Special issue of Quality Assurance in Education on Assuring Quality in E-Learning

The Editor of Quality Assurance in Education invites submissions for a special issue of the journal on Assuring Quality in E-Learning, guest Edited by Dr Alistair Inglis.

With growth in the capability of Internet, interest in e-learning amongst education and training providers, and national accreditation and quality agencies has grown exponentially. Delivery of courses is a multi-faceted activity. Consequently, the process of measuring quality in education relies on addressing the range of factors that impact the learner’s experience and measuring those appropriately. While in many countries, moves to measure quality are often controversial, in the developing nations particular difficulties are experienced because of the relative lack of sophistication of governmental and institutional administrative infrastructure.

Over the years, Quality Assurance in Education has carried a number of articles dealing with particular aspects of e-learning. The aim of this special issue is to present in one volume, perspectives on a variety of matters faced by education providers in relation to quality assurance in electronic delivery of education.


Articles are sought on any of the following topics:

• Pedagogical and assessment strategies for quality in electronic educational delivery,
  
• Effective strategies for incorporating e-learning into campus-based courses,
  
• Monitoring and improving quality of education in an electronic environment,
  
• Benchmarking for electronic educational delivery,
  
• Optimising systems for electronic educational delivery,
  
• Developing and validating quality frameworks for electronic education, and
  
• Transnational issues and policy development for electronic educational delivery and accreditation.
  

Articles submitted for consideration should be research-based looking at different aspects of, and approaches to quality in e-learning. An article may take a critical look at the issues from an institutional perspective or in terms of some aspect of educational theory, or alternatively may examine the social and national policy issues involved in developing/monitoring quality assurance systems.

Submissions should preferably be sent as email attachments to jqae@rmit.edu to arrive no later than 15th December 2008. For a general submission guidelines see: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/info/journals/qae/notes.jsp. Manuscripts will be reviewed and a decision on acceptance will be made within 12 weeks of receipt of a submission.

The Design-Based Research Collective

"Black skin, red skin, yellow or white ... Everybody needs to read and write ... Everybody needs an education" - The Kinks

I came across The Design-Based Research Collective through Jan Herrington's excellent keynote at AARE 2007. They are "... a small group of researchers who engage in design-based research, often in technology enhanced learning environments. In our own work, we have come to recognize the need to better define the nature, methods, and outcomes of design-based research so that we may more easily share our own research and build on the work of others." You can read more at their excellent web site. You can read more about design-based research, "which blends empirical educational research with the theory-driven design of learning environments, [and] is an important methodology for understanding how, when, and why educational innovations work in practice." in their paper "Design-Based Research: An Emerging Paradigm for Educational Inquiry".

Ranulph Glanville on cybernetics, design and education

" Who will provide the grand design? ... What is yours and what is mine?" - The Eagles

Ranulph Glanville kindly sent me a couple of very interesting columns he has written for Cybernetics and Human knowing on second order cybernetics and education. I find myself a fellow traveler on Ranulph’s shirt tails on the importance of design disciplines and practice to the construction of knowledge. I am also in agreement that studio-based learning should be imported from design education to mainstream education. I just wish that he had not thought these thoughts ten or twenty years before I did. So I recommend tracking down his columns from Cybernetics and Human Knowing on ‘A (Cybernetic) Musing: Cybernetics and Human Knowing’ and ‘A (Cybernetic) Musing: Some Examples of Cybernetically Informed Educational Practice’. The second paper features excellent descriptions of studio-based and problem-based learning.

Asher Rospigliosi and I applied elements of the studio-based approach when teaching Digital Entrepreneurship, i.e. embedding information systems within SMEs, to entrepreneurs at the University of Essex iLab. We integrated the studio-based approach with action learning / research. So there *were* consequences to the learner's actions. Working together and ‘pinching’ ideas certainly seemed to help the learners to combine experiences in tasks such as authoring change and innovation plans and thus avoid reinventing wheels. My learning from the experience was that eclecticism is important in learning design. Although leaning designers should not be dilettantes, they should select the most appropriate aspects of the available approaches. This requires staying in contact with developments in learning and teaching and being a reflective practioner. As Van Morrison sang “No guru, no method, no teacher …” but perhaps that over states the case. Some of Ranulph’s advice from A (Cybernetic) Musing: Some Examples of Cybernetically Informed Educational Practice’ quoted below can help a learning designer/teacher to remain grounded.

• "Treat students as you would be treated yourself: show concern for them and for their vulnerability. Thus we relearn generosity.
• Remember, if we have to present in “preaching” modes (e.g. lectures), at least to entertain. Lecturing, especially “educational” lecturing at university, is a performance art (that’s why it’s so hard). Tell a good story well!
• If you wish to be interesting, you must be interested.
• Education is involved in helping others learn. It is concerned with the learner, first and foremost. It is not an opportunity for a teacher to display his/her knowledge/authority.
• We, as teachers, are also learners. There is an endless conversation to be had between us all." (Glanville, 2002, p 8).

Further reading

You can download both columns from Ranulph's web site.

Reflecting on reflection

"have you any dreams you'd like to sell?" - Fleetwood Mac

"The mirror stares you in the face and says baby, uh uh it don't work" - Earth, Wind and Fire

I love reflective practice. The paragraph below is from 'Engaging from the Inside: Reflections on the Value of Social Cognitive Theory for Learning in Online Discussions' by Susan Greener, Asher Rospigliosi and Simon Shurville. We have been invited to upsize the presentation into a journal article.

Why should we reflect? We reflect as part of our natural thinking behaviours (Hall’s “everyday reflective practice” (1997)) as part of what makes us human. From a pedagogical perspective, Schon (1987) emphasizes the ideas of “reflection in action” and “reflection on action”, distinguishing between that which is done in the midst of action and can alter our responses and behaviours in real time, and that which takes place after an action is completed, where new views of reality can be made, producing post facto learning. Here reflection takes on a purposive flavour, a tradition, which includes Dewey and Habermas advocating a deliberate and systematic approach to reflection (Dewey 1997; Morrison 1995). It is this purposive approach to reflection, which can underpin transformational learning (Mezirow 1978; Moon 2000) and develop knowledge (Dewey 1997).

I think reflection is a really important part of 'Critical Technical Practice', which is my prefered mode of work. I was introduced to this concept through Agre (1997a, 1997b) who writes extensively on establishing a critical-technical practice in computing.

Critical-technical practice has four parts:

1. Once a problem presents itself, the practitioner searches the literature—formal, informal, printed, e-published, blogs etc—for insights
2. The practitioner applies insights to the problem in a practical setting
3. The practitioner evaluates and reflects upon the solution and any changes in methodology
4. The practitioner may share the results with their community of practice in the literature.

There are some potential pitfalls for this approach:

Since the literature in question might originate from an associated or foreign discipline, colleagues in one’s own discipline might not take it seriously or feel offended and threatened by its introduction.

Some practical colleagues do not see any advantage to bringing ‘book learning’ to the work place
Public reporting on failure or success can be seen as damaging to an organisation or wasteful of the manager’s time.

Somehow, then, the practitioner either needs to ensure that this method is applied in a way that is non-threatening to their colleagues and their own career or to plan a career change in the immediate post critical-technical practice future.

References

• Agre, P. (1997a) Toward a Critical-technical Practice: Lessons Learned in Trying to Reform AI. In Bowker et al (1997).
• Agre, P. (1997b) Computation and Human Experience. University of Oxford Press.
  Also available at http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/critical.html.
• Bowker, G., Les Gasser, B., Leigh Star, S. and Turner, R., (1997) (eds.), Bridging the Great Divide: Social Science, Technical Systems, and Cooperative Work. Lawrence Erlbaum.
• Dewey, J. (1997). How We Think.Dover edition reprint of 1910 edition. New York, Dover Publications Inc.
• Greener, S., Rospiglosi, A. and Shurville, S. (2007). Engaging from the Inside: Reflections on the Value of Social Cognitive Theory for Learning in Online Discussion. In the proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on e-Learning, Columbia University, New York, USA.
• Hall, S. (1997). Forms of reflective teaching practice in higher education. in R. Pospisil and L. Willcoxson's Learning Through Teaching. Proceedings of the 6th Annual Teaching Learning Forum, Murdoch University, Perth, Murdoch University.
• Mezirow, J. (1978). "Perspective Transformation." adult education 28(2): 100-109.
• Moon, J. (2000). "Reflection in Learning & Professional Development ".
• Morrison, K. (1995). "Dewey, Habermas and reflective practice." Curriculum 16(2): 82-94.
• Schon, D. (1987). Teaching artistry through reflection-in-action. Educating the reflective practitioner. Translated by D. Schon. San Francisco, CA, Jossey-Bass Publishers.