This article is from the April 2004 issue of Update.
In July 2003, with the publication of its consultation document,1 the government set out its vision for embedding e-learning throughout the compulsory and post-compulsory education sectors in a unified way. Like it or not e-learning is here to stay. But do we like it? Or, more importantly, do our students like it?
Our experience at Sheffield Hallam University is probably fairly typical of large higher education institutions in terms of the evolution of e-learning. The learning centre brings together libraries, IT, AV and the Learning and Teaching Institute, and has been instrumental in driving forward the e-learning agenda at Sheffield Hallam. Learning centre staff are actively involved in working with academics to integrate resource provision into virtual learning and to develop appropriate information skills material for virtual delivery.
However, until recently, HEIs have paid little attention to the impact of e-learning on the student experience as a whole. Is it a positive thing or a bad thing? Are students changing their learning habits as a result of exposure to e-learning? How does student interaction with e-learning shape their experience and expectations of the learning centre environment? What does all this mean for us in the information professions?
Use of e-learning at Sheffield Hallam is ported by the e-learning@shu project, established in 2001. Part of the project’s work involves overseeing the implementation of a campus-wide virtual learning environment (VLE), Blackboard, adoption of which as a teaching tool is optional. Blackboard enables staff to carry out a range of activities online (e.g. port, communication, resource provision, assessment, or any combination of these). Recent figures (February 2004) indicate that more than 21,000 students across the institution are enrolled on at least one Blackboard site to port their learning.
While usage statistics provide a useful indicator of the breadth of e-learning, they say nothing about the ways in which the VLE is being used, or the effect that it is having on learning and teaching. Part of the project is a two-year programme of research and evaluation, investigating the impact of the VLE on the students. Rather than looking at the technology alone, its aim is to look at how the virtual and physical learning environments work together as part of a blended approach.
In 2002, we collected a series of case studies illustrating the different ways in which Blackboard was being used by the staff, and the motivations behind its use. Building on this, two separate but interlinked phases of qualitative research took a student-centred approach to generating data, concentrating on the issues important to learners. The first phase involved combined interviews and observations of students who had a significant proportion of their learning ported through Blackboard (defined as those enrolled on four or more individual Blackboard sites). In total, 22 students have taken part, and this combined methodology has provided some interesting and often surprising insights into how students are interacting with the VLE. For the second phase, we recruited 10 students to keep reflective learning diaries for a period of two weeks each, at the end of which they took part in an in-depth interview about their learning experience. 2, 3
So how can the research inform the main areas of our work, namely, skills development, resource provision and study environments? There are clear messages about each.
Skills development
An important message coming out of this research is that using the VLE raises students’ awareness of the need or opportunity for self-directed learning. One student described Blackboard as helping to ‘channel’ independent learning, and providing a means for students to progress through their learning outside contact time. Particularly positive experiences with e-learning are strongly linked to students understanding why it is used.
None of the students we spoke to had very negative opinions about its use. As one student put it: ‘Some bits are good…some bits are great… some bits are really pointless!’
Where the purpose is clear, they are generally appreciative of the benefits and can see the connection between the off-line and online elements of their learning.
We need to equip students with the necessary information literacy skills to navigate the new learning landscape, and make sure that the skills development is embedded in their learning. This means not just bringing students into a one-hour lecture on using the library, but providing real learning opportunities for skills development within their unit, and backing that up with a learning resource that they can return to online when they need to.
Do we always give students a clear message about the benefits of information skills programmes? We think not. Too much existing material encourages students to learn how to ‘use the catalogue’ or ‘use databases’. Most students don’t even know what a database is, let alone want to learn how to use one. We need to encourage student engagement by being blindingly obvious about what it can do for them — ‘Find up-to-date articles on Sport’, ‘Access latest research in Nursing’ and so forth. These objectives should relate closely to the course content.
In encouraging engagement with e-learning, it is clear that the tutor also has a key part to play. Our students cited examples where Blackboard was made the ‘centrepiece’ of the course as being particularly effective:
‘The main emphasis is to get on Blackboard; we’ll be having a discussion…we’re encouraged to get on and do it…whereas [with other courses] it’s been a case of "oh, there’s something on Blackboard if you want to read it…’’’
Where e-learning is not promoted as being useful to the students there is often little incentive for them to engage. For example, one student talked about how she was generally very enthusiastic about using discussion boards, yet within one site there was a discussion board that hadn’t been used at all:
'There's a description of what should be discussed, but without the direction. Nobody has used it - not really sure what to do with it…'
So, even where the content is self-explicit and of high quality, the research shows how important the role of the tutor is in porting student use of e-learning. In some instances this will be the information professional leading the course/unit. We need to be prepared to manage and encourage student learning if we are presenting content to allow that learning to take place.
The relationship that we develop with academic staff has a bearing here. Usually information literacy material is delivered within a named unit that has a focus on research methodology or professional skills, for example. It really helps if academics who teach the students on other units are aware of the skills material that students are using. They can positively reinforce the message that engaging with that material will be beneficial. They can be encouraged to set work that allows the students the opportunities to apply the skills learnt to their other units. It won’t be enough to simply populate Blackboard sites with information skills material. We have to work with academics to weave it into the fabric of the course.
Like it or not, the prime motivator for most students is linked to their assessment criteria. Students using our virtual learning skills package at Hallam often ask ‘how do I get marks for this?’.4
So let’s work with academic staff to integrate information literacy fully into the curriculum, and to value and assess those skills. E-learning provides many opportunities for assessment — multiple choice questions have their limitations, but the rise of the electronic progress file or portfolio provides new opportunities for us to integrate skills assessment into the curriculum.
Resource provision
Effective provision of online resources allows students to exploit their time in the physical and virtual environments to their best advantage.
Embedding resources reaps benefits. Students like having high-quality resources, easily accessible within their course site. It is clear from the comments that having a head start in this area gives students the opportunity to use their other learning hours more effectively. For example, students commented that having images embedded within their Blackboard sites allowed them to spend time engaging with their resources and study rather than ‘wasting time’ searching for and scanning in diagrams for their coursework. So, whether it is a reading list with full-text electronic links or media clips relevant to that section of the course, the indications are that these are well used but do not stop students from wanting to explore further. On the contrary, they commented that raising awareness of the range of resources now available actually encouraged them to engage in the search process for themselves. A centralised repository for online resources guarantees access to essential information, freeing up time for students to move beyond this as they feel necessary.
We need to ensure that we are working closely with academics to help them to identify appropriate resources and, if necessary, to embed them into their courses. This means, first, ensuring that electronic collection development strategies are meeting the needs of the academic community. We then have to create the right staffing structures to allow for that level of academic interface to take place, and equip those staff with the necessary skills to do the work. That might mean a radical rethink about where and how we use our qualified staff, something that we are now starting to do at Sheffield Hallam.
Continued access to learning materials through the VLE during independent study time appears to contribute to a continuing sense of connection to the institution, which is particularly relevant when students aren’t physically on campus:
'Blackboard has proved useful as I do not have lectures on Wednesday or Friday so I have contact with the university even though I am not there.'
Continued engagement is important in this case as the student undertakes paid employment on the days when no contact time is scheduled. However, there are other reasons why students might schedule their on-campus time to fit in with lectures. It is interesting to note that, of the students who completed the diaries, four lived a considerable distance outside Sheffield, and two were undertaking placement activities on a regular basis.
So embedded electronic resources remove some of the inequalities that students on distance learning, placement or part-time routes have previously felt. As we move into an increasingly global market for higher education, being able to personalise and brand our course content in this way will provide a clear advantage.
Study environment
Effective provision of online resources enables students to make good use of their time on and off campus. For one student living in Leeds, accessing the learning centre catalogue online allows her to identify the resources she needs, meaning that her time on campus can be spent engaging with the material, her peers and her tutors rather than searching for resources. This allows her to exploit the fundamentally social nature of learning on campus that is one of its strengths:
‘[Communicating with students] I prefer definitely face to face, you know when we sit around and chat… after lectures and things. That definitely helps me more if it’s face to face.’
It is equally important to consider how the physical environment can be used. There are indications that the flexibility of the VLE is enhancing students’ expectations of the on-campus environment, and the ways in which this can be used. We clearly need to investigate students’ perceptions of the learning centre in more depth, but we can learn some lessons from how they talk about the general campus. Their interactions should be ported through more flexible provision of space, allowing them to chat with friends in suitable surroundings.
We can already see changing patterns of behaviour at Sheffield Hallam. Despite high levels of PC ownership and the rapid increase in Blackboard usage, student use of the learning centre remains high. Open plan and enclosed group study spaces are experiencing unprecedented high levels of use. Students appear to be planning their on-campus study time more effectively and using it as an opportunity for face-to-face interaction with their peers.
Demand for PC access at peak times remains high and even those students with a PC at home choose to use learning centre PCs when on campus. This may be to use dead time between lectures more effectively. There has been an increase in demand for quick access 15-minute PC slots to allow students to check emails, print off work or check latest course announcements on Blackboard. The students who took part in the research commented how they often used the ‘20 minutes before lectures’ to check for important announcements about their courses.
Barriers — real or imagined?
As a profession, we have always had concerns about equality of access to information, and these concerns have extended into the e-learning environment. Listening to our students, however, refutes some of our long-held assumptions.
Drawing on previous research, both within Sheffield Hallam and in higher education more generally, we had expected three main concerns to be raised by our students.
1 Low level of ICT skills. We thought students who felt that their ICT skills were not good would be put off e-learning. Interestingly it appears that the user-friendliness of the VLE can mitigate some of these fears. One student commented:
‘I’m rubbish with computers but I don’t think I’ve ever gone "oh no, what am I going to do now?" — it’s that sort of straightforward.’
What seems to be more important than ICT skills is a clear introduction to how the VLE will be used within particular courses.
2 Equality of access. We thought that students without off-campus internet access might feel at a disadvantage but they did not raise this as an issue. The only students to mention this were those who did have personal internet access, and thought that not having access might cause problems. So it seems that, at least for our students, the perception of whether off-campus access is essential depends on the level of access that they have available. These areas need further investigation, but they provide interesting indicators about the perceptions of students.
3 Printing costs. With tutors posting resources online instead of giving out printed copies (particularly regarding tutor-provided notes, etc), printing costs are being passed on to students. Again, none of the students we spoke to raised the issue. The only comments that related to printing revealed an awareness that they could be selective about what they printed, and that the notes would always be available at a later date.
As students become used to having individual resources available when they need them, they seem to become less reliant on having hard copies to hand. As they become more comfortable with the online environment, they become more proficient at exploiting the online resources.
As higher education attempts to diversify its income base in response to uncertain funding futures the educational landscape is changing. It will be common for all students to do at least part of their studying off site. Increasingly, corporate customers will need learning delivered in situ and will expect to find the resources and skills material accessible on demand.
Undoubtedly the time is right to tackle e-learning issues related to our sector. For many of us this will involve a long, hard look at what we are currently doing and why.
Central to everything we do in terms of e-learning will be the quality of the student experience. Rather than make assumptions about what students want, we need to gather data and listen carefully to the messages. The experience of students who are already actively engaging in e-learning can provide some useful pointers to inform practice in the changing landscape of higher education. Students, it seems, are capable of coping and adapting to the challenges and opportunities of e-learning. We must ensure we are doing the same.
References
1 Towards a Unified e-Learning Strategy. DfES consultation document, July 2003.
2 More details: L. Aspden, P. Helm and L. Thorpe. (2003) ‘Capturing learners’ experience with e-learning: preliminary findings,’ in J. Cook and D. McConnell (eds) Communities of Practice. Research Proceedings of the 10th Association for Learning Technology Conference (ALT-C). Held 8-10 September 2003, The University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University, UK.
3 More details: L. Aspden and P. Helm. ‘Hearing the student voice: an adaptive evaluation.’ Paper presented at E-Learn 2003, Phoenix, US.
4 Details of the Sheffield Hallam information literacy package can be found in Claire Abson, and Kay Moore, 'Really useful or virtually useless?', Library & Information Update, 1 (8), August 2002, pp. 34-36.
Liz Aspden (e.j.aspden@shu.ac.uk) is a Research Assistant and Kay Moore (k.m.moore@shu.ac.uk) Manager, Collegiate Learning Centre, at Sheffield Hallam University.