Quality assurance for distance learning: a case study at Brunel University

Brunel University currently has four distance learning MSc courses, with over 500 students registered, and one undergraduate distance learning course. Some have been running for over five years, and well‐established practices have been developed and provide a basis of support for the university. Quality assurance in the university has always been considered in three, equally important, ways: the curriculum and its assessment; the handling of coursework and assignments; and the liaison with students. The lesson we have learned is that a distance learning programme must be based on an existing full‐time MSc programme, which is the gold standard for curriculum and its assessment, and where possible, common examinations and assessment be used. This can be further assured by scrutinisation by the associated research council. This is going to become ever more important with the increasing scrutiny by overseas governments on the academic quality of distance learning courses, which seek assurance on the comparability and quality of degrees. Quality assurance for the handling of coursework and assignments must be secure and demands a high overhead of paperwork. Detailed feedback to students on their assignments is essential, but this can, at the same time, form a quality assurance check for later progression decisions. We also copy and retain approximately 10% of the assignments for the same purpose. Rapid turnaround is essential if feedback is to be timely and therefore useful, and quality checks on processing time should be standard. Quality assurance for the procedures for liaison with distance learning students are somewhat harder to measure quantitatively. The mark of good distance learning must be its tutorial support. This demands good communications. Our own course, entitled Data Communications Systems, benefits from the high proportion of use of electronic communications, namely email, which allows fast turnaround of questions, yet is not intrusive. However, it is deemed essential that hard copy of all such correspondence is kept. Migration to other Internet support services, such as the World Wide Web, videoconferencing and groupware, is inevitable.     

The use of Facebook to build a community for distance learning students: a case study from the Open University

Social media platforms such as Facebook are commonplace throughout society. However, within higher education institutions such networking environments are still in the developmental stage. This paper describes and discusses case study data from the Open University’s Faculty of Social Science Facebook page. It starts by giving an overview of the literature surrounding social media in higher education before examining how the Social Sciences Faculty at the Open University has used Facebook to help build an academic community. Data includes numerical information on number of likes, demographic data on students who use the page, analysis on the type and nature of comments and more qualitative extracts from postings related to academic questions. It also discusses challenges and difficulties with using such social media tools in a university environment and suggests fruitful areas for future research.     

Learning from Evaluation at the Open University II. Helping students to learn from audio-visual media

Much of previous media research suggests that there are no significant differences between the teaching effectiveness of different media. As a distance teaching institution, however, the Open University is highly dependent on media to perform functions which in a more conventional context would be handled by live, face-to-face, tuition. Consequently, the University has a keen interest in exploiting the special properties of different media to the full, and in developing students' skills to handle different media. The new technology foundation course, T101 'Living with Technology', attempts both of these aims with some success. The main conclusions drawn from a study of the way audio-visual media are used in the course are that the characteristics of television, radio and audio-cassettes do lend themselves to particular teaching functions but that, in a distance teaching context, a factor of overriding importance is the extent to which any educational medium is accessible and controllable by the learner. The findings also suggest that students can be helped to learn more effectively from audio-visual media, providing a carefully structured approach is taken to the gradual development of learning skills, and the various media are well integrated with each other.     

远程开放教育质量讨论及越南河内开放大学的贡献

教育质量对任何远程开放教育院校来说都非常重要,无论是理论研究还是教学实践,追求教学质量都是关注的焦点。近年来,从一般学术研讨会到国际会议上,都能听到不少学者和研究者对远程开放教育质量内涵进行广泛研讨的声音。尽管界定远程开放教育质量的方法不同,但学者和研究者们在许多方面的认识还是一致的。如:关怀学习者,教与学过程的连贯性,对学习者的各种需求作出积极反映,关注公共职责、学生的学习情况、教学效果、学院的评估体系等等。为了评估远程开放教育质量,研究者们提出了不同的评估模式,如四重构建模式、质量轮模式、五重标准模式等。依据相关指标,不同的研究人员都能了解到这些模式中的每一种标准。河内开放大学成立14年来,一直坚持不懈地努力,竭尽全力满足社会和人民的需要,同时,也坚守教学质量标准,并为此作出了贡献。     

Supporting student projects at a distance through ICT: The UK Open University approach

In recent years the British Open University has been providing increasing ICT support to distance learners carrying out projects within the Faculty of Technology and elsewhere in the University. This paper reports three generic support tools: (1) a CD-ROM providing general guidance on planning, carrying out and writing up a final-year undergraduate technology project; (2) the electronic Information Search Guide , designed as a user-friendly front end to a variety of web sites, bibliographic databases, electronic journals and other information sources; and (3) ROUTES (Resources for Open University Teachers and Students), a library service providing access to selected, quality-assessed, Internet resources for Open University courses, searchable by course or keyword. By means of such tools, distance learners can enjoy resources for project work similar (or, in some aspects, even superior) to those of their face-to-face counterparts, including online access to the full text of many journals. This paper reports the current state of (1) and (3), and work in progress on (2). The CD-ROM was designed initially for the comparatively small numbers of students (up to 100 per year) carrying out a final-year, 600-h undergraduate project. It is now offered to many other students taking projects, and is also being developed - as is the Information Search Guide - in support of a new, 300-h project course planned to attract over 1000 students per year. ROUTES currently provides course-specific World Wide Web links for over 100 courses throughout the University, and is expanding rapidly.     

Learning from distance‐teaching materials: a study of students’ mediating responses

It has been suggested that improvements in the quality of distance‐teaching materials could be effected if the mental responses that mediate study of and learning from such materials were known. This project aimed at identifying the types and origins of students’ convert mediating responses to distance‐teaching materials during study sessions. Three one‐half hour study sessions were videotaped for each of four student volunteers in a room set up on the campus. Immediately following each study session stimulated‐recall interviews were conducted, the data from these being audiotaped and then transcribed for further analysis. Interview protocols revealed that approaches to study were influenced by a set of interdependent factors, which, when combined with a set of study strategies, resulted in two broad classes of study orientation. Twenty different types of mental processes were identified, seven of which were used more frequently than the others. Furthermore, textual features which activated mental processes were identified using the stimulated‐recall technique, and promising suggestions for textual design were gleaned from the data. Areas for further research were also identified.     

香港公开大学的网上教学

在香港公开大学，为使网上学习系统发挥最大功能，除了有一个部门负责建立和维持每一个科目的主网页，还有三个方面的配合：学生和导师的上网设备，上网学习培训以及建立网上学习的文化。另外，还要对涉及学校、教师和学生现状的几个问题作出决定，它们是：学生必须上网还是自愿上网？网上学习系统应包括哪些功能？自建“网上学习”平台还是购买现成系统？网上教材应该取代印刷和其他媒体的教材吗？     

埃及开罗大学的远程开放教育

埃及开罗大学在传统大学中积极实施远程开放教育,尽可能多地为各类人员提供接受高等教育的机会,包括普通高中、中专和技校的毕业生,以及现役军人和在职警察等。从制度、课程、专业、设施建设、教学管理和学习支持服务等方面体现了开放办学的一种理念和可借鉴的实践经验。     

Open Learning: The answer to the government's equity problems? A report of a study on the potential impact of the Open Learning initiative on people with disabilities

This paper describes the process and results of a study to gauge the potential impact of the Open Learning initiative on people with disabilities. A problem‐solving approach was employed, using nominal group technique. Due to the nature of the study this was conducted at a distance, by written correspondence. The ideas generated suggested that the Open Learning initiative's impact will lie in its claim to flexibility, with its potential to give all people an opportunity to gain a university degree, to relieve physical access barriers and to reduce geographical isolation. Aspects of Open Learning which may not improve quality and/or access were identified as potential difficulties in gaining access to support and advice services, library and research facilities and academic support. The opinions generated were as much a reflection of the inflexibility of the current university structure as a request to the Open Learning Agency to respond to suggestions for greater accessibility. The Commonwealth's investment in Open Learning could be interpreted as a shift in policy from a belief that access and equity in Australian higher education should be addressed by specifically targetting perceived disadvantaged groups, to a policy encouraging more open and flexible forms of learning.     

A case study: Cultural preferences concerning the willingness of Batswana students to use ICT in distance education at North-West University

This investigation was conceived of as fundamentally interpretative and designed within the framework of hermeneutic phenomenology as it focuses particularly on the world as it is lived and experienced by Batswana Advanced Certificate in Education (ACE) students in order to determine the views of these students regarding their willingness to use Information Communication Technology (ICT) in Distance Education (DE). For this article, the researcher also undertook an interpretivistic hermeneutic analysis of Social Capital Theory in order to identify directions and norms which could serve as benchmarks to establish whether DE at the North-West University (NWU) could contribute to the structure of social capital. When implementing technology in DE, a sense of community should be created within which Batswana DE ACE students can function in a social structure and where a sense of social cohesion and interconnectedness prevails, as well as a sense of belonging Technology (whiteboards etc.) in DE should consequently be implemented according to the needs and skills of these students.     

Pedagogical implications of working with doctoral students at a distance

This paper discusses the issues raised when delivering professional doctorate programmes to students at a distance. It explores the importance in doctoral study of engagement with a research community, what a "community of practice" might mean within the academic context and the problematic nature of working with students already operating within their own professional context and engaging with another community of practice—that of the researcher. It uses the example of a Doctor in Education (EdD) programme to explore the implications of using virtual learning environments to enable students at a distance to participate in the programme. It draws the conclusions that, far from being a new form of delivery, creating opportunities for students to engage with an academic community of practice requires tutors to use tried and tested pedagogical strategies in a new context. In doing so we use Moore's (1993, in Jung, British Journal of Educational Technology, 32(5), 525–534, 2001) concept of transactional distance to develop a new model of delivery, arguing that whilst dialogue needs to be increased, rather than loosening the structure, it is better achieved by tightening the structure to allow greater adaptability of content through careful moderation by tutors.     

英国开放大学如何保证工程类专业网络教育的教学质量?——访英国远程教育质量保证协会理事Mark Endean先生

在必要的实验设备和教学条件相对不足的情况下,理工类专业一度被认为不适合开展远程教育,而英国开放大学理工类专业的教育质量却在整个英国高等教育中名列前茅.理工类专业究竟是否适合网络教育?英国开放大学理工类专业教学质量保证的秘密在哪里?带着这些问题.我们对英国开放大学MarkEndean先生进行了专访.     

开放学习的典范——英国开放大学OpenLearn评析

文章介绍了英国开放大学OpenLearn的起源、理念和特色,重点分析其共建共享机制、评价机制以及互动机制,进而为我国精品课程的建设提供借鉴。     

Building classroom community at a distance: A case study

The purpose of this study was to analyze a five-week graduate-level education course taught entirely at a distance via the Internet using the Blackboard.com^SM e-learning system, with emphasis on exploring the dynamics of sense of classroom community. Subjects were 20 adult learners, evenly divided between males and females, who were administered the sense of classroom community index at the beginning and end of the course in order to measure classroom community. Findings indicated that on-line learners took advantage of the “learn anytime” characteristics of the Internet by accessing the course seven days per week, 24 hours per day. Sense of classroom community grew significantly during the course. Females manifested a stronger sense of community than their male counterparts both at the start and end of the course. Additionally, female students exhibited a mostly connected communication pattern while the communication pattern of males was mostly independent.     

Quality Assurance in Open and Distance, Education： a Case Study of Kota Open University

After a brief analysis of the concept of quality in open and distance education, information technology for quality assurance and Indian initiative for quality improvement, the paper examines the quality assurance measures at Kota Open University under the following areas ： planning academic programmes ; developing academic programmes ; producing learning materials ; implementing programmes ; reviewing courses/programmes ; and ing human resources.     

开放大学移动学习研究

目前移动学习成为远程教育研究的热点,本文分析了移动学习对开放大学建设的重要意义,移动学习的研究内容,并以《数据库基础与应用》课程为例,开发应用了各种移动学习课件和移动学习资源,对开放大学移动学习做了初步的研究。