Semantic web and e-learning

With emergence of "Semantic Web" there has been much discussion about the impact of technologies such as XML and RDF on the way we use the Web for developing e-learning applications and perhaps more importantly on how we can personalise these applications. Personalisation of e-learning is viewed by many authors (see amongst others Eklund & Brusilovsky, 1998; Kurzel, Slay, & Hagenus, 2003; Martinez, 2000; Sampson, Karagiannidis, & Kinshuk, 2002; Voigt & Swatman, 2003) as the key challenge for the learning technologists. According to Kurzel (2004) the tailoring of e-learning applications can have an impact on content and how it's accesses; the media forms used; method of instruction employed and the learning styles supported. This paper will report on a research project currently underway at the eCentre in University of Greenwich which is exploring different approaches and methodologies to create an e-learning platform with personalisation built-in. This personalisation is proposed to be set from different levels of within the system starting from being guided by the information that the user inputs into the system down to the lower level of being set using information inferred by the system's processing engine.

Is "e-skilling" deskilling?

This paper takes forward the discussion for the development of a Framework for e-Learning. It briefly describes how the discussion has progressed from the suggested development of a Framework and the findings of a study investigating the use of Blended Learning, to the application of PESTE factors from Sociology and the proposal of new PESTE factors for educational software and e-Learning, asking if the current use of Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) is leading to the deskilling of professions, by the provision of direct, front-line service applications and the implications for e-Learning.

Is "e-skilling e-nabling" or deskilling?

This paper takes forward the discussion for the development of a Framework for e-Learning. It briefly describes how the discussion has progressed from the suggested development of a Framework and the findings of a study investigating the use of Blended Learning, to the application of PESTE factors from Sociology and the proposal of new PESTE factors for educational software and e-Learning, asking if the current use of Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) is leading to the deskilling of professions, by the provision of direct, front-line service applications and the implications for e-Learning.

The impact on students of coursework assessment deadlines and penalties

The use by students of an e-learning system that enhances traditional learning in a large university computing school where there are clear assessment deadlines and severe penalties for late submission of coursework is examined to assess the impact of changes to the deadline model on the way students use the system and on the results they achieve. It is demonstrated that the grade a student achieves is partly dependent on the time before the deadline when the work is completed - in general, students who submit earlier gain higher grades. Possible reasons for this are explored. Analysis of the data from a range of different implementations of deadline policies is presented. Suggestions are made on how to minimise any possible negative impact of the assessment policy on the student's overall learning.

Developing a framework for e-learning revisited

In this paper we revisit a study on e-Learning and suggestions for developing a framework for e-Learning. The original study in 2005 looked at e-Learning, specifically e-Tutoring and the issues that surround it. However, re-examining these findings led to the realization that whilst most courses were not fully "e" many were in essence using Blended Learning to varying degrees. It is concluded that the encroachment of a Blended Learning approach has been an indirect consequence of the extension and enhancement of in-house course management technologies now employed. The pros and cons of the situation are identified and discussed. In addition, we summarize the positions of participants of the workshop on Developing a Framework for e-Learning.

Coursework uploads and zero-tolerance deadlines

Clear assessment deadlines and severe penalties for late submission of coursework are a feature of a number of UK universities. This presents a severe challenge for any online upload system. Evidence from a range of different implementations at the School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences at the University of Greenwich over the past few years is examined to assess the impact of a zero-tolerance deadline policy on the way students work and the problems that arise. Suggestions are made on how to minimise any possible negative impact of a zero-tolerance deadline policy on the administration of the system and on staff and students.

Effective e-moderation in e-courses

E-learning promises people the ability to learn at a time and place to suit their needs. However, we frequently assume they can automatically adapt to an online environment. This is not the case. They need focussed support on their journey of development from e-user to e-learner. However, many fail to complete this journey. It is essential we identify how best to support them if we are to fully realise the potential of e-learning. This paper builds on previous research and presents an e-moderation activity model for tutor-led courses.

The knowledge is out there

Review Essay. On Bourdieu, education and society, by Derek Robbins, Oxford, The Bardwell Press, 2006, 596 pp., £75, ISBN 0-95-486836-6. Bringing knowledge back in, from social constructivism to social realism in the sociology of education, by Michael Young, London, Routledge, 2008, 247 pp.,£23.99, ISBN 9-78-041532-121-1. Personal knowledge, towards a post-critical philosophy, by Michael Polanyi, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1962, 428 pp., £18.99, ISBN 0-22-667288-3.

(Un)veiling desire: re-defining relationships between gendered adult education subjects and adult education programmes

My underlying argument, in this paper, is that conceptualisations of power as a commodity, through which the 'disempowered-as-illiterate' subject moves towards becoming an 'empowered-as-literate' subject, forces constructs of identities into a powerful/powerless dichotomy which does not always do justice to diverse experiences. The claimed 'empowering' intentions of adult education programme and policy practice may, in reality, contribute to the dominance of restrictive disciplining and regulatory discursive practices. Moving away from emancipatory trajectories of adult education programmes that allege only liberation from domination, through 'literacy', can promise freedom points to another position of hope. Drawing on Foucauldian analysis, I explore sites of resistance as possibilities of transforming 'structures of understanding' at different levels. Officially validated and recognised transformations, in adult education programme as well as policy understandings, of the 'illiterate' subject may also hope to include choices in postures of autonomy (see Spivak 1996) made by programme participants in other 'fields' of socio-cultural practice linked to their material realities. Subsequently, 'empowerment' of the 'illiterate Indian village woman' cannot solely be imagined as a product of laws, policies and institutional discursive practices (see, for example, Gouws 2005; Rai 2003 on gender mainstreaming and Mosse 2005 on aid policy and practice). The 'illiterate Indian village woman' represented as a site of resistance, throughout this paper, displaces homogeneous representations of the 'illiterate' which situate her in the role of 'dependent' or 'victim', as failed attempts to rob her of her historical and political agency (Mohanty 1996). Through narrating other 'images' of refusal in my ethnographic vignettes, I hope to recognise different individuals' sense of agency, at all levels, as embedded in and evolving through forms of collective action that activate differences in order to develop possibilities and sustain hope for transforming historically rooted discursive practices of inequality. I provide ethnographic accounts of resisting 'literacy' programme participants, based in different villages in Bihar (Northern India), as accounts of resistance impacted on by notions of norms, translating and interpreting Others, networks and empowerment.

Accelerating innovation in the built environment by research and education

Awareness of climate change and adaptations of building stock play a key role in the UK government’s environmental agenda. While some European countries and countries like Japan move forward by bringing their sustainability agenda to the public sector, the UK seems to be slow in embracing these ideas and long term sustainability in improved products and processes for better performance, efficiency and innovative application of renewable technology is yet to come. While funding remains a major constraint research show that a number of detrimental issues including; organisation, risk, mind sets of the stakeholders, planning constraints, reluctance to accept change and the unexploited markets are major contributing factors. Most of these barriers can be overcome with research, development and information and knowledge transfer techniques. Educating all stakeholders can act as an accelerator for innovation. This paper examines innovation in the built environment and how research and education can stimulate this process. It explores drivers and barriers for innovation and how research and education in construction, design, engineering and project management can enhance this process. It presents and discusses lessons learnt from two action research projects in relation to innovation.

New public management of Higher education, Foucault and power

The theory of New Public Management (NPM) suggest that one of the features of advanced liberal rule is the tendency to define social, economic and political issues as problems to be solved through management. This paper argues that the restructuring of Higher Education (HE) in many Western countries since the 1980s has involved a shift from an emphasis on administration and policy to one of its efficient management. Utilising Foucault’s concept of governmentality rather than the liberal discourse of management as a politically neutral technology, managerialism can be seen as a newly emergent and increasingly rationalised disciplinary regime of governmentalising practices in advanced liberalism. As such the contemporary University as an institution governed by NPM can be demonstrated to have emerged not as the direct outcome of democratic policies that have rationalised its activities (so that the emancipatory aims of personal development, an educated workforce and of true research can be fully realised), nor can it be understood as the instrument through which individuals or self-realising classes are defeated through the calculations of the state acting on behalf of economic interests, rather it can be seen as the contingent and intractable outcome of the complex power/knowledge relations of advanced liberalism. I analyse the interlocking of the ‘tutor-subject’ and ‘student-subject’ as a local enacting of policy discourse informed by the NPM of HE that reshapes subjectivity and retunes the relationship between tutor and student. I put forward suggestions for how resistance to these new modes of disciplinary subjectification can be enacted.