Transforming Learning Support: An Online Resource Centre for a Diverse Student Population

Rosemary Clerehan, Jill Turnbull, Tim Moore, Alanna Brown and Juhani Tuovinen, Australia

Abstract

The diverse student population at large multi-campus universities requires English language and academic skills support which is targeted to their needs and easily accessible. The Online Student Resource Centre web site, developed at Monash University, provides opportunities for students, no matter where they are, to make contact with staff and to access information, but more significantly offers a suite of stand-alone tutorials and downloadable resources, using NetObjects Fusion as the platform. These derive from some 100 print booklets covering academic writing, reading, listening, speaking, grammar and study skills/exam strategies.

This paper outlines the process and philosophy of development of these tutorials, based on a constructivist framework, with guided and self-directed learning paths designed to accommodate a range of learning styles. Two tutorials are analysed to highlight some of the pedagogical challenges in translating print resources for the online environment. The paper concludes by reporting on a pilot evaluation of the two tutorials.

INTRODUCTION

At the beginning of the 21st century in Australia, internal full-time students represent slightly less than 60% of the total student body at university. External and multi-modal student numbers are increasing, as are the numbers of student who work part-time - whether enrolled full or part-time (McInnis, James and Hartley, 2000). Also growing is the number of international students. Monash University is the largest in Australian with more than 48,000 students in ten faculties on six campuses in one state, Victoria. In 2002, there were two overseas campuses in Malaysia and South Africa and two centres, in Italy and England. The student body at Monash is one of the most diverse anywhere. In 2002, a 25% of students were international and a total of 45% of all students were born outside Australia. Of the local students, a total of 22% spoke a language other than English at home. A significant minority, 17 %, were enrolled as external students. By 2020, the University anticipates the number of international students enrolled in various modes will equal the number of local students.

With such a large and diverse student population, systematic language and learning support can make a difference to students’ progress and grades. The challenge of integrating language and academic skills support into faculty teaching, however, is great. The mission of the University's Language and Learning Services Unit is specifically to provide systematic support for students who are working in their second language; and to integrate language and learning support into faculty teaching – for the benefit of all students. Each year the Language and Learning Services Unit draws over 11,000 student attendances to face-to-face courses and workshops - many

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of which are closely linked to faculty teaching - and almost 5,000 to its one-to-one sessions. So, while many students are able to attend face-to-face, the challenge is to provide academic support on the widest possible scale in flexible modes which all students are able to access.

CONTEXT

The Unit was able to gain university strategic innovations funding for a project, Electronic Delivery of Core Communication Skills and Language Support, designed to provide an electronic gateway to language and academic skills support for all Monash students. The aim was to create a suite of resources for students, both on and off-shore, who were unable (or unwilling) to draw on the benefits of face-to-face teaching. The language and learning resources envisaged would be relevant to undergraduate and postgraduate students in all faculties irrespective of their background, but would target international and other non-English speaking background students, particularly first-year.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

To maximise self-access learning opportunities for students, the Unit determined to transform its general and discipline-specific learning skills booklets into online learning resources which could be used a) by students for any time/any place self-access, and b) in the Unit’s classroom teaching. The Unit had developed a range of some 100 original print-based resources in the form of booklets to cater to undergraduate and postgraduate students’ needs. These booklets may be grouped generically under the headings of: Writing, Reading, Listening, Speaking, Study Skills (including Exam Strategies) and Grammar.

Under these broad categories, there had been numerous different booklets developed over the years by different staff. These covered a range of sub-topics (such as case studies, reports etc under 'Writing') and a further range of discipline-specific, and sometimes even task-specific, booklets which drew on the generic 'master' versions. Some of these had been developed as 'stand-alone' learning materials and some were workbooks linked to specific classes. In evaluations of the Unit’s teaching, the booklets were always rated particularly highly for their quality and their relevance.

The booklets were grouped according to sub-topics and rated in terms of quality by the staff. Those staff originally responsible for a selected booklet were asked to re-conceive the material in a form appropriate to the web environment. The aim was not only to increase accessibility of the materials, but also to improve current practice (Thomas, Carswell, Price and Petre, 1998) through the increased interactivity made possible by web delivery. General booklets were worked on first, through a collaborative process involving staff, the project coordinator, the web developer and the project leader, and also liaison with faculty to ensure relevance and appropriateness for the target audience.

PROJECT PERSONNEL

The Unit, while small (approximately ten EFT academic staff), could draw on the benefit of having taught Monash students at all levels and in all faculties for a number

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of years. The project leader had developed the original proposal, and had facilitated the development of the bank of original materials which were to be developed. The project coordinator had a background in ESL and CALL - especially using computers in writing - and in using and evaluating concordancing software for development of students’ grammar and vocabulary . The web developer had previous experience with developing a 'Virtual Librarian' project at the university and had an interest in pedagogy. The other staff in the Unit had solid experience and expertise in providing concurrent language and academic skills support, but none initially in developing online materials. Expertise in educational design was drawn from a number of sources (see Project Roles), and a small amount of funding was available to allow some graphic design and advice on project evaluation.

Thus, there were only two staff funded for the project, one full and one half-time. The rest of the Unit's staff had no time-release funding, and had to reduce their face-to-face teaching in order to contribute. While the project leader had identified the project as the Unit’s priority for the year, it was to prove difficult for the other staff to turn away individual students and faculty staff wanting support classes developed for their students.

WEB SEARCH

A survey of existing web-based academic skills sites was conducted to identify and evaluate the design features, instructional methods and activities used. The project coordinator and another staff member researched web-based design and delivery issues, and reviewed design features and content of learning materials on existing sites. This review enabled the project to identify the structure and functionality required of the new web materials, and also identified appropriate web sites for linking. The search fanned out to include around 80 sites within Australia, the United States, Canada and Hong Kong. These were sampled for 1) Design and 2) Content (discipline-specific and general) for Grammar, Listening and Notetaking, Oral Presentations, Reading, Study Skills, and Writing.

The main disadvantages of these sites from the project's perspective were that, while there were some which had discipline-related material, there was little that was particularly interactive, and navigational problems had the potential for leading to less than satisfactory learning outcomes. Often, the smaller college and university sites simply provided a link to pages under a particular topic heading (for example, under the heading 'Oral Presentations' a link to a page of one of the larger universities would be given). Having links to other sites has obvious advantages; nevertheless, this can create concerns - both for navigation and identifying authorship. First, the individual page may occur further down the hierarchy from the home page and not have the originator’s identifying information as the page. This gives the impression that the information is from the site doing the linking. Moreover, without navigational buttons or an index the learner is unable to move within this new site to obtain further information on the topic. The second problem is that the link may be created with the use of frames, meaning that only the URL of the site doing the linking appears on screen, and the URL of the original site is not displayed. Also a reader may not be able to return to the linking page from which they started, and the 'Back' button on Netscape cannot be used.

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These difficulties highlighted for us navigation and design features that should be a) included, or b) avoided, in our own site.

PROJECT ROLES

A steering committee was formed which had representation from instructional developers, information technology services, lecturers from the Education and Information Technology faculties with experience in pedagogy and web design, and an ESL specialist from another university. The committee provided guidance on the web concept, development issues, and development and evaluation plans.

The role of the coordinator was to coordinate activities under the guidance of the project leader, with the web developer acting as design consultant, undertaking the web authoring (using NetObjects Fusion), experimenting with and testing interactive features and publishing the developed materials on the Monash web server. A core group (the project development group), comprising the project leader, coordinator, web developer, and a core group of the Unit’s staff, met for an initial period to set directions and scope the project. The majority of the Unit’s staff were able to act as content developers: all were experienced teachers and their work in developing the original booklets had been impressive. To bring the team to the point where members could turn their hand to instructional design on the web, 'training' consisted of circulation and discussion of relevant literature and URLs, demonstration sessions in the Unit's Writing Laboratory, staff seminars and on-the-job experience. The Writing Laboratory was used for trialing and evaluating web materials by the Unit's staff, by the steering committee, by individual students and by student focus groups.

PROJECT SCOPING

The project was envisaged as having the following (overlapping) phases:

Developing concept: researching student needs; discussions with faculty staff and with colleagues at other universities; literature search; preparation of proposal

Financing and staff selection: cost analysis; securing of funding; appointment of existing staff member as project coordinator; advertisement and selection of web developer

Defining project: formation of steering committee and 'hands-on' project development group and; 'cleaning up' the Unit’s network drive where the materials were held; prototyping of web concept

Scoping: developing of time-line for progressive development of resources; gauging how many booklets could be developed; and a site design that would be achievable

Researching: survey of existing language and academic skills sites; experimenting with different tools; seeking copyright clearances with the assistance of an administrative assistant

Design and Development: training of Unit’s staff to enable them to develop web-based materials; liaison with multimedia artist; developing a new section of the Unit’s web page as a resource centre with virtual 'rooms'; development of web resources and of additional functionality such as a discussion forum; compiling and linking learning resources to the web page; some out-sourced programming

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Monitoring and Evaluation: ongoing throughout project, facilitated by project steering committee reviewing progress of the web development; providing feedback and advice to the project team on improving navigation, design, content and interactivity; advising on other educational, technical and administrative issues relating to the integration and use of the new resource within the existing structures of the University

Revisions: ongoing throughout project Promotion: liaising with departments so they could be aware of what was

available for their students; promotion in University publications; presentations at meetings

Integration: liaison with departments for the creation of hyperlinks, specifically, to information regarding particular assignments, for students to be able to access support materials easily.

A number of key issues warrant further elaboration.

DEVELOPMENT OF RESOURCES

Criteria for selection of booklets were developed. These were: availability; originality (including questions of copyright); substantiality of content, general importance, quality of assistance for ESL students. The development group decided on an order for development of general tutorials: listening (a priority for incoming first-year students); essay writing; reading; report writing; oral presentation; study skills. The coordinator created a 'map' of existing resources so that, for any topic, eg 'Writing', the sub-division of topics such as 'referencing and integrating sources' could be seen, as well as the files where they could be found and their original authors.

Staff nominated preferred times to work on tutorials and particular discipline-specific resources, and a time-line for completion of the work was drawn up to ensure an even distribution of the web development over the project’s lifespan. As the project developed, time constraints unavoidably meant narrowing of scope. As the complexity of the task became more and more apparent, the original idea of developing all selected generic and discipline-specific materials into interactive tutorials had to be re-assessed. It was decided that a more generic approach than had previously been planned would be necessary, that the web site would be the matrix from which further more discipline-specific material could be launched. Time would preclude the more discipline-specific materials from being developed for interactive tutorials. These would be lodged in another section somewhere on the site for print (PDF Adobe Acrobat format) materials.

EVALUATION PLAN

Project evaluation is often regarded as the least well-done element of project development (Alexander 1999). Alexander (1999) maintains that only one-third of 104 projects surveyed in a two-year study in Australia were able to report improving student learning outcomes as the actual outcome of the project. The desired outcomes of content learning in subjects can be, and often are, specified in behavioural terms: being able to do something, showing that students know the characteristics of something, that they can manipulate materials in a new context. With language and learning support, the specifying of outcomes is more problematic as we are dealing

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not with content, but with processes. Clearly, the desired end result is that students learn, and pass their subjects; however, measuring the amount of learning that has occurred within a language and academic skills framework – even at the end of a face-to-face session – can challenge ingenuity. Desired outcomes may change, in any case, under the influence of what the student can cope with: the 'outcome' may end up being that the student is now equipped with strategies so that they are in a better position to learn. For purposes of evaluation purposes, the target group for this project was potentially 'all Monash students' across all disciplines in a variety of settings. It was thus difficult to conduct evaluation of learning outcomes along the lines Alexander is recommending. In any case, assessing improvement in processes and approaches is an area which requires further investigation.

For this project we attempted to address issues of strategic intent through needs assessment; issues of content; of learning design, interface design and interactivity in what Sims calls proactive evaluation (Sims, 2001). This is considered to provide an integrated framework for the project life cycle which can work to shape all facets of the online pedagogy. Evaluation was carried out through the different phases of the project by means of the following:

Content and Design: steering committee, project development group, peer review, informal student commentResource Development: steering committee, project development group, peer review, informal student commentPilot/trial: peer review, focus groups, online student survey, university committees, external evaluator.Summative/ongoing: initially with steering committee; then liaison with staff and students, and use of statistical tracking software

Peer evaluation included regular formative reviews conducted by other individual staff members from the Unit after each tutorial was worked up by the relevant content developer, the project manager and the web developer. Comments and feedback were also solicited from faculty staff: eg. a staff member from Medicine was requested to confirm that the student's Human Behaviour essay annotated and included under 'Other Resources' would be suitable also for medical and nursing students.

The steering committee members were invited into the lab for the 'review' component of each committee meeting to give feedback on the latest module. Recommended changes were often of the minor variety, such as changes of color or wording, but sometimes they resulted in an ongoing process of change. For example, the grammar tutorials were regarded by the external ESL specialist as too 'structural' in conception, and were progressively altered to incorporate a more contextual task-oriented approach. In addition, more choices were developed for students in approaches to learning. Less formal evaluation was sought from various quarters: from students in one-to-one sessions with the Unit's staff; from peers and colleagues through presentations and contact at conferences, and by raising issues about the project via local and international discussion lists.

Online surveys were designed to elicit feedback on the effectiveness of the web materials in terms of content, design and delivery. These surveys were very comprehensive and, perhaps not surprisingly, received only a handful of replies,

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despite the prospect of eligibility to win a $100 prize. These replies - and those from the focus group questionnaire - were analysed with a view to seeing which seemed to be the most useful questions to help develop a greatly shortened web version to be used once the project was concluded. This version too yielded only a handful of responses each semester. It seems that students are unwilling to use up their time completing surveys unless they are required to by their subject lecturers.

The student focus groups were the best source of student feedback. While numbers were small, it has been suggested that for a group of comparable users - such as university students - the best results come from testing ' no more than five users' - in a focus group and running a number of these small tests if possible (Nielsen, 2000). Outcomes are discussed below under the Essay-Writing and Grammar Tutorials.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

In any learning, but particularly learning at a distance, the material needs to be student-centred, with the flexibility to encompass the many different variables which are a product of the learners’ own experiences, cognitive style, language background and learning preferences (Henderson, 1996). This is in contrast to program-centred learning, involving highly structured materials, with pre-determined patterns planned by the instructor to ensure coverage of the 'content'. In many of the existing sites we surveyed, it was apparent that this second type of learning was the one most often favoured, possibly because the technology can be seen to drive instructional design more easily in that direction.

There were a number of principles brought across from what we valued from off-line education. These were based on the notion of learner construction of meaning (Lave and Wenger, 1991; Jonassen, Mayes and McAleese, 1993; Bannan and Milheim, 1997). Our aim was to have students critically analyse information and ideas - to engage with the content (Thomas, Carswell, Price and Petre, 1998). At the same time, from our experience, we had to recognise that students were often 'just' seeking information: for example, how to take notes more effectively in a lecture. Within a well-designed structure, we wanted to give learning choices to facilitate individual learning outcomes, rather than impose set learning outcomes for all.

Our desire was to encourage deeper levels of processing to encourage learner reflectiveness in regard to operational knowledge which could be transferred to future learning contexts (Laurillard, 1993). The notion of knowledge in higher education as 'ill-structured domains' (Spiro, Feltovich, Jacobson and Coulson, 1991), naturally complex and needing to be used in many different and often unpredictable ways, meant that we needed to guard against oversimplifying for the sake of simple 'design values' of visual appeal. That said, at the same time the materials needed to appear appropriately motivating and appealing, to induce students to make use of them. The frameworks we wanted to retain were the Bakhtinian (1986) notion of dialogic understanding, the problem-solving dimension of Vygotsky’s (1978) zone of proximal development and the situated learning described in Lave and Wenger (1991).

One of the advantages of the web environment is that it lends itself to setting up the possibility of relationships between other texts and other voices in Bakhtinian fashion. Thus, it can act as an antidote to the compartmentalization (Spiro, et al, 1991) which

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can be a feature of forms of linear instruction. In this manner, tackling an essay topic could be linked back to a reading tutorial, on to a discussion forum, and so on. In a very real sense, for us to transform our learning resources into online materials meant re-thinking the learner.

We wanted the learning environment to be such that dialogic relationships were set up between the student and the material in a 'transactional space' (Collins and Berge, 1996) where the student is able to evaluate different possibilities and draw their own conclusions. In addition, the notion of the zone of proximal development as outlined by Vygotsky (1978) had relevance for many of the features of the site as we envisaged it. The emphasis on guidance or 'scaffolding' from adults or capable peers to assist the learner towards independent problem-solving embodied the approach we desired. Likewise, we wanted to incorporate the concept of situated learning, whereby the learner is given the opportunity to engage in activities which extend their competence and experience without risk attached (Lave and Wenger, 1991). The need to contextualise learning (Jonassen, Mayes and McAleese, 1993) was paramount as we determined to draw, as far as possible, on authentic texts for exercises and as models.

Our aim was not to impose outcomes on learners, but rather to provide scaffolding to allow them to build on their existing knowledge or develop new learning strategies.It was considered important to produce an online learning environment which would provide the learners with clearly displayed, meaningful and non-judgemental feedback on their responses to tasks. For the feedback to be meaningful, it needed to do more than merely show 'the right answers' – it needed to address predicted misconceptions, directing student attention to these and offering them further explanation for a better understanding (Burston, 1989; Laurillard, 1993). Given the variations in individual learning strategies, we also considered it pedagogically appropriate for students to have control over decisions such as whether and when to attempt tasks, call up supplementary information, or simply call up answers or comments without attempting the tasks (Burston, 1989).

THE WEB SITE

In planning the design of the web site, we were conscious of the need to balance sophistication in features of interactivity with issues of access to a wide student population. This required research into browser capabilities and other access issues, and caused us to re-think some of our original ideas for interactivity within the pages, in order that the broadest student group could draw benefit from the materials.

The strategy was to develop a new section of the Unit's web page along pedagogically sound principles, as a Student Resource Centre with virtual 'rooms'. (See Figure 1) The metaphor of a Centre with rooms is a familiar one, used for a number of educational sites (see, for example, Weges and Portier, 1997; and Franklin and Peat, 1998). The tutorials were always intended to be the centrepiece, but we originally hoped that interactivity of the student-lecturer kind would be a more prominent feature of the site than eventually transpired. We also envisaged the Resource Centre as a virtual ‘Student Community Centre’ where students would not only be involved

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in independent learning, but would interact and socialise with other students, thus promoting a sense of ownership.

Figure 1 shows the entry page with a global graphical view of the site and the online resources:

Figure 1 here

Certain design decisions had to be made to cater for the majority of users and to fulfil particular learning imperatives of site sections. We assumed that the majority of students would be using Netscape Navigator, Version 3 or higher or Internet Explorer equivalents, and would thus be able to access materials presented in a frames format or coded using Javascript. The use of this particular technology has been limited to the delivery of learning material in contexts where the advantages are seen to outweigh the disadvantages. At the same time, alternatives were provided for users of early model browsers or for users who prefer not to work with frames. To avoid substantial network delays and the associated frustrations for students which often occur with the delivery of multi-media web pages (Sears, Jacko and Borella, 1997), the use of graphics and video was also employed selectively.

While we endeavoured to provide all users with a certain level of access to the learning materials, we also encouraged students to upgrade their browsers and to download the necessary software to gain the greatest advantage from the materials. To accommodate the range of computer literacy levels among students, we provided easy access to the relevant software, ie, Adobe Acrobat Reader, RealPlayer and Netscape Navigator Gold, and provide contextualised help for download and installation.

To maximise availability of online delivery of academic support, a framework for providing both general and discipline-specific resources was created. Central to the framework are six academic skill areas comprising tutorials with tasks and exercises (see Figure 2). Other resources (stand-alone web activities and print resources in PDF format) can be accessed from within the tutorials and from other areas of the site. Multiple access points to the tutorials and alternative learning paths are provided to accommodate users’ different information-seeking habits. On selecting a skill area, users can be guided through tutorials covering all topics sequentially or they can jump to any section of a tutorial at any stage.

Figure 2 here

For the tutorials, visually, the greatest challenge for the web developer and content developers was how to manage the large amounts of text necessary for academic support materials related to large amounts of text. Most design decisions were made by the project coordinator and the web developer in the first instance; later revisions were based on feedback from staff, the steering committee, individual students and student focus groups. One major issue was that there is very little in language and academic skills support that lends itself to non-linguistic graphical treatment. So, to begin with, content for the modules was divided into sections with a maximum two screens to a page. Longer sections of text were rewritten. In searching for models, it was not enough simply to follow the usual guidelines for informational web-writing:

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using headings, dot points, colour, 'chunking' content, placing a summary statement at the beginning of a paragraph, and so on. Because we were developing a particular kind of instructional material for a large and complex site, we decided to build a template for the modules which would involve the transformation of key features of our off-line teaching, as outlined below.

THE TUTORIALS

In order to provide coherence, we aimed to make visible at all times a global view of the site and module structure. To accomplish this, a template structure with primary and secondary navigation aids was used (see, for example, Figure 3). This allows the user at any time to locate and go back to higher levels of the site or jump to different sections within the current module. With the use of this template, the reader can see at a glance where the specific idea presented on the screen belongs in the hierarchy of information.

Figure 3 here

A Table of Contents or a Summary index link in each module provides an additional access point to sections of the web material. Learners can choose to be guided through a tutorial sequentially (by clicking on the 'Enter' button) or they can follow needs-based paths, jumping to any section at any time (by clicking on a topic in the side menu). If they prefer, they can look at a summary of the module first, and link to topics from there. Learners are provided with the option to work from a print version of the tutorial if they prefer not to work from the screen.

The aim in the development of the materials for the online materials was to encourage active student engagement. We identified four key features of our classroom teaching (Lea, 1999; Lea and Street, 2000; Bode, 2001) which would inform our development of suitable interactive materials:

1. the opportunity for students to practise;2. provision of samples of student work with textual commentary;3. encouragement of learner reflection, as far as possible, by conceiving of the

activities as a dialogue between student and teacher; and 4. provision of opportunities to ask questions.

The question was how to transform these features for the html environment. A major difficulty in transforming classroom practice would be bringing together in a coherent way the multiple elements involved in the instruction - tutorial material, tasks, sample student texts, response boxes and feedback - to ensure engagement and avoid loss of focus.

While the web-based materials are designed to accommodate flexible learning paths - and indeed were intended to be completely stand-alone materials to be used, for example, by distributed learning students - it was thought pedagogically appropriate to offer recommendations for certain learning approaches within the tutorials (Evensen, 1996). Furthermore, suitable learning paths are implicit in the structural and navigational design features used throughout them (Hammond, 1993). For example, the essay-writing tutorial is structured so as to provide step by step guidance

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for students through the research process, but allows them to focus on particular aspects if they prefer. More helpfully than linear print materials, the web format allows for the natural recursive movement through the various stages of researching and writing (Ballard and Clanchy, 1988).

While our design encompassed provision of guided and self-directed learning paths and other options to accommodate a range of learning styles, there was an emphasis on clear organization of goal, response and feedback to encourage focus on the issues and deeper levels of reflection on the content. Extended opportunities for learning were developed: for example, the concordancing option in the grammar tutorials (see below).The tutorials aimed to encourage an interaction and engagement with tasks that is related to, but different from, that of the classroom. Arguably, interactivity between task, text and feedback can be more closely simulated online than in a printed resource (Laurillard, 1993). Language and academic skills teaching typically relies on scrutiny of quite large amounts of text, with the guidance and support provided by a staff member. The use of hypertext enables further information and feedback to be hidden from view, but easily accessed if required. This encourages the student to make decisions based on their own learning needs. While movement within each tutorial would be flexible, student concentration on the tutorial itself was enabled by strategic placement of links on a separate ‘More help’ page at the end of each tutorial, but which could be accessed from the side index visible on each page at any time. Print resources do not have the same facility as the information is linear; and although feedback can be provided in a print resource (usually in the form of answers at the end), it is not contextualised, and access to the appropriate resource can often be problematic.

To compensate for the lack of feedback and support possible in face-to-face learning contexts, we provided the option for students to post questions to an online discussion forum (see Figures 2 and 3). We hoped that the discussion participants could act as teachers and learners when sharing their thoughts and concerns about the topic at hand, the learners possibly becoming less dependent on the teacher for feedback (Jonassen, 1998). The discussion forum, we hoped, would enable us to integrate a richer learning environment – one where further questions could be answered, and other information and ideas could be shared. We intended providing links to discussion forums related to the Unit’s face-to-face workshops, as well as those related to the online materials. In practice the outcomes did not meet our expectations, as indicated below.

Although more flexible and sophisticated forms of interactivity are possible on the web than in print resources, feedback from students in focus groups indicated that at times they prefer to read text from a hard copy print version (see Evaluation Plan). For example, they might read a hard copy of the sample essay, but do the tasks on screen. We believed this 'multiple-voices' approach to learning would provide a richer learning experience for students and, given our limited human resources, would prove more practical than the kind of online system where all student questions are directed to an online tutor. As Anderson (2002) claims:

Sufficient levels of deep and meaningful learning can be developed as long as one of the three forms of interaction (student-teacher; student-student; student-

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content) are at very high levels. The other two may be offered at minimal levels or even eliminated without degrading the educational experience.

The essay-writing and grammar tutorials will now be selected for special comment.

The Essay-Writing Tutorial

A major danger highlighted by Ramsden (1992) is the temptation to provide disembodied ‘skill’ programs which claim to teach the kinds of ‘skills’ which students can simply transfer from one subject or discipline to another. These, he argues, in fact have the potential to make students revert to surface strategies more than they had before. The first challenge, then, in developing any set of essay-writing materials for mass consumption across the university is negotiating between the ‘generic’ and the ‘discipline-specific’. This relates in the first instance to the problem of identifying a suitable content base for materials – one that is at once academic in nature, yet comprehensible and potentially of some interest to students from a range of disciplinary backgrounds (see Swales, 1986). Another related difficulty concerns the need to generalise the genre (as it were) across the disciplines.

For the content-base of the essay writing tutorial, we chose to rely on a ‘thematic’ model, drawn from a range of content models proposed by Brinton, Snow and Wesche (1989). In our context, with a focus on the teaching of a ‘generic’ skill to a non discipline-specific group, in line with Brinton et al. we sought to deploy content of a broad sociological, political or cultural nature. Thus, the tutorial aimed to include a genre sample that had disciplinary authenticity (i.e. was clearly identifiable as a ‘sociology’ essay)1, but that would allow relevance to essay writing practices in other discipline areas. The essay examples used in this tutorial were not authentic, but were created by the tutorial’s content developer to ensure that the features we desired to demonstrate were present. This is an accepted strategy in second-language teaching in order to achieve specific pedagogical ends (Trimble, 1985). In the actual design of the essay writing materials, we were influenced strongly by the drive to achieve a sensible synthesis of ‘process’ and ‘product’ (or genre) approaches to the teaching of academic writing (Berkencotter and Huckin, 1995).

The tutorial is organised in the first place around the various stages of the writing ‘process’, including: topic analysis; provisional essay planning; selection of readings; note taking; drafting. In representing these processes, we sought to avoid the formulaic ‘lock-step’ approach typical of some traditional writing manuals, ie. plan - outline - write -edit; instead an attempt was made to show how these processes are interwoven and recursive. What lecturers are interested in, from their different disciplinary perspectives, is the development of a dialogue between student and sources (Clerehan, forthcoming): so, a further guiding principle was to encourage a dialogue between student, text, and other voices (see Figure 4):

Figure 4 here

Here, the learner is asked to identify key words from an essay topic and to respond by typing these into a textbox (alternatively these could be marked on a printout or, 1 In fact, colleagues in the United States have commented on its 'discipline-specificity'.

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simply, thought about). The next step encourages reflection about the meanings of the key words. Then for feedback, the student clicks on 'Comments'. The next page (Figure 5) allows student to compare their response with the feedback. Organisation and display elements have been used to direct the learner’s focus to the key words by means of a) reduced amount of text, b) use of color, and c) use of linking lines. For feedback on the meanings of the keywords, the learner selects a link.

Figure 5 here

For the following task, three different 'student' interpretations of the essay topic are presented (Figure 6).

Figure 6 here

The learner is encouraged to reflect on each text and then decide whether it is a reasonable interpretation or not. After looking at each one, the learner is asked to select the most reasonable interpretation. The branching technique used here means that feedback is linked to the specific learner response, making it highly contextualised and relevant. The task, to select the most reasonable interpretation, is contextualised implicitly in the Comment: 'The problem with this interpretation is …' From here, the learner can also access comments on the other interpretations, or look at the other interpretations again to re-consider their response. Thus, the design element is being used to scaffold the learning and an interplay of voices is created.

Focus GroupsThe focus groups were assembled in the pilot phase of the project, one group for each of the six online tutorials. While there were three undergraduates and three postgraduates evaluating each tutorial, the composition of each group varied: for the essay tutorial, there was a mix of ESL/English-speaking background.

The students had only half an hour to explore each tutorial, so were obviously restricted in their ability to engage in depth. They were asked individually to explore a tutorial with the questionnaire beside them, a reduced version of the online survey. They were then interviewed in their group by two members of the development group, using the questions as guidelines. Interviews were taped and transcriptions completed by a third person from these and from notes taken by one of the two staff.

In the focus groups, three of the six students preferred a combined learning approach: reading essays from a printout, but doing the tutorials on screen. The group pointed out their need for clear and contextualised mapping of all content. They felt that while the online version had the benefit of being more 'interactive' than print resources, it also ran the danger of being more confusing. Some of the main headings and accompanying sections were re-structured as a consequence. A couple of students, both female commented that the presentation would benefit from more images. Two non-humanities students said that they would have liked more models of writing, specifically, technical writing; one wanted more information about referencing. These issues were in the process of being addressed by other tutorials, and materials provided as downloadable Adobe Acrobat files.

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There were, in addition to the focus group students, seven responses to the online survey for essay writing, six of whom were ESL students. All found navigation around the site quite easy or very easy. All respondents claimed to find all sections of the essay-writing module 'very helpful', except for two who found the section on essay references only 'quite helpful' and the section on the sample essay 'not quite as helpful as other sections'. As far as the students' approach was concerned, six of the seven worked through the module in the order presented, and four of the six preferred to work through the module on-screen rather than print out sections.

The Grammar Tutorials

These tutorials drew on those grammar features which tended to be most troublesome for ESL students in their first year of study in Business and Economics, and for whom weekly classes were conducted by the Unit on some campuses each semester. Currently, there are three grammar tutorials in the Online Student Resource Centre: on the passive voice, verb tenses and articles. Further tutorials will be developed in the future, based on the most frequently occurring error types in the writing of ESL students relevant for different discipline areas.

Each tutorial has a main menu (shown in Figure 7) which comprises:

Instructions suggesting how to approach the tutorial One or two passages of text with comments on the language in use Exercises with instructive feedback Grammar notes with rules and examples One or two Review passages enabling self-testing A worksheet suggesting how to explore more examples of language use online

Figure 7 here

The main menu provides a framework for student-centred learning – learning whereby students can create their own learning opportunities to suit their individual needs and preferred learning styles (Bannon and Milheim, 1997). Here, students can choose to adopt an inductive or deductive learning strategy. A student adopting an inductive strategy might study the language used in a passage of text, attempt the exercises or even 'explore more examples' before consulting the explanatory comments or the grammar notes. The student preferring a deductive learning approach might look at the grammar notes first to study the rules of usage.

It was also considered pedagogically appropriate to allow students control over the level of engagement they wish to have with the learning material (Burston, 1989). For example, the design allows students to bypass exercises when a purely information-seeking approach is preferred; or they might complete the exercises when a deeper level of engagement is sought. Figure 8 illustrates one of the design features adopted to enable student control over whether to attempt an exercise, or whether to simply call up answers. In this exercise on tenses, learners can check all answers before, during or after completing the activity. The frames enable the passage to be viewed again at any time, or it can be printed out.Figure 8 here

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The design also accommodates students who would prefer to work from a hard copy version of a tutorial rather than an on-screen version. It is possible to print out all language in use passages, exercises, grammar notes and worksheets.

The language in use and review passages, exercises and grammar notes on the main menu of each grammar tutorial are intended to assist students develop or consolidate their basic understanding of the forms and functions of a particular grammatical item. The section 'Explore more examples', is intended as a more challenging activity for learners who want to extend on their knowledge of grammar in use in a more individualised and self-directed way. The worksheet directs students to an online web concordancer located at the Virtual Language Centre website (http://vlc.polyu.edu.hk/). Using the web concordancer students can carry out their own self-directed investigations about language use. The concordancer enables them to generate multiple examples of a particular word or phrase in context. The format of the generated concordance data assists them to isolate and focus on frequent patterns of language use. Although it has been said that this format helps learners to perceive similarities and differences between patterns of language use (Johns, 1991a), others (Willis, 1996; Turnbull, 1998) believe that this process of analysis is too difficult for most undergraduate students if left to their own devices.

In order to scaffold the learning, then, the 'Explore more examples' worksheet in each grammar tutorial provides students with a context for their investigations and also provides them with guidelines for generating and analysing the concordance data. Further guidance in the form of a model analysis of concordance data is planned for inclusion in each of the grammar tutorials, incorporating visual and aural media to reduce the cognitive load on learners as they follow and reflect on the analysis process (Tuovinen, 2001). That is, a text representation of the sample concordance data will be accompanied by a voice recording of the analysis. Currently, a version of this method is being employed on a site for first-year Computer Science students (http://olympus.csse.monash.edu.au/Tif/Contents/default.asp)

As it was thought that this type of open and self-directed activity was likely to stimulate student questions about the grammar (Johns 1991b), a grammar discussion forum was linked to the worksheet. It was expected that the use of computer-mediated communication in this context would benefit not only the individuals posting the questions, but a wider student population who could also tune in to the discussion. It has been found, however, that students wanting the answers to language queries are likely to want an instantaneous response. In each semester, there has been only a handful of postings: they tend to telephone or even email a staff member they know rather than post a question.

Focus GroupsAs for the essay-writing group, there were three undergraduates and three postgraduates evaluating each tutorial: for the grammar tutorials, all students were ESL. All but one were from a campus where the entry scores were generally higher than for the campuses where the original grammar courses had been run, so it was anticipated that their needs would not necessarily be at the same level. Given the fact also that half were postgraduate, not surprisingly they said they found much of the work in this tutorial fairly basic, though 'good revision'. One said that it was 'good for international students'. One ESL postgraduate commented that passive voice was

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useful for writing essays, while verb tenses were basic. The majority, when asked, found the tutorial on articles most useful.

The group commented that it was very easy to navigate, colorful, 'easy to find track', good to have answers, and that the instructions were very clear. They would have liked exercises graded at levels of difficulty, and modules on more points of grammar. Interestingly, a couple made the comment that grammatical terminology should have been used more – which we had been trying to avoid. Half would prefer to read on screen, with the other half using a combination of screen and print. One, unbidden, entered a sample sentence in the Student Chat part of the Discussion Forum for teacher comment, which is exactly how we had intended students to utilize the functionality.

Since then, some of the Unit's staff have since taken the opportunity, during face-to-face grammar classes in the Unit's writing laboratory, of utilising the online Discussion Forum. Students, particularly postgraduates have appeared to enjoy this, and have sometimes continued it on for a short period out of class time.

While focus group evaluations so far are small in number, we drew the clear impression from the students in these groups that much of the material is 'motivating' ('it makes me feel like studying' as one student said). We have also received positive comment from colleagues at other institutions with respect to the pedagogy and range.

In addition to the above evaluations, the site was also reviewed by Monash Business and Electronic Commerce Distance Education Students at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and by tutors in TMC Bachelor of Business Administration Singapore. Both groups were impressed by the site, and said that it would be very helpful for both students and their tutors. The student stated they were interested in the possibility of 'more simplified materials'. To this end, the Unit's 'QuickRef' handouts are available to download from the Other Resources section and these may need to be given more prominence.

It has to be conceded that the interaction we had hoped for through the Discussion Forum has not taken place. Students contact the Unit’s staff through email, and participate (to a greater or lesser extent) in their subject discussion forums, but appeared unwilling to engage in the sort of explorations we had hoped through a language and academic skills focused discussion. That said, while the student/teacher interactions are occurring in other forums, the site provides extensive opportunities for students to interact with the resources (Anderson, 2002) in which a range of voices may be heard.

Web statistics for the various reporting periods since the site was published are difficult to compare with each other. What is clear though is good use of the site: in the past 12 months, there have been 87,000 estimated 'visits', that is 250 per day, and with a 'visitor repeat rate' of 62%. The most frequently visited pages appear to be the grammar tutorials, though this is the only section of the site which is not password-protected.

FINAL COMMENT

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The project was an ambitious one, aiming to produce a significant number of online language and academic skills resources for a large and diverse student population. The transformation of the selected materials into online resources involved lengthy collaboration, evaluation and re-writing. With a time limitation of 12 months (which lengthened to 18), we had to re-adjust the amount we could realistically produce, particularly with respect to very discipline and subject-based materials. However, the rigorous evaluation and revision process that was undertaken throughout the project assisted us in our endeavours to produce high quality learning materials in terms of educational content, design and ease of navigation.

The resource centre concept does allow us to keep building. A further development of the site has now been completed which provides specific assignment-writing materials for ten first-year subjects, most with substantial international student enrolments. This affords us access to a set cohort of students, and a large-scale evaluation spanning two years is under way.

In our view, the original project has made a contribution to:

1. increasing students’ choices of place, time and style of learning support; 2. enhancing student opportunities for developing independent self-directed learning;3. providing opportunities for developing the capacity for critical thought and

analysis; and, in particular,4. supporting the learning of international students.

The aim of providing stand-alone materials within a fully interactive environment was not completely realised. However, there is evidence that the site appears to have been accepted and 'embedded' institutionally, to the extent that it is linked to from subject web pages, and routinely signalled at major student events and in university publications.

Acknowledgements

The project was made possible by a grant from the Monash University Strategic Innovations Fund. Valuable guidance was given by the members of the project steering committee.

Note

Readers wishing to explore the site can gain guest access by emailing Rosemary Clerehan (rosemary.clerehan@celts.monash.edu.au).

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Figure 1 Front Page: Online Student Resource Centre

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Figure 2 Skills Tutorials and Other Resources

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Figure 3 Front page of tutorial: Listening and Notetaking

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Figure 4 Interpreting an essay topic: Task 1

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Figure 5 Interpreting an essay topic: feedback

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Figure 6 Interpreting an essay topic: Task 2

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Figure 7: Main menu for the grammar tutorial on passive voice

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Figure 9 Grammar Tutorial: Tenses. Enabling student control over learning approach

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Acknowledgement

The project was made possible by a grant from the Monash University Strategic Innovations Fund, and given valuable guidance by the members of the project steering committee.

Biographical notes

Rosemary Clerehan is Head of the Language and Learning Services Unit at Monash University. Her recent research has drawn on three web developments for which she has been project leader.

Jill Turnbull is an educational consultant currently involved in managing a community online learning project. Her research interests are Computer-Mediated-Communication and online learning for older adults. She was manager for the project.

Tim Moore is Senior Lecturer in the Language and Learning Services Unit at Monash University. His research interests include disciplinary discourses, writing pedagogy and online learning.

Alanna Brown is currently Information Coordinator for a large corporation, responsible for usability testing, among other areas. She was the web developer for the project.

Dr. Juhani E. Tuovinen is currently Lecturer in Education at Charles Sturt University and advised on evaluation of the project. His research interests cover aspects of online teaching and learning, particularly Computer-Mediated-Communication.

Address for correspondence

Rosemary Clerehan, Language and Learning Services Unit, PO Box 10 Clayton campus Monash University, VIC 3800. email: rosemary.clerehan@celts.monash.edu.au

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