Abstracts
An Institutional Approach to Embedding Quality in E-Learning: Developing Staff Capacity at UWS
Monday 4 May 2009, 1100 - 1130
Presenter: Lynnae Rankine
University of Western Sydney / Teaching Development Unit, NSW
Presenter Biography
Not available at time of printing
Abstract
At the University of Western Sydney, 90% of its undergraduate programs have e-learning sites. Whilst this indicates high usage, reviews of sites have shown variability in the quality of the sites. The university, despite managing the e-learning system centrally, has never adopted a prescriptive /top down templated approach to the development of sites. Rather, staff have been expected to use the staff development opportunities to learn how to develop quality sites and how to incorporate the technology into their teaching practice. This approach has resulted in some excellent, but also some poor quality e-learning sites.
The recent upgrade of our e-learning system (LMS) involved a significant change to the suite of e-learning tools available for staff to use, including access to the range of Web 2.0 technologies. Once the transition to the new infrastructure had been completed there was a strategic decision to focus on improving the quality of e-learning sites.
The Teaching Development Unit, as the central unit managing the e-learning system, initiated an institutional project, Developing Quality e-Learning sites, to implement this strategic decision. This project aimed to develop a set of Basic Standards which focus largely on embedding good web-site design principles, and a set of Advanced Standards which addresses more advanced uses of e-learning to achieve specific pedagogical aims.
The literature highlights that the process of developing quality e-learning environments should be planned in a strategic way (Milne & Dimock, 2005), embedded in and supported by organisational processes (Garrison & Anderson, 2003; McNaught, 2001; Sheely et al., 2001), such as policy documentation (McNaught, 2001). Others describe a middle out approach as the most effective (Cummings et al. 2005) Recent studies on leadership in Australian Universities (for example Scott, 2008) highlight that implementing quality assurance measures involves organisational change and the motivation and engagement of stakeholders. Also critical to the successful implementation is scalability and sustainability. This is achieved through stakeholder involvement throughout the process.
Building on this literature, the project adopted a distributed, bottom-up approach to improving the quality of e-learning sites through developing staff capabilities and engagement with the process. Whilst it was important to have the support of the University leaders for the project, the process focussed on using fellow travellers to engage academic staff in both the development of the standards and the implementation. This tiered approach to involving stakeholders assured better take-up of the initiative and helped ensure ongoing sustainability of the quality assurance process.
