The University of Exeter: Online Economic Texts.

This case study reports on the implementation of online formative exercises at undergraduate level at the School of Business and Economics. The resources were provided by the publishers of a set text, students and staff were trained and weekly help sessions were delivered by the module leader.

This was a web-based activity, where students reviewed case-studies, watched videos etc. before working through online exercises in the form of multiple choice questions, essays or graphical discussion. Once a student had completed an exercise, his/her results were forwarded to his/her lecturer.

The university’s justification for this e-learning project was as follows:

• A changed module structure and a large number of students registering for semester 1 modules meant that teaching staff were faced with students with a diverse mathematical background. This presented pedagogical issues.
• This would provide students outside of the School of Business and Economics with a module in business.
• The university had identified the need to increase formative assessment.
• International students would benefit from being able to access course materials prior to lectures and work through them at their own pace.
• Students who had work/other commitments would still be able to take part and not ‘miss out’.
• Would improve administrative systems at a module level.
• Would allow for more flexibility in teaching, i.e. part-time lecturers and bought-out lecturers.

This justification appears to be sound. I am particularly interested by the benefits accorded to e-learning regarding access to course materials for students with other commitments. Furthermore, supporting international students appears to be another major contributing factor.

The university anticipated the following challenges when planning this project:

• Students expected weekly classes; they seemed to identify contact time with learning.
• This project was being introduced at level 2, therefore the university had missed the opportunity of introducing this project from ‘day 1’.
• The on-line resources were password protected by the publishers. As such, students had to purchase a copy of the set text in order to access the materials.
• The university was already using WebCT to deliver course notes etc. However, this project would not be embedded within this framework, and as such could lead to confusion.
• Would students actually do the work?

By pre-empting these potential problems, the university is not only planning the project appropriately, but also signalling that there is potential resistance to e-learning initiatives amongst student bodies.

The design of the programme was to retain contact time between lecturers and students in the form of lectures, but to replace discussion classes with the online resources (blended learning). The justification for this approach was that it is a ‘core strand of our commitment that all our research staff will continue to teach’. This is an interesting comment, and may suggest that whilst learning is taking place with e-learning, teaching in the more traditional sense is not. One therefore has to question, how can one learn if one is not being taught? Perhaps there is recourse for meta-language regarding ‘e-teaching’?

According to the report’s authors, the project was generally successfully and achieved the following goals:

• Existing courses where this project was implemented retained previous exams scores. New courses demonstrated a high level of average attainment.
• Staff involved with the project were enthusiastic and as such the model could be demonstrated and disseminated across the university.
• Attendance could be more easily monitored through log-in data.
• The approach fits the institutional policy regarding ‘blended learning’ and the implementation of e-learning initiatives.
• The use of e-resources allowed all students to access resources and ‘learning’, even if they were away from University or tied up with other commitments.
• Feedback from international students was particularly positive.
• Staff time was saved, space-saving also as less contact time.
• The use of pre-made publisher resources reduced costs for the University.
• Encourages team-teaching and contributes to module consistency if a member of staff is absent or ‘bought-out’ through research grants.

As with any project, there were also negative aspects of the project:

• Student cost of buying the course book. The university has now negotiated a batch of ‘free’ copies that can be distributed to needier students.
• The difficulty in managing the belief that this project was student-focused rather than cpst-driven.

I feel this is an interesting project to review as it brings several important issues to light, namely the possible belief that ‘real’ learning only takes place when there is face-to-face contact between student and teacher. Furthermore, there appears to be a shared feeling that e-learning is a poor substitute for more traditional teaching methods, and may be motivated for reasons of cost rather than pedagogical gain. Does anybody know of any studies that have researched any of this? Also, are we likely to see publishers jumping on the e-learning bandwagon and offering e-learning software/resources for commercial gain?