reportandpapers.html

Reports and Papers from or relating to the Learning Development and Innovation Team

Papers and Articles from Mark Stiles, Professor of Technology Supported Learning

Phipps, L., Cormier, D. and Stiles, M.J., "Reflecting on the virtual learning systems - extinction or evolution?", Educational Developments, 9.2, May 2008
Stiles, M. and Yorke, J., “Technology Supported Learning – Tensions between innovation, and control and organisational and professional cultures”, Journal of Organisational Transformation and Social Change, 3: 3, 2007, pp 251-267
Stiles, M.J., “Death of the VLE – a challenge to a new orthodoxy”, Serials, Vol 20, No 1, 2007, pp 31-36. Available from: http://serials.uksg.org/openurl.asp?genre=article&issn=0953
Stiles, M.J., and Corfield, F.M., "e-support materials for Foundation Degrees and WBL", forward, 9, 2006
Stiles, M.J., "Embedding E-learning in a Higher Education Institution", in "Virtuality and Education. A Reader.", eds Hoang Nguyen, T. and Preston, D.S., Rodopi, 2006
Stiles, M.J., “Reuse and Repurposing of Content in the Context of the Introduction and Embedding of eLearning”, New Review of Information Networking ,Vol 11, No 2, 2005, pp 235-252
Stiles, M.J., "Joining up learning across organisations is for the benefit of the institutions/government and not the learner", Transcript of debate in "The Think Tank - Making Lifelong Learning a Reality", JISC inforNET, Northumbria University, August 2005
Stiles, M.J., and Yorke, J.M.E.Y., "Embedding Staff Development in eLearning in the Production Process and using Policy to Reinforce its Effectiveness", paper for 9th SEDA Conference, Birmingham, November 2004
Stiles, M.J., "Attack of the Clones - Are VLEs/MLEs really changing practice in learning & teaching and business processes?", Speaker Transcript in "When Worlds Collide: Changing Cultures in 21st Century Education", JISC infoNET, Northumbria University, June 2004
Stiles, M.J., “Is an e-Learning Strategy Enough?”, Educational Developments, 5.1, SEDA, March 2004
Stiles, M.J., "Strategic and Pedagogic Requirements for Virtual Learning in the Context of Widening Participation ", in “At the Interface – Virtual Learning and Higher Education”, ed Preston D.S., Rodopi, 2004
Simpson, W., Evans, D., Eley, R. and Stiles, M., “Findings from the HEI Flip Project: applications issues, Int. J. Continuing Engineering Education and Lifelong Learning, Vol 13, Nos 5/6, 2003, pp471-482
Stiles, M.J., "Embedding eLearning in a Higher Education Institution", Keynote Paper for: "At the Interface - 2nd Global Conference on Virtual Learning and Higher Education", 12th - 13th September 2003, Mansfield College, Oxford. Preprint available.
Stiles, M.J., "How does content standardisation impact on staff support in the use of VLEs?, Paper for LTSN Supporting Sustainable e-Learning event, University of York, April 2003. Available from: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/embedded_object.asp?id=18792&prompt=yes&filename=ELN049
Stiles, M.J., and Yorke, J.M.E.Y, "Designing and Implementing Learning Technology Projects – A Planned Approach", Workshop paper and Powerpoint presentation for "EFFECTS - Embedding Learning Technologies Seminar", 8th April 2003, University College London
Orsmond, P. & Stiles, M. (2002). University teaching: A challenge to staff development. Innovations in Education and Teaching International 39 (4), 253-6
Stiles, M.J., "Strategic and Pedagogic Requirements for Virtual Learning in the Context of Widening Participation ", Paper for: "At the Interface - Virtual Learning and Higher Education" Conference, 10th - 11th September 2002, Mansfield College, University of Oxford Available from: http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/Stiles%20Paper.pdf
Stiles, M.J., "Staying on Track - why are we using technology in learning?", in JISC Inform, Issue 1, Spring 2002. Available from: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=pub_inform1#02_stayingOnTrack
Stiles, M.J., and Orsmond, P., “Managing Active Student Learning with a Virtual Learning Environment.”, in "Educational Development Through Information and Communications Technologies", Fallows, S.J.and Bhanot, R., Kogan Page, 2002
Stiles, M.J., "Briefing Paper No 5 - Pedagogy and Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) Evaluation and Selection", JISC, 2001. Available from: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=mle_briefings_5
Stiles, M.J., "Disability Access To Virtual Learning Environments", DISinHE, 2001, available from: http://www.computing.dundee.ac.uk/projects/dmag/resources/casestudies/stilesfull.asp
Stiles, M. J. (2000) Effective Learning and the Virtual Learning Environment. In: EUNIS 2000: Towards Virtual Universities: Proceedings of the European University Information System 2000 conference held at INFOSYSTEM 2000, Poznan, Poland, Poznan: Instytut Informatyki Politechniki Poznanskiej, p171-180, available from: http://www.staffs.ac.uk/COSE/cose10/posnan.html
Stiles, M., 'Developing Tacit and Codified Knowledge and Subject Culture within a Virtual Learning Environment', IJEEE, 37, No1 (January 2000) pp 13-25
Roach, M.P. and Stiles, M.J. (1998). “COSE - A Virtual Learning Environment founded on a Holistic Pedagogic Approach”, CTI: Software for Engineering Education No 14. Available as:http://www.engsc.ac.uk/downloads/pdfs/news/nl14.pdf

From the Best Practice Models for e-Learning Project

Staffordshire University has a current project which has worked with academic staff and external experts to develop a range of eLearning Models to help novice and experienced practitioners use technology to enhance their practice. The project has:

Developed and made available models of good practice in, for example, Online discussion, Online collaboration, Problem-based Learning and Online Assessment
Made these Models available on an online community with case studies, how-to guides and discussion forums for each topic.
Organized and run face to face workshops, online seminars and a national conference to share the models
Supported a growing online community of practice of 700+ members engaging with the project studies in the online discussion forums

Next, the project will:

Continue to develop and make models available in the online community of practice
Run face to face and online seminars and workshops
Develop more fully developed whole course models that will enable practitioners to effectively design online courses that follow good pedagogical principles and map onto University Quality standards.

All e-learning practitioners (from the university and elsewhere) are invited to join the online community of practice to use the models, case studies and the expertise of the other participants via http://crusldi1.staffs.ac.uk/moodle Enrol with the key BP06

From the SURF WBL-Way project

This current collaborative project, funded by JISC, has as the main partners Staffordshire University, Burton College, Shrewsbury College of Arts and Technology and Stoke-on-Trent College and aims to make it easy to support and deliver work based learning. Supporting partners include, Foundation Degree Forward, Aimhigher West Midlands, Harvest Road, Foundation Direct CETL, Portsmouth University, Engineering Council and SEMTA.

The work of the project, including Blogs, can be viewed on the project website

From the SURF WBL Project

This JISC X4L phase 2 project examined the resourcing and support of Work-Based Learning (WBL) for those taking HE courses in FE, and created, by building on available national resources, outputs from JISC programmes and the work of the SURF X4L project, a collection of some 85 generic resources and a number of subject-specific embedding exemplars for use across the SURF Consortium and which were deposited in the JORUM national repository. The project involved the University and Burton, Shrewsbury and Stoke Colleges in partnership with Foundation Degree Forward.

A report: "A Study of Policy & Organisational Implications of Resourcing & Supporting WBL in a Consortium" is available, along with the experiences of each of the college partners:

Shrewsbury College of Arts and Technology Story and Appendix
Authors: Richard Booth, ILT Co-ordinator and Dave Shearan, E-learning Project Champion, Shrewsbury College of Arts and Technology

Burton Upon Trents College Story
Author: Mike Parker, Project Senior Learning Technologist, Burton on Trent College<>

Stoke On Trents College Story
Author: Steve Blakemore, Educational Technologist Team Leader, Stoke-on-Trent College

The learning resources produced by the project can be download from JORUM and viewed from the Learning Development & Innovation Moodle site using the registration code "smileforme"

From the SUNIWE Project

The JISC DeL Pilot project, involved Staffordshire University, the NIIMLE project from Northern Ireland, and the Welsh eTraining Network as well as the Shrewsbury and Stoke Colleges from SURF. It was a cross-regional project designed to take the work of the JISC MLEs for Lifelong Learning Project, NIIMLE, in implementing IMS Enterprise Web Services to provide access to learner information for students across the province using uPortal, and both trial implement this work within the SURF and WETN consortia, further expand it to provide personalised links to VLEs and other eResources via the portal, and implement others elements of interoperability.

The final report of the project will be shortly available.

From the COVARM Project

Professor Stiles was a partner in this project, led by Thames Valley University, which worked on the definition a candidate reference model utilizing a framework of services to support a canonical business process to support course validation. As part of the project he carried out a series of in-depth interviews examining the links between the validation process and other institutional business processes. The output from this work is available as the COVARM Report:

Validation Domain Perspective Results

From the CAMEL Project

Staffordshire were a partner to this project funded under HEFCE’s Leadership, Governance and Management Programme. The project was a pilot to explore the development of a Community of Practice amongst e-learning, systems, and learning technology practitioners working on aspects of promoting Lifelong Learning across institutions. The project was led by JISC infoNet in partnership with JISC, the Association for Learning Technology (ALT) and the Higher Education Academy. Its outputs are available from: http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/camel

From the SURF X4L Project

This JISC project, which involved Staffordshire University, Stoke-on-Trent FE College, Shrewsbury College of Art and Technology and The Royal National College for the Blind, concentrated on the repurposing of content for use within MLEs/VLEs and the various phases needed to enable this to take place effectively. The project has its own website which contains all reports and papers produced. The main outputs from the project are available here:

Culture Change, Pedagogy and Organisation

The “practice-focused” work of the SURF X4L partners in these areas is summarized in:

Introducing the Reuse and Repurposing of Content as part of the embedding of eLearning - A guide to good practice and problem areas in cultural, educational and organisational change
Author: Professor Mark Stiles, Staffordshire University,

The “Stories”

The main report above was built including a synthesis of the accounts and evaluation of work done at each of Stoke on Trent College and Shrewsbury College. These “stories are each available:

SURF X4L - The Stoke Story
Author: Steve Blakemore, Educational Technologist Team Leader, Stoke-on-Trent College

SURF X4L – The Shrewsbury Story
Authors: Richard Booth, ILT Co-ordinator and Dave Shearan, E-learning Project Champion, Shrewsbury College of Arts and Technology

Technical Strand

The technical strand of SURF X4L was carried out at Staffordshire University and covered a number of areas, including packaging, interoperability, an various trials using, and enhancements to, the COSE VLE in the areas of content import, export and metadata carried out mainly with a view to enhancing COSE as a system promoting content exchange and re-use.

See:

Reuse and Repurposing of Resources for Content Exchange, including Technical Considerations on Interoperability
Author: Edward Clarke, Staffordshire University

Accessibility Report

The Royal National College for the Blind, Hereford, was a minor partner in the SURF X4L project and produced an informal report which evaluates some of the technical work done by the project, and a number of the resources built by the two main partner colleges.

Evaluation Of Surf X4L Outputs
Author: Sue Garrett, ICT/ILT Development Officer, Royal National College for the Blind

Changes to the COSE Virtual Learning Environment

New versions of COSE have been produced which incorporate outputs from the SURF X4L Project. These are available free of charge from the COSE Website

The COSE 2.1 manual supplement describes the first COSE release to offer standalone content objects as a new interoperable option in content packaging and interchange. It also describes contributed effort in making COSE more accessible through use of screen readers.

From the Staffordshire ICE Project

The aim of this project, funded under the JISC 05/03 call but part of a larger institutional ICE project, was to integrate the searching of e-books and other e-resources into the COSE Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) in order to provide reusable and searchable reference objects within the VLE which draw seamlessly on the referenced resources, and which could be integrated, packaged and exported with other content.

The project successfully enabled the searching of two leading e-aggregators from within the COSE VLE via its standard ‘Search Tools’ interface. Referenced objects were viewable via the standard COSE Browser. It successfully integrated RELOAD to enable the re-use of reference objects through the metadata description based on UK LOM CORE. Our implementation of this schema is recorded in an application profile developed by the project. Some work, principally that relating to the export of the new re-useable reference objects using COSE’s existing content packing tool, was still outstanding.

The report from the JISC component of ICE is available.

A second JISC funded project DICE followed this project. This project was funded under JISC's e-learning framework programme developing open source, standards and web service based solutions in learning, research and administration. The focus of the work was in evaluating the D+ (Discovery plus) resource discovery toolkit developed at Edinburgh University Library, comparing this with other resource discovery services, and integrating such discovery services with the COSE VLE.

The project website and outputs and the project's final report are available (Author: Edward Clarke, Staffordshire University)

From the CO3 Project

The JISC 7/99 CO3 Project consisted of a partnership between the Universities of Bangor, Huddersfield and Staffordshire working on aspects of the implementation of IMS specifications to achieve interoperability between their Virtual Learning Environments VLE) - Colloquia, CoMentor and COSE.

A number of outputs were produced, and are available from the CO3 Website. The final project report is now available.

From the JISC Managed Learning Environments (MLEs) in FE - SURF Interoperability Pilot

This Pilot involved Staffordshire University and its 11 Further Education Partner Colleges (which together make up the SURF Consortium), together with 4 major MIS ystsems vendors, in testing the IMS specifications for interoperability between the COSE VLE and MIS systems. The final report, published in December 2001 is available.