Author: Cristina Leston-Bandeira, c.c.leston-bandeira@hull.ac.uk

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

Higher Education Academy Subject Centre: Sociology, Anthropology and Politics

This case study illustrates...an effect on learning, an effect on student personal development, student satisfaction with e-learning, innovation in learning and teaching, staff satisfaction with e-learning, a positive effect on recruitment, use of resources

Tangible Benefits

What tangible benefits did this e-learning approach produce?

Offering this programme online has brought many benefits:

• It allows reaching out to students who, if it was not for the online mode of delivery, would not be able to take the degree due to their work commitments.
• It allows bringing together students who have a very wide range and unique experiences relating to parliament. Students include parliamentary clerks, officials working for international organisations who provide international assistance for parliamentary development (such as the United Nations Development Programme, UNDP, or the OSCE), politicians, journalists, civil servants at local and regional level, from Britain (from Westminster to Scotland), elsewhere in Europe (Germany and Finland), and elsewhere in the world (from Canada to Kyrgystan). If it was not for the online mode of delivery, it would not be possible to bring together such a wealth of experiences. All of these students have full-time jobs and therefore taking the programme online and on a part-time basis suits their needs.
• It allows the exchange of experiences from around the world. Students share their own experience working in or with parliament. This enhances the students' learning experience as each student is able to perceive their own reality with a different (comparative) outlook as well as finding out about other parliamentary realities. This brings a richness to the course that would not be possible if the programme was not taught online.
• It allows a very effective development of a work-based learning approach. Many of the instructional tasks included in the teaching programme include references or activities that relate directly to the students' work environment. As the online mode of delivery allows students to do the course whilst remaining at work, it fosters a better integration of the work experience with the course. Besides this, most of the students taking the programme have the explicit support of their employer in order to strengthen their own work performance. The course's syllabus is highly relevant to anyone working in a parliamentary institution, or an institution that works with parliaments, hence the support from employers, be it a civil servant in the Scottish parliament, for instance, or an official working for a pressure group who needs to know the ins and outs of a parliament.
• It allows time and flexibility of access to the course for both students and staff. One of the members of staff routinely travels between two cities. Teaching online allows him to fit teaching into his busy schedule.
• It allows improved student performance, as it recruits students with very high levels of academic ability, as well as providing the flexibility for students to fit course work around their own busy lives. Some of the work produced has been of publishable standard with one research project currently being prepared for publication in a refereed journal.
• It allows the integration of a wider community of students, including the PhD students and other on campus students who may be interested in parliamentary studies.
• It allows a more straightforward inclusion of students without the worries of visa/immigration paperwork that might affect students' decision or ability to participate on the course.
• It has allowed the department to enlarge its recruitment pool. The on campus MA in Legislative Studies used to (and still does) recruit an average of one student per year. The MALSO has increased this pool to an average of 6 students per year and this is still on the increase.
• It is also a more cost effective way of studying for the students as they save in accommodation and travelling costs.
• It has made a significant contribution to the success and reputation of the department, nationally and internationally. The experiences staff have undergone to ensure the success of the MALSO means that the department has a pool of tutors and administrators able to pass on their knowledge to others in the department, University and elsewhere wishing to provide online versions of postgraduate courses.

MALSO has been a breakthrough in departmental policy, as there are only two MAs in the University of Hull that are taught entirely online. This is therefore a good starting point to future e-learning endeavours that the department aims to pursue. The department aims to roll out the MALSO experience into new programmes, namely an MA in Security Studies Online. The potential is significant in savings in areas of space saving, the costs of computer equipment for the University generally, also departmentally in terms of the duplication of paper for seminars and other administrative matters. Logistically the programme could handle more students, with each still receiving the same attention. MALSO is the only politics MA entirely taught online with an ESRC recognition - a sign of its quality.

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

Although a significant amount of reading texts have now been digitised for the Electronic Short Loan Library, students do not have the same access to the University's library as on-campus students. Although there is nothing stopping them coming to Hull and using the library, this usually is not possible or practical. In view of the current licences terms it is not possible to digitalise all texts needed for the MA, however, as with all MAs certain core books need to be purchased, in particular for the dissertation part of the degree.

Tutors received more messages within Merlin that had to be dealt with on an individual basis. Administratively e-learning requires constant updating as new information arises - new term guide information etc, which can be time consuming on occasion. Many standard university or departmental forms had to be adapted to create an online version. Also although email is an excellent form of communication, it can take some time to explain something complex that might only take a few minutes over the telephone.

Although there have not been any significant technical problems, if there were it could potentially cause significant problems to the MALSO. If the University decided to change or alter its VLE arrangements, this could potentially cause a significant amount of additional administration in terms of migrating information as well as the problems associated with students and staff used to the previous set-ups. Another factor affecting the stability of the MALSO could be changes in staff personnel. New staff may approach e-learning in an entirely different way to outgoing members, which may in turn give confused signals to students.

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

As Merlin is a university supported VLE it accorded well with the University's strategies. The MALSO brings together different parliamentary experiences and perspectives from around the world in a much more convenient way for practitioners, resulting in less theoretical examination. Improving parliamentary practice could therefore be one of the results of studying the MA. However, due to work obligations many practitioners have found that committing to a full MA is too much work for them to take on, but that they would like to be involved in legislative studies online. The department has taken these comments on board and has recently divided the MA into more manageable teaching sections, by adding Postgraduate Certificate and Diploma qualifications. The Certificate has already had significant interest and we are hoping that this will add to the Legislative Studies Online community.

To ensure that discussions in particular are well attended the department monitors the logons and contributions that each student makes to ensure not only that they receive all the support they need, but also that they understand the flexibility of the course should not be taken advantage of and does not mean that minimal work has to be carried out or tolerated.

Whether or not e-learning becomes embedded in the department is largely dependent on whether particular members of the academic staff (mainly MA programme coordinators) decide to undertake the e-learning option for modules or postgraduate degree courses. Generally speaking e-learning is still the exception rather than the rule and it may take some time to develop e-learning on particular courses within the department. Given that current e-learning covers only a few modules, that are compulsory on those courses, it would be more problematic from an administrative and academic view to create e-learn for courses where there are a number of optional modules in addition to the core modules.