Author: Ian Ruffell, i.ruffell@classics.arts.gla.ac.uk

JISC e-Learning Activity Area: Technology-enhanced Learning Environments

Higher Education Academy Subject Centre: History, Classics and Archaeology

This case study illustrates...an effect on learning, an effect on exam results, an effect on student personal development, innovation in learning and teaching, staff satisfaction with e-learning, an influence on policy, an effect on social equality

Technology Used

What tangible benefits did this e-learning approach produce?

In terms of assessment, this (along with its partner online course on comedy) showed strong performances from the students, with a mean and median of over B3 (low 2:1) - slightly above average for, but not out of line with the other departmental scores. The projects were double-marked (and sampled by our external), but I do have residual concerns about potential grade inflation because of the nature of some of the assessment.

At its best, there was genuine dialogue between the students and some challenging arguments developed through the discussion, both face-to-face and online. For some students, at least, there was a marked increase in their capacity for critical discussion through different media.

As part of a series of courses that use online methodologies, this could be said to have tangible institutional benefits, in that the Department of Classics is driving moves in the Faculty of Arts towards e-learning, both through contact with HATII (see Ian Anderson's case study) and through university-wide events on e-learning in which Classics case studies have played a role.

I have reservations about whether there were any further tangible (or measurable) benefits on this occasion, except in that it has given me further food for thought about how to develop e-learning on the next occasion.

Did implementation of this e-learning approach have any disadvantages or drawbacks?

In organisational and preparation terms, there certainly weren't any significant time gains and potentially time losses, with online interactions and quite a heavy and challenging assessment load.

There were problems, I felt, with marrying this particular material to this particular approach. While I was keen to encourage the students to be exploratory in their approach to evidence on which there has not been a substantial amount of previous research, I think they needed more of a roadmap. While this meant that students were freed somewhat from the tyranny of the secondary reading, some found it a bit disorienting (see Lessons Learned).

How did this e-learning approach accord with or differ from any relevant departmental and/or institutional strategies?

See some of the comments in context. e-Learning has been developing slowly in the department, and perhaps the most notable developments otherwise have been at pre-honours, in the area of language-learning (use of the desktop Latin trainer Flexio and of the Moodle quiz module in particular) and visual and material culture (again formative use of the quiz module to back up online provision of visual material). Support forums for pre-honours courses have been used by a number of colleagues with varying success.

e-Learning approaches in the Faculty and University have been somewhat piecemeal, and the narrative on the Arts side has been to focus on beacon departments. In the past three years, the University has standardised on the Moodle VLE (whereas previously there were a range of VLEs used by different entities within the University) and there is a growing network of support for and promotion of Moodle co-ordinated through the University's learning and teaching centre.