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e-Learning Policy:Supporting Learners in Higher Education?

Sharon OakeBrock University, Faculty of Education

Ontario, Canadaso03tb@brocku.ca

Global Learn Asia Pacific 2010 Global Conference on Learning and Technology

Penang, MalaysiaMay 17 – 20, 2010

Virtual Paper Presentation

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Contents

• Background & Abstract• What is e-Learning?• Educational Policy in Higher Education (HE)• The Post-Modern University and e-Learning• Policy and e-Learning• Seven policy consequences: A positive perspective for e-Learners in HE in

Canada• Conclusion• Acknowledgments• References

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Background & Abstract

• This presentation summarizes an academic paper (work in progress) that asks the question; Does Current e-Learning Policy Support Learners in Higher Education (HE)?

• Despite the existence or lack of strategic plans, objectives and educational priorities, e-learning policies exist in different forms in (HE), and vary in terms of meeting the requirements of faculty and students.

• Distance education has changed, and even restructured education, though as Simonson et al (2006) suggest, although different, distance and traditional education have many commonalities.

• While distance implies the separation of teacher and learner, borderless, the Internet has created a need for education policy that reflects a diverse environment.

• Policy makers in their roles as e-learning advocates, are critical to developing policy that can embed new information and communication technologies (ICT), and ensuring teaching and learning practices are discussed and written (Czerniewicz & Brown, 2009).

 

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What is e-Learning?

• e-learning is “technology-based learning” that requires electronic delivery of learning materials to remote learners via computers and computer networks (Zhang, Zhao & Nunamaker, 2004).

• Born in the mid to late 1970’s, e-learning today engages over 10% of post secondary education students in the United States and is “…transforming education, shifting the educational paradigm, as we have known it for the past three centuries” (Harasim, as cited in Weiss, 2006).

• Despite a dependency on technology, learning with, and not about technology is an important point.

• Physical distance may or may not be relevant to e-learners who could be sitting side-by side in the same classroom, accessing course information in a lab or library on campus, from their home in the same city, or from a different country.

• Regardless of the mechanism used, learning happens in stages and technological change, primarily the evolution and use of the Internet, has presented opportunity to create new models to deliver and acquire higher education (Kolb, 1984).

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Educational Policy in HE

•Policy, and policy development have assumed an increasingly central role in HE for three key reasons:

(1) policy (or lack thereof) is often related to legal liability; (2) the complex structure of academic administration;(3) complicated relationships emerging between HE institutions, government and

the market (Mitrano, 2003). •Policy making requires discourse, process, commitment, understanding, capability,

resources, practical limitations and cooperation (Ball, 1993). •In Canada, provincial governments are primarily responsible for education policy.

With the exception of Indian and Inuit education, the federal government does not have a direct role in managing or overseeing HE.

•In the United States, prior to the Regan administration in the 1980s policy changes were slow and considered by an “iron triangle” of education committees from the legislature, state department of education and major lobbying groups. State governments delegated most of their authority for education to local school districts.

•By contrast, Australia, the UK, New Zealand and many European countries are more involved in university policy and have legislated change.

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The Post-Modern University and e-Learning

• Provincial structures promote tension in education policy (Fisher et al, 2007), and geographically defined interests may constrain development of e-learning potential in the postmodern university; a more heterogeneous institute in which we experience the mass lecture, distance learning and self-guided instruction (Smith & Webster, 1997).

• Together technology and e-learning are enabling new forms of teaching and learning in an environment “…where students learn to make meanings within places that partially enclose” (Nicoll, 2008, as cited in Fejes & Nicoll, p. 175).

• Foucault (1977) referred to the university as a place that exercises a “sort of social quarantine” (as cited in Fejes & Nicoll, p.176), which may also exist for e-learners but by virtue of the Webs’ reach are accessing a much wider society.

• While postmodernism rejects conventional styles of academic discourse, e-learning requires a different discourse, and different forms of observation (Schwandt, 2007).

• It is the “global revolution of the twenty-first century – the postmodern era” where the university will need to encompass current cultural, material, social, political and technological perspectives in order to redefine and transform itself (Delanty, 2002).

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Policy and e-Learning

• Czerniewicz and Brown (2009) researched four South African universities;• Define policy as an allocation of goals, values and resources• Identified two types of e-learning policy; (1) structured, and (2) unstructured• Identified a link between policy, organizational culture and e-learning• While e-learning policy received little attention, 3 of 4 universities had policy

• In Canada, the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) surveyed 22 Ontario universities (2,000 responses) on quality of education in 2009;

• Faculty retiring in large numbers, oversubscribed courses with not enough seats, larger classes, full-time faculty being replaced with equivalent only 60% of the time (relying on contract or part-time) led to a perception by 40% of respondents that educational quality was less than three years prior.

• In Canada, Murgatroyd (2009) suggests a positive view; expanding online libraries and journals, development of online research networks and online student services identify e-learning as a growth area in HE and identified 7 positive policy consequences.

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Seven policy consequences: A positive perspective for e-Learners in HE in Canada

Seven Policy Consequences of e-learning

Consequence Detail

1. Access • Frequent entry points for courses and programs• Courses can start anytime• More access at a lower unit cost

2. Quality • e-learning is readily available for peer based or expert quality• e-learning may offer superior to classroom experiences for students• Standards need to embrace e-learning as normative, not exception

3. Affordability • By accelerating the speed at which people can learn, more students can be taught with the same faculty levels without substantial capital costs• Reduces the need for text books, residence and travel cost

4. Completion • More students can access courses according to availability, flexibility and faster program completion

5. Costs per student • Containment of cost growth through systematic focus on blended learning and transfer credit for e-learning within and between institutions and across national boundaries

6. Skills shortage • Focused use of e-learning to maintain skills and for lifelong learning can accelerate skills development and maintain competitive intelligence of workforce• Opportunity for competency based learning passports linked to known skill needs

7. Other • Broadband access a key social policy issue (not just for education)

Mugatroyd, S. (2009). Access, Quality and Affordability: How Technology can Transform Education in Ontario.

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Conclusion

• e-learning is a rapidly growing field that has provided an abundance of important issues and questions for policy makers.

• If high school graduates in North America continue to enroll in HE at current projected rates, universities will need to increase access, productivity and reduce attrition if they are to be able to fulfill what is more than double the current level of attainment (Lingenfelter, 2007).

• Policy makers in their roles as e-learning advocates, are critical to developing policy that can embed new information and communication technologies (ICT) and teaching and learning practices are discussed and written (Czerniewicz and Brown, 2009).

• Innovation in technology has reduced political and geographical boundaries and the significance of distance, enabling rapid movement of capital, resources and jobs around the globe (Friedman, 2005).

• e-learning is more than a system; it is a mechanism to facilitate learning that needs to be examined by policy makers who can work with governments, HE leaders and researchers to create and deliver policy that matters (Andrews and Haythornthwaite, 2007). Strategic e-learning policy discourse and e-learning policy should be a top priority for government and university leaders.

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Acknowledgement

With thanks to:

Dr. Yvette Daniel, University of Windsor, Ontario Canada for framing the initial research question and structuring my approach, and;

Dr. David Hutchison, my PhD Advisor at Brock University, Ontario Canada for his input and guidance on presentation material and paper development.

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Key References

Andrews, R. & Haythornthwaite, C.(Eds). (2007). The Sage Handbook of E-learning Research. London, UK: Sage Publications.

Ball, S. (1993). What is Policy? Texts, Trajectories, and Toolboxes. Discourse, Vol. 13, No. 2, 10-17.

Czerniewicz, L. & Brown, C. (2009). A study of the relationship between institutional policy, organisational culture and e-learning use in four South African universities. Computers & Education, 53, 121-131.

Delanty, G. (2003). The University and Modernity: A History of the Present. In K. Robins & F. Webster, The Virtual University? Knowledge, Markets, and Management (pp. 31-48). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Fejes, A. & Nicoll, K. (Eds.). (2008). Foucault and Lifelong Learning: Governing the Subject. Oxon, UK: Routledge.

Fisher, D. et al (Eds.). (2006). Canadian Federal Policy and Postsecondary Education. Vancouver, BC: The Centre for Policy Studies in Higher Education and Training.

Friedman, T. (2005). The World is Flat. A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century. New York, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Kolb, D. (1984). Experiential Learning; Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Mitrano, T. (2003). Resolving Information Technology Policy Issues on the Networked Campus. In P. McClure (Ed.), Organizing and Managing Information Resources on Your Campus (pp. 77-92). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Murgatroyd, S. (2009). Access, Quality and Affordability: How Technology Can Transform Education in Ontario. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/murgatroyd/access-quality-and-affordability-how-technology-can-transform-education-in-ontario

Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA). (2009). Ontario university faculty sound warning over declining quality. Retrieved from http://www.quality-matters.ca/QualityMatters/docs/Ontario%20university%20faculty%20sound%20warning%20over%20declining%20quality.pdf

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M. & Zvacek, S. (Eds.).(2006). Teaching and Learning at a Distance, Foundations of Distance Education (3rd Ed.).Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Person Merrill Prentice Hall.

Smith, A. & Webster, F. (Eds.). (1997). The Postmodern University? Contested Visions of Higher Education in Society. Buckingham, UK: SRHE and Open University Press

Weiss, J. et al. (Eds). (2006). The International Handbook of Virtual Learning Environments. Netherlands: Springer.

Zhang, D., Zhao, J., Zhou, L. & Nunamaker, J. (2004). Can e-learning Replace Classroom Learning? Communications of the ACM, May 2004, 47, No. 5.