Review of Australian Higher Education

The Federal Government's Review of Australian Higher Education is due to report by October. The Discussion Paper (June 2008) touches on the high cost of e-learning:

Universities are also confronting the very major costs of moving to computer-mediated, electronic and flexible delivery modes, while at the same time attempting to sustain, as far as possible, their campus-based and face-to-face teaching approaches. While there may arguably be some downstream savings from increased use of ‘e-learning’, there are enormous transitional costs in creating digital libraries, converting existing courses and developing new ones, and establishing new electronic infrastructure. International evidence also suggests that these costs will recur frequently due to the rate of change in technology and student expectations for both e-learning and face-to-face teaching.

One way for universities and other tertiary institutions to lower the cost is to share infrastructure. Universities already do this for their Internet access via AARnet. The TAFEs are cooperating with e-learning content via the Australian Flexible Learning Framework. However, the TAFEs are tending to charge small amounts of money for other TAFEs to use their courseware. This is restricting the use of the content due to the need for accounting, without providing significant revenue. The federal government could change its rules to encourage tertiary institutions to develop free open access courseware. As an example some federal funding could require open access results as a condition of funding. The government could also offer the TAFEs a one off fee to make the existing courseware open access.

The distinction between vocational and the rest of the higher education sector for funding of the development of e-learning content, tools and training could also be removed. Te vocational education sector in Australia has a coordinated approach to e-learning development, with cooperation encouraged by federal government funding programs. In contrast the universities each have their own overlapping uncoordinated and competing programs. This is a waste of public money. The federal programs should be modified to encourage cooperation between universities and with the vocational sector (which has much to teach universities).

Vocational and university sectors have separate e-portfolio programs. These could also be usefully brought together.

In addition the universities could be encouraged to work with professional bodies. As an example the ACS is working on global standards for education of ICT professionals. This will likely include e-portfolios, as well as curriculum standards.

I am not sure that cooperation by universities with each other and with the vocational sector is the "big, bold idea" which Professor Bradley, review chair, is looking for, but it might help.

E-portfolios for professional education in Australia

ACT CIT hosted an excellent free session this morning on e-Portfolios, as part of the Australian Flexible Learning Framework. The most important news is open source e-portfolio software "Mahara", from New Zealand, which interfaces to Moodle.

Thursday 14 August, 10.30am - 12.30pm - E-portfolios with guest presenter Allison Miller (E-portfolios business activity manager) hosted by the Australian Flexible Learning Framework.
To register > email Kerry Manikis before cob Monday 11 August
Further information > E-portfolios Network, RPL Online Network (RON), Leonard Low's E-portfolios slideshow and Mahara (open source e-portfolio tool)

From: Australian Flexible Learning Framework ACT, 2008

Before the session, I was sceptical as to if there were going to be standards and software for e-Portfolios and if vocational trainers and universities would cooperate to use compatible systems. I came away from the morning with most of my questions answered and ready to recommend the implementation of e-portfolios to my colleagues.

Electronic portfolios (e-portfolio or digital portfolios) are an electronic collection of samples of evidence of a person's experience and learning. They may be web based. There has been interest in E-portfolios from universities and the vocational education sector as a way to provide non-paper evidence of what students have done. This goes beyond the usual cryptic academic transcript. But the main interest from government is to have educational qualifications in a digital form which can be electronically verified.

There are business and technical overviews, software and standards available from the Australian Flexible Learning Framework. Also there is an e-Portfolio blog, with updates.

E-Portfolios are likely to come in different favours depending on the educational sector and discipline. The vocational (TAFE) sector and fine arts people at university are likely to use e-portfolios as a way for the student to show their work. Science disciplines at universities are more likely to see it as a way to provide an index to official transcripts and lists of publications.

The ACS already has a system it uses for recording qualifications and experience of its own members. With some open source software being available, it should not be too hard to offer an ePortfolio for each of the 13,000 members.

In its simplest form the ePortfolio could be an extra report generated from an existing database of membership information. The e-Portfolio could be presented on screen as a web page, in a printable format and electronic export formats. The printed and exported ePortfolio versions could have a web address in them which could be used to validate the information.

Technically the ePortfolio is not difficult to implement. What will be harder are the procedures and legal implications from providing the information.

E-portfolios for vocational education

There will be a free event on E-portfolios for vocational education, at the CIT Reid Campus, 14 August. This will feature Allison Miller, Business Manager, E-portfolios - Managing Learner Information and CIT Children's Services e-learning innovations project, Lisa Beattie and Aaron Pont.

Thursday 14 August, 10.30am - 12.30pm - E-portfolios with guest presenter Allison Miller (E-portfolios business activity manager) hosted by the Australian Flexible Learning Framework.
To register > email Kerry Manikis before cob Monday 11 August
Further information > E-portfolios Network, RPL Online Network (RON), Leonard Low's E-portfolios slideshow and Mahara (open source e-portfolio tool)

From: Australian Flexible Learning Framework ACT, 2008

Electronic portfolios (e-portfolio or digital portfolios) are an electronic collection of samples of evidence of a person's experience and learning. Usually they are in the form of a web page. There has been interest in E-portfolios from universities and the vocational education sector as a way to provide non-paper evidence of what students have done. This goes beyond the usual cryptic academic transcript. But the main interest from government (and fundingr) is to have educational qualifications in a digital form which can be electronically verified.

QUT ran an Australian ePortfolio Symposium in February 2008. The US approach to ePortfolios is to have companies or consortia of educational institutions provide them. An example is Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium (CTDLC)'s ePortfolio. EIfEL (European Institute for E-Learning), has been working with HR-XML.

Australian Universities are working as the Australian ePortfolio Project, with government funding. AeP surveyed me about potential use of ePortfolios. I pointed out that ACS is working on international accreditation for ICT professionals this has recently received support from Microsoft. The ACS already has a system it uses for recording qualifications and experience of its own members. It is likely that something similar will be used internationally. The ACS exposes some of the information in its system to other members and more limited information to the public via a member's list and consultant's directory. I have suggested the ACS provide an ePortfolio, as an option for members, from the same data, using the standard format. The ACS just needs to format the data in the correct format for this.

Professional bodies have have to check the experience and qualifications of members and many now have schemes for members to report their ongoing education (such a s ACS's PCP program). It would seem a small extra step to make this information available in an a e-portfolio format.

In addition commercial web services, such as Linked-In, provide the information which members provide , marked up in a machine readable format.

How to write a business case for e-learning without really trying

Today I took part in a free workshop on How to write a business case for e-learning, sponsored by the Australian Government. This was worthwhile and the Government is handing out various grants to encourage e-learning and has on-line resources to help.

I peddled across the Canberra CBD from ANU to the Canberra Institute of Technology, which only took ten minutes. CIT have an impressive campus at Reid, complete with a cafe which was just getting fresh muffins out of the oven. ;-)

The program was:

12.00 - Registration with arrival tea and coffee
12.30 - Part 2: Information session on Framework funding opportunities in 2008
(a) national funding for an Industry Integration of E-learning project
(b) state/territory funding for an E-learning Innovations project
13.40 - Afternoon Tea (20 mins)
14.00 - Part 1: PD Workshop - How to write a business case for e-learning (1.5hrs)
(Includes hearing from a previous industry e-learning demonstration)
15.30 - Event concludes

The program had been rearranged at short notice due to staff availability, but still worked out well. The first part was a slightly bewildering introduction to the Australian Flexible Learning Framework e-learning initiatives. Many of the people present were from TAFEs and were familiar with the terminology, I was less so. To add to the complexity, some of the initiatives are administered on a state by state basis. However, the introduction made it all reasonably clear.

There are many useful resources and tools about e-learning on the web site. Some of these which sound interesting are "The Knowledge Tree" E-learning Journal. There is a part of the web site for each state, such as ACT. There are professional development events held in the ACT on e-learning (confusingly called "e-pd in the @CT"). CD-ROM of ARED software were handed out. This was used to create the online materials for the workshop. This was not a good advertisement as the materials for the workshop online were not particularly good. The online text was too small to read and the downloaded version was missing a link to some of the material need for the workshop. Also the Australian Flexible Learning Framework people seem to have a thing about the London underground, using its schematic maps as a metaphor, which probably seemed like a good idea but does not work well.

Production of e-portfolios and support for Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) are eligible for funding. Also selection of customization of existing e-learning content. Organizations do not have to create whole courses from scratch.

The main aim of the next round of government funding from 2008 is-learning embedded in industry (previous phases were: 2000 Capability, 2005 Client Engagement). It therefore provides the funding to business, but who then partner with a training provider.

One issue which came up several times is copyright. The Commonwealth requires the copyright on materials created in a funded project to be transferred to it. Under the standard Australian Government copyright conditions this precludes the use of the material, without permission and payment of a fee. I asked about this and it seems that the material in this case is available for free use, but the Commonwealth does not seem to have used a standard open access license. As a result it is unlikely the material will be found and if it is will be used.

The Commonwealth should change its policy for the Australian Flexible Learning Framework and adopt a standard license, such as Creative Commons. This would greatly increase use of the materials, as they could then be found with a web search and it would be clear they were available for use. As it is I would be reluctant to recommend participation in any of these programs. Perhaps with a new federal government it is time to suggest that the federal government adopt a policy of giving away IP, rather than restricting access and trying to make money from it.

One TAFE Industry project was highlighted. This had a few interesting points: iPods were used for delivering material. The issue of Copyright came up again, as did the availability of bandwidth for using online systems.

After afternoon tea we used "clickers" (as used in audience response). These are hand held devices with a telephone type keypad issued to each participant. The facilitator puts up a list of questions on screen and each participant presses a key to respond,. The system tallies and displays the responses as a bar graph. The units were Response Cards from Response Innovations, but there are numerous such devices available. CSIRO has produced a free system called Votapedia, which uses mobile phones.

One issue which came up was the difficulty of finding a return on investment for small non-profit community projects that might need training. Another was the flexibility of the program: after saying capital equipment was not funded, a budget including 16 mobile phones was shown, this had been accepted as the phones were integral for the project.

I had some difficulty with the workshop exercise, as the template which was supposed to be provided online was not included in the text accessible version. I reported the problem and it should be corrected soon. But a problem remains of needing to use the text accessible version: it would be preferable if the primary version of the course was accessible so I didn't need to use a different version which needs to be separately maintained.

Some ways the programs could be applied in Canberra may involve government agencies, rather than private companies. Agencies are eligible to take part, either as the business partner or as a training organisation. This is an interesting option, as I have been involved in delivering university courses, but some of that content would also be suitable for vocational courses.

Apart from the useful content of the workshop, the way it was conducted to demonstrate some of the e-learning techniques was very useful. The use of online materials and interactive electronic class room aids was very useful. However, the problems with these also highlighted the costs and risks involved in the use of the technology. When the web site and the clicker work, they are very useful, but when they do not work, this is very disruptive to the learning process.

Australian ePortfolio Symposium 2008

QUT are running an Australian ePortfolio Symposium at their Kelvin Grove Campus in Brisbane, on 7 - 8 February 2008. The idea of an electronic portfolio (digital portfolio) is to have your educational qualifications and similar in a digital form which can be electronically verified. At present employers, universities and registration authorities have to spend a lot of time and effort checking if paper certificates are genuine.

The US approach to ePortfolios is to have companies or consortia of educational institutions provide them. An example is Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium (CTDLC)'s ePortfolio. EIfEL (European Institute for E-Learning), has been working with HR-XML.

Australian Universities are working as the Australian ePortfolio Project, with government funding. AeP is now conducting telephone interviews about potential use of ePortfolios.

The ACS is working on international accreditation for ICT professionals this has recently received support from Microsoft. The ACS already has a system it uses for recording qualifications and experience of its own members. It is likely that something similar will be used internationally. The ACS exposes some of the information in its system to other members and more limited information to the public via a member's list and consultant's directory. I have suggested the ACS provide an ePortfolio, as an option for members, from the same data, using the standard format. The ACS just needs to format the data in the correct format for this.