Sub Theme b: Use of Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs)

(VLEs)

In the online delivery of WBL, the main interface between students and the university is the VLE or in the case of Northumbria University it is the e-Learning portal

(eLP). All students’ activities happen on VLE including access of study materials,

submission of assessments, discussions between tutors and peers, access of library resources, make payments, and receive notifications. It is the main channel for supporting the delivery of learning and teaching and is used to replace the physical classroom environment for these learners. The user friendliness, high availability, and ease of access and usage of the VLE are very important for the learner as well as for academics and support staff. Also, online WBL not only gives access for study materials to students but also creates an interactive learner-centred environment for them. This is the main purpose of any VLE.

Another terminology for the VLE is Learner Management System (LMS) in which individual learner profiles are interfaced to appropriate back office systems tracking learner progress. It should be as easy to report student progress and activity in a simulation to any LMS, as it is to report on use of any other course components. Compliance with standards such as IEEE, and SCORM are important if this goal is to be achieved.The eLP has been customised from the ‘Blackboard’ (BB) VLE (BlackBoard, 2012). The views of different stakeholders on this are discussed below.

Students

Students primarily access the eLP to contribute to online activities and study content. The National Union of Students’ (NUS) NUS/HSBC Student Experience Report

reveals that 96% of all students had used the World Wide Web as a source of information as part of their studies, that 61% used social networking sites compared to 45% using VLEs, which shows their low priority of using the VLEs (NUS/HSBC/GFK, 2009).Other than the eLP, some academics and students prefer to use the PebblePad e-Portfolio for their teaching and learning activities. The Survey of TEL for HE in the UK in 2010 explains the latest situation in terms of usage of VLE (Browne et al., 2010). “Although Blackboard

remains as the most used enterprise or institutional VLE, its usage has declined since 2008. Moodle has increased in usage as an enterprise solution and remains the most commonly used VLE platform at a devolved level within faculties and departments. Adoption of other open source platforms is negligible across the sector. Centrally supported use of plagiarism detection, e-submission, e-assessment tools is now pervasive across the sector. Wiki, blog, e-portfolio and podcasting tools are also well established since the 2008 Survey. The breakdown of how TEL tools are used to support lear ning has changed very little from 2008. The use of tools to supplement other forms of learning is still the primary approach, with web dependent usage gaining a little ground since the last

survey.”

“The approach of its use is pretty much top down where the teacher has full control over the content. If a student wants to create a discussion thread still you need to go

through the tutor.” This was further confirmed by the LTech itself “It’s teacher-centred. It

doesn’t provide an environment for students to create their own interactions like Web 2.0 type social networking tools. We have to understand that online WBL is not only giving study materials to students but also creating an interactive learner -centred environment

for them.” The importance of creating an online working environment for WBL students is highlighted which is something academics need to pay attention as online WB learners should also be made independent on the eLP to freely communicate among them.

“One of the issues with eLP Disussion Board (DB) is when I post a question and

when someone has answered I wouldn’t know about it because there is no notification

being sent to me unless I check the DB every now and then so I might even forget I have posted a question after some time and by then we have lost the flow. This is even worst

when parallel discussions are on board on different modules.” The need for a notification system on email when a particular communication thread has been responded by someone is raised similar to Facebook. This is currently one of the disadvantages of asynchronous communication.

Another major drawback distance WBL students face is eLP downtimes for maintenance which always fall during weekends, the prime learning time for them. They would prefer the maintenance to occur during night times on week days so that they will not be affected that much. However this could be daytime for students in other parts of the world so care needs to be taken over this issue particularly as Northumbria University grows its number of international students.

There are two main ways that distant students can access university resources: firstly via the university website and eLP and secondly via a virtual tunnel and a thin client

application called ‘desktopANYWHERE’ (DTA). DTA acts as a remote access facility to

allow students to access specialised software, the NORA library resource and the shared drive similar to logging onto one of the campus PCs. Students find DTA cumbersome to use due to technical incompatibilities. In the online survey, almost 50% of the students failed to access the questionnaire through DTA which was hosted on one of the university servers through DTA. Subsequently, a Microsoft Word version of the questionnaire had to

be sent to students. Students’ comments on this included: “My computer doesn't like DTA

at all. I have had real problems trying to use it so it wasn't just your questionnaire. DTA should be clearly explained as it allows non UK users to access the library in a timely

manner”.

“I had a hard time in using DTA due to incompatibilities with Citrix and Internet browsers. DTA is messy due to its short time-out periods and slowness hence cannot

access the U Drive. I wished if the eLP and MyNorthumbria (the student’s individual

portfolio on the university website) were together because then it would be like a one-stop-

shop to everything.” This is a good suggestion in terms of single login to all what students want.

Academics

Whilst students had few complaints about the functionalities of the eLP, academic staff had quite negative views on it. Academics’ comments include; “I wouldn’t say it’s perfect. It’s clunky and has too much functionality, which is frustrating which takes a lot of time.” and“You cannot upload more than one attachment at a time .... Formatting is very poor in the eLP having to re-do documents/copy-paste content.”

“eLP user interface was not particularly well defined and is awkward, making

tasks inconvenient, rather than difficult even to carry out a simple task. Virtual classroom works fine which needs less bandwidth but not up-to-date so Skype would be a better

“I would prefer to have direct contact with eLP rather than going through IT

Helpline to save time and effort. I need to seek for LTech support to create and upload my

own videos and audio material into eLP. Also, I’m worried about the lack of control when

uploading material into the eLP without checks for copyright because if someone violates copyright rules the bad name comes to the university. Therefore, you need to have some sort of a form or warning in the eLP before allowing uploads. Having students on the right

eLP pages can be time consuming and cause delays to the students’ progress.” The copyright violation is applied to academics too hence it is important to have copyright controls before letting academics upload their content.

“I recently used grade centre as a test for face-to-face students and needed help but the eLP online helpline is not always that helpful. In all our modules we use discussion threads for formative assessments and in one module we use it as summative assessment as

if it’s not assessed they avoid this like the plague so we give marks for their participation in the DB.” Evaluation of the students’ meaningful contribution towards the online discussions and acknowledging it in the marking scheme creates an environment that encourages students’ online communications. However this is not practiced by all academics. This was seen as a potential problem. Pena-Shaff, Altman et al. (2005) report some students to have rebelled when discussions are graded, resulting in a negative impact on their participation. Also, studies have shown that motivating students to actively participate and contribute in online discussions was challenging. Perceived lack of

relevance and usefulness seems to hinder student motivation as they assume an ‘invisible’

online role posting discussions with minimal content (Beaudoin, 2002). Confusion, anxiety, apprehension in writing and difficulty in phrasing, and time constraints are other reasons attributed for student passivity or nonparticipation in online discussion forums (ODFs) (Balaji and Chakrabarti, 2010).

A tutor commented “I feel the current eLP is too restrictive, complex, big and not object-orientated. I rather prefer to use Moodle which is simple, open source.” Moodle

(2012) being an open source learning management software is the first choice of the researcher too whose background is from a third-world developing country where annual proprietary licenses are not affordable for Blackboard type of VLEs. Also it is possible to customize in Moodle only what one needs to use unlike Blackboard.

“I only used DB but the problem is again compatibility and doing it online because some students have lost their content while trying to post online with eLP crashes so we recommend them to type offline and then post it online. Didn’t use online tests because reliability was a problem (flaky) for even face-to-face students when I used it this year.”

Students and tutors had contradicting views on the user friendliness of the eLP. One reason for negative views of academics about eLP is that they access the eLP to set up the modules and populate and manipulate them to provide online content and activities for the students. Therefore their views reflect the difficulties in using the eLP from a control and management viewpoint.

Tutors further commented as a disadvantage of WBL: “Students require

appropriate equipment to access courses (PC+ Internet) whereas face-to-face students can

access or learn from university facilities” and it is “...costlier for students in some

countries where communication infrastructure is less developed (3rd world countries)”.

Support Services

The students’ union has its own view on the eLP “eLP is not that user friendly

which is why some students and even tutors don’t use it.”

LTech which manages the eLP commented saying “We do conduct training on eLP for academics. For any product or service it’s not possible to satisfy everyone so as for the

eLP. We do work on continuous improvement of eLP depending on the feedback we get. Of course there are some flaws on the current version which will be addressed soon but then

there will be new issues coming up. It’s a big challenge for us to cater for 30-40 thousand

users’ needs. It’s not the faults many people are concerned about but the design of it. It comprises a large number of functionalities out of which only 1/3 of the people use most of

the interesting pedagogical functions but the rest 2/3 would only use basic functions.” eLP is not only for distance learners which mean all students access it but on campus students do not have to depend on it as much as distance students do.

Faculty administrators had their own negative commentson eLP“Always we face

problems with the links to SITS (student database) because student lists are not always

correct. I don’t like to send emails from eLP because the copy I get once sent a mail doesn’t show to whom the mail was sent.”

Communication

The online WBL experience should be as rich as, if not richer than, the traditional educational experience. Online WBL allows learners to access content at their own convenience, but they learn at workplace, separated from academics and peer students by distance and time. Such students can lack the sense of community that interaction with other learners and tutors can bring. Learner-learner communication is often neglected, but is critically important in collaborative tasks requiring team-working skills where dialogue and social negotiation must take place. Indeed, it is this social dimension that is the primary motivation for some types of learners (Houle, 1996).

The main communication channel among learners, tutors and programme leaders is email while telephone, DB and occasional Skype/video are also used. The main issue raised with regard to using Skype was synchronous timing and issues with access at the university as noted in the following comments.

Academics

“I want to do Video Conferencing (VC) but due to inability of not being able to

synchronise with everybody’s time schedules and students’ other roles, students would not

be able to sit at their desks and Skype about something not to do with work hence I have only discussions and asynchronous chats. I’ve not had MSc students wanting to use Skype

although I have offered.” Skype is not installed on University PCs which makes it limited

to use as quoted by tutors “Would be better if Skype can be installed in my PC to contact students because it is installed in specific rooms”. A positive note came up though“There

is a project running to have Skype for all staff on university PCs.” The limitation of using VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) video conferencing to communicate with students in the university is strongly felt. Live video conferencing is impossible due to difficulties in synchronizing but at least majority of students would benefit from it and the rest can be made accessible to recorded video lectures.

Other difficulties seen by tutors are “I miss the facial expressions of students in online environment which applies for those hands on stuff and also first-hand instant

feedback to realize whether they have understood or not.” and “Personal Effectiveness

module which I teach face-to-face has never been taught online because it’s very difficult to get the communications right. But I should start thinking of this module to deliver online

using video clips, simulations etc.” This means that there is a lot more to do in terms of instructional design of content for online delivery of WBL.

“Also, it’s easier to explain certain things face-to-face to avoid miss-interpretation.

Students necessarily need to be proactive to avoid above so you need to wait for students’

call. Some students do not get involved in dialogues for various reasons such as shy, greedy, time limitations due to work/home commitments, and language problems. However, shy students would raise clarifications on individual basis on email. Some respond only to get marks for interactions at the last minute of the deadline (steal others

ideas but not willing to give their ideas).” This brings out the need for students to be

proactive in DL. Being proactive could have a relationship with students’ maturity. Some

u/g students may be matured in age but not matured learners because it is their first degree but even young p/g students may be academically more matured.

“Too many modes of communication and the one within the eLP is not necessarily

used by students which could cause them to miss important information.” This can be a

serious issue to build up confidence among students on the use of eLP by standardising the protocols of using technology in communication and assessment.

Communication between the university, professional bodies and employers are limited to phone, emails or occasional face-to-face meetings but not on the eLP which only limits to strategy and high level elements such as accreditation rather than operational aspects or support for students.

The latest trend for communication is the use of social networking media like Twitter, Facebook, and Blogs and also for collaboration tools like YouTube, Bookmarking and Wikis. According to the papers published from the symposium held at University of London (WLE, 2007) this was further elaborated as saying “Recent years have seen a growth in the social networking capability of web-based services, known as ‘Semantic

Web’ or ‘Web 2.0’. These terms refer to online collaboration tools, such as photo and

video sharing services, pod and video casting, weblogs, wikis, social bookmarking, syndication of site content etc, which facilitate the sharing of content by users.” The university has a system that links the student information system to an instant messaging system which enables the university to send text messages to students on their mobile phones. It is currently used to inform students of late changes to their timetables and any urgent notifications. The system has been welcomed by staff and students alike although

care has to be taken not to ‘overload’ students with too many texts, so the use is restricted

to a small subset of staff to control the overall number being sent.