no longer significant enough to compensate for the lack of
temporal flexibility it affords. This is due to the fact that students can often
respond in asynchronous environments relatively quickly as online
communication in general is now a significant part of their lives. If guidelines
are put in place that require or recommend regular postings then students will
usually visit often. This is an important insight as collaboration online is likely to
become more common as online learning grows. The communication methods
used in these collaborations are key to their success.

Secondly, this paper has shown evidence that public blogging is a very useful
tool in encouraging the type of reflection required in a constructivist learning
approach. The enjoyment drawn from writing and teaching others combined
with the ‘pressure to perform’ can produce very good results according to the
case study presented above. This is underpinned by the fact that Engagement
Theory (Kearsley & Schneiderman, 1999) seems to apply to public blogging in
that it contextualises students’ work in the outside world thus giving it greater
value in their eyes.

Lastly, the student voice presented in this paper seems to confirm the value of
student control in online learning and demonstrates that when given the choice
of assessment types using various learning technologies they will take the
decision seriously. The extra sense of ownership derived from this control could
well amplify the student’s sense of value in Web 2.0 generated content thus
making student control in the Web 2.0 environment an even more potent
learning tool.

One thing that is obvious from the student voice included in this paper is that a
huge amount of useful information resides in the opinions and experiences of the
thousands of students currently using learning technology on a regular basis.
Only by drawing information from these learning experience experts can
educators create learning materials that cater to wider audiences and make
proper use of the new delivery methods available to them.

References
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communication in two blended courses. Journal of Computer Assisted
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Luckin, R., Logan, K., Clark, W., Graber, R., Oliver, M. & Mee, A. (2008).
Learners' use of Web 2.0 technologies in and out of school in Key Stages 3
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dir/downloads/page_documents/research/web2_technologies_ks3_4.pdf
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Mayes, T. (2007) TESEP: The Pedagogical Principles. Available at
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[Accessed: 13/10/08].
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aced2003.ca/conference_proceedings/Mercer.pdf
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[Accessed: 13/11/08].
Palloff, R. & Pratt, K. (2004). Collaborating Online: Learning together in
community. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, pp. 4.
Smyth, K. (2007). TESEP in practise: The 3E approach. Available from
http://www2.napier.ac.uk/transform/TESEP_3E_Approach.pdf [Accessed:
13/10/08].
Smyth, K. & Mainka, C. (2006). Pedagogy and Learning Technology: a practical
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2.html [Accessed: 17/10/08].

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CAN HIGHER EDUCATION ENABLE ITS LEARNERS’ DIGITAL
AUTONOMY?

Richard Hall, De Montfort University

INTRODUCTION
The extent to which the read/write web, or Web 2.0, can enhance inclusion,
engagement and learner agency within higher education [HE] curricula is a focus
for current e-learning research (Ebner et al. 2007; Hall, 2008a). The
implications of innovative, social and networked technologies for the
development of learners’ personal responsibility and decision-making impact
both curriculum delivery and design processes, where academic staff recognise
the pedagogic advantages that are available through these tools (Franklin and
van Harmelen, 2007). Moreover, the blurring of the boundaries between social
spaces and formal learning contexts (Joint Information Systems Committee
(JISC), 2007) influences participation in on-line environments (Hall, 2006; Shea,
2006), and the extent to which learners digital autonomy can be enabled
(TESEP, 2008; Centre for Excellence in Institutional E-learning Services (Ulster,
2008a).

Socio-constructivist models offer opportunities for students to develop academic

literacies that enhance their informal and formal educational outputs, through
the development of critical thinking and decision-making within spaces for
independent learning (Trinder et al., 2008). This development of individual
decision-making and action is further catalysed through the development of
personalised learning environments (PLEs), where formal and informal
educational spaces can be fused both cognitively and as personal artefacts to
enable self-expression and self-awareness (JISC CETIS, 2008; Ravensbourne,
2008). Where control over the personal means of production is enabled,
learners can extend the power of situated, individual, educational outcomes.

This paper scopes the outcomes of a thematic study of the voices of both
learners and tutors in one UK HE institution. These voices highlight how
epistemological innovation is impacted by: the contextual control available to
users; the rules that underpin access and participation; and the feedback
received from associations within those contexts. By addressing these
curriculum issues, it is argued that the read/write web can and should be used
proactively by educators to enable learners to develop their autonomy in
situated, personal spaces, and thereby enhance the production of educational
outputs.

THE READ/WRITE WEB

Although they are also known as Web 2.0 applications (O’Reilly, 2005), the use
of the term ‘read/write’ emphasises an approach rather than a toolset and
stresses the marriage of broadcast and interactive tools within a personalisable
environment, which contains opportunities for: social networking; social
bookmarking; user-generated content; virtual representation; the syndication of
content including multimedia; and innovative approaches to content and
application-handling, including mash-ups and aggregation. The impact of these
tools has prompted practitioners to re-evaluate curriculum delivery in light of the
interplay between applications and people (Anderson, 2007).

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Recent studies on the student experience in HE (Conole et al., 2006) highlight
that a framework of technologies, including both institutional and non-
institutional tools, are crucial in connecting students’ informal and formal
learning. As McGee and Diaz (2007) note:

applications defined as ‘Web 2.0’ hold the most promise [for teaching and
learning] because they are strictly web based and typically free, support
collaboration and interaction and are responsive to the user. These
applications have great potential to be used in way that is learner-
centred, affordable and accessible for teaching and learning purposes (p.
32).

However, Trinder et al. (2008, p. 6) raise a note of caution, especially for the
role of staff as facilitators of learning within user-centred learning networks,
given ‘misconceptions surrounding the affordances of the tools, and fears
expressed about security and invasion of personal space’.

These legitimate concerns impact the connections between new, web-based

tools and the pedagogies that support independent learners. This is especially
important in light of the report that some students are ‘frustrated at the misuse
or lack of use of [read/write web] tools within their institutions’ (Conole et al.,
2006, p. 95), and that regardless of the course structures or tutor/facilitator
preferences, some students are using social software on their own initiative to
support their studies (Kurhila, 2006). Meaningful pedagogic development
requires scaffolded participation and the modelling of ideas with feedback.

Pivotal in this development is the influence of the facilitating teacher (Salmon,

2002) in promoting on-line engagement and independence. This is particularly
the case in addressing any negative, social aspects of the on-line learning that
can take place, such as marginalisation, low self-efficacy (Bandura, 1989), an
unwillingness amongst some learners to “self-publish” (Anderson, 2007), and
fears around plagiarism, privacy and data protection (Franklin and van
Harmelen, 2007). In working to overcome these issues tutors need to engage
with pedagogies that encourage autonomy.

AUTONOMY, TECHNOLOGY AND HE

Autonomy in HE is an area which is ill-defined and complex, with many personal,
peer-group, technical and systemic factors impacting on the learning experience
(Biggs, 2003). National projects (Ulster, 2008b) have highlighted how
independent learning skills may be developed informally, and how institutions
need to develop broader and deeper social networks, in order to develop
academic literacies. This might also be productively linked to a partnership
model of learning (Hall, 2006) where the focus is less on the production of
personal and shared artefacts and more on the process and actuality of
enfranchising learners. In this view students already have the awareness and
reflexivity to engage with read/write web tools in a productive manner (Green
and Hannon, 2006).

The read/write web is used to promote active citizenship and shared political
involvement (MyBarackObama.com, 2008) and decision-making. Organisations
such as Amnesty International and Oxfam regularly use social networking

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software like Facebook, MySpace and Bebo to lever individual agency for their
current campaigns (Amnesty International, 2008; Oxfam, 2008). The interplay
between these organisations and web applications enables disparate groups of
individuals to associate voluntarily with each other around themes or interests.
In coming together to discuss, make decisions and act, individuals can
acknowledge and respect personal differences. In turn, this frames a more
democratic pedagogy and toolset, through which individuals are empowered to
ask meaningful questions (Friere, 1972; Illich, 1977). Moreover, it might also
emancipate the learner’s role in her/his educational experience (Haggis, 2006;
Sullivan, 2008).

Within HE curricula this type of engagement plays out with a focus upon
autonomous learning through: independence; informed decision-making; self-
direction and personal ownership of learning; confidence in taking control over
the means of production; and developing domain-specific and personal mastery
(Ulster, 2008a; Yorke and Longden, 2008) in formal and informal spaces.
Practitioners, institutions and students need to understand how the appropriate
integration of informal and formal education, alongside the development of
independent, academic learning skills, can be managed within situated, self-
managed learning contexts (REAP, 2008) that might be described in socio-
constructivist or connectivist (Siemens, 2008) terms.

SOCIO-CONSTRUCTIVIST AND CONNECTIVIST LEARNING SPACES

It has been argued that enhanced approaches to learning are underpinned by
both socio-constructivist (Bandura, 1977; Driscoll, 1984; Vygotsky, 1978) and
connectivist (Siemens, 2008) learning theories. Socio-constructivism highlights
the importance of structured, personalised opportunities for developing mastery
in new learning situations:

Learning would be exceedingly laborious, not to mention hazardous, if

people had to rely solely on the effects of their own actions to inform
them what to do. Fortunately, most human behavior is learned
observationally through modeling: from observing others, one forms an
idea of how new behaviors are performed, and on later occasions this
coded information serves as a guide for action (p. 22).

At each level personal actions and decision-making are socially constructed and
may be connected to Wenger’s (1998) ‘communities of practice’ model, and/or
Garrison and Anderson’s (2003) ‘community of inquiry’ model.

These personal, socio-constructivist elements are arguably fused through

connectivism, which is portrayed as a learning theory for the digital age
(Siemens, 2008). It recognises that individuals learn by making cognitive
connections, and that these can be strengthened by creating networks with
other individuals and repositories of knowledge. Siemens (2004) argues that the
‘cycle of knowledge development (personal to network to organization) allows
learners to remain current in their field through the connections they have
formed’. Where individual autonomy is strong enough to empower personal
learning, and where networks are strengthened to enable knowledge
construction, information sharing and decision-making, then the capacity and
capability of individuals to know more is developed.

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Connectivism has attracted criticism as an invalid theory of learning (Kerr,
2007), which prescribes an approach for teaching that simply frames the
development of learning environments and tasks. Moreover, its practical
implementation raises many issues for users to consider, around: identity
presentation and formation; engagement, agency and marginalisation; privacy
and security; and developing technological confidence. However, where a
connectivist manifesto for learning is developed, both within the context of user-
generated and participative technologies and alongside socio-constructivism, it
can begin to frame the development of PLEs.

INTEGRATING SPACES FOR LEARNER AUTONOMY: PLES

The Ravensbourne Learner Integration project (2008) argues that a PLE is ‘a
learning environment that is assembled through learner choice’. It encompasses
the personalised aggregation of tools, networks and content from a range of
formal and informal places. This aggregation can exist in several places or be
presented in one space, depending upon the nature of the personal tasks to be
undertaken, or the specific aim to be achieved. The learning context, and both
the learning that takes place and the artefacts that are produced within it, are
owned and controlled by the individual student. The Ravensbourne Learner
Integration project (2008) has developed an assemblage model that focuses
upon the individual’s transition from private to public learning in the context of
social software and communities of practice.

Image 1: e-Learning in Context, the Ravensbourne Learner Integration model

The Learner Integration model highlights the links between: personal mastery in
specific domains; social learning in communities of practice; and social media
and technologies. It demonstrates how autonomy is enhanced through active

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participation with user-centred media and within groups that make sense to the
individual. The key is the process of learning and how the learner becomes an
independent, self-aware actor. However, by integrating and making explicit the
elements that focus upon the development of the learner’s personal aims,
her/his feedback mechanisms or confidence in network-based, signal-processing,
and the rules that operate within networks, personal ways of developing mastery
can be addressed (Hall, 2008b).

Image 2: e-Learning in Context, a Fused Learner Integration model

Individual students can develop their own approaches to conceptual mastery by

modelling their learning. This is underpinned by their proximity to formal and
informal associations or networks, which are personally meaningful in enabling a
learning aim to be achieved. In turn the rules and frameworks that are
negotiated within these networks, associations and communities frame a fused
learning space for making sense of signals and feedback and making decisions.

THE DECISION-MAKING OPPORTUNITIES OF THE READ/WRITE WEB

Dewey (1997) noted that

Genuine freedom, in short, is intellectual; it rests in the trained power of

thought, in the ability to ‘turn things over’ to look at matters deliberately,
to judge whether the amount and kind of evidence requisite for decision is
at hand, and if not, to tell where and how to seek such evidence (pp. 66-
7).

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The ability to judge, make decisions and act upon them is a function of control
over the means of production within a social setting, and gives individuals the
opportunity to engage with and reshape the environments in which they operate.
Authentic decision-making is embraced where power and control are devolved,
so that a broadcast model of education morphs to become one which is
interactive (Papert, 1993; Piaget, 1932). For Sachs (2000) such devolution
must be based on trust and a sense of liberty, which together provide a means
to engage with difference.

A strong civil society protects liberty because it diffuses the centres of

power. It creates fraternity because it encourages people to work together
as neighbours and friends. It promotes equality because it tempers self-
help with help to others, and because the help given to others is such as
to encourage their participation and eventually independence (p.137).

The social spaces in which we exist, and the shared values that frame them, are
pivotal in promoting our social freedoms, interdependence and decision-making.
It is through conversations with the users and editors of these spaces that a
fuller manifestation of Anderson's (2007) core, read/write web concepts
becomes apparent. Each of these concepts, namely user-generated content, the
power of the crowd, data on an epic scale, an architecture that supports
participation, network effects, and openness in content and computer code,
affects and is affected by individual autonomy and engagement.

Anderson notes (2007, p. 53) how ‘the crowd, and its power, will become more
important as the Web facilitates new communities and groups’, which in turn will
‘challenge conventional thinking on who exactly does things’, and who can
access, process and mash-up ‘the huge amounts of data that Web 2.0 is
generating’. This process of challenging and reconceptualising is based upon the
control of tools, access to and participation within a range of networks, and the
facilitation of critical literacies both within and beyond the curriculum. Therefore,
evaluating the spaces in which users come to terms with themselves, others,
and their own means of production is critical in understanding how the
read/write web impacts upon autonomy in HE.

EVALUATION
A note on context and evaluation
The discussion that follows pivots around the impact of the deployment of read/
write technologies within one UK university. The evaluation is designed to
analyse conversations about emergent curriculum approaches, in order to
examine how the tools provided are being embedded. It focuses upon the
triangulation of two data sources.

1. In-depth interviews and on-line focus groups with 148 students at all levels,
including postgraduate, in all five University faculties between 2005-08; and
2. In-depth interviews with 11 staff before, during and after they introduced
read/write technologies into their curricula.

The evaluator did not focus conversations upon the implications of the
read/write web for developing autonomy. Rather, the approach engaged with
understanding the systematic implementation of e-learning innovations and their
impact on learning and teaching. This accords with the view of Reason (2003,

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106) that the ‘fundamental strategy of action research is to ‘open communicative
space’ and help the emergence of ‘communities of inquiry’.’ This approach
becomes rigorous through consensual participation. Thematic content analysis
was used in order to unpick and capture the emergent themes from the
interviews. The interviews were conducted and the coding scheme was framed
and tested by the same evaluator in order to maintain an internal consistency of
approach (Boyatzis, 1998).

Scoping autonomy and environmental control

Connecting personal and academic technologies was critical for some students,
who needed to understand the boundaries for specific learning contexts. One
Post-Graduate Certificate in HE [PG Cert HE] participant noted ‘Learning should
simulate real-life experiences which are full of emerging gadgetry and
technology.’ This member of staff wanted to ‘shift responsibility of learning to
the learner and possibly engage students when they are switched off by other
methods’. This connection between real-life tools and personal responsibility
frames a theme of control as an enabler for autonomy. One level two student
noted that ‘staff define the use of technologies and students expect to be told
what to do.’ The programme tutor believed that this was because ‘they don’t
come in with enough ideas, but I would like this to change over time, that they
talk to each other, in MSN etc. and share thoughts and values.’

In part student expectations for more control within an environment are shaped
by their autonomy in relation to the tasks and tools at hand, and understanding
the point of a tool contextualised by a task. In light of this, one tutor focused
upon a shared culture that emphasised deliberation and feedback: ‘The wiki will
help create a culture that is less restrictive where students can configure the
space and theme pages or comments.’ This type of facilitated deliberation and
action enables students to find ‘the right place’ for tools and needs to be
negotiated, especially where teams of staff deliver a unit of the curriculum.
According to one level three learner ‘the variance [in approach] between staff is
confusing – this is the same module but different things are going on. We need
a conversation about consistency of approach.’ However, a level one student
liked the flexibility offered where his teaching team used read/write tools that
‘are easy and open software so we can create a structure that we manage [sic.].’

The issue of students feeling controlled by institutional tools was removed by a

group of postgraduate students, who stated that ‘a few of us use Skype,
especially at assessment time when there was no activity on the assessment
[discussion] board.’ One student commenting on the use of RSS noted: ‘the
feed I've set up for a couple of websites is already paying off. It's great I don't
have to keep visiting web sites’ The independent sourcing of tools by learners to
support their own learning was highlighted as a threat by a tutor on a different
programme, who pinpointed the tension that existed within read/write
applications where ‘you have to be seen to read and to use these tools, and to
give feedback.’ Another tutor argued that ‘many staff feel threatened and
challenged by technological innovation that widens student aspirations’, although
a third added perceptively that ‘the students have discovered and use web-
based [tools] – they are migrating themselves into industry toolsets. We need to
adapt.’ For this tutor, environmental control and autonomy were correlated.

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Scoping autonomy through access and participation
One level two student felt that access to technologies that supported his out-of-
class participation was important in enabling him to model his thinking

because that's when you really get to try things out and learn by trial and
error. By doing this you get more of a feel for how you might use the
technologies in your work. It all becomes more concrete and less
abstract.

This view was echoed by a PG Cert HE participant who argued that her students
valued the use of wikis for group project because this allowed them ‘to work
collaboratively [and] let’s them quickly share links – so in a sense it is more
about the efficiency of input’. A positive rationale for personal engagement in
particular contexts underpins active participation. For some students the
rationale was the personal efficacy of participating. A postgraduate learner
highlighted that access to read/write tools ‘gave me a chance to practice with
others, to do it for myself… to apply the learning, test out new skills, and
highlight any problems.’ This places value upon a curriculum that connects
personalised ways of working with adaptive tools.

These connections were viewed more positively by learners where tutors frame a
space that encourages autonomy. A student on a different programme stated
that ‘if they [lecturers] just put their PowerPoints up I become lazy – is there
any point in attending? Especially where there is no interaction.’ A peer
extended this to focus upon the sharing of ideas: ‘there is some fear of the
plagiarism [on the open web], but we just need to agree rules of engagement’.
For a member of staff this participative application of read/write tools was crucial
because ‘these tools help them to share and ask someone else if they have
problems. I want [them] to see reading as a social activity and a conversation’.

For some cohorts of students, association as a group using tools outside the
control of the teaching team was critical in building a rationale for access and
participation. One postgraduate argued that ‘we built the community between
us and now I am less apprehensive about getting feedback. It removed the fear
of isolation’. This approach was empowering for a level two student who argued
that ‘the lecturer actually uses the technology and discusses it with us.’ This
tutor went on to state that these read/write tools would affect ‘participation in
the formation of their own project [group] identity, it will be interesting to see
how this affects their overall [programme-based] sociability’.

This type of participation, within a context that respects the differences between
students and fosters a space for autonomy, was echoed by a separate lecturer:
‘The Web2.0 software is ‘owned’ and editable by them, and they can see what
each other have done and all are free to comment... within a set of guidelines
that promote active interest’. The level of active interest, facilitated by local
environmental control and concomitant participation, spurs decision-making
about threshold concepts and academic knowledge. For one learner, active
participation was stimulated by user-centred social networks that have the
‘advantage for more higher-level learning where actually students are self-
managing and communicating with each other and learning from that
interaction.’

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Scoping autonomy in external networks
Most interactions within a curriculum are fixed within institutionalised spaces.
However, for some students external associations with validated others hold
most value. In these contexts, belonging to and engaging with non-institutional
friendship groups and associations validates actions. A level one student
highlighted that the extension of personal skills in virtual worlds, like Second
Life, was forged out of shared interests between wider groups of people. He
noted that

the first thing we did was explore places that looked good and where
people had already solved the problems we had. We talked to them about
this about how they had solved problems. They talked to us because we
were using the same language, and they could get something from us.

One of his peers went on to argue that this impacted his creativity: ’I can
understand the programming but it is the creative side that has changed,
because I have had to work outside our normal group.’

A distance learner using non-institutional, synchronous classrooms noted how

they ‘are a good community building tool with opportunities for us to learn in
[diverse] teams, allowing you to gather knowledge and experience and ideas
quickly and share it.’ For some staff this strategy is threatening. One argued
that ‘It’s not clear to me how del.icio.us and Flickr are learning technologies –
they look like there’s no quality control’. However, for a sub-set of students
dialogue with non-students is critical in their own reflexive assessment of
personal progress. A level two learner noted that ‘my identity is defined
externally and I like to go off on my own and work with others. I like [our use of
read/write tools] as it is an extension of my way of working.’ A second, level
two learner concurred noting ‘It is a process of self-validation, to have opinions
outside [the University]… outside experience is important in practice.’

This sense of shared, open validation was important for one programme team:
‘We encourage students to share their resources via wikis, del.icio.us, and other
open applications’. This demonstrates a mastery over more than the
programme’s intended outcomes, but also the broader role of trust and validity
in the production of personal and social assets. This link between tools and
people engages a set of complex approaches towards decision-making, based
upon association and dialogue. One student highlighted that this complexity was
forged out of shared interests, and trustful, external contexts for action and
decision-making, which ‘helps build my identity and helps my work become
original and authentic. It gives me inspiration.’ This demonstrates the strength
of external associations, based upon both common interests and a depth of
conceptual understanding, underpinned by a value-set made real by control over
the deployment of read/write technologies.

This point is crucial for institutions because students tend to be fleet-of-foot in

the technologies that they deploy and the associations that are subsequently
made. Where locally-controlled approaches take time to deploy and appear
archaic, learners and tutors proactively seek out external associations and tools
that enable their curricula. As a postgraduate learner stated:

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 I think it's quite likely that whatever the University provides people will
use other tools that perhaps they did before coming to Uni[versity], such
as MySpace, to manage their groups and friends. We need to look at how
to make it as painless as possible to use other things alongside whatever
the Uni[versity] uses.

CONCLUSION: DECISION-MAKING AND AUTONOMY

Through conversations with users themes related to decision-making and
autonomy emerge, which are bounded by the contextual dynamics of: who sets
the agenda for the use of a particular space, in terms of the tasks and tools that
shape its boundaries; who controls access to that space and whether its users
feel able to participate therein; and, the external networks that users create and
within which they operate. Both students and staff highlight how the marriage
of read/write strategies and tools can begin to open up spaces for people to
develop their autonomy. A PG Cert HE participant argued ‘things have changed
and I am considering how these technologies can not only enhance my teaching,
but also how they can help me with my specific learning needs too’.

There is still a risk of marginalising some learners and staff, where partnership-
based pedagogic models are used to promote personalised learning contexts or
PLEs. This is particularly important given the political control and management
of a validated curriculum by HE staff. In this way, academic and support staff
need to be able to develop a meaningful pedagogical approach to the
deployment of read/write web technologies, allied to problem-based tasks. As
participants develop an autonomous learning strategy, the clarity of links
between structured activities in various learning networks, and personal
reflections on achievement became pivotal in forging an empowering PLE.
Therefore, professional development for facilitating tutors within programme
teams is critical in extending learner-autonomy.

The capacity of the read/write web to improve the opportunities for people to
work together to shape and solve problems is pedagogically important. In
validating individual stories and beliefs, and in crystallising themes around
control, participation and external association, these tools give learners
opportunities to ameliorate marginalisation both through dialogue and a sense
that the power relationships within any space have a chance to be
democratically-framed. Thus, engagement with a mix of institutional and non-
institutional applications, which collectively shape the means for the production
of educational outcomes, frames a context in which autonomy can be developed.
Moreover, where students enter a formal pedagogic process with their actions,
decisions and values already proactively informed by external engagements,
there is the hope of further personal, epistemological enfranchisement in the
cause of active citizenship.

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LEARNING AND COMMUNITY

Steve Draper, Dept. of Psychology, University of Glasgow

ABSTRACT
Learning is in some sense or senses a communal activity, even if not necessarily
a face to face one. But in what sense? There is no agreement about this. This
paper briefly surveys the ways in which other people may help learning. It
draws particular attention to issues that conflict with simplistic assumptions
about freedom, privacy and sociability in relation to learning.

INTRODUCTION
A perennial student plaint is “nobody knows my name or who I am”. This seems
to voice a need for social community in institutional learning. Yet learning is in
some other sense already inherently communal or social: almost all we learn in
formal education comes not from our own experience of the world but from
others. Yet again, peer interaction is increasingly seen as important to promote
in HE (higher education). Partly this is to save staff time and so money; but in
fact it is for deeper and longer-standing reasons: peers, it is argued, support
learning in ways staff cannot. Thus implicitly there are quite different views of
what the important “social” aspect of learning is, quite different visions of how
community matters in learning. One is Vygotsky’s and Lave’s: you need to
learn personally from experts, like apprentices from masters. Another vision is
Newman’s and Illich’s: the best learning is from interaction with equals. The
educational literature is full of such voices, but they mostly act as if deaf to each
other. What is the space of educational forces here, and are they inherently
contradictory or is there the possibility of synthesis? What does learning have to
do with community, the academic with the social?

CONFLICTING USAGES OF THE PHRASE “LEARNING COMMUNITY”

The phrase “learning community” is now widely used in the educational
literature, but this conceals a lack of common conceptual ground. Many authors
fail to define what they mean, write as if unaware that other authors use it to
mean other things, and that their use of the term is also different from its
current normal meaning outside the educational literature. This is reminiscent of
a common technique used by communities, e.g. teenage gangs, to differentiate
themselves from other groups by coining special usages of various terms, which
they prefer that others do not understand. Most educational usages of
“community” refer only to positive and helpful aspects of community and do not
discuss the unhelpful and divisive aspects — which ironically they seem to be
practising themselves.

There may be four main roots to the multiple usage. In the literature dealing
with HE (higher education), possibly the single largest use of the term refers to
active interventions to increase first year student-student interaction in ways
relevant to learning. This approach was introduced in 1984 at Evergreen State
College. It may identify sets of students with the most overlap in course
enrolments, and may coordinate their work e.g. in an “integrative seminar”. The
idea explicitly behind it is creating shared intellectual experience with student’s
new peers (e.g. Alexander, Penberthy, McIntosh, & Denton; 1996).

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A second usage for the phrase may originate with Brown & Campione (1990),
who used “community of learners” and “learning community”. They saw a link
between Lave’s ideas of situated learning and apprenticeship, and new
possibilities in formal classrooms which they were developing. In their work,
learners produced learning materials themselves, and taught other students the
subject matter (biology) in a community of equals; but acquired learning skills
by apprenticeship from teachers who were not subject experts but did model
learning skills. Few of those who now use the phrase are referring to anything
like such a rich mix of features; yet Brown herself was certainly not alluding to
the full range of ways in which community relates to learning.

The third root is simply the vast range of possible meanings arising from the way
we can all find relevant associations between “learning” and “community”. This
makes the phrase continually attractive to its many different users, yet also
makes it hard to share precise meaning. Some authors simply use “learning
community” as a catchphrase for any set of learners: they might just as well
say “the students on the course”. While the false presupposition of a common
meaning is annoying in the scholarly literature, the great range of associations is
also an opportunity to uncover some puzzles that may eventually allow us to
improve practice.

We begin by noting that in current UK usage (e.g. in newspapers), “community”

refers to people who live near each other e.g. in a town, and are organised
together by law, government, and shared services. They therefore have
significant interests and activities in common, but usually have not chosen the
other members and frequently have little or no personal relationship with each
other. A university is like this too. However most usages of “community” in the
educational literature deny the negative, presuppose the positive, and in fact
refer to interventions to increase inter-personal interaction, which is not inherent
in the concept and reality of community. The contrast comes out in phrases such
as “care in the community” which now in the UK refers to mentally ill people
being required to live outside institutions, sometimes in the face of protests by
“the community” itself.

The fourth major root of the term “learning community” is its long established
use in the literature on Adult Education, where it is used to discuss the
relationship between learning, groups of learners, and their surrounding
community. Similarly it has been used to refer to how a school relates to the
community around it e.g. DfEE (1999). Even within this usage there are several
distinct ideas:

• One is for groups of schools that form a supply chain e.g. a secondary
school and all the primary schools that feed into it. By forming a
community, these can improve things such as whether children acquire the
knowledge needed for a smooth transition between them.
• Home culture: thought to be the reason that in the USA, Asian American
children outperform Anglo Americans who outperform African Americans.
That is, success at school is strongly affected by how the culture or
attitudes of the home interact with it.
• Coordination of activities in and out of schools within a community by
families, schools, and out of school activities; i.e. the coordination of formal
and informal learning. A stronger version of this is that some academic

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 subjects in fact tacitly assume that the child does thousands of hours of
related practical work as a hobby. Thus a child who reads several books a
week as leisure is obviously likely to outperform in English a child who
never reads except at school; a boy who spends time building and mending
electrical and mechanical devices will have a far better grounding for
science and engineering than a child who thinks these are to be studied
only in school. This emerged, among other places, in a study of why so few
women used to get and keep places in computer science at Carnegie
Mellon: it was not that the women were stupid or lazy, but the men just
took for granted working extremely long hours at it “for fun” and had done
so for years before they got to university: this gave them a grounding
which many of the courses took for granted, but that merely excellent
students did not have (Margolis & Fisher, 2002).

Illich’s (1970) book “Deschooling society” argued for an education system

without teachers: learners would find others with (for the moment) the same
learning objective, and learn with them: a system wholly peer, not teacher,
based. Cardinal Newman (1852) too has some remarks about how peers are
more important than “exams and professors” for true education, although he
thought academics who cared about tutoring would be even better. They didn’t
use the phrase “learning community”, but represent the idea that learning is, or
should be, fundamentally about peers learning together. (This is arguably the
most natural, and deepest, use of the term: not a community with some
learning round its edges, but a community formed entirely for the purpose of
learning.)

Another usage of “learning community” in the current educational literature

turns out to refer not to students but to small groups of HE teachers meeting,
say, once a month for discussion about each other’s personal research projects
on teaching. These should perhaps be called “teaching communities” rather
than “learning communities” (Macdonald, 2001), or “Disciplinary Commons”
(Tenenberg & Fincher, 2007). On the other hand, they are about peer learning,
and how peers stimulate personal reflection, and share good practice: clearly
good for promoting professionalism.

Newman also emphasises the importance of academics forming a cross-discipline

community (again without using that word; today we over-use “collegiality” to
express the thought): the importance of respecting what others know as a
corrective to assuming that anyone who thinks differently from us is wrong and
is stupid to be wrong. Thus he thinks fundamental to a university is that it
includes scholars of all types of knowledge together in order that this
fundamental feature of peer interaction is provided for the academics
themselves.

Jean Lave (1991) developed the concept of “communities of practice”, conceived

of as the locus of learning analogous to apprenticeship: the communities here
are defined by “practice” or activity, with learning occurring by joining in the
activity of more experienced practitioners. Wenger (1998) wrote further on
“communities of practice” and related the concept to “learning communities”.
This seems, although from a very different disciplinary starting point, at bottom
the same general view as that of Vygotsky, in that learning is seen as essentially
social, but as not primarily between peers but between more and less

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knowledgeable people, e.g. teacher and pupil. One of the relatively rare cases
of applying that in HE for/to students is described in Dunlap (2006). It is a good
fit there, since this was a course for turning graduates into researchers, able to
participate in that community.

Social constructivism also sees learning as bound to communities. However

many quite different ways in which one person may influence another’s learning
for the better have already been identified. A general belief that communities
matter to learning doesn’t say which of these ways do not matter and which do
matter, and how, and why; and so is little help for the practical business of
improving teaching and learning or for the theoretical business of specifying how
exactly community affects learning. The next section discusses a way in which it
does matter, but which contradicts some common intuitions.

TEACHER MONITORING
One aspect of “community” is currently coming to prominence in the movement
to break up secondary schools into smaller units of about 350 pupils, rather than
over 1,000 (Wetz, 2006). The idea is that, although the majority of pupils do
well in huge schools with different teachers for each subject, disaffection and
failure rates are heavily influenced by whether there is a staff member who
effectively monitors each pupil’s work as a whole and knows both pupil and their
family well. Chinese schools do this; it is a growing movement in the USA; some
are calling for it in the UK. It may not be about tutoring on the subject matter
itself, but about a) whether the child feels part of a community, noticed; b)
whether their work is monitored so that even if they express difficulties only by
not doing things, rather than by asking for help, this is quickly responded to.

There are a series of important issues here. Does “community” really mean
teacher-pupil not peers? Students complain if no teacher knows their name, and
really value it when they do; and this appears to be independent of whether they
have good friends in the class.

Do staff have two tasks, best thought of as quite separate rather than assuming
that doing one will cover the other automatically? The successful schools aren’t
merely smaller, but rather they ensure that for each child there is one teacher
looking out for them across all subjects i.e. a separation of the functions of
specialist content teaching and of monitoring each pupil’s work as a whole. This
latter function involves: a) monitoring each pupil’s attendance of school and
each class; b) monitoring their work e.g. are they completing their homework in
all their subjects; c) knowing their family. In many ways this may simply be
reinstating a function that teachers in the UK too used to make a point of doing,
but now have “forgotten”: being a “home room” teacher. Apparently in China,
secondary school classes are 50 (not 30) BUT they have strongly in place one
teacher keeping an eye on all of each pupil’s work independently of specialist
subject teachers. This issue seems to be about a feeling of community, of
entrainment, of being noticed, of support when needed.

But is it about “caring” or is it really “monitoring”? It may actually be more

about “being known” or being noticed than being loved. And perhaps we all have
a need to have our actions noticed and taken as a gesture even when we don’t,
and don’t feel able to, start a conversation ourselves. Certainly, we probably
don’t want to be where no-one notices we are angry unless we say “Hey, I’m

135
angry”, or that we are deeply upset unless we say “Hey, these are tears, I need
help here”. Babies would probably live only a few days in such circumstances,
but adults too are not entirely free, not just from a wish but from the need to be
noticed without asking for it.

Perhaps it is not exactly being known, or noticed, or monitored, but more being
recognised. This is one view of a doctor’s (or a shaman’s) role: not to cure, but
to recognise the disease, the person and the situation they are in, even if no
worthwhile intervention can be made. For all modern medicine’s emphasis on
cure, we are still all fated to die. A far older, yet still entirely contemporary, role
for doctors is to recognise and certify this (Berger, 1968/1997). This is really
the same point as is made in quite other contexts about how the most important
feature of personal relationships is not validation, praise etc. so much as being
known as we really are (Ben-Shahar, 2007).

This function (“monitoring”) seems similar to the principle of “time on task” and
Gibbs’ version of that as a principle of assessment design (Gibbs & Simpson,
2004). Here however it is not about designing the course, but monitoring
student execution of the design so as to detect promptly those who are falling
away. It rings bells with discussion in HE about addressing first year and
retention issues there. It is interesting that the discussion about secondary
schools, though using different language, is also about supporting the transition
from primary school, about requiring pupils to be more self-managing but
catching early those who have difficulty with this and focussing staff support
there. In effect this is about scaffolding, not the learning of the content, but the
increase in self-regulation required: and to progressively withdraw that
scaffolding, but “contingently” i.e. only for those pupils who can now manage.

Thus what I’ve called “teacher monitoring” seems to be important, especially in

addressing dropout and retention. But what view does it imply about “learning
community”?

• It is about community in that the learners talk about whether anyone knows
them, notices them; whether they feel part of it.
• It is not about peers but about relationships with teachers/staff.
• It is not about teaching content e.g. tutoring a learner through some
difficulty of understanding.
• It is not even about managing content or acquisition i.e. about whether the
learner has “got” some concept, or passed some test.
• It is not properly pastoral in the sense of solving their personal problems, or
offering them counselling, although awareness of these things may be part
of it. It is about helping them work round any personal problems so as to
remain productively engaged in learning.
• It is about learning activity “management”: about whether the learner is
engaging in the learning activities. (Attendance is simply the crudest
measure related to this.) Students mostly learn to become good at this
over their time at university, but are often not good at it at first. They
need, and often know they need, some help with this: some scaffolding.
This management or self-regulation issue is what is addressed by Gibbs’
principles. Teacher monitoring is one way it is addressed elsewhere in the
education system, and perhaps should be considered in first year in HE,
although the important aim of equipping learners to be more autonomous

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 and ready for lifelong learning means that this scaffolding should be
progressively withdrawn.

Thus teacher monitoring could be understood as addressing a need for personal

communication that does not presuppose student proactiveness but does
embody a personal knowledge of the student as a whole (not as half a dozen
unrelated course enrolments), and addresses the complaint “nobody knows my
name or who I am”; but which contravenes intuitions about privacy, student
autonomy, responsibility, and freedom. This is also a matter of making students
accountable: which is recognisably a core function of community, but not one
that most of the current users of “learning community” care to own.

LEARNERS BEING ACCOUNTABLE

I called the issue “teacher monitoring” to emphasise a contrast between it and
connotations of non-judgemental support. That terminology also emphasises a
perspective in which the teacher is active but the learner passive. It is however
possible to think of this in terms of a much more active learner: in terms of the
learner being visible, accountable, and so active. Shulman (2005), in discussing
his notion of signature pedagogies, does this. His discussion explicitly comments
on how students in these particular pedagogic situations cannot hide, are fully
“visible” and “accountable”; and how they may well find this terrifying at first,
but with familiarity, terror normally reduces to a productive anxiety: again, this
stresses a difference from an unchallenging approach. The characteristics of
signature pedagogies that he lists are:
• Pervasive, routine, habitual. So learners are completely used to what is
required in these sessions, and can concentrate on what is being taught
and learned. I.e. there are standard rules of engagement for these
learning activities NOT novelty in the format.
• Students feel highly visible, accountable, and vulnerable.
• Students feel deeply engaged.
• High affective level in class.

The relevant characteristic here is being accountable. This could be seen as an

extension of teacher monitoring: but where the learner is more autonomous,
less dependent on a teacher taking special pains to monitor them, more self-
monitoring. This suggests that where learning and teaching not only offer but
demand and enforce engagement and participation from the learners, then they
may fulfil implicit requirements that lead to improved retention. Feeling highly
accountable, then, is the proactive learner counterpart of teacher monitoring.
An intermediate case, perhaps, is mentoring: again it is advice on a learner’s
process (not on the content they are learning), and from someone more
knowledgeable yet not in authority.

THE DIVERSE WAYS OTHER PEOPLE CAN HELP INDIVIDUALS LEARN

There is a large number of ways in which others can help us learn. However two
big questions are a) is it teachers or peers who are important for this? and b)
does a feeling of community matter? There are unintentional and impersonal
ways that others advance our learning (you overhear something that sticks in
your mind and makes you think; Shakespeare wasn’t writing for me personally,
probably couldn’t even imagine someone like me); and then there are things
that make you feel part of a community.

137
A generic and abstract meaning of “community” is the way learning is often,
perhaps always, promoted by interaction with other people around learning; that
is, the social aspects as opposed to the individualistic cognitive aspects of
learning. It’s mysterious as a whole because, as constructivism rightly
emphasises, there is an important sense in which learning is essentially private,
something each learner does internally for themselves, and that no-one else can
directly do for them. On the other hand, it seems clear that teachers have an
enormous effect on learning: children who stay away from school seldom learn
much unless their parents devote themselves to teaching them. So the general
question is, what is it that people do for learners that makes a big difference?

Another important issue here is how intentionally cooperative these ways of

helping are. In any community, in many ways the members are indifferent to
each other, in some ways they are in conflict or competition, but in some other
ways they are importantly inter-dependent. Learning is certainly like that too.
Learning is at bottom a private affair internal to the learner’s mind, that no-one
else can possibly do for the learner: it is not like building a house where labour
can be divided. However other people can make a big difference, although
whether they intend to varies. When two students revise together by taking
turns in devising test questions that the other must try to answer, they put in
equal work and end up learning similar content. When two people discuss a
concept, they certainly put in similar time and effort, but the research evidence
(Miyake, 1986; Howe, Tolmie, & Rogers, 1992) shows they typically take away
rather different understandings even though both benefit a lot. This means the
previously more advanced learner learns from the process even though the other
“had” nothing to teach them. When you look up an entry in Wikipedia, or see
how much work another student has done, or which books they have taken out
of the library, you benefit even though they didn’t intend that you personally
would benefit, nor have you in any way helped them. But we can say that you
have benefited from community.

The important ways in which other people can help learning may be categorised
in three ways by: whether the help is intentional or not, whether the provider
has a personal relationship with the learner or not in the specific sense of the
provider adjusting what they do in response to the learner i.e. whether it is
contingent, and by whether it is reciprocal i.e. the interaction has
approximately equal learning benefits for both or not (peer vs. teacher). These
three binary categories in reality have intermediate or mixed instances as well,
but the main point here is to illustrate how extensively other people may be
important to learning even though unintentionally, with no special expertise, or
no special relationship with the learner. The table below shows examples for all
eight of the combinations of these three categories. Additionally, “+” marks a
fourth binary categorisation of whether the learner is proactive, taking the
initiative in organising or arranging for the activity. A fifth binary categorisation,
not systematically marked and developed here but implicitly varying among the
examples, is between help at the basic content level of concepts to be learned,
and help with the management level of deciding on what learning activities to
perform.

138
 Learners benefit from others with and without special expertise,
intention, or being personally known
+ indicates an activity initiated by the learner (proactive-ness)
Helper’s Intention Personal relationship
Not personal
expertise to teach (contingent action)
Teacher monitoring,
Lecturing,
Scaffolding of procedural
Intended Writing a textbook,
skills
+ Asking an expert
+ Ask a tutor
Unequal, staff, + Eavesdropping on
benefit not Role model (using a
strangers,
reciprocal teacher as),
Using a celebrity or hero
(+) Imitating or observing
Unintended as a role model,
someone more
+ Studying the career of
knowledgeable whom you
a politician to gain similar
know
success
Wikipedia,
+ Alternating roles e.g.
Anonymised versions of
testing each other, student
student reciprocal
Intended reciprocal critiquing,
critiquing,
The same but imposed by
+ Posting a question to a
staff
forum

Equal, peer, Anonymous peer review,

reciprocal + Comparing your marks
benefit or actions to the class
Peer discussion,
norm,
+ Borrowing lecture notes,
+ Listening to
Unintended + Spying on, imitating, or
classmates’ questions
observing a classmate you
and comments,
know
+ Mutual help with the
process e.g. ask where
the classroom is.

LEARNING REGARDLESS OF PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS

The table above illustrates that many of the ways in which others assist learning
do not involve a personal relationship in the specific sense of the teacher
adjusting what they do in response to the learner. Since the invention of
writing, it has been unnecessary for the teacher to know the learner in any way.
Although a letter writer often adjusts what they say to a specific reader, and
some authors talk of “knowing their audience”, it is impossible to say that
Shakespeare or Newton changed what they wrote from knowledge of me.
Similarly for every type of peer interaction, there are ways for a learner to
benefit both with and without the other intending or even knowing about them.

The underlying issue here is what is the relationship of the social and the
academic — of Tinto’s (1975) two types of integration thought to be important in
reducing dropout — of personal social relationships and productive learning? A
personal relationship is founded on knowing specific things about the other, and

139
most importantly, the history of the interactions. If you act identically with a
person, regardless of anything they do or say, it cannot be a personal
relationship. This is “contingency”: the dependence of one party’s action on the
other’s previous action(s). This has also been shown to be important in some
teaching: Wood, Wood, & Middleton (1978) showed that optimal tutoring on a
procedural task was “contingent tutoring”, where the tutor’s next intervention
was varied depending on the last action by the learner. However this isn’t the
only (nor the most common) way in which one person can help another’s
learning; and furthermore, their strategy doesn’t depend on prior knowledge of
the learner, but on responding to what they are doing currently.

Much of this runs counter to the intuition which many learners and teachers
have, that the social precedes the academic, and that to get a group or class to
work together, they must first be introduced socially (by “ice breakers” in the
small scale, cheese and wine events for large classes, etc.). This is widely
accepted advice in e-learning e.g. Salmon’s (2000) stage 2. However as the
review by Kreijns, Kirschner & Jochems (2003) reveals (perhaps inadvertently),
while the e-learning field believes “that social interaction is a prerequisite for
collaboration and collaborative learning”, such advice is only an advance relative
to “taking social interaction for granted” i.e. to technologists’ naive surprise that
simply providing the technology (e.g. a discussion board) is not sufficient to
induce academically productive peer discussion. It is better than doing nothing,
but not only is there no evidence that it is optimal, but it is not even as
advanced as best non-technological practice. For example a long established,
although not widespread, practice is the reading party, where a group of
learners and staff spend several days together engaged in joint academic tasks.
These are frequently mentioned as their best learning experience by students
who have participated in one, and also produce strong group bonding.

This should be no surprise since the social psychology literature on group

functioning has long established that the causality predominantly goes in the
contrary direction. Not only is social attractiveness (the bond between group
members) independent of personal attractiveness (the bond between two
individuals outside any group context), but the need to collaborate on a task
creates group cohesiveness even when this means reversing strong prior
hostility, as Sherif’s experiments and theory of Realistic Conflict established.
(See for example the textbook by Hogg & Vaughan, 2008.) This implies that the
best way to get a group of learners to bond is to give them a joint task. In other
words for learning, the academic precedes the social. This makes sense of quite
common student complaints about ice-breaker activities as wasting their time
(after all, students’ purpose is to learn, not to pay universities to help them with
their social life), and more importantly of Trotter’s (2006) study of two courses
with contrasting dropout rates. One course provided a social activity at the start
and had a high dropout rate; the other did not, but did start the course with
group projects (which gave the students a directly relevant activity while
“incidentally” interacting with each other) and had a low dropout rate.

It seems likely, then, that a more careful consideration of the literatures relevant
to learning and community could yield better suggestions about supporting
academically productive peer interaction. Certainly Baxter (2007) obtained
impressive learning gains based on online “virtual” student groups where there
was no provision for meeting face to face nor for prior small group social

140
interaction, but had repeated joint group projects which led to considerable and
useful peer interaction.

Furthermore, the literature on conceptual learning through peer interaction

shows that there is no special need for prior social bonds, but on the contrary
there is a need to arrange for both a difference in opinion and public statements
of that difference to counteract the tendency for groups to agree verbally
regardless of their actual private opinions (Howe, Tolmie, & Rogers, 1992). Here
the social need not precede the academic, and even tends to obstruct it. This
may be why so often student study groups assembled on a basis of prior
friendship seem to be less productive than those formed for strictly academic
purposes.

More generally, besides reconsidering our teaching practices to take community

more seriously, perhaps the most important attribute for a graduate to acquire is
a realisation that our learning can be enhanced by people that we don’t know or
even that we don’t like: that the social and the academic are not bound
together in any simple way, and that the lifelong learner is not dependent on
personal relationships. This readies a graduate both for workplace group
working and for learning with peers through the realisation that both parties
benefit and no altruism or loyalty is required (although it is often engendered).

“COMMUNITY” AGAIN
Communities, therefore, matter to learning in several separate ways.
• Learning is better promoted (more learning outcomes are realised) if pre-
existing communities support it: families, cultural attitudes, governments.
• Other people help learners in many ways, not all personal, not all
intentional. A learner without access to other people would be
handicapped, although by no means entirely prevented from learning.
Thus there are some other positive community effects on learning, even
without supportive attitudes.
• Groups (“communities”) specially formed for learning are also important,
although not essential. Learning in a group (others doing the same course)
inside an organisation like a university, increases the availability of
resources including social resources, that promote your personal learning.
• Knowledge itself is socially distributed, and not individually and
independently grounded. This social network could be called a community,
although of a different kind. If we consider a topic as simple as what does
something weigh, then what we want to mean is whatever the government
standard of weight is; which in turn depends on international standards,
and in turn these are under review by experts (who are currently seeking to
replace the standard kilogram lump of metal by another way of defining the
standard). This paper itself also illustrates how meaning is a series of
pointers to other meanings, not something anyone “owns” or “has”. When
we teach something, even if merely by inducing rote learning of technical
terms, we are connecting our learners better to a community of users of
the technical terms. Modern practices of creating special online forums
around a topic illustrate that communities of practitioners benefit from
exercising this social aspect of distributed knowledge. These are much
more flexible than traditional communities, and much closer to instantiating
Illich’s vision.

141
 • But possibly the most powerful effects of community on learning are not at
this “object level” of what is meant or known; but at the “meta level” or
“management level” of how learning activities are regulated. Learning in a
group, to a common timescale, is widely felt to be important, even
necessary. It is notable that the Open University, in other respects offering
the most freedom to the learner to choose the time and place of the
learning work they do, nevertheless imposes deadlines and timescales that
keep sometimes gigantic cohorts of students in synchrony.

CONCLUSION
What should a practical teacher or course designer take from this? What is not
a good idea is to take “learning community” as new knowledgeable-sounding
jargon for “a cohort of students”, plus a cosy view of them as “a community”.
This is neither warranted nor likely to improve learning. Rather than rely on
one’s own feelings of benevolence as a guide to what community means for
learning, it seems best to recognise that “community” is a phrase that fits
numerous distinct issues in learning. They have been researched separately and
should probably be regarded as separate phenomena or issues. This is not to
say that the different issues don’t interact, and in practice may have synergistic
effects. On the contrary, really successful learning designs typically will succeed
in addressing all these issues well in an integrated way that makes them look
apparently part of each other. However it does mean that acting to achieve one
issue does not mean you are bound, or even likely, to achieve all. They are not
interchangeable. Less inspired learning designs act on some important issues
yet fail to cover them all. This applies also to Tinto’s notion of “integration”:
both “community” and “integration” allude to a feeling of belonging, and to a
relationship between social and academic aspects; but both in fact have many
different, and in some cases opposing, interpretations.

Learning is social, but not only in the ways we might prefer, or that our
favourite theory notices. Three independent dimensions were proposed as a
way of mapping out the diverse ways in which other people may assist learning:
whether the help is intentional, whether it is contingent (modified by
personalised reaction to the learner), whether it is reciprocal (based on a
relationship as peers, not as expert-novice). Learning may be aided by other
people with and without each of these: in all eight combinations, all of which
relate to real communities in the everyday, social sense in some way. However
it may be that underlying this three dimensional scheme is a profound contrast
between whether what is being learned is procedural or propositional. Both may
be assisted by community, but the social organisation of that help is different. If
you are learning a procedure (e.g. cooking a recipe, writing a computer
program) then a single failure usually causes the failure of the whole process.
Situated learning, communities of practice, apprenticeship, and scaffolding are
all organised around doing: around performing, learning, and reproducing
procedures. In contrast if you are trying to understand a concept, you are
exploring the ways it links to other things (that is one definition of deep
learning), but no one link is vital. Discussion is productive for testing and
creating such links, but agreement is not necessary, nor reproduction of others’
beliefs about it. For this, collegiate interaction is what is required and mutually
beneficial, not group work producing a joint product.

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The idea and practice I called “teacher monitoring” raises another point: that the
aspects of community that have a positive effect on learning may not be about
being accepting, or respecting privacy and individual choice. Just as real
communities are by no means uniformly benign, and perhaps could never be if
they are to maintain cohesion and discipline, so learning communities are not
entertainment services, whose only purpose is to give pleasure, comfort and a
feeling of consumer control. The ways in which learners are aided by other
people are extremely diverse, and uncritical acceptance and lack of challenge
are not always best for learning.

“If you travel with us you will have to learn things you do not want to learn in
ways you do not want to learn”.

[from a letter by Doris Lessing, replying to a reader who had been seriously
disturbed by reading one of her novels. Quoted in Alan Yentob’s “Imagine” TV
programme on Doris Lessing, broadcast Tues 27 May 2008, 10:35pm on BBC1]

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My thanks to Palitha Edirisingha, Isobel Falconer, David King, George Roberts,
and Denise Whitelock, with whom I discussed versions of this paper and so
improved my ideas about it.

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144
SOCIAL NETWORKING AND AUTHENTIC ENGAGEMENT: STUDENTS
AS “PRODUSERS”

Paula Roush and Ruth Brown, London South Bank University

ABSTRACT
Ambivalence seems to typify the attitude of many academics towards the use of
read/write technologies (also known as Web 2.0): they might work, but then
they might not. And there would be new skills to master, so passing by on the
other side is often the action of choice. This research study turns that approach
upside down. It is a part of a larger undertaking, Using Ambient Social Media:
free-to use software as viable VLEs in syllabus design and assessment, a
Learning & Teaching Innovation Project funded by the University. Even though
the original title of the research used the term VLE, it seems now that PLE might
be a better term, as “VLE” implies institutional learning environments. while
“PLE” suggests a more informal produsage environment. Two cohorts of
students of digital photography were privileged to participate in one lecturer’s
pursuit of excellence, as “produsers” (Bruns, 2007) in the lulu.com environment.

The overarching focus of this presentation is the transformational experience of

the students as they engage in an online professional self-publishing
environment. Bruns coined the term “produsage” to reflect the output of a
producer-cum-user, particularly in the process of user-led content creation.
These students were produsers of photobooks and photomagazines, using the
affordances of lulu.com – an environment that constitutes a technosocial
framework (Bruns, 2008c) within which to operate.

This iteration of produsage is characterised by complexity; it is a blend of

innovation, risk, entrepreneurship and professionalism with (in this instance,
anyway) just a dash of intrigue. Several factors serendipitously create this
opportunity: firstly, there is the proliferation of read/write technologies, begging
academic exploration. The successful Innovation Project bid also influences the
potential in terms of both resources and focus. Then the opportune discovery of
e-tivities (Salmon, 2002) provides a framework within which to design learning
interventions. and, lastly, the support available from the University’s Learning &
Teaching Enhancement Unit, together with the articulation between this study
and the Institutional Pathfinder project.

The underpinning pedagogic logic of the account is one of distributed learning.

This is an approach that forges a link between the traditional in media art
education and the innovative; between knowledge creation across ‘distributed’
locations such media labs, studios and workshops and knowledge creation using
new software and virtual learning environments (Logan, Allen, Kurien & Flint,
2007). It aptly addresses the potential for learning in the produsage model.

In a quirk of course design, it might also be said that produsage is the guiding
principle for the engagement of students in articulating the assessment criteria;
transferring these criteria to a rubric; and evaluating artefacts-in-production and
providing peer feedback to each other.

145
INTRODUCTION
This paper describes the way in which one lecturer engaged her students in a
learning experience that we believe fits the profile of produsage (Bruns, 2006).
In the context of a higher education digital photography degree, using the
ubiquitous read/write technologies, and mapped onto the characteristics of
produsage, distributed learning is offered as the theoretical framework for the
teaching and learning activity. These characteristics then frame the case for
produsage in lulu.com – the print-on-demand social networking site and the
virtual learning environment that the students used in their learning journey.

CONTEXT
In December 2006, a team drawn from the Arts, Media and English Department
(AME) of London South Bank University’s (LSBU) Faculty of Arts and Human
Sciences successfully bid for funding through the University’s Learning &
Teaching Project Innovation Scheme. The team said:

“In our view social media will play a great part in future patterns of
professional and educational communication. Through our ‘lead-edge’
media programme we have an opportunity to both study students’ current
use and design forms of assessment which ‘mesh’ with social media and
hence provide an important model for HE in general.”

A year later, the team was awarded a second tranche of funding from the
Innovation Project Scheme to “build on the knowledge base gained with the
research project: Using Ambient Social Media: free-to use software as viable
VLEs in syllabus design and assessment … and [to] further the research with a
renewed focus and methodological approach.” The second project was called
“From coursework to social network: exploring social network sites as art and
media learning environments”. This paper focuses on the aspect of students as
produsers (Bruns, 2008c) in a read/write environment during the first round of
funding.

Self-publishing initiatives that rely on the availability of free social software have
exploded onto the radar of, amongst others, higher education (HE) institutions.
Using these print-on-demand (POD) platforms, authors are able to manage the
production and distribution of their work on an unprecedented scale. This paper
seeks to explore the relevance of the POD phenomenon in HE by addressing the
following research question: “Do digital photography students engaging with
print-on-demand social networking technology act as authentic produsers?”

In the first semester of the 2007-08 academic year, two units entitled
“Photographic Cultures” (at level two) and Brief-Led Project (at level three)–
were embedded in lulu.com, an online POD platform. This piece of research
explored the use of a single site as a creative produsage environment as well as
the vehicle for demonstrating the accomplishment of learning outcomes. A
second facet of the research was the engagement of students in the
development of the criteria that were used to ascertain the achievement of
outcomes and in the application of those criteria in grading their peers’ work.

THE READ/WRITE WEB IN HIGHER EDUCATION

The big picture of this presentation is the transformative understanding (Land,
2007) gained by the students as they engage in an online publishing

146
environment. The case for the use of the read/write web (Richardson, 2006) in
higher education has been ably stated, a position acknowledged in the
Innovation Project that forms the backdrop for this study. While Weller (2008)
emphasises that the read/write approach takes into account both technological
and social facets, there is also the need to explore the emerging use of
technology in the light of intellectual property issues (Dautlich & Eziefula, 2007).
We recommend Anderson’s article (2007) for anyone wishing to investigate the
potential in greater depth. The paper traces the emergence of the phenomenon
now known as Web 2.0 or, as we prefer, read/write technologies and their
application in the higher education environment; it also offers a comprehensive
bibliography for further reading.

In our experience, many academics are aware of the read/write web, of its
current use, and even of the potential that it embodies to improve the student
learning experience. It seems to us that it is the perception of a need to master
new skills and, possibly, pedagogies that it the greatest barrier to their
implementation. This study is evidence of how engagement as produsers
provided students with the opportunity to engage in an environment relevant to
their field of study. These digital photography students benefited from being
produsers (Bruns, 2007) in the lulu.com environment.

WHAT IS A PRODUSER?
Bruns (2008a) defines a produser as someone who engages in “user-led content
production (produsage)”. While he tends to link the concept with the
read/write web, Bruns does not confine produsage to this technological genre.
Figure 1 (Bruns, 2008b) depicts the produsage process:

Figure 1: The produser

(Image first published in Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and
Beyond: From Production to Produsage by Axel Bruns (New
York: Peter Lang, 2008). © Axel Bruns. Used with permission.)

Reflecting on the definition, it becomes clear that there is a continuum of

produsage, from implicit to explicit. One implicit form of the activity must be
plain to anyone who has an online account with, say, Amazon (Bruns, 2007).
Surfing the website while logged in, and buying particular items, triggers the
underlying engine to generate suggestions of products that might be of interest
to the user – both at the current time and during future visits to the site. By

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using the site, the individual produses a personalised (in this instance) view.
We might call this many-to-one produsage, as it is the buying patterns of many
that create the view presented to one. This form of produsage is clearly
mediated by technology.

Another, less obvious, example of implicit many-to-one produsage is to be found

in the PageRank algorithm at work in Google (Brin & Page, 1998). Simply put,
pages are ranked by the search engine according to how many other pages cite
it (or are “backlinked” to it). So the keywords upon which a user conducts a
search generate results that are dependent on the input of many.

At the other (explicit) end of the scale, Wikipedia is an output of produsage, as

are flickr and YouTube. In terms of the definition, it might be said that some
kinds of group work also fulfil the conditions of produsage. In this study, for
instance, there is a clear case for many-to-many produsage in the way that the
students worked as a group to define and refine the assessment criteria;
transferred these to a rubric; evaluating artefacts-in-production; and provided
peer feedback to one another.

At the heart of the concept, however, is a user who engages with content to
produse an output. While the social nature of the read/write environment is
more or less implicit in the produsage context, it is the change in focus from the
industrial production model to a service orientation that hallmarks the concept.
Bruns (2006) identifies four key characteristics of produsage:
 users produse new content which is made available to others;
 in the creative process, they collaborate with other produsers;
 products are always subject to revision; and
 this “revisioning” process necessitates new traditions of copyrighting.

In this paper, we aim to demonstrate how these characteristics were evidenced

in the study; how the students prodused photobooks and photomagazines, using
the affordances of lulu.com – an environment that constitutes as technosocial
framework (Bruns, 2008c) within which to operate.

PEDAGOGICAL FRAMEWORK
Distributed learning is an often neglected theoretical framework within which to
explore the complex nature of media art education. This approach forges a link
between the traditional styles of teaching and learning in the field and the
innovative. It also accommodates the shift from students’ creating knowledge in
such ‘distributed’ locations as media labs, studios and workshops, on the one
hand, and the way that they use new software and virtual learning environments
(Logan et al, 2007) to address academic requirements and creative enterprise,
on the other. It encapsulates the environment conducive to learning implicit in
the produsage model.

Salmon’s e-tivity model (2002) offered a design for learning interventions. The
learning and teaching activity in each unit was carefully designed in such a way
that the face-to-face activities of the students each week in class alternated with
online e-tivities that provided a link between the topic of the earlier face-to-face
session, and that of the next one. For instance, in week two, the students spent
part of their class time in the University’s library researching the photobook
collection.

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An outcome of that research was to identify a particular volume that they wished
to explore further. The e-tivity for the week that followed required that they
continued their research in the online environment, looking for such information
about their chosen photobook as the “ISBN, publisher’s site and critical reviews”.
Using lulu.com’s blogging tool, they posted the information they had discovered
for peer comment. The knowledge, understanding and skills acquired in this
activity fed into the next week’s face-to-face class.

A particular focus in the design of these units (with particular reference to the
second that we believe articulates well with the produsage model) was the way
that students engaged with the assessment process in a particularly meaningful
way. We believe that the pedagogical framework is an appropriate place to
explain this process, as it builds on the “syllabus design and assessment” of the
earlier funding, and engages students with pedagogical processes.

In this round of the research, the teacher and students engaged in a carefully
orchestrated activity to design assessment criteria that addressed the learning
outcomes of the individual units. Rubric Studio, freely available at
facultycentral.com, was used to design “irubrics”, marking grids that captured
the assessment criteria, as well as negotiated descriptions of levels of
achievement. These rubrics were used collaboratively for marking by both
students (for peer assessment) and lecturers (for tutor assessment).

Early in the course of the unit, and once the students had engaged with
photobooks in both the physical and online environments, the students and
lecturer engaged in the process of developing criteria for assessing work. (It
should be noted that in the University’s validation procedures, learning outcomes
are stated, as are assessment methods. Assessment criteria, however, are at
the discretion of the lecturer. This situation created the opportunity to engage
the students in the process.)

After introducing learners to rubrics in class, they were asked to consider the
learning outcomes and develop assessment criteria in response to such
questions as: “What qualities would you look for in deciding how to mark a
photobook?” With a list of questions, the class broke into self-selected small
groups with the following tasks:
• identify 6 assessment criteria that measure the learning outcomes
• rank the criteria selected in order of importance, from most important to
least important
• present the top two criteria to the class.

As each group presented their top criteria, they were listed on the whiteboard
and the class then decided which four criteria of those identified were the most
relevant to the outcomes of the project. The class then decided descriptors of
'poor,' 'fair,' 'good' and 'excellent' performance for each criterion. The
collaboratively decided criteria were listed down the left side of the rubric matrix
and the descriptors were entered under the scores 0-5 which formed the column
headings. In this process, the produsage principle can be clearly traced.

This is an unashamedly criterion-referenced approach to assessment. Biggs

(1999) states that there is “no educational justification for grading on a curve”

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(emphasis in original) and we would agree. It is also a student-centred
approach. And this is where we find the touch of intrigue: the excellent results
of the students were considered by the system to be out of line with the norm.
We believe that there is a case for future research into the lip service paid to
criterion referenced assessment in an HE environment that clearly still believes
in grading on a curve.

THE CASE FOR PRODUSAGE IN LULU.COM

The use of lulu.com as a virtual environment within which to teach these two
cohorts of students was essentially a natural progression from earlier work in
this area. We earlier noted Bruns’ four key characteristics of produsage (2006):
 users produse new content which is made available to others;
 in the creative process, they collaborate with other produsers;
 products are always subject to revision; and
 this “revisioning” process necessitates new traditions of copyrighting.

We will briefly explore each of these attributes in the light of the lulu.com
experience. Figure 2 depicts the way that we see the produsage principle at
work in these students’ activity.

Figure 2: The produser in the lulu.com environment. Adapted from The

produser (Figure 1 above.)

Produsing new content

In the course of their activity in the digital photography unit, students used
existing content (in this case it was digital material that they had produced
during a previous unit) which they transformed into photobooks and
photomagazines. These in turn are available online in a POD environment, and
may well also feed into a future iteration of produsage.

We would contend that, in addition to engaging with content, the students

brought skills and understanding to the produsage environment that were
refined and reinvented in the process. Their feedback on the units reflects a
clear perception of the innovative nature of the enterprise: “Personally I believe

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anything that challenges the norm and gets you thinking in different ways is a
good thing. This module is not presented to us in a traditional, stuffy, listen and
takes notes old school university style. We are studying a new art form and our
lecture methods should reflect the move away from tradition.”

Another student recognised the active nature of the engagement in lulu.com as

a benefit: “It is easier in my opinion to learn digital media practices on the
Internet as opposed to the classroom or lecture hall - personally I am a more
practical individual and feel the need to actively do something to learn
effectively”.

Collaboration with other users

The engagement of students with each others’ work during the course of the unit
is recognised by them as a part of the learning curve: “There was a lot of help
being given through blogs, forums and in person between all classmates during
this period. Considering so many seemed unfamiliar with Indesign only a few
weeks ago we all managed to create and upload an interesting mix of books into
the Lulu store.” The community spirit that was fostered in the process was also
perceived as valuable: “Learning by way of a community has been great for this
unit, though I have not myself benefited from being part of a community it has
clearly been a help to some members of the class who find websites and
concepts such as those we have been studying more difficult than the theoretical
issues in photography.”

Products subject to revision

While the students did not explicitly recognise the potential for revision of their
work, it is clear that the very tasks they were set – to recreate their own
existing digital material in a new format that is only published on demand –
opens the door to refining and revising what has been produced. There was
some sense of the messiness of the process, however: “Learning about digital
media in an online environment as opposed to a more traditional format (i.e. a
classroom) has been slightly chaotic at times.”

New traditions of copyrighting

The students were clearly still engaging with a traditionalist view of intellectual
property: “Another issue that was voiced by a large amount of our group was
the fact that, while publishing as students, we do not control the simple
intellectual copyright to our work.” They even had concerns about the possibility
of the “University who could, in theory (i hope not practice), profit from our
work and charge us royalties for what is essentially our own personal art.”

The underlying conversation reflects that in HE in this country: ownership and

possible plagiarism. There is a clear case for engaging the students, and
possibly the HE community more generally, in a conversation around the
changing nature of intellectual property and ways to address the emerging
traditions of ownership.

CONCLUSION
“Do digital photography students engaging with print-on-demand social
networking technology act as authentic produsers?” We believe that we have
demonstrated that the students who were the participants in this research study
were produsers, in the way that Bruns describes the produsage process. While

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the students were not apparently explicitly aware of the potential for a revision
stage or stages, the nature of their engagement with the process lends implicit
acceptance of the concept.

We consider that the proliferation of social networking and associated

technologies means that the opportunities for higher education to incorporate a
produsage model, particularly in fields such as arts and media, will multiply.
Rather than engaging in retrospective reactive conversations about faits
accomplis, we recommend that universities blaze trails by proactively pursue
research projects in this area.

References
Anderson, P. (2007). What is Web 2.0? Ideas, technologies and implications for
Education. Available from
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/techwatch/ tsw0701b.pdf Accessed
on 20 October 2008.
Biggs, J. (1999). What the student does: Teaching for enhanced learning.
Higher Education Research & Development. 18(1). 57-75.
Brin, S. & Page, L. (1998). The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual
Web Search Engine. Computer Networks and ISDN Systems. 30(1-7). 107-117.
Bruns, A. (2006). Teaching the Produsers: Preparing Students for User-Led
Content Production. Paper presented at ATOM 2006 Conference, Brisbane,
Australia, 8 October 2006.
Bruns, A. (2007). Beyond Difference: Reconfiguring Education for the User-Led
Age. Paper presented at ICE 3 (Ideas, Cyberspace, Education) Conference.
Ross Priory, Loch Lomond, Scotland, 21-23 March 2007.
Bruns, A. (2008a, October). 'Anyone Can Edit': Understanding the Produser.
The Mojtaba Saminejad Lecture presented at Temple University, Philadelphia.
Available from http://snurb.info/index.php?q=node/286. Accessed on 16
October 2008.
Bruns, A. (2008b). Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From
Production to Produsage. New York: Peter Lang.
Bruns, A. (2008c). From Production to Produsage: Research into User-Led
Content Creation. Available from http://produsage.org/. Accessed on 2
October 2008.
Dautlich, M. & Eziefula, N. (2007). Web 2.0: new internet, new etiquette . . .
new law? Available from http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/
article2725636.ece. Accessed on 20 October 2008.
Land, R. (2007). Overcoming barriers to learning: threshold concepts and
troublesome knowledge. Available from
http://www.uwic.ac.uk/ltsu/documents/land_lecture.doc. Accessed on 20
October 2008.
Logan, C; Allen, S; Kurien, A. & Flint, D. (2007). Distributed e-learning in Art,
Design, Media: an investigation into current practice. York: Art Design Media
Subject Centre – Higher Education Academy.
Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools
for Classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
Salmon, G. (2002). e-tivities. London: Kogan Page.
Weller, M. (2008). The implications of Web 2.0. Available from
http://cloudworks.ac.uk/?q=node/73. Accessed on 20 October 2008.

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TECHNOLOGY, TRANSPARENCY AND COMMUNICATION IN
INSTITUTIONS: SOCIAL SOFTWARE IN THE SPLICE PROJECT

Mark Johnson, University of Bolton

Graham Hall, Miranda Edwards, Coleg Harlech

Introduction
SPLICE is a JISC-funded project focussed on the establishment and role of
technological habits of teachers, learners and administrators in lifelong learning.
Within this broad focus, the relationship between the use of social software and
increased professional transparency of teachers within the institution has come
under scrutiny. This has revealed some organisational benefits to educational
institutions of the use of social software which add a new dimension to the
ongoing discussions around the role of social software in education, particularly
those concerning the Personal Learning Environment (Johnson and Liber, 2008).
Here we are focused on identifying social mechanisms which might explain these
organisational phenomena: an objective which we argue is not only important to
the project, but to the broader strategic approach to social software within
Universities.

SPLICE has generated a range of outcomes which reflect the complexities of the
topic of ‘technological habit’. However, the task of translating these outcomes
into meaningful evaluation and knowledge which is valuable to the sector at
large presents some significant methodological challenges. To address these
challenges, SPLICE as a whole has adopted an approach which draws on the
techniques of Realistic Evaluation (Pawson and Tilley, 2004). By using Realistic
Evaluation, the focus is to ensure that knowledge outcomes from the project are
useful to people outside the project, so that (for example) if an institutional
manager asks “if I do what’s been done in SPLICE in my institution, what will
happen?” an answer which accurately predicts events (good and bad) can be
given. Realistic Evaluation helps because it is a multiple theory-driven process
for identifying possible social mechanisms. In doing this, it is distinct from
traditional single-theory approaches (for example the traditional ‘before’ and
‘after’ case-study), or phenomenological no-theory approaches (e.g. Glaser and
Strauss’s ‘Grounded theory’ (1962)) Realistic Evaluation prioritises the process
of theory construction and testing as an essential part of construing meaning
from project outcomes. As such it is closely allied to multimethodological
techniques in the social sciences (Mingers, 2008).

One advantage of taking a multi theory-driven approach is that existing theories

can be mapped onto perceived outcomes. This is our purpose in this paper as we
consider the outcomes of the project from the perspective of the
communications theory of Niklas Luhmann. Thus, this paper concentrates on one
possible mechanism, and as such it is part of a much larger evaluative process.

Realistic Evaluation
Central to the Realistic Evaluation approach is the idea that there are
discoverable mechanisms responsible for social phenomena, and that better
knowledge of these mechanisms can give greater control to practitioners,
whether teachers, administrators or learners. In asserting the role of
mechanisms in the social world, Realistic Evaluation is rooted in the philosophy

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of Critical Realism (Bhaskar, 1977; Archer 1982). Pawson and Tilley argue that
the job of evaluation is to uncover those mechanisms through a process which
they (following Bhaskar) call Retroduction. In essence, Retroduction involves
describing the Context (C) within which a possible Mechanism (M) might be
responsible for producing a particular Outcome (O). The relationship between
Context, Mechanism and Outcome can be shown as in the diagram below:
Context Mechanism

Outcome
Figure 1: Context, Mechanism and Outome in Realistic Evaluation
In line with the Critical Realist position, Pawson and Tilley argue that whilst the
experience of a project to any particular observer (or stakeholder) might be
different (or relative to the observer), those experiences are not that different.
In other words, they may be the product of a common mechanism working
within each individual context. Thus in encouraging individual participants to
articulate the mechanisms that they feel to be responsible for what they
experience, it may be possible to consider overarching explanatory frameworks
which describe mechanisms which are common to each. Such overarching
mechanisms can then be considered for their explanatory and predictive power
with regard to each individual outcome.

Outcomes and a Theory

Within any learning technology project there are a large number of stakeholders.
In SPLICE these included:

• Technical developers
• project managers
• Teachers
• Accounting managers
• Institutional administrators
• Funding body programme managers
• Creative Technology practitioners
• Learners

The project may be viewed as a set of commitments and communications

between these different stakeholders. Over the life of the project, each
stakeholder establishes a particular perspective on the outcomes of the project.
Different stakeholder views of project outcomes are necessarily dictated by the
context within which they are situated, and yet the mechanism that lies behind
the generation of those outcomes may well be common across the project.

The stakeholders within SPLICE have had different experiences of it. Some
learners had highly beneficial experiences, whilst others continued to feel
uncomfortable with social software and didn’t engage much. Institutional
administrators varied in their experiences of the project, from simply managing
the project money, to identifying key synergies between project outcomes and
institutional objectives. Individual teachers varied in their experiences, from
overcoming reticence to engage in new technologies, to transforming their

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teaching practices. Software developers experienced a capacity-raising effort,
although some users of the software didn’t enjoy the fruits of their endeavour.
The involvement of Creative Technology practitioners in the project was
designed to enrich the learners’ social network with real practitioners. These
practitioners, like the learners, varied in their experience of the project, from
ignoring it to experiencing significant transformation of their technological
practices.

Each of these individual stories represents an individual outcome, and from the
Realistic Evaluation perspective, mechanisms may be suggested for each of
these outcomes, as can the contexts within which the mechanisms operate. It
was not unusual to find individuals experiencing very different outcomes from
the project (sometimes conflicting with each other). Treating each observed
outcome as being the product of a mechanism allows such complex dimensions
to be examined.

The process of identifying possible mechanisms is inevitably the result of

discussion between stakeholders. This might take the form of “What do you
think is going on?”, although such a ‘blank canvas’ technique can be intimidating
for some stakeholders. Pawson and Tilley describe a process of mutual teaching
and learning about possible mechanisms between researchers and participants.
Here, existing theories which might be known to either the researcher or the
participant may be explored for their explanatory power as a starting point for
deeper investigation. This has been our basic approach here and the theoretical
position from which we have started draws on the social theory of Niklas
Luhmann.

Luhmann’s Theory of Communication

The challenge in creating a unifying framework for describing the variety of
outcomes experienced by participants is to create a set of distinctions which can
be usefully applied more universally. The first question is, bearing in mind that
the distinctions should be applied across the board, what should the theory
concern itself with? This is an ambitious question. For to answer it is to commit
to a particular view of the purpose of education and its relationship to the
broader social world. Pawson and Tilley point out that any theoretical approach
is predicated on particular ontological assumptions. It is important, therefore, to
be clear about the particular ontological assumptions that are being made. In
our theoretical description here, we follow Qvortrup (2005) in upholding
Luhmann’s prioritizing of ‘communication’ as the principal category in
understanding the project (and for Luhmann, any social system).

For Luhmann, any institution functions to maximize the probability of ‘successful

communications’ between the stakeholders within it. The phrase ‘successful
communication’ has a particular technical meaning which Luhmann describes as
a three-stage process of ‘information’, ‘utterance’ and ‘meaning’. Each of these,
Luhmann argues, is a selection from a set of possibilities: first there is a
selection of ‘what’ it is to be communicated, which Luhmann terms ‘information’;
secondly a selection of ‘the medium’ – the ‘how’ something is to be
communicated (‘utterance’); and finally a selection (by the recipient) of ‘what it
means’. All these selections are probabilistic. The communication is ‘successful’ if
the process of selections of information, utterance and meaning leads to the
production of further selections. As a result, the success of further

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communication is deemed more likely and thus the communication becomes
self-sustaining (or in Luhmann’s terminology, borrowed from Maturana and
Varela (1980), autopoietic). The environment of an institution contributes to the
success of a communication by attenuating these possibilities – for example,
with codes of practice, professional discourse, processes and procedures – more
broadly, perhaps, what we might conceive of as institutional ‘culture’.

In applying these distinctions about communication to the outcomes of SPLICE,

we have to ask whether, and to what extent, a teacher’s reticence to engage
with video is a communicational problem, or, similarly, learners being reluctant
to blog. Luhmann emphasises that communicational practices are not simply
linguistic, but understood within the broader concept of ‘communicative action’ –
which includes technical actions as much as it does language. By this definition,
the creation of software that doesn’t work, or is unusable, has communicational
implications amongst the stakeholders of the project. Similarly, the
communication between teachers and learners, when viewed through the lens of
‘maximising the probability of successful communication’ may also be useful to
explain the outcomes reported by teachers – particularly in comparing the
differences between well-motivated and poorly motivated learners. Furthermore,
the broader issue of ‘raising capacity’ amongst project stakeholders may be seen
in the light of raising the probability that individuals will communicate
successfully in an increased number of contexts (e.g. with different
organizational groups within and outside the institution, the e-learning
community, etc).

Social Software, Personal Transparency and Communication

The focus of SPLICE has been on social software, including the use of a social
network (http://splicegroup.ning.com), micro-blogging (http://www.twitter.com)
video podcasting and other technologies. Each of these interventions has served
to amplify individual practices which otherwise would have been limited to a
small community: once online, activities that took place behind the classroom
door become available to others. This is an example of the sort of professional
transparency brought about through the use of social software that has been
identified by Dalsgaard (2008) and which, he argues, carries significant
organizational benefits.

Thus, considering the diverse range of outcomes from SPLICE, we need to

consider the impact of this increasing personal transparency and the
organizational changes that are entailed by it. Transparency applies to both
teachers and learners in the project: increased transparency in learners means
greater opportunities for peer learning, sharing practices and experience;
increased transparency for teachers means sharing practices with a larger
community of other teachers and learners. Whilst these increases in
transparency might be seen to be beneficial to an organization, personal
transparency also presents challenges to the individual. Most typically, many
individuals on the project have articulated that they feel uncomfortable at
exposing aspects of themselves which may well be considered private. Teachers
may feel the classroom to be their private domain, and may not feel comfortable
in using video. The learner may worry about the implications of revealing things
about themselves in a public space.

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Both these positive and negative outcomes are important to the project, for
within the realistic evaluation approach, they are regarded as outward
manifestations of complex social and personal mechanisms. On the positive side,
concrete evidence was gained in SPLICE concerning the organizational benefits
of personal transparency on the institution together with benefits to learners
which followed from this. At the same time, a lot of evidence was gained
concerning the struggle individuals experienced in engaging with social software
– often not through any identifiable deficiency of skill, but rather a mistrust of
the transparency that was entailed through using it.

Transparency and Communication: the experience of Coleg Harlech

The organizational impact of transparent practice was most clearly demonstrated
in Coleg Harlech. Coleg Harlech is a small FE institution which specializes in the
education of mature learners seeking a ‘second life-chance’. Prior to the project,
Coleg Harlech managed separate programmes in Visual Arts and Multimedia.
Teaching was constrained to the classroom and groups of learners reserved any
inter-disciplinary collaboration to informal social gatherings outside class time.
This SPLICE project focused initially on the Multimedia cohort, and teachers and
learners joined the online social network for the project. This was a vehicle both
for formal sharing of work on the course (including photographs and videos), but
also (and more importantly) for informal messaging between different learners –
often in the different institutions involved in the project. For teachers, the
network afforded the opportunity to experiment with different forms of
communication – most notably video.

In understanding the impact of the project on Coleg Harlech, it is useful to apply

the distinctions from Luhmann’s theory. The social network amplified
communication between course participants such that this communication
became discoverable to others. Similarly, the videoing of teaching practices had
a similar effect. Amplifying communications in this way may be seen as
increasing the probability of successful communication as a whole across the
institution, since members of the institution who were initially not deeply
connected to the project could see the communications underway and engage
with them. In practice, this manifested itself in an increasing awareness that
there were opportunities for inter-disciplinary collaboration, and a deeper level of
discussion took place between departments as more teachers were engaged with
what was going on.

Prior to the project, like any institution, the professional concerns of teachers in
Harlech revolved around individual learners, the curriculum, timetabling, etc.
SPLICE added a new component into these concerns, and one which caused a
critical reflection on teaching practice, curriculum and pedagogy. Moreover, staff
within the college started to engage in external discussions with the broader e-
learning community. Because the focus of the project was on social software and
transparent practice, this further stimulated dialogue and engagement. As some
learners experienced benefit (and others struggled) from the social software
environment, so staff reflected on their experiences. Thus, established patterns
of communication within the college were disrupted by the project and gradually
Coleg Harlech moved towards a position where teachers (particularly) were
engaging in richer communication about their practices with a broader range of
stakeholders. One concrete benefit of this process was the combination of the

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initially separate Visual arts and Multimedia programmes into a single ‘core’
module focusing on technology and creativity.

As previously suggested, not all stakeholders had their capacity raised in this
way, but all were affected by the project in some way. Nevertheless, the
increase in successful communication across the institution is perhaps a useful
index of the efficacy of the impact of personal transparency across the
organization. This suggests that Luhmann’s assertion that institutions serve to
maximize the possibility of successful communication can be compared
favourably to the overall increase in successful communication produced through
personal transparency and may therefore present a way of measuring the value
of a particular intervention. Thus we are on the point of suggesting a possible
mechanism: that transparency can increase the probability of successful
communication and that this can benefit institutional function. Within the
Realistic Evaluation methodology, this is one of many possible mechanisms
which must be considered for their explanatory power.

Challenges for Transparency and Organisational Change

If our mechanism has any value, then it should be able have some predictive
power too. This means that an institutional manager in a new institution
unconnected with the project, on asking “If I encourage the use of social
software within my institution, what will happen?”, can be given an accurate
description of what is likely to happen based on the mechanism we are
suggesting. The answer to this question, however, must also consider the
barriers to engaging staff with personal transparency. Harlech is a small
institution, and this factor facilitated the improved communications that ensued
in the project. Nevertheless, Harlech exemplified the diversity of engagement
with the technology. Staff and learners varied tremendously in their disposition
towards technology – particularly their disposition to personal transparency.
“Expect diversity” would be the obvious starting point for answering the
institutional manager’s question. But then we might continue to say that if the
barriers to engaging with transparency can be overcome, then the capacity-
raising effects of SPLICE can be reproduced. However, the barriers are
significant and SPLICE has paid particular attention to addressing them.

If personal transparency to increase the probability of successful communication

is the goal, what measures may be put in place to bring this about? SPLICE has
paid particular focus on those who were not interested in engaging with the
technology. Over the course of SPLICE, many individuals transformed their
personal technological habits. This transformation was brought about through a
range of different types of intervention. Within SPLICE, these interventions have
been categorized into three groups:

• Rational argument: presentations arguing that the world is changing and

that changes to technological are necessary
• Institutional coercion: changes to institutional procedures, assessment
regimes (particularly for learners), and the need to satisfy the
requirements of the project.
• Creative disruption: Creating activities to give insight into issues of
technological habit; engaging in rewarding creative practices which entail
online participation.

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These three ‘levers for change’ were applied at different stages of the project,
and each one produced some measurable transformation in practice. For
example, a number of events were conducted early in the project to talk about
social software. This was a ‘rational argument’ and as a result of it, more people
engaged with the SPLICE network, and started to sign-up for some of the social
software services discussed (notably Twitter).

As would be expected, transforming assessment regimes had an impact on both

teachers and learners, as learners were coerced into engaging with technology
where they might not have otherwise done so. In a number of instances, this
produced lasting transformation in practice. Finally, drawing on the inter-
disciplinary spirit of the project, learners were placed in situations they were not
familiar with (for example, multimedia learners in the pottery studio), and shown
how to make a connection between those situations and online engagement.

Of these three levers, institutional coercion had the most demonstrably

significant impact, although it is difficult to isolate it from the other two levers –
particularly since opposition to coercion may have been mollified by the
application of other levers.

Behind these observed effects of the different interventions we made lie further
mechanisms relating to the ‘person’ which are beyond the scope of this paper.
Whilst the mechanisms which link transparent practice with increased
communication are borne out by the Harlech experience, the causes for people
changing their practices in response to particular interventions are not dealt
with. However, to answer the institutional manager’s question realistically,
identifying a mechanism for the benefits of transparency is only any good if they
are also informed about mechanisms for changing practice and overcoming the
barriers of engaging with transparency.

Conclusion
Through the example of Coleg Harlech, we have argued that transformation of
personal technological habit to increase transparency of professional and
personal practice is possible. We have asserted that increasing transparency
through social software has direct benefits on the organization of institutions,
which in turn can enrich learner experiences. We have further asserted that it is
possible to transform technological habit through recognizing ‘levers for change’
and applying them appropriately.

Whilst there is much discussion in the e-learning community about social

software, it can sometimes appear that the only reason to engage in blogging, or
Twittering, or anything else is because “it’s there”. Sceptics will rightly point out
that this isn’t a good reason for doing it. At the same time, a clearer rationale for
engaging in social software is hard to articulate. In this paper, drawing on the
experiences of the SPLICE project, we have attempted to do this. The task isn’t
easy because it entails asking some searching questions relating to the
attribution of ‘value’ in any technological intervention in education.

There are an unlimited number of ways of making distinctions within the

education system. To consider the task of evaluation as one of making
distinctions to describe mechanisms at work which produce outcomes is the first
step, and we have used Pawson and Tilley’s approach as a starting point. We

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have also produced a set of distinctions which try to account for the variety of
experiences in SPLICE through using Luhmann’s communication theory. If they
are good distinctions, then seeing the system through their lens will produce
results which are to the benefit of institutions and learners; if this doesn’t
happen, then new distinctions need to be examined. However, at this stage, we
can point to an instance of practice in Coleg Harlech were Luhmann’s distinctions
seem to ‘fit’, where increase in personal transparency has had a real impact on
communication structures within the institution, and where these changes have
brought about genuinely beneficial experiences for teachers and learners.

Behind all this lie the real challenges of institutional life and the continual
struggle to maintain an environment for effective teaching and learning practice.
E-learning coordinators, IT managers and Vice-chancellors struggle to steer their
institutions in a fast-changing world, and the many opportunities for intervention
must be carefully considered. We have argued in this paper that useful
evaluation empowers people with the knowledge of what is likely to happen,
borne out of previous experience. If that knowledge is accurate and events
(good and bad) pass as expected, then the control of those who have the power
to steer events is increased.

References
Archer, M.S. (1995) Realist Social Theory: the Morphogenetic Approach CUP
Bhaskar, R (1975) A Realist Theory of Science Sage
Bhaskar, R (1979) A Possibility of Naturalism Sage
Dalsgaard, Social (2008) Networking Sites: Transparency in Online Education
http://eunis.dk/papers/p41.pdf
Glaser BG, Strauss A (1967) Discovery of Grounded Theory. Strategies for
Qualitative Research. Sociology Press
Johnson, M; Liber, 0 (2008) The Personal Learning Environment and the Human
Condition: from Theory to Teaching Practice Interactive Learning
Environments, vol 15, no. 1
Luhmann, N (1995) Social Systems Stanford University Press
Mingers, J (2005) Realising Systems Theory
Maturana, H; Varela, F (1980) Autopoiesis and Cognition: the realization of the
living Boston studies in the philosophy of science; vol.42
Pawson, R; Tilley, N (2004) Realistic Evaluation
Qvortrup, L (2005) Society’s Education System – An introduction to Niklas
Luhmann’s pedagogy theory Seminar.net – International Journal of media,
technology and lifelong learning – Issue 1, 2005
Tilley, N. (1993), 'Understanding Car Parks, Crime and CCTV: Evaluation Lessons
from Safer Cities', Crime Prevention Unit Paper, 42, Home Office, London:
HMSO

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WELCOME TO (Y)OUR SECOND LIFE:

A PAPER BASED ON A WORKSHOP RUN AT THE LICK CONFERENCE

2008 ON PROVIDING PEER MENTORING AND TRANSITION
SUPPORT WITHIN THE VIRTUAL WORLD OF SECOND LIFE AT
GLASGOW CALEDONIAN UNIVERSITY

Dr Karla H. Benske, Frank Brown, Dr Jane Mckay, Kathryn Trinder

and Ruth Whittaker, Glasgow Caledonian University

INTRODUCTION
Learning and teaching in virtual 3D worlds is still a relatively new field to be
explored and as such is an exciting area to be involved in. Many consider 3D
worlds to be playful spaces that are “…adaptable, creative, sociable and
collaborative…”. It has also, however, been described as an “uncanny space”
that may function as “a learning environment which nurtures a creative sense of
dissonance, troublesomeness and ‘strangeness’ in both learners and teachers”.
(Bayne, 2008).

Glasgow Caledonian University’s ‘C U There’ initiative is currently developing a

virtual campus on Second Life with the aim of providing student support as well
as exploring ways of embedding the virtual campus in its learning and teaching
strategy. It has also encouraged staff and students to become involved and
create their own projects within the realms of Second Life.

To set the context, the paper will provide a brief overview of Second Life (SL)
and discuss issues and challenges of successful transition support in general and
within Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) in particular.

The main part of our paper will focus on two new projects:

1. i-CAMPPUS (internet College Articulation and Mentoring Project for

Prospective University Students)
2. Overcoming the barriers of asking for help: the feasibility of Second Life
as a platform for students to access support from an Academic
Development Tutor without feeling stigmatised.

We shall present a brief overview of both initiatives, portray the process of

familiarisation with SL and share the experiences of the developers and future
student mentors working within a virtual world. Both projects are in preliminary
stages and should be viewed as ‘in progress’. Part of the introduction to the
projects aims to offer an insight into the virtual campus: its possibilities as well
as its limitations.

Research has shown that students who need advice and support most will not
actively seek help (Thomas 2002, 2005, Whittaker, 2008, Yorke & Longden
2004). So can a tool like Second Life reach out to those students who hesitate
or abstain from asking for help by allowing them to retain their anonymity? On
the one hand, it appears to be an ideal way of ensuring that all students have
access to an alternative form of support. On the other hand, recent studies
indicate that the uptake of so-called Web 2.0 tools and emerging technologies

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has not been as successful and as widespread as the academic community would
have hoped (Kennedy et al, 2007).

Against this background, we aim to discuss what lessons we can learn from
using emerging technologies, social networking in general and SL in particular.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of using SL for student support and
mentoring? How can we encourage students to become involved in and use a
virtual campus? Are there certain groups of students who are less likely to
engage with such a medium than others? If yes, what can we do about that?
Some of the outcomes of the workshop discussion will inform the final discussion
of the paper.

SECOND LIFE - THE GCU CONTEXT

Second Life is a three-dimensional environment that exists on the internet. It is
an extension of the World Wide Web, but instead of two-dimensional images,
text, links etc, environments such as this render content in 3D. There are a few
such environments in early stages of development from developers around the
globe, but for our purposes we refer here to SL.

Second Life is a rich multi media space. It supports images and video, and, like
Web 2.0, it has a range of tools that support communication such as text chat,
audio chat, ability to send email, and functionality that allows data to flow both
in and out of world. These services use many of the standard Web 2.0 tools that
are already in existence.

As it extends content, it also extends interaction and communication. SL

additionally has a feeling of presence, of ‘being there’, not available in flat Web
2.0 environments. SL uses what is known as an avatar – a virtual
representation of the person who is logged in. The avatar is in effect an
extension of the person, or of ‘you’. The avatar is used to navigate around the
world, and is used to communicate and interact with others in a way that is not
possible in even a rich Web 2.0 environment. This richness of sensory data, the
immersion and feeling of embodiment are what make 3D virtual worlds stand
out as a different type of technology.

But how can we use this kind of environment to support learning? It is in the
processes that SL supports that the potential lays. Wikipedia defines SL such:

Residents can explore, meet other residents, socialize, participate in individual

and group activities, and create and trade items and services with one another. 1

It is these affordances of SL to support socialisation and learning through

collective creation, sharing and generation of knowledge and content that are
potential key factors for education.

Exploration on the potential of SL in higher education is still in its early stages.

As an extension of Web 2.0, it supports social-constructivist pedagogies;
problem based learning; Inquiry based learning; authentic tasks; communication
and interaction; group activity, collaboration and teamwork.

1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_life. Accessed 20/01/09

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For example, we are currently developing a simulation on the GCU SL Islands to
demonstrate complex algorithms that are used in artificial intelligence design.
The algorithms are used to plot paths between waypoints to allow a robot to
move from point to point. This is a difficult abstract theory for undergraduates
to grasp. The development of this simulation is being undertaken by two MSc
Computing students as part of their coursework. Not only are the two students
working on this project collaboratively, they are building it as a learning tool for
other students, using their own knowledge of the difficulties of understanding
this process to inform the design.

Another simulation – Radiographic Expose Manipulation – is being developed to

help students experiment safely when learning how to operate an X-Ray
machine. This simulation allows for practice that cannot be achieved in the ‘real’
world, on ‘real’ patients.

Other universities around the UK are using Second Life in English, Philosophy,
Psychology, and the Arts. It is used for science simulations, discussions, rapid
development of ideas, for instance in architecture or, product design. Graphic
design and multimedia students are learning to use SL as one of the many tools
of their trade. Journalism is another field in which the use of SL is very popular,
with organisations such as Reuters playing a prominent role. Moreover, students
can learn business and management skills, while marketing skills can be
practised by trading in-world products with little risk.

For the particular strand of this paper – mentoring and transition support – it is
the feeling of ‘being there’ combined with social and personal interaction within a
supportive community that are of greatest importance.

In addition to the pedagogical uses of SL and acknowledging the need to provide

additional support for students and staff alike, GCU, through its ‘CU There’
project, aims to create a community of learners. Its philosophy, ‘by the
community for the community’, as reflected by the title ‘CU There’, is proving
successful, if slow to implement.

A weekly evening class is run, aimed to reach and gather a university-wide

group of interested individuals, both students and staff, in an unofficial, non-
formal setting, allowing for a self-paced discovery of the Virtual World and its
possibilities.

This evening class has evolved and is now for the largest part conducted by the
first group of participants, assisting and guiding new arrivals, if the need arises.
The classes are usually attended by a mix of students, staff and others including
participants from the local council, business, residents, and even 'virtual'
Glaswegians. A genuine feel of community has developed with all helping each
other, while traditional borders between students and staff gradually disappear
and, last, but not least, people enjoy discovering the more outlandish elements
the SL environment has to offer (Trinder, Francino & Littlejohn, 2008).

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF TRANSITION AND PROGRESSION SUPPORT

As mentioned before, the philosophy of ‘CU There’ is to build an SL island, which
is not just linked to teaching and learning at GCU, but is open to the wider
community of Glasgow, to support community engagement, the widening

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participation agenda, and links with employers. One of the aims is to encourage
the participation of non-traditional learner groups in the GCU university
experience, both real and virtual, as part of GCU’s Widening Participation and
Lifelong Learning strategy.

It has been widely acknowledged that students from a non-traditional

background are more reluctant to actively seek advice and ask for support than
their more traditional counterparts (Benske, 2006 & 2007; Thomas, 2002 &
2005; Yorke & Longden, 2007). This is particularly worrying for post-1992
universities that provide a wide range of support mechanisms, while still facing a
relatively high drop-out rate, especially amongst first-year students (Thomas,
2002 & 2005).

Glasgow Caledonian University is a post-1992 institution and has a large number

of students from disadvantaged backgrounds: it is significantly over its
benchmark in this regard, with 37% of full time undergraduate entrants in
2005/06 coming from SN SEC classes 4-7 and 29% from low participation
neighbourhoods against a benchmark of 32% and 16% respectively. GCU also
has a very high percentage of students who enter the University after
completing HNC/Ds in colleges. As a result, GCU has a highly heterogeneous
student group and is adopting a strategy of enhancing transition support and the
learning experience for all students in an attempt to steer away from a ‘deficit’
model and inadvertently stigmatising particular groups of students (Whittaker,
2007).

The increasing diversity of the student population and the mass nature of higher
education is a critical issue in terms of transition support. Large student cohorts
require creative thinking in terms of support processes and the curriculum and
the more effective use of technology. In terms of transition support, lack of
preparation and wrong choice of course (Ozga & Sukhandan, 1998, Yorke &
Longden, 2007) can hinder successful integration (Tinto, 1987) as can lack of
interaction (social and academic) with other students and academic staff
(Krause, 2001). Informal learning networks and peer-support structures to
support academic and social transition the from the pre-entry stage and
throughout the first year have been highlighted as essential in recent research
and development work on transition and progression (Creanor et al, 2006;
Harvey, et al, 2006; Whittaker, 2007).

One possible strategy to counterbalance the reluctance of students to ask for

help and to enable more creative thinking in terms of support is to ensure
anonymity. Against this background, SL appears to offer an ideal solution,
enabling students and staff to remain completely anonymous throughout their
virtual interaction within SL.

GCU’s use of SL aims to encourage prospective and new students to explore the
GCU learning environment, such as the Saltire Centre and a range of teaching
and learning activities prior to entry as well as engaging in social activities both
in the real and virtual environment. It will also enable students to meet other
new students prior to arrival as well as mentors and programme staff and to
encourage informal peer networking throughout the first year and beyond.

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The exploration of 3D virtual worlds as a means of supporting students to
develop the confidence and skills to prepare for, and succeed at, university
forms part of a longitudinal induction process which will inform broader HE
sector research and development in the area of transition. GCU’s ‘CU There’ and
other SL projects at GCU will enhance the understanding of HE and college
sectors and will explore the ways in which new technologies (with which
students may be comfortable, but which may be unfamiliar to college and
university staff) can be used to develop the informal learning networks (Creanor
et al, 2006, Trinder et al 2008). The models that will be developed will be
transferable and adaptable across the HE sector, for different learner groups.

i-CAMPPUS (INTERNET COLLEGE ARTICULATION AND MENTORING

PROJECT FOR PROSPECTIVE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS): SUPPORTING
TRANSITION OF COLLEGE STUDENTS THROUGH SECOND LIFE
The i-CAMPPUS Project works within the framework of GCU’s College Articulation
Project (CAP), which aims to support and enhance the transitional experiences of
students as they move from college to university. Transition is not viewed as a
‘one-off’ experience – we recognise that it begins before entry to university and
continues once students have moved into their new institutions. Project support
is therefore long-term and looks at pre-entry, point of entry and post entry
issues for students.

Project strands include:

1. Subject-based transition: how can differences in teaching and

learning approaches between college and university be better understood
and students helped to adapt to the university approaches before making
the transition
2. Mentoring: building on GCU Induction for HN entrants to provide a
continuum of support pre- and post-entry using students who have made
the transition as mentors and role models
3. Disability: evaluating the current arrangements for students with
disabilities with a view to improving their experience
4. Research and evaluation: extending the University’s Student
Evaluation Project to gain a more systematic picture of students making
the transition and their progress and also evaluating each strand with a
view to identifying effective approaches for future development.

The project is engaged in continuous research and development to allow us to

hear the student voice and to understand the differential impacts of the range of
transitional challenges students can face when they move to university. A key
component of the project is the development of Communities of Practice, which
underpins the project by developing networks of people involved in supporting
students.

The Mentoring Strand

The mentors who work for CAP provide peer support at a number of levels:

Pre-entry Support
Mentors assist project staff with Pre-UCAS and Pre-Exit sessions across 19
partner colleges. Mentors can provide powerful role models and a key source of
information for students considering university. College students are given an

165
overview of transition issues and the differences they may experience between
college and university. They are also given information on the support available
to them. Students hear first hand from a mentor who has already made the
transition – wherever possible this is a former student of the college. The
session is supported by information packs and signposting to relevant websites
including the Mentors web pages (www.gcal.ac.uk/mentoring/web).

Point of Entry (Induction) Support

Mentors provide support for new students at a number of induction activities
including the HN Induction Programme (Co-ordinated by ELS for all new HN
Students), the GCU Orientation Programme (co-ordinated by Learner Support for
all new students), the International Welcome Programme, and Campus and
Library tours. Mentors are also deployed across campus in highly visible t-shirts
in the early weeks of the semester to take general orientation queries and to
signpost new students to appropriate staff and support services.

Post Entry (On Programme) Support

New students can meet with mentors through a programme of weekly drop-in
‘surgeries’, which are advertised by mentors in their departments and across the
university campus. The surgeries enable students to meet with mentors in their
own departments and aim to help them adapt to university by offering re-
assurance, practical advice, informal support, and signposting to staff and
services. Students can also e-mail the mentoring mailbase
(mentors@gcal.ac.uk) with individual queries or to request a meeting with a
mentor.

Mentors are also available to support a variety of departmental or central

activities where requested.

Challenges
The process of registration and creating an avatar, coupled with the need to
spend time familiarising yourself with the SL software and environment, requires
a significant commitment from participants. This may be a hurdle that some are
unwilling or unable to cross, particularly where other forms of ‘distance’
information and guidance such as telephone, e-mail or websites are already
available and relatively quick and simple to access.

Low-income groups may not have access to a PC with a sufficiently high

specification, or to a high-speed broadband connection, both of which are
required to use SL. Some people, e.g. mature people, may not have the ICT
skills to participate in SL or if they do, they may have a ‘fear’ of the environment
if they are unsure of the culture. Also, certain groups of disabled students such
as those who are blind or visually impaired, those with dexterity problems or
perhaps even dyslexics, may be excluded by the nature of their disability?

However, initial reactions from both students and mentors are mainly positive:

Very informative. Easy going, fun and friendly. Things were made a lot clearer
for me. Really liked listening to (the mentor’s) personal stories relating to uni.

It was good to hear from an actual student who could tell us what it will ‘really’
be like.

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Initially, I was concerned utilising [SL] because it was an area that I had no
knowledge about. I was worried that I would not be able to understand [it] and
therefore I would not be able to work through the sessions well. New
technology is something that I do not regularly embrace very well, however [SL]
was fairly straightforward to use […]

The controls and navigation is somewhat demanding at first […]. The concept is
ambitious, innovative and ultimately, attainable. I think without a good
overview of the controls though only technically minded students will be
interested in making use of it.

OVERCOMING THE BARRIERS OF ASKING FOR HELP: THE FEASIBILITY

OF SECOND LIFE AS A PLATFORM FOR STUDENTS TO ACCESS SUPPORT
FROM AN ACADEMIC DEVELOPMENT TUTOR WITHOUT FEELING
STIGMATISED

Project context
The pilot project described below aims to explore the utility of Second Life (SL)
as a mechanism through which to provide student support, and is being co-
ordinated by one of the University’s recently appointed Academic Development
Tutors (ADTs). As part of its widening participation agenda, GCU has appointed
a number of ADTs who work with a range of students, particularly those from
non-traditional learner groups, to support learning and promote development of
academic skills. Learner support takes place within the context of specific
disciplines in this case health and social care, and embraces a developmental as
opposed to remedial approach to learning via individual tuition, whole-class
workshops and online guides.

While a high volume of students make use of the academic development service,
staff acknowledge the challenge of promoting uptake among those who feel
embarrassed or stigmatised; typically the very students who require the most
support. Indeed, it has been well documented in the literature that those
students who are most in need of academic support do not actively seek it
(Thomas, 2002, 2005; Whittaker, 2007; Yorke & Longden, 2004). The
inspiration for this project lay in the creative properties of SL, which allow users
to disguise their identities and construct their own appearances through an
avatar. It was conceived that if students could access academic support through
these disguised identities, social barriers to accessing support could be
overcome.

Project description
The project has two phases: one which aims to provide one to one support
(Phase 1) and another which aims to provide group support (Phase 2). At the
time of writing, the construction of a learning and teaching area within SL is
underway. The ADT has created an avatar and has familiarised herself with
navigation, communication and other ‘in world’ activities. Phase 1 will involve
the provision of a weekly drop-in in which students will be able to access advice
from the ADT’s avatar in a purpose built entry-restricted space, which will be
‘invisible’ to others. To protect anonymity, communication will take place via
private messaging. Phase 2 will involve the provision of a series of scheduled
academic skills workshops in a purpose built space. Workshops will be delivered

167
on a fortnightly basis and will cover topics such as critical thinking, academic
writing, study skills, and exam preparation. The workshops will be delivered in
real time by the ADT’s avatar using sound and textures (e. g. notice boards),
and the timing of workshops will be carefully planned in order to reach as many
students as possible.

Evaluation
While a qualitative data collection method would be most appropriate to gain an
insight into students’ experiences of engaging with the project, the significance
of preserving anonymity hinders such an approach. Evaluation will therefore
take place in-world with the use of a brief questionnaire containing open and
closed questions, designed to address issues such as the following:

• To what extent is the loss of face-to-face interaction a disadvantage?

• Is the space more engaging if it is imaginative or if it imitates familiar real
life settings?
• Would students have been willing to make a face-to-face appointment if
the SL project had not been available?

Early experiences
It is beyond the scope of this paper to provide a detailed account of the ADT’s
initial experiences of familiarising herself with SL and so only a brief summary,
capturing the key features of this process, is presented below.

Adapting to SL and creating an avatar

The ADT’s early experience of using SL was largely positive. Despite initial
concerns about the investment of time required to become acquainted with the
software and develop communication and navigation skills, she found the
processes to be surprisingly intuitive and user friendly. The software was
generally easier to use than had been anticipated and the SL tutorials were
found to be helpful. While the ADT encountered no difficulties adapting to the
concept of a 3D world, she was struck by the range of multimedia experiences
made possible by the technology, its immersive properties and the strong social
nature of the environment. This was particularly evident during orientation
when she was approached, in a seemingly arbitrary manner, by avatars who
initiated text chat, while others could be heard conversing in different languages.
When creating her avatar, the ADT was impressed with the degree to which SL
makes it possible to alter avatar appearance. Although a significant amount of
time was required to create her avatar, the ADT enjoyed, somewhat
unexpectedly, the novelty of a virtual shopping experience involving the
purchase of accessories such as avatar outfits, skin and hair. When the desired
look was finally achieved, she felt a sense of satisfaction and affiliation with her
new virtual creation.

Attitudinal changes
Interestingly, the ADT noticed some attitudinal changes during the first few
weeks of engaging with SL. Initially, she approached the project with a rather
neutral, perhaps sceptical, perspective on its ability to engage those who may
not be considered “technology wizards”. With a developing knowledge of SL,
however, her enthusiasm for the software developed as she mastered new skills
and gained a sense of curiosity in relation to exploring new SL islands. The ADT
has also been quite surprised to find herself growing an attachment to and

168
becoming quite invested in her avatar, an experience, which is no doubt unique
and raises interesting avenues for identity related research within virtual worlds.

Limitations
Despite these positive experiences, two significant drawbacks were encountered
and should be noted. Firstly, the ADT’s PC, despite having a reasonably up-to-
date specification, did not fully support the SL software, which created
frustration and a need to have additional software installed. Secondly, the ADT
experienced mild abuse in the form of offensive text comments and avatar
stalking while completing one of the SL orientation tutorials. While she did not
find this particularly distressing, the potential for abusive behaviour should be
taken into consideration when using SL in an educational context.

Perceived benefits and challenges

Benefits:

• Anonymity removes potential for social evaluation concerns,

thereby offering a more inclusive service
• Reduction of traditional boundaries and power relationships
between students and staff
• Opportunity for students in disparate locations to log in and
participate, thus removing the necessity to be on campus to access
support, although it is acknowledged that target groups may not
have access to computers that support the SL software (see below)
• Potential for interactive and peer assisted learning (Phase 2)
• Potential to free up staff time by running annotated Powerpoint
presentations and videos without the need for a tutor to be present
(Phase 2)
• Development of IT and virtual learning skills which are of value in
the modern workplace
• Potential to engage the more kinaesthetic and visual learners
• Potential to encourage subliminal learning through SL’s game-like
features

Challenges:

• The group of students that the project aims to target may be those
with the lowest levels of IT literacy. This may cause apprehension
and act as a barrier to their participation.
• An up-to-date PC with reasonably high spec is required to support
the SL software. The group of students that the project aims to
target may not have home access to computers that support SL,
thus requiring them to be on campus to make use of the service.
This access restriction could potentially act as a barrier.
• While the strength of the project lies in the facility for students to
access support anonymously, there may be drawbacks associated
with the loss of face to face interaction, especially where
individualised support is sought in relation to highly sensitive
issues.

169
 • Future expansion of the project is dependent on staff buy-in but
recent research suggests that this could be problematic; some staff
are enthusiastic about 3D world technology while others may be
deeply sceptical (Trinder, 2008).
• While measures would be taken to police the service, the
opportunity to disguise one’s identity could potentially entice
misuse in the form of, for example, avatar harassment,
unauthorised or dishonest use, and menacing.

FINAL DISCUSSION
The presentation of the two SL-based GCU projects in relation to transition
support, and the use of SL in a HE context has shown that the reaction towards
SL is mainly positive. While some staff and students may still be reluctant to
use SL as a means of communicating with other staff and students at GCU,
those who have engaged with it, are enjoying the possibilities of SL.
Nevertheless, the fact that Web 2.0 technologies are not as popular as
practitioners in universities would have hoped will need to be addressed.

The workshop discussion at the TESEP LICK Conference 2008, however, touched
on two major concerns in relation to SL and other emerging technologies within
higher education: firstly, concern was expressed over the potential reduction of
face-to-face teaching by emerging technologies. Secondly, workshop
participants discussed the potential drawback of identifying too closely with the
avatar. In this case, staff and students could have difficulties distancing
themselves from the SL context, leading to some of them feeling personally
insulted, irritated, or harassed by other avatars. It was agreed that these
concerns should be taken into account when planning the use of SL in learning
and teaching.

The use of SL in higher education in general is in its early stages, and so are the
two projects introduced in this paper. There will have to be further evaluation of
the uptake of SL as well as the effectiveness of SL based pedagogies. Further
reports on experiences of using SL at GCU will not only be discussed in reports,
at conferences and other publications, but also on the GCU SL island, where all
the projects mentioned above take place.

REFERENCES
Bayne, S (2008), “Learning in a strange place: Second Life at the University of
Edinburgh”, seminar presentation abstract, available online at:
http://www.academy.gcal.ac.uk/professional/iws.html#sbayneN
Benske, K. (2007) ‘Students in Transition: Tracking GOALS Students in
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Benske, K. (2006) Students in Transition - Literature Review; West of Scotland
Wider Access Forum [Internet], available online at:
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Creanor, L., Trinder, K., Gowan, D. & Howells, C. (2006) LEX. The Learner
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Harvey, L., Drew, S. & Smith, M. (2006) The first year experience: a review of
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Krause, K. (2001) The University Essay Writing Experience: a pathway for
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172
 SECTION THREE

CLOSING REMARKS

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THE OPEN PLENARY DISCUSSION

Nicholas Mayes

The discussion in the Plenary brought together many of the themes that had
emerged during the day’s programme. As Chair of the Plenary, Terry Mayes
reminded the delegates that one of the purposes of the day was to attempt to
influence policy. Terry introduced some key issues that had come into focus
during earlier discussion and the Plenary considered each in turn, attempting to
derive practical messages for policymakers.

The first of these looked at the impact of what Richard Hall had termed “external
literacies”. These refer to skills, knowledge and attitudes that students acquire in
their online activities outside the formal settings of education. Bringing these
into their learning activities within the curriculum can produce a range of effects
that influence their own, their peers’, and even their tutors’ approaches. Richard
gave some examples of students at De Montfort: game design students working
with SMEs beyond the formal curriculum; computer science students working on
scripting and finding technical help in Second Life; a psychology student with
thousands of vlogs on YouTube. In each of these examples students were
exploring their learning in networks that went well beyond the institution’s VLE,
and were exploiting expertise that in many cases went beyond that of their
tutors. Clearly there is a subset of students who are highly digitally literate, and
these learners are highly ‘connected’ in a way that implicitly widens their
learning environment. For these students the notion of flexible learning is taken
for granted, though such flexibility provides a challenge for institutional
procedures built on an assumption that the institution controls the learning
environment so that it can assure quality. Such digital natives also challenge the
conventional relationships between students and their teachers. Some of the
discussion around this topic concerned the expectation of learners that they
need to choose their own social networks. Though these networks might be used
for learning, the students may not be comfortable sharing such networks with
those who will be responsible for assessing the quality of their work.

A counterbalancing view was put by Joseph Maguire who reported on the low
level of digital literacy of many of the students in the course in which he had
attempted to introduce an element of co-creation. However, Steve Draper
reported evidence that a survey of digital awareness amongst students had
revealed a higher level of familiarity with social networking tools for level one
students than for level four, so the level of digital literacy of incoming students is
probably increasing rapidly. Nevertheless, Steve reminded the group that merely
being fluent with one or two social networking tools, like Facebook, does not
necessarily imply digital literacy in the sense that Richard Hall’s examples
implied. Kerr Gardiner, though, put the view that our idea of digital literacy is
changing all the time. For example, it would no longer be regarded as necessary
to write HTML.

The discussion widened to consider how far HEIs are responsible for ensuring
that all students are fully equipped with the skill and knowledge that would allow
them to exploit Web 2.0 possibilities for enhanced learning. The fact is that the
set of required skills and knowledge is changing too fast for a curriculum that

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might be intended to last for four years. A certificate of Web 2.0 competence
gained in year one would seem quaintly out of date by year two. Nevertheless,
the digital divide is real and the more we encourage the idea of co-creation the
more disadvantaged are students who fall on the wrong side of the divide. This
takes us right into the debate about generic skills and the extent to which they
can be embedded in mainstream teaching of disciplines. What attributes should
a graduate in the 21st century have, and how far should HE go in supporting
them?2 Some participants in the discussion saw a deficit model driving this
agenda, and expressed concern about the negative consequences of this.

The Chair introduced the term ‘academic literacy’ into the discussion. This is
intended to widen the concept of digital literacy to include the skills of critical
thinking and enquiry. Not all the discussants were convinced that this term
would convey what was intended. Steve Draper wondered whether social skills
should be regarded as important here. He admits to finding it challenging to
work in a “leaderless herd” and assumes that many undergraduates also find
this difficult. As the discussion about academic literacy continued it became
clearer that there are many components of ‘21st century literacy’ that should be
addressed. Fluency with all aspects of modern technology is a key requirement
for the building of successful performance in every area of modern life,
associated as it should be with social and personal confidence, awareness and
sensitivity to social and political agendas, and the ability to make informed
judgements. Academic literacy refers to a basic flexibility to adapt to rapid
changes and it is perhaps not very well served by the teaching of a standard
discipline-based curriculum.

The discussion moved on to the challenge of equipping staff with the confidence
to move in the direction this symposium was trying to encourage: Christina
Mainka’s workshop had revealed this as a key issue. Martin Oliver suggested
that current strategies had alienated staff by emphasising their “deficiencies”.
Mark Johnson and Kerr Gardiner both contributed to the discussion around this
point, emphasising the need for institutional policies to grasp the importance of
encouraging staff to explore and discover for themselves the pedagogical
possibilities. Geoff Goolnik raised the concept of a “sandpit area” for staff,
though Nicola Cargill-Kipar reminded us that so long as institutional policies offer
more reward for research than for teaching, we will continue to see a low level of
engagement in such approaches. Angela Benzies described how hard it is to
make progress in a single area of teaching – a module, say – when the individual
is embedded in a teaching culture that hardly changes from year to year.

The Plenary then focused on the central topic of the symposium: the co-creation
of knowledge. The Chair suggested that the term raises several questions by its
ambiguity. The co-creation of what and by whom and for what purpose? In her
keynote Betty Collis had emphasised the learning benefits students derived from
the act of creating materials. The discussion centred on the need for this task to
be purposeful and authentic for each learner. One example is to ask students to
produce materials from which others will learn: placing the learner in the role of
teacher is a powerful constructivist device. But will the materials produced really

2
The nature of 21st century graduate attributes is the subject of the latest
Scottish HE enhancement theme, aiming to integrate all previous themes. See
www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk

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be used for teaching others? Indeed, Terry Mayes questioned the pedagogical
rationale for this since delivering materials for learning is not in itself an effective
pedagogy for the recipient, only for the creator. In Joseph Maguire’s example he
had to rethink the intention that video podcasts would be reused by the
following year’s students, although the reason for this had more to do with the
need to assure the quality of the content than to enhance pedagogy. Betty Collis
suggested that having stages of feedback prior to video production would have
helped in this case. Terry’s suggested approach was to capture the process of
creating the materials, and reuse this (e.g. video diaries and records of
discussions) rather than the actual content itself.

Finally, there was an interesting discussion about online communication itself,

and the importance of the affective dimension of this. Mark Johnson noted how
we are all revealing more and more about ourselves through technology-
mediated communication and wondered how far this should go in educational
organisations. Steve Draper put the view that academic discussion actually
precedes social bonding, rather than the other way round, as is usually
assumed. Linda Creanor agreed that these issues were important in Web 2.0
pedagogies, but not yet properly understood. The group agreed that this was
one of many issues of importance highlighted by the symposium that needed
deeper understanding. The possibility of holding further symposia on this topic
received general support.

The Chair concluded the Plenary by thanking the participants for a successful
day. He particularly thanked the TESEP Project for its sponsorship of the event.

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POSTSCRIPT

John Cowan, Napier University

Introduction
I was asked to sum up the day, in some way, while the delegates who remained
consumed their canapés and sipped their wine. I approached this, in the spirit
of the acronym for the day, by following LICK with CHEW – standing for
“Carrying Home Experts’ Wisdom”. Needless to say, it was the wisdom of the
speakers and participants which I had in mind, not my own! This is a brief
summary of my postscript.

Outline
I took as my theme the approach followed by Stephen Brookfield in some of his
lectures. He would commence by telling his students the question which he
intended to address and why he thought it important; and he then concluded by
asking them what question that had raised in their mind, and what they
proposed to do to find an answer. I warned my audience that I would do the
same.

• I stressed that questioning and its application by students had

mattered to me ever since I first read Postman and Weingartner. I
had warmed to the suggestion that the measure of someone’s
education and thinking is not what they know, but the quality of the
questions they ask.
• So my structure for this short input would be to declare the five
questions I had brought with me to the events of the day, to outline
why I thought them important, to report what progress I had made in
finding answers, to mention en passant the questions which might
have been posed during the day, but had not – the dogs that did not
bark in the night – and then to move on to the questions which I was
taking away home with me (quite a sentence!).
• I freely admitted the wisdom of the old saying – that any fool can ask
a question which it takes a wise man (sic) to answer. So I felt
equipped to question, and favoured by a gathering able to answer.

Question 1: How far should learning go beyond the assimilation of

content?
Although I have enthused about many aspects of his writing, I confess that Curt
Bonk has often worried me by his emphasis on “delivering the content” through
and in e-learning. That concept, like much of John Biggs’ writing, concentrates
on the first three levels of Bloom’s taxonomy, if you use that form of
categorisation. I’m afraid that I feel that IT has taken over much of the
delivery, handling and use of content and the routine application of basic
methodologies which used to be the remit of graduates – and that the real
demands in HE nowadays are to develop graduates who have analytical and
evaluative abilities, are creative problem-solvers, and have sophisticated
interpersonal skills. I was hoping that these more pedagogically challenging, as
well as more relevant and useful, outcomes, would figure in our programme.

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Yet I noted that content featured a great deal in what Betty Collis had to say;
and that Martin Oliver also spoke of the co-creation of knowledge. I wondered if
the title for the day had seduced us to steer clear of higher level objectives. I
was heartened when a questioner in the first session rightly (in my judgement)
raised the issue of preparing students to use important skills.

So I came back to my engineer’s emphasis on developing abilities. I was

listening as the day progressed for discussion and reporting of the development
of abilities, and of achieving affective goals, but I didn’t hear much of that.
However I still had in my mind the questions raised by Martin Oliver, which I did
not dare to paraphrase, but which went quite some way to giving us something
to chew on under the heading of levels and domains.

Question 2: Do we do enough to recognise and nurture unexpected

learning outcomes?
It has troubled me for a while that our current educational practice, which
almost amounts to an obsession, is to specify and concentrate in an aligned way
on expected learning outcomes, and has almost excluded the possibility of
totally unexpected learning outcomes. Yet I keep encountering them, and being
pleased for the learners for whom such learning has occurred. There are the
wonderful skills which can develop while the learner is in pursuit of the
scheduled outcomes. There are the rich rewards which come from wandering
down an attractive sidetrack, increasingly found in internet searching. There are
even interpersonal skills which emerge from planned and unplanned group
activity. My students keep reporting such learning, and their pride and pleasure
in it – which I share. I instanced the woman working with me on an Enquiry
Skills module, who decided to optimise the multi-tasking for which her female
brain, with its greater number of connections between its hemispheres, was
better suited than is mine; and who demonstrated objectively in due course that
she had succeeded in her aim.

In recent years, I have persuaded some of my programme team colleagues to

add a blank learning outcome at the end of the lists in our module specifications:

“Any outcome which is in accordance with the goals of this module or

programme, but not covered in the above list”.

We then find a source of marks, bonus marks, with which such learning can be
recognised and rewarded. When I mention this eccentric approach in academic
company, I note that more than a third of those gathered nod agreement - and
that there is almost a competition to contribute, in terms which begin: “I had an
example of that recently, when…”

During the day, I found many mentions of such outcomes, and even of demands
from speakers for diversifying learning to include them; but as yet hardly
anything of schemes for properly recognising unplanned outcomes. I needed to
think more about that. Maybe you do, too?

Question 3: Do we make enough use of self- and peer-assessment?

It seems difficult nowadays to avoid mentioning concern for assessment in
higher education. In the context of the day, I found it fairly easy, and I hope
appropriate, to let a familiar bee out of my bonnet.

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Betty Collis had warned us early on that “assessment remains a real challenge”.
This would not come as anything new to an audience familiar with the fact that
assessment which does not reward or encourage what the teachers claim to
value is perhaps the greatest weakness in British higher education. I mentioned
that, any time I am asked for advice from a newly appointed auditor, external
examiner or reviewer in the UK system, I advise them to look at the module
boxes, check assessed outcomes against declared outcomes, and begin to
enquire about the marked differences which I can almost guarantee they will
quickly find.

Carrying forward my concern for higher level abilities from my first question, I
mentioned that I am acutely aware that higher level abilities cannot be judged
from full information about performance - without the involvement of the
learner. Often only the learner knows if a creative performance is original to a
breathtaking extent, or an adaptation of something encountered elsewhere and
(rightly) admired, or repetition of an earlier creative effort.

Given the pedagogical desirability of self-assessment, and the cost-effectiveness

as well as the proven pedagogical power of formative peer-assessment, both
seem remarkably neglected and under-used in the sector at present. The
possibility of harnessing them was raised mildly from the floor by a few
participants, but I felt it could profit from more attention – soon and almost
urgently. I hoped that by airing it, and by arguing the case, I might have
planted the question in the minds of a few of those listening.

Question 4: Are our curriculum developments evaluated systematically

and objectively?
Over the years, many colleagues have told me that they can tell when a class,
even a new activity, has gone well, because you get a “gut reaction” to that
effect. When I have asked how they tell the difference between a gut reaction
and indigestion, their consequent annoyance often tells its own story.

In a context where so much is changing so rapidly, with the advent of IT and

otherwise, methods and approaches are seldom the same as four or five years
ago. Changes in the curriculum are often radical as well as rapid, and their
impact on learning can often only be anticipated speculatively. Yet we operate
now in an age where annual and periodic review are a feature of the scene, and
where each such review is expected to be soundly evidence-based. It behoves
us, then, to ingather data to inform our judgements and claims about the
effectiveness of the innovations which we pilot. Given the attendant risks, the
practice of ensuring that students have the security of a “safety net” lest the
innovation does not deliver as hoped, is also surely desirable.

As an innovator, provision of safety nets has always been a feature of my first

steps into new educational territory. However, during the day, I did not
encounter planned safety nets, and on the one occasion when I raised the
possibility as a desirability, I did not encounter an empathic reaction. Yet, again
in the first session, Betty Collis had reminded us that new developments “are not
easy, first time round” (for staff or students). One participant then asked “So
what if the innovation fails?” – without receiving adequate advice during the day.
In his challenging study of reasonably competent and experienced teachers

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engaged in e-moderation, Panos Vlachopoulos reported much to be learnt from
mistakes in e-moderation, and the occurrence of many mistakes to be learnt
from. Happily there were bright spots as far as evaluation was concerned.
Angela Benzies and Jane McDowell described an iterative development, in a
commendable partnership between and information scientist and an academic,
where there had been delightfully systematic and purposeful formative
evaluation.

Overall, though, during a day which concentrated a great deal on innovation and
change, formative and summative evaluation, and means of collecting useful
data, were seldom mentioned. I was left asking if we give this priority enough
attention.

Question 5: How should teaching contribute to self-directed learning?

In situations where the learning is self-directed and fostered in learning
communities, what is the role for teachers, once the plans have been made and
communicated to learners? To put it bluntly, are we needed? Linda Creanor
reported a student as saying “technology is only as good as the teacher that’s
behind it”. Hamish Macleod and colleagues wrote of the “orchestration of
experience and interaction”. How can or do we discharge that remit?

I joyed while wrestling with this dilemma to find what was for me the greatest
gem in the day’s collection and offerings. This was Steve Draper’s paper on
“Learning and Community”. In this, he identifies our teaching role, today and
tomorrow, in a visionary and inspiring way, even if under what I felt was the
regrettable title of “teacher monitoring”.

So what questions did I take with me for the journey home and
thereafter?
I had made progress with the questions on my original list, as I hope I have
indicated; but they still remained, with amendments and enlargements. To
these I added:

• Martin Oliver’s issue regarding the two perspectives (see his paper, in
which he does more justice to this than could I);
• A sneaking concern expressed in a question which developed for me
through the day, as I related back to my absent colleagues and their
priorities and practices: “How typical are we of the sector, its concerns
and its progress?”
• Finally, in a climate where more and more teachers advocate group
working, interaction and social-constructivism, I’m troubled to sort
out: “At what point does or even must deep understanding become
self-created and personal?”

I dwelt for a short time on that last question, airing experiences in which my
studies of problem-solving students had revealed their need in the end to
summarise and apply their approach in terms of highly personal metaphors and
similes with which few if any peers, or tutors, could identify.

As I had promised, I then urged the remaining audience to consider, before

tackling the serious task of whisky tasting, what questions they would be taking
away with them, and what they would propose to do about seeking answers. In

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a setting where acronyms were popular, I struggled to find yet another
expansion of “LICK”, and could only overwork the letter “K” (as is so often done
nowadays), and suggested feebly:

Let Inquiries Continue Kreatively!

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