Call for Papers on Computer Science & Education, Canada, August 2014

A Call for Papers has been issued for the 9th International Conference on Computer Science & Education (ICCSE 2014), to be held in Vancouver, Canada, 22 to 24 August 2014.The conference will be held at the University of British Columbia (UBC), topics  include, Big Data, Cloud Computing, Robotics, Green Communication, Internet of Things, Education Reform and Innovation, Curricula and Courseware Design and Life-long education. Full papers are due 17 March 2014, to be published through IEEE. I attended ICCSE 2013 in Colombo and ICCSE 2012 in Melbourne and had a good time. My papers are "A green computing professional education course online: designing and delivering a course in ICT Sustainability using Internet and eBooks" (2012) and "Synchronizing asynchronous learning - Combining synchronous and asynchronous techniques" (2013).

eAssessment with Moodle from the UK Open University

In "eAssessment with Moodle" the UK Open University has produced a short set of examples of how quiz questions can be set and in many cases automatically answered, using the Moodle Learning Management System. There are options beyond the usual multiple choice questions, in particular I like the use of numeric answers. With this you can ask the students to calculate a value, but with each student getting different figures to work from. The figures they get are randomly generated from a range you specify. As an example, I could ask students to calculate the Carbon Dioxide Equivalent emissions from a given amount of electricity used and emissions factor (with a few extra erroneous parameters thrown in to confuse the unprepared).

Free Online Short Courses to Prepare for Certification

Charles Sturt University (CSU) are offering a Free Short Course: Network Security Administrator Certification. This is run on-line over 5 weeks, with live webinars (and optional recordings) and students expected to do 10-12 hours of study. Several aspects make this different to Massive open Online Courses (MOOCs) being offered by other institutions. Fist of all there is a live component to the course, not just recordings. Also the course is intended to prepare the student for an external certification (ENSA). It is also significant that this  is described as a "short course" with no mention of "MOOC", or the hype surrounding them. As I said at the Inaugural Student Experience Conference, in Sydney, I expect to see the MOOC Bubble burst, with most MOOCs abandoned by the end of 2014.

CSU point out that the short course is based on their Master of Information Systems Security. Clearly the short free course is being used to promote the full for-fee degree program. This would appear to be a viable business model for free courses. A student who completes the short course would be predisposed to enrolling in the degree program.

However, students who undertake the free course to prepare for external certification may not realise the large commitment of time and effort required. Last year I completed two certificates in education, one through regular courses (partly in the classroom and partly on-line) and one by Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL). In theory the RPL should have been easier, as it just required me to collate and present evidence of what I had done previously. But this turned out to be harder than going through a structured course, where you get guidance on what to do and where there are many small milestones on the way to completion.

Also, using a free short course to promote longer for-fee programs might backfire on some universities, presenting a false impression of their programs. Some MOOCs appear to be provided by universities which don' generally offer on-line courses (not the case with CSU who are a leader in on-line education). Also the MOOCs are at a far lower academic standard than regular courses. It will not do a university much good to attract students with one type of course at one level, sign up and pay for a degree program, only to find it is not offered on-line and is far harder.

Global Think Tank Rankings

Greetings from the Australian Institute of International Affairs (AIIA) in Canberra, where the 2013 Global Go-To Think Tank Report is being launched. This ranks think tanks on their reputation. There were 29 Australian think tanks considered for the report. The one which appared in the top list most often was the "Lowy Institute for International Policy".

During the launch the comment was made that the rankings are a bit like a children’s birthday party, where everyone wins. That said, Australian think tanks have done well. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute rated 2 on the index for "Think Tanks to Watch". The ANU Strategic & Defence Studies Centre (SDSC) ranked 13 on the "Top Think Tanks in South-east Asia and the Pacific" scale. It was commented that SDCS now has the largest concentration of strategic defence thinkers and historians in Australia.

Top Think Tanks Worldwide (Non-U.S.):

 45. Lowy Institute for International Policy (Australia)
101. Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) (Australia)

Top Think Tanks in Asia and the Pacific (Excluding China, India, Japan, and the Republic of Korea):

 3. Lowy Institute (Australia)
 4. Australian Institute for International Affairs (AIIA) (Australia)
 9. The Centre for Independent Studies (Australia)
13. Strategic and Defense Studies Centre (SDSC) (Australia)
17. Australian Strategic Policy Institute (APSI) (Australia)
56. Grattan Institute (Australia)

Top Environment Think Tanks

30. Australia Institute (TAI) (Australia)

Top Foreign Policy and International Affairs Think Tanks

28. Australian Strategic Policy Institute (APSI) (Australia)
80. Lowy Institute (Australia)

Top International Economic Policy Think Tanks

25. Australian Institute of International Affairs (AIIA) (Australia)
29. Center for Independent Studies (Australia)
44. Lowy Institute (Australia)

Top Social Policy Think Tanks

43. Grattan Institute (Australia)

Top Think Tanks by Special Achievement

Best Advocacy Campaign

58. Refugee Advocacy Network (Australia)

Best Institutional Collaboration Involving Two or More Think Tanks

26. Australian Strategic Policy Institute and the Brenthurst Foundation (South Africa)
79. Institute for Economics and Peace (Australia)

Best Transdisciplinary Research Program at a Think Tank

34. The Sustainable Economy Program, Centre for Policy Development (Australia)

Best University Affiliated Think Tanks

23. Strategic and Defence Studies Centre (SDSC), Australian National University (ANU) (Australia)
26. Centre for International Security Studies (CISS), The University of Sydney (Australia)
38. Globalisation and Development Centre (GDC), Bond University (Australia)

Best Use of Social Networks

26. Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) (Australia)
28. Lowy Institute for Internatioanl Policy (Australia)

Think Tank to Watch

2. Australian Strategic Policy Institute (Australia)
10. Beyond Zero Emissions (Australia)
54. The Centre for Independent Studies (Australia)
79. Institute for Economics and Peace (Australia)

Think Tanks with the Best External Relations/Public Engagement Program

33. Lowy Institute for International Policy (Australia)

Think Tanks with the Best Use of the Internet

28. Lowy Institute for International Policy (Australia)

Think Tanks with the Best Use of the Media (Print or Electronic)

26. Lowy Institute for International Policy (Australia)

Think Tanks with the Most Significant Impact on Public Policy

42. Lowy Institute for International Policy (Australia)

Think Tanks with Outstanding Policy-Oriented Public Programs

26. Lowy Institute for International Policy (Australia).

Top Think Tanks with Annual Operating Budgets of Less Than $5 Million USD

15. Institute for Economics and Peace (Australia)

Web Social Science Applied to e-Learning

I found Robert Ackland's "Web Social Science: Concepts, Data and Tools for Social Scientists in the Digital Age" (SAGE Publications, 2013), on the new books stand at the ANU Library. This is very relevant to the pedagogy of e-learning, as the techniques for carrying out social research can be applied to research into the effectiveness of on-line learning. The introductory chapter includes a potted history of the Internet and the web, but more importantly discusses what virtual communities and on-line social networks are. This could be useful for illuminating a discussion of what on-line education is.

What is on-line education?

Ackland discusses how a "community" develops  "common beliefs, norms and shared understandings. Ackland sees an on-line group of being less cohesive than a community being "... a group of people who conduct personal computer-mediated interactions, where the interaction is focused on a topic that reflects the community of interests of the group ...". Therefore I suggest the students in an on-line course could be considered an on-line group, with the aim of a vocational educators being to have the students become part of community. Social science research techniques could therefore be used to evaluate the effectiveness of education, by seeing how cohesive the group is and how well those students become part of the community.

ICT Job Profiles

The Australian Computer Society (ACS) has released an "ICT Skills White Paper: Common ICT Job Profiles & Indicators of Skills Mobility" (30 December 2013). This may be of interest for those designing training and education to help someone get from one job category to another.

As an addition to its annual employment survey, last year the ACS asked respondents to select up to skills they use in their work section. The skills definitions they were provided with are from the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA). The results were distilled by the ACS down to 25 ICT job descriptions, at five levels. SFIA defines seven levels of job from the lowest 1 to highest 7, but only levels 3 to 7 are reported on by ACS.

The top ten most common job categories, starting with the most common, were:

1. ICT Consultant
2. ICT Manager
3. Software Engineer
4. Database Administrator
5. Project Manager
6. Business Analyst
7. ICT Architect
8. Systems Administrator
9. Analyst Programmer
10. Developer Programmer

The paper gives a one page summary for each of the 25 jobs.

Chinese Univerity e-Learning

Stian Håklev's "The Chinese Top Level Courses Project" (University of Toronto, 2010) provides an interesting overview of the differences between US and Chinese approaches to university education and the use of e-learning. Håklev's thesis is that while Chinese universities are using the same on-line tools (particularly MIT's OpenCourseWare) and terminology, there are differences in approach and goals. Håklev argues that the Chinese university system is still influenced by a centralist model imported from the Soviet Union in the 1950s. One point I found of interest was that merit-based entrance exams were abolished during the Cultural Revolution, which has some echoes in MOOCs of today.

While the Chinese Top Level Course Project was a national one, it appears that the process was still university based. That is while team teaching was emphasised, it was assumed that the courses were at individual institutions. The process, as described, does not seem to be so much about sharing educational materials, but recognising quality (much as publication does for research).

The website "TopLevel Course in Chinese" lists educational materials from and for Chinese universities. There is a page with a few non-Chinese sources of open courses listed. Interestingly the only Australian instution listed is University of Southern Queensland.

Håklev mentions the "Open University of China", which like the UK Open University has its origins in postal and TV based distance education. It is a member of the Asian Association of Open Universities and the International Council of Distance Education.

Håklev compares  MIT's OpenCourseWare with the Chinese TopLevel Courses under two categories:

1. Transformation:: OpenCourseWare used a model where the teaching staff handed their exiting educational materials to specialists who made minimal checks and changes to put it on-line. In comparison, Håklev argues that the Chinese TopLevel courses emphasise the teaching staff specially preparing material for the on-line format. This has also been used at ANU as a reason for the production of edX MOOCs: to introduce staff to better course production techniques.
2.  Sharing:  As noted previously the  and Chinese TopLevel are providing materials for use by teachers in preparing courses, usually in traditional ace-to-face format. These are not e-learning courses for direct student use. Håklev points oth that MIT OpenCourseWare mostly uses a open content Creative Commons licence, making re-use simpler. 

Håklev traces the idea of open course content back to Richard Stallman's free software movement, although there will have been open educational projects previously. Stallman told me on more than one occasion how he did not like the use of the term "open" and his use of the term "free" did not imply that use was without a cost. MIT's OpenCourseWare was not intended to create on-line courses, but rather be a source of materials for educators to use in their courses. The materials were therefore not complete packaged courses, but rather the syllabus, lecture notes, assignments and some exams. Håklev uses the term "direct use" for materials which the student can use directly, in contrast to materials which a teacher uses to prepare a course.

Håklev provdes a valuable overview of world initiatives in open education. This goes beyond US and UK examples usually cited and includes India and Indonesian initiatives.

Håklev concludes with two metaphors for the education process:

1. Professor as an artist: The professor produces a course as their individual work of art. This is the practice in the USA, UK and Germany.
2. Professor as an artisan: The professor produces a course as part of process which others in their discicip0line could do. This is the practice in China, France and in distance education universities.

Future Learn Climate Change MOOC

The University of Exeter are running a Climate Change MOOC as part of the Future Learn consortium headed by the UK Open University. The course is eight weeks long, shorter than the typical university course (and many MOOCs) but much longer than Open Universities Australia's four week "Open2Study" MOOCs. Future Learn has a minimalist web design, with a white background and light grey text. This seems to have been designed for smart phones and tablets but works okay on a desktop computer.

There is just one column of content and minimal use of ruled lines for layout. I found hypertext links hard to find due to the lack of any underlining or other highlighting of them. There is a calendar across the first page of the course, numbering the weeks and showing the dates. This is important to students who want to know where the course is up to.

As with other MOOCs there is an emphasis on video. While transcripts of the videos are available, they are in the form of PDF files which have to be separately downloaded. This is annoying and seems unnecessary, as the text of the transcript is short, it might as well be displayed on screen under where the video is accessed, to give the student a preview of what is in the video.

There are discussion forums which, like the rest of the site, are very minimalist, but usable. I had some difficulty with the weekly multiple choice quiz, as after selecting an option and being told I was wrong and offered a second chance, all the options were shown ticked and I could not see how to change it. Also many of the questions seemed to be simply testing of memory, such as what "IPPC" stands for (which is not at all important to the topic of climate change).

As with other MOOCS, I wonder who the course is aimed at and why University of Exeter is providing this service. Is this intended to be a replacement for courses offered at the university, which seems unlikely given the very elementary nature of the material (more like a school course than a university one)? Is this a university extension course to provide entertainment and education for the general public? Is it a way to promote the university’s expertise and real for-fee courses? I am not sure what is more worrying, that  universities are investing resources in MOOCs and refusing to say why they are doing it, or that they don't know why they are doing MOOCs and have no way to measure if these are successful.

Are On-line Courses a form of Distance Education?

With the current debate over Massive Open On-line Courses (MOOCs), it is good to see that the debate over what to call e-learning goes back at least ten years. Conrad, Shale 2003 and Kanuka & Conrad, all writing in 2003,  lamented the loose use of terminology for distance education. In my view language is a tool which is modified as our need and understanding changes. Terms such as "e-learning" will be coined when needed and discarded when use of computers becomes integrated a routine part of education.

Kanuka and Conrad (2003) appear displeased with the use of terminology for distance education, saying how recent use "dishonors past practices and slights distance education's pedagogical heritage". They characterise distance education as being where where "instructors are in some way removed from students" and there is "mediated interaction". However, all instructors are removed from their students and all interaction is mediated in some way. Instructors typically use speech, gestures and graphic means (chalk on blackboard) to communicate and the large literature on classroom teaching techniques indicates it is not a perfect process. This mediation is make more obvious when it breaks down, such as where the instructor and students speak different languages or when one or other of the parties has a speech, hearing, sight or other disability. Also I suggest that defining "distance education" as being in a different place is also not technically correct as teachers and students can't occupy precisely the same space.
Kanuka and Conrad (2003) also explore definitions of distance education exploiting the efficiencies brought about by being able to use the same educational materials with large numbers of students. But this is also not a new phenomonon: the blackboard (and before it the sand table) and the raked lecture theatre are forms of technology designed to allow one teacher to be heard and seen by many students.
The use of the term "non-contiguously" by Kanuka and Conrad (2003) to describe distance education does not appear appropriate, as this term usually describes areas next to each other. Also the characterisation of student and teacher being "separated" does not on its own provide a useful definition, as apart from early schooling, students do not spend more than about an hour at a time with the one teacher.
I suggest the problem is not in defining what distance education is, but the assumptions and lack of clarity in conventional non-distance education. It has been assumed that if the teacher and student are in physical proximity that communication and learning will naturally take place. Where this communication does not occur there is an anomaly to be corrected. I suggest that this assumption needs to be challenged.
I once attended a seminar on pedagogy where the presenter explained that research showed students can only listen for about 20 minutes at a time and then said "Now for the next two hours I will tell you about...". I did not pay attention to what was said fater that: if the speaker did not listen towhat they were saying, why should I? ;-)

Distance learning versus distance education

Kanuka and Conrad (2003) discuss the recent shit to using the term "distance learning" in place of "distance education", with the rise the popularity of student-centered learning. They come down on the side of using "distance education" to describe what the education institution provides, and "distance learning" what the students do with what is provided.  This to me seems a reasonable extension of the conventional meanings of education and learning, but does not greatly expand out understanding.

Distributed learning

Kanuka and Conrad (2003) next turn their attention to "distributed learning", including flexible and open learning. They relate this to early print based correspondence education, but while apparently accepting the importance of the heritage of this form of education, reject the new term.
Kanuka and Conrad (2003) curiously argue that information dissemination and resource enrichment via communications technology are not integral to distance learning. They seem to be arguing that some form of computer technology is required.
The dated nature of the paper by Kanuka and Conrad, which is from 2003 is evident from the next section on "E-terms" such as  "e-learning" which were popular around the turn of the last century. 
The next term discussed is
"flexible learning". This is popular in the Australian vocational education sector, but does not refer exclusively to distance education. The libraries at Australian vocational education campuses have been turned into "flexible learning centres", such as the flexible learning and teaching spaces at CIT Gungahlin.
Kanuka and Conrad (2003)  criticise the use of the terms "flexible learning" and "open learning". However, it is not clear to me what any of this has to do with distance education, as flexible and open education can be done in a classroom with a teacher present.  
Kanuka and Conrad (2003)  find hybrid and blended learning as acceptable terms of the combination of conventional classroom and on-line learning. In Australia today, the term "blended learning" is commonly used. However, the range of blends is not normally defined. As it would be very rare to find any course which does not provide at least some materials and alternatives on-line, the term becomes meaningless, unless the proportion of blend is specified.
Kanuka and Conrad (2003) ask if "driving" was redefined due to new vehicles. While presumably the answer they expect is "no", that is not the case. In response to the introduction of the automatic transmission, a new category of driver's licence was introduced. A more extreme case are unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), where the practice in the US Army is to refer to an "operator", rather than a "pilot". Also in answer to their question, new forms of "eating" have been defined for new cuisines. 
Kanuka and Conrad (2003) argue that telecommunications did not alter the essence of distance education. However, I suggest that the use of real video and audio and (to a lesser extent) text chat, has been used to try and replicate the classroom experience, not distance education. Use of electronic documents and stored video/audio delivered on-line have been used to  replicate paper and video broadcast based distance education. Some educators argue that their form of distance education is new and revolutionary, so it is not surprising they want to use new terminology (also marketers want to have educational products appear to be new and revolutionary).

It would be interesting to see what Kanuka and Conrad (2003) would make of "Massive Open Online Courses" (MOOCs), as the newest form of distance education terminology. In my view there is little to separate MOOCs from previous distance education, while MOOC proponents deny this. What is perhaps more worrying is that some MOOC proponents are not aware there is previous work on technology based distance education and so are not learning from decades of work, or choose to ignore it.

Kanuka and Conrad (2003) conclude by asking educators to "... resist the seduction of catchy labels and the temptation to mark our intellectual territory by layering new jargon over the old". However, as the hundreds of millions of dollars being invested in thousands of MOOCs show, the attraction of a catchy new label can be very successful, at least for a time. It would be little comfort for an educator to know they were using terminology correctly if the result was they missed out on millions of dollars of funding as a result.
As is clear with the changing temology since Kanuka and Conrad's 2003 paper, no one is much interested in fixing the termonoloigy of distacne edcuation. In the marketplace of ideas, terms come and go and will continue to do so.

Shale, also writing in 2003, begin by supporting Kanuka and Conrad's criticism of a proliferation of terms for distance education, then go on to ask what is at the heart of "distance education". Unfortunately Shale does not provide any useful definition and seems to be more interested in arguing the case as to if distance education is an effective form of education, rather than what it is.

Conrad (2003), as with the previous two papers looked at (Shale 2003 and Kanuka & Conrad 2003) laments the loose use of terminology for distance education, in this case the use of "e" as a prefix, such as in e-learning.  However, this assumes that academics in general (and educators in particular) are in a position to influence what terminology is used. They argue that "this lexicon negatively impacts the nature and shape of the work we do". However, this assumes that the "we" doing the work are academics and that they have a say in the terminology used. In practice the meaning of words is set by their everyday use and the meaning and terms used change over time.


Conrad (2003), looks at early discussion of what to call what is now known as "The Internet". I was part of those discussions, in Australia, which suggested 'Cyberspace' and we managed to sell this `shared hallucination' to public servants, parliamentarians and Cabinet Ministers (Clarke and Worthington, 1994).

Conrad (2003), started out criticising new terms of distance education and asked what its essence was, but in the end did not manage to distil that essence. It would be interesting to see what Conrad thinks of today's use of terms such as "Massive Open Online Course" (MOOC).

References

Clarke, R., and T. Worthington. "Vision for a Networked Nation: The Public Interest in Network Services." Proceedings ofthe Conference oft/Je International Telecom-mnicutions Society, Sydney,] uly. 1994.

Conrad, D. (2003). Stop the e-train! A plea for the thoughtful use of language in computer-conferenced contexts. Open Learning, 18 (3), 262-269.
Kanuka, H., & Conrad, D. (2003). The name of the game: Why "Distance Education" says it all. The Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 4 (4), 385-393.
Shale, D. (2003). Does "distance education" really say it all -- or does it say enough?: A commentary on the article by Kanuka and Conrad. The Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 4 (4), 395-401.

Group Interaction in MOOCs

In his presentation "Open Education: New Developments,Needs, and Opportunities for Research", June Ahn, from University of Maryland, suggested that 30 to 40 students are needed in a MOOC group. This is far larger than the groups of students for a typical face-to-face or on-line tutorial. The reason for the larger groups he suggests are so that there is a core of people to continue the online discussion. An open course typically has a 10% completion rate. So if you start with 30 to 40 students, you will have 3 or 4 left still actively contributing at the end.

Much of what Dr. Ahn had to say might seem obvious, such as that what new students want is clear instructions and clear sense of what the course is about. Once familiar with the course what is important is  interaction with other students.

Dr. Ahn  asked how an open course could retain learners without the sort of rules about enrolment and completion of a conventional institution. I think it is necessary to have the student develop a sense of investment in an on-line course. A student in a conventional course has paid a fee, passed an entry test and has an expectation of some form of reward, in terms of public recognition, or a better job, on completion. I suggest reproducing some of this with "open" courses would increase completion rates. It would be useful to have some form of self-assessment test at the beginning of an open course so students can see if it suitable for them. Some form of progressive assessment (be it called "badges") would help students continue once they have started a course (as it does with conventional on-line and face-to-face courses). Also formal recognition of the courses would provide an incentive for completion.

This of course assumes that the object of the exercise with MOOCs is to reproduce conventional educational experience. There is an alternative approach where open education would allow a student to explore a topic for their own interest, not to learn what someone else had predetermined or for recognition. This would be more like postgraduate research degrees, where the student is given some guidance but it is up to them what they "learn".  However, the completion rate for such a form of education is likely to be much lower than for current MOOCs (where about one in ten complete), perhaps as low as one in ten thousand.

Here is the text of Dr. Ahn's slides:

Open Education: New Developments, Needs, and Opportunities for Research

June Ahn
Assistant Professor
University of Maryland,
College Park
College of Information Studies
College of Education

Agenda

•  Introduce Myself
•  Open Education: Why Now?
•  The Case of Peer 2 Peer University
(P2PU)
•  Fruitful Directions

Assistant Professor

http://ahnjune.com/
Design
Implement
Study

CASCI: Center for the Advanced Study of Communities and Information

OCEL Group
Open Communities for Education and Learning
http://casci.umd.edu/impact-domains/ocel/

What’s Changed?

• Access
• Bandwidth
• Tools
• Production

What’s the Same?

•  It’s still online learning
•  Limited by our own imagination

Put another way...

Conditions are Changing

Learning Remains

Peer to Peer University

p2pu.org

 What is P2PU?

Open Schools

Open Badges

Open Community

Open Experimentation

Our Project with P2PU

•  Data Sharing + Data Science
•  Learning Groups in the Mechanical
MOOC
•  How do Open Learning Communities
Function?

How should organizers design courses?

Ahn, J., Weng, C., & Butler, B. S. (2013). The dynamics of open, peer-to-peer learning: What factors influence participation in the P2P University? Proceedings of the 46th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System
Sciences

•  Seven teacher professional
development courses
• ~2-3 organizers
•  20-30 participants
•  20-40 followers
•  600-1000 unidentified visitors
•  7 courses x 13 weeks
(n = 91)

How should organizers design courses?

Ahn, J., Weng, C., & Butler, B. S. (2013). The dynamics of open, peer-to-peer learning: What factors influence participation in the P2P University? Proceedings of the 46th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
•  Organizer Activity -> Important for Returning
Members
•  Clear prompts -> Important for New Members

What does P2PU Look Like?

Ahn, J., Butler, B. S., Alam, A., & Webster, S. A. (2013). Learner participation and engagement in open online courses: Insights from the Peer 2 Peer University.  MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 9(2), 160-171.

Over 2,000 Projects Started

368 (~18%) went “live”What does P2PU Look Like?
Ahn, J., Butler, B. S., Alam, A., & Webster, S. A. (2013). Learner participation and engagement in open online courses: Insights from the Peer 2 Peer University.
MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 9(2), 160-171.

Over 41,000 Registered Learners

6,483 (~16%) returned at least once

Current Work

•  Ecological Perspective
•  Production
–  How to create supply of open learning
courses?
–  How to support the organizers?
–  How to design for engagement?

Recreating Education Systems?

Or New Design Patterns?

Back to the Learner

• OER is Not Enough
• Who is the learner?
• Where do they come from?
• What do they bring to an experience?
• How do they engage? Collaborate?
• What do they gain?
• How do pathways develop?
• Who are we neglecting?

Thank You

June Ahn
@ahnjune
http://ahnjune.com/

From: "Open Education: New Developments,Needs, and Opportunities for Research", June Ahn, from University of Maryland, for CIDER, Jan 08, 2014 11:00 AM Mountain Time (Canada) 

Other CIDER talks which caught my attention were: 2010 State of the Nation: K-12 Online Learning in Canada and The Chinese Top Level Courses: Improving the quality of online courses in a new educational climate.

Amazons of Higher Education

Timothy Pratt warned in 'We Are Creating Walmarts of Higher Education' (The Atlantic Monthly, Dec 26 2013) of lower education standards from pressure to reduce costs. As a non-American, I had to look up the Wikipedia entry for "Walmart" to work out what the headline meant. The criticism seems to be of Walmart's treatment of employees, rather than its products. But I suggest that the idea of low cost, no frills education indented to equip graduates for the workforce, rather than academic research career, is not a bad one.

Pratt quotes criticism of Massive Open On-line Courses (MOOCs) for the lack of research on their effectiveness and that they have a low completion rate. But MOOCs are just a new take on older e-learning and distance education courses, for which there are decades of research on their effectiveness. As an on-line higher education student of e-learning, I found that the research shows that e-learning is effective, if done well.

That MOOCs have a low completion rate comes as no surprise. If you have a course with no entry requirements, which costs little or nothing to enrol in and there is no tutor to help the student, then a low completion rate would be expected. The question which needs deeper analysis is what is being aimed to be achieved with the education. MOOCs, in part, appear to be designed as a form of on-line entry test for elite research universities: the small percentage of students who can do well without help are suitable candidates for advanced work. However, a different approach is needed for the bulk of students, who want to be reasonably confident of being able to complete a qualification which will then help them get a job.

Perhaps a better metaphor for new education techniques than Walmart would be Amazon, a company which sells books at low cost on-line, but is also not without criticism of working conditions.