OVERVIEW OF COMPLETED AND ONGOING E-LEARNING RESERCH PROJECTS

1. OVERVIEW OF COMPLETED AND ONGOING E-LEARNING RESERCH PROJECTS Presenter: Sophie Mgaiwa

2. Objectives: • Describe the background for introducing E-Learning at UDSM • Describe features of E-Learning • Describe E-Learning initiatives at UDSM (E-Learning Projects) • Identify weaknesses in completed and Ongoing Projects • Requirements for E-Learning • Required resources • Required structures • Required Strategies • Required Policies • E-Learning research agenda

3. Background • Tanzania is unable to meet the developmental goals of the new millennium. The ever increasing population growth means that those seeking access to education at all levels; primary, secondary, and tertiary will also increase. • The government made an effort to improve access to primary and secondary education by expanding pupils’ enrolment through the Primary Education Development Plan (PEDP) and the Secondary Education Development Plan (SEDP) which started in 2001 and 2004 respectively

4. Background cont. • The introduction of these initiatives, although very worthy, has exacerbated the challenges faced by Higher education institutions in Tanzania • Higher education institutions are not expanding enough to accommodate the increasing number of students who are the output of these projects due to the limited resources required to expand teaching facilities.

5. Currently only 30% of qualified high school leavers are able to join universities every year (MSTHE, 2004). This is due to a number of factors: demand in education exceeds the institutions’ capacity to deliver; increasing costs of quality higher education in overseas countries;

6. Why E-Learning at UDSM • To increase access to affordable, flexible and quality education UDSM thought of introduction of E- Learning • E-Learning is a viable means of delivering educational material at distance and residential

7. Features of E-Learning • Gives more people access to education • Theoretically allows access to content anywhere and at any time • Permits convenient and flexible learning • Learners may study at their own pace • Gives access to the latest information world wide • Content is more interactive and engaging • Learners do not depend on lecturers to deliver content • Reduces training costs

8. University of Dar es salaam • Main public university in Tanzania which admits about 18,000 out of 46,296 admitted to all universities in the country • University has 1,200 staff (academic, technical and administrative). • There are over 50 programs offered, ranging from Certificate to Doctoral qualifications.

9. In 2007 the government of Tanzania established a public University in Dodoma (University of Dodoma) which is charged to enroll 40,000 students. When fully operational; however this may not be possible in the immediate future and, hence, UDSM is liable to remain the leading university

10. E-Learning initiative at UDSM • In 1998 the UDSM embarked on a Technology Enhanced Independent Learning (TEIL) program to integrate ICT in teaching and learning with an objective to provide an independent learning environment. This program, established an E-Learning platform (Blackboard), created some student ICT laboratories in faculties, with the aim of increasing access to the learning platform. • In 2001 UDSM established the Instructional Technology Resources Unit (ITRU) as a continuation of the TEIL program aimed to incorporate pedagogical aspects in E-Learning. The activities performed by ITRU include staff training in the best use of ICT in E-Learning related education.

11. In order to improve Internet accessibility UDSM has increased bandwidth from 256kbps/512 kbps to 1Mbps/2Mbps for academic use. Also, UDSM has recently upgraded the active components in order to enhance the network connectivity. The purpose being to enable staff and students to get better access to information within and outside the UDSM network . • The implementation of ITRU project has established video conferencing facilities to enable concurrent teaching and learning on campus at the moment and beyond in the near future. • The University has established a digital library through the University main library and is accessible from within and outside the university network. The digital library is a major catalyst for ODEL mode of delivery of academic programs.

12. UDSM was among the Universities in Africa providing AVU/RMIT on-line computer science programs and is also participating in offering AVU/CURTIN programs in business studies at degree and diploma levels. • UDSM is one of the three Universities in Africa that has been selected to pilot Web-lab/iLab technology from the MIT (USA). This technology promotes web-based education for lab-based courses.

13. The University is the secretariat and is spearheading the Tanzania Education Network (TENET) where all higher institutions of learning in Tanzania are looking for effective use of ICT to improve the environment for learning, teaching, research and public services. Its objective is to build a foundation for the creation of a knowledge society in Tanzania through sharing of knowledge, experiences and resources. Among other issues to be resolved by TENET is the Internet bandwidth that is also a crucial issue for on-line education. • The University, as a Lead Secretariat, has been coordinating a project conceived by the Consortium of Donor Support comprising four agencies (Ford Foundation, Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Macarthur), funded by the later and which was looking into modalities to provide adequate and affordable bandwidth to African Universities

14. Weaknesses in completed Project • concreted efforts made to integrate ICT in teaching became dormant. - E-Learning platform (Blackboard) and students ICT laboratories introduced by TEIL became dormant as no courses were delivered using this platform. -Even though some lecturers placed their courseware on the Blackboard E-Learning platform the facility has not been fully utilised. Hence, UDSM is currently supporting face-to-face teaching only. - Video conferencing facilities implemented as part of ITRU project became dormant too.

15. Running external programs at the University was a temporary solution and will not solve the entire enrolment problem. Therefore, there is a need to consider other ways of increasing access to higher education by delivering programs established by the UDSM to a number of students electronically

16. Reasons for the weaknesses( GAP) • The reason behind this is that there was no appropriate model (structure, strategies, resources and policies) to develop and deliver E-Learning programs at UDSM

17. Required Structures • Organisational Structures and Processes - CVL should be established as the core entity within the UDSM structure to enables maximum quality with minimal redundancy and cost -Accommodate more flexible student centred managed processes into organisational structures as E-Learning students will require new e-tools and practices to be in place to enhance and support their learning.

18. Required Structures cont. • The continued adoption of pedagogically sound E-Learning tools and practices within Faculties will require support and co-ordination at the Faculty level therefore there should be an E-Learning coordinator in every faculty to link the faculty with CVL. • Studying in an online environment requires computer and internet access to learning materials. Therefore, the regional ODEL centre should be established to give students access to computers and the internet.

19. Required Expertise • For E-Learning to be implemented successfully both academic and technical/technological staff should have special E-Learning expertise. Special Expertise will also be required by learners (students)

20. Required expertise by Technical/technological staff • Different set of skills are required to carry out projected E-learning tasks. • There should be Instructional designers to act as course developers who provide both technical and pedagogical approaches that are effective to support students’ independent learning • Other technical and professional staff such as web programmers and multimedia producers will be required to produce multimedia course contents • There should also be people who support maintenance of computer hardware and software and hardware and other ICT equipment at all times

21. Required Expertise by Academic staff • A critical factor underpinning either the success or failure of any E-Learning is the preparation and enthusiasm demonstrated by the academic staff (Raymond, 2000). • Academic staff who will be delivering ODEL programs they need to play different roles which require more skills compared to those needed for face to face delivery.

22. Competencies required by the academic Competencies required to support E-Learning can be divided into competencies prior to the start of a course, competencies required during the course and competencies an academic staff must posses after the course delivery (Palloff & Pratt, 2001).

23. Competencies prior to the start of a course • Academic staff members involved in the delivery of E-Learning courses must firstly have a mastery of the subject being taught. They must also be able to effectively create an E-Learning syllabus that meets the course requirements and effectively use whatever technology has been selected for the course.

24. Competence duringthe delivery of the course • Transit from their current role into the role of facilitator and overall manager of the course • Develop an E-Learning community by promoting collaborative learning and encourage contacts between students and faculty Integrate students into the institution and its culture • Maintain the momentum of the course • Properly perform online students’ evaluation

25. Competencies required by students • E-Learning students should also be conversant with the specified technology before the start of the course so that they can easily access the contents and perform different tasks in the learning process using technology

26. Required resources • Human resource • CVL requires sufficient staff and appropriate diversity of skills. Staff numbers should depend on the programs being offered by the University • E-Learning staff should posses the capacity to generate high quality work and posses the multi-disciplinary capacity as many jobs will need the integration of various skills • Training and development of staff is considered to be very important to make sure that the appropriate human resource is maintained, staff should be trained in order to improve skills, improve confidence and create positive attitudes.

27. Required resources cont. • Technical/technological infrastructure - The existing infrastructure can be expanded and /or added to accommodate the required ICT infrastructure for E-Learning. The capacity and quantity of technological should consider the changing needs of students, the pedagogy that must be applied to the content and the services required to meet these needs

28. Financial Resource (Funding) Appropriate funding will be needed to build the infrastructures required; there should be an initial (seed) funding for the development and core funding for 5 to 10 years as appropriate to ensure continuity and longer-term research.

29. Required strategies • Reuse of E-Learning contents consider the reusability of content through the creation of learning objects. However, the focus on learning objects (LO should be on Generative LO (GLO) instead of Reusable learning objects (RLO). GLO have the following features: - Productivity: Creating new content based on existing patterns -Adaptability: Learning objects are easy to adapt into new contexts

30. Use of Open source software • Consider use of open source software which can be customised to fit specific context of the University of Dar es salaam. This is because Universities in developing countries like Tanzania cannot afford high costs of commercial software.

31. Criteria for choosing open source software • Features and functionality The software should be selected based on its functionality, it should be analysed to determine its robustness, reliability, scalability and consider if it includes all the teaching tools needed to allow learning to take place effectively. • Cost of Ownership Cost is also incurred to own free open source software. When selecting an LMS the cost, ease and duration of its implementation should be considered. • Maintainability look at its maintainability to see how long it will take to maintain and administer at both server and program level, if processes automated can be easily integrated with other systems and determine whether the software can run on the platform in which the University already has excellent expertise. The source code should be examined to determine its openness and its format in which they are designed for easy modification and creation of new custom modules

32. Required Policies There should be an institutional E-Learning policy to provide guidelines that will promote the development of E-Learning at the University of Dar es salaam. The policy should be the basis for which the University of Dar es salaam can adopt the standardised and structured approach of using new technology in daily activities.

33. Features of E-Learning policy The Institutional policy should: • Define how the implementation of E-Learning is intended to confront challenges such as limitations on resources, increased cost of education and limited physical facilities available. • Justify why E-Learning has to be implemented. The policy should state that E-Learning will be used as an approach or mechanism to achieve learning objectives and ensure the highest possible quality of education that is provided.

34. Features of E-Learning Policy cont. • Address the existing barriers to the implementation of E-Learning such as bandwidth or adaption of new methods of teaching technologies that are more facilitative by the academic staff • Support structure for E-Learning by supporting the establishment of CVL to build and support E-Learning standards as well as building E-Learning capacity. • Describe how E-Learning standards for the UDSM will be defined and adhered to in order to guide the development of E-Learning contents, structuring of programmes and the technology that will be used to support E-learning

35. Development of an E-Learning research Agenda • The implementation of E-Learning is a new arena for most higher education Institution. Different studies have showed challenges faced by institutions to implement E-Learning. Therefore, further studies are needed. • in order to plan and direct research and evaluate its outcomes, a research agenda shouldsets out a list of proposed research activities based on some rationale • Priorities is based on such rationales, institutional mandates, strengths/interests, funding opportunities and other circumstances.

36. Identified research • The advancement of ICT will affect the delivery to developing countries such as Tanzania. Constraints associated with these technologies should be identified and possible solutions should be formulated and tested. • Innovative ways of using technology to increase learner participation and improve quality of education provided. • Effective instructional design for different E-Learning environments (just in time, place-independent, on demand learning). • The use of cellular telephone technology to support and enhance E-Learning. • Best ways of acquiring competencies required by E-Learning instructors (formal training, on the job internship, collaborative reflection and discussion, or some combination thereof).