Author: Richard Self, r.j.self@derby.ac.uk

JISC e-Learning Activity Area: Learning Resources and Activities

Higher Education Academy Subject Centre: Business, Management, Accountancy and Finance

This case study illustrates...an effect on exam results, student satisfaction with e-learning, staff satisfaction with e-learning, a positive effect on recruitment, use of resources

Background & Context

Why did you use this e-learning approach?

We used this e-learning approach because:

• University policy to be able to provide flexibility in learning
• The MSc Strategic Management is offered in two forms, as a pure online e-learning programme and as a blended mode of face-to-face supported with e-resources which is delivered in Malawi and Botswana
• The Blended approach was introduced for Southern Africa as part of the institutional strategy to support the students, including the provision of University of Derby Athens Authenticated journal resources and to provide e-support of a similar nature to that offered to on-campus students. In 2005/6 a decision was taken as a matter of institutional policy to provide the 4 option modules as a pure online mode. Given that the programme team were already aware of significant connectivity issues in Malawi and Botswana, an introductory day was provided "in country" for each of the option modules.
• The use of the pure e-learning mode was chosen as the strategic means to deliver the programme to students who could not study on-campus

What was the context in which you used this e-learning approach?

The context in which we used this e-learning approach is as follows:

The course, in both modes, is designed to be studied on a part-time basis by students who have full time managerial jobs. It is in some respects similar to an MBA in the learning outcomes but has the benefit that all the students retain their jobs and apply the theory immediately in the context of their work place by means of the assignments.

Composition of learner groups (including numbers of staff, students and courses affected);

• The Malawi and Botswana students are normally middle and senior managers in their organisations.
• There are of the order of 100 students per cohort in the Blended form and about 40 students who are enrolled on the pure e-learning mode, who study a total of nine taught modules from a total diet of 7 core modules and 4 option modules, plus the Dissertation Module.
• Six or seven lecturers are involved in the teaching of the students in the Blended mode and a further 4 are involved in the online mode.

This teaching was conducted prior to our use of an e-learning approach as follows;

• Different lecturers travel out from Derby to deliver 3 day intensive seminars at each centre. Delivery is still done exactly the same way, i.e. no change was foreseen or expected in the Blended approach. The e-support provision for the blended form was developed to provide the students with the means to access electronic journals.
• The Pure e-learning mode is taught in 12 to 16 week blocks with the module leader responsible for running the module and assisting the online students.

We anticipated the following problems that this context would produce in terms of implementation of the e-learning approach.

• We anticipated that some of the students in Malawi and Botswana might have a few problems in accessing the platform. In fact ,in practice, very few of the students are able to access any of the materials
• By the time that we introduced the pure online mode, we already had considerable institutional experience of designing and running other online programmes and we had had some 5 years experience with the face-to-face mode of delivering the programme.

What was the design?

The design of the e-learning approach, including description of learning activities is as follows:

• Bearing in mind that the programme started life as an F2F (face-to-face) programme, all the module content and structure had been developed well before the need to go "e" was taken. Carefully designed work books had been developed for each module which were designed around the Socratic approach of information, discovery, question and develop the answer. Each topic or sub-topic has an introduction and then requires both directed reading and also research for sources, in order to address one or more of the "difficult" questions that is typical of Master's level learning.
• As a result, the design process started from the F2F mode and placed them online in a form that is very similar to the result of Course Genie, i.e. a set of web pages.
• The personnel involved in the design process were the module leaders, with some support from a central specialist learning materials development team who were responsible for taking the word processed content and loading it into the platform, doing the equivalent of Course Genie in passing.

How did you implement and embed this e-learning approach?

• This e-learning approach was 'rolled-out' in practice as follows:
  • Following our institutional practice, we carried out full training of all the e-tutors and module material creators, using both the GUA processes and also in-house training programmes.
  • Clearly, training the off-campus students is problematic, since one is attempting to use the platform to train students with the platform. As a result, we created a short, simple programme to introduce all students to the Blackboard platform, on which they were automatically enrolled as soon as they apply for a programme. This requires that they have access to the Derby Portal, in order to gain access to the Blackboard environment.
• We evaluated this e-learning approach for the two modes of presentation by:
  • Evaluation of both the Blended and pure e-learning approaches is carried out in terms of achievement levels and retention rates and the use of student questionnaires
  • When we attempted to use the pure e-learning approach for the Blended students, the predicted lack of effective access to the platform clearly jeopardised the students' success. As a result, we had provided the Module Work books to all students and given the one day introduction to each module and did not require them to use the digital drop box for the submission of their assignments, rather we required them to submit paper copies in the normal way.
  • In relation to the pure e-learning mode, the programme has similar retention rates to our other similar programmes.
• Given our previous experience with other programmes, we have not had any unanticipated problems with either mode of presentation, we already knew of the significant challenges that we faced.
• The very nature of the problems associated with communications difficulties mean that it is not feasible to overcome fundamental infrastructural problems in sub-Saharan Africa or with other students who do not have satisfactory access to effective, cheap connectivity. See this paper that was presented at the Greenwich e-learning and Teaching Workshop on 6 June 2007, R J Self Paper for Greenwich