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The aim of this project was to achieve a better understanding of how eLearning is evolving in South African higher education institutions and to ensure that emerging eLearning practices are taken into account in the Higher Education Quality Committee's quality assurance processes – programme accreditation, institutional audit, and quality promotion. Tessa Welch reports:
Establishing an informed base for the project
Three steps were necessary to establish the project on a firm footing:
- Agreement on terminology to be used, and fundamental classification of types of eLearning.
One of the problems in the eLearning environment is the plethora of terms used and the lack of agreement on preferred terms. The term eLearning has mainly been used in the project because this is the preferred term internationally, and the definitions of eLearning and selected related terms were taken from the South African White Paper on e-Education (2004):
Information and communication technologies (ICTs) represent the convergence of information technology and communication technology. ICTs are the combination of networks, hardware and software as well as the means of communication, collaboration and engagement that enable the processing, management and exchange of data, information and knowledge.
eLearning is flexible learning using ICT resources, tools and applications, focusing on
- accessing information,
- interaction among teachers, learners, and the online environment,
- collaborative learning, and
- production of materials, resources and learning experiences.
eLearning may involve the use of Internet, CD-ROM, software, other media and telecommunications.
Online learning refers more specifically to the use of the Internet and associated web-based applications as the delivery medium for the learning experience.
In addition, however, the following distinctions between different types of online learning/eLearning were adopted from the Commonwealth Department of Education and Science, namely:
- web-supplemented
- web-dependent, and
- fully online courses.
It was also important to establish the existing regulatory framework for higher education in South Africa. If further specific measures were to be considered for eLearning, the framework for these would need to be understood.
Through interviews with key Department of Education staff and Higher Education Quality Assurance Committee personnel on eLearning issues as well as a review of relevant regulations, a description of the current regulatory framework in South African higher education was prepared. This document demonstrated that further regulation specifically for eLearning would be adding to an already extensive regulatory framework and would have to be strongly justified.
The third important piece of background work was to investigate the literature on eLearning and on approaches to the regulation of eLearning internationally.
Firstly, we conducted a literature review on the types of learning enabled by online environments. The methods employed were: an extensive search of the World Wide Web; a search of the SAIDE resource centre; and a systematic follow-up of key research texts related to learning in hypertext modality. The literature review is a broad scan of research that has been conducted locally and internationally on instructional technologies in higher education, particularly information and communication technologies. It presents a brief analysis of various research studies and scholarly publications examined, focusing on the main trends identified in that research and identifying some gaps in the body of literature consulted.
Secondly, we prepared a document entitled: Comparing Regulatory Frameworks in the Terrain of eLearning Internationally: What are the Important Issues? We found that the most useful examples were the following:
From the comparative analysis we found agreement on the following issues that could be the subject of regulation:
A. Pedagogy
B. Educational design
C. Student support
D. Evaluation
E. Staffing
F. Institutional management
G. Technology
E. Cross-border delivery of eLearning
The question remained open, however, as to whether further regulation would be helpful in the South African higher education context.
Overview of current practice in eLearning in South Africa
The next set of tasks in the process was to obtain an understanding of current eLearning practice in South Africa – beyond the general concerns already mentioned above.
SAIDE had previously been involved in an investigation into distance higher education commissioned by the CHE in 2003/2004 and was aware that much of the interest in eLearning had emerged from that process. Through examination of the stakeholders' submissions to the CHE Task Team in the course of that investigation, the position of the various institutions on the use of ICTs in teaching and learning was identified. In addition, the findings of a parallel study Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and South African Higher Education: Mapping the Landscape was consulted, particularly with regard to national policies. The information gained from these two pieces of existing research was corroborated/supplemented by information gathered in 2005 through a questionnaire administered to higher education institutions to elicit information on the existence of eLearning policies and research within the institutions.
Following on from this, we developed four short case studies of eLearning practices in South African higher education. The aim was to gain insights into issues that have a bearing on the question of quality in eLearning. We selected courses or programmes at four institutions – the universities of South Africa, the North West, Johannesburg and the Free State.
A further product from this process was a document with six pen sketches of practice in South African higher education institutions prepared using not only the data gathered from the four case studies but also data from the examination of stakeholder submissions. The purpose of the pen sketches is to provide a quick picture of six different institutional approaches to the use of ICTs for teaching and learning. Simply reading definitions of practice is not always illuminating: sometimes examples of practice are needed as well.
A regulatory framework for eLearning in South Africa?
In order to review the work thus far and seek advice from eLearning practitioners, a workshop was held on 13 and 14 February 2006. The stated purpose of the workshop was:
- To identify for the HEQC's consideration, a set of eLearning quality issues requiring regulation or inclusion in self-evaluation questions for higher education institutions, and to recommend to the HEQC the form that the regulation and/or guidelines should take.
The workshop participants were strongly opposed to specific regulation of eLearning. The conclusions drawn at, and after the workshop, were that issues of quality in eLearning can be dealt with in the context of existing regulatory principles, criteria and standards, and that in relation to HEQC audit and programme accreditation a more useful approach would be to prepare notes for the interpretation of the existing HEQC criteria rather than to suggest additions/revisions to the criteria for eLearning or create any further regulatory documents.
After comment from HEQC staff and workshop participants, the following two documents were produced:
- Notes for the interpretation of the HEQC Criteria for Programme Accreditation for the use of ICTs for teaching and learning.
- Notes for the interpretation of the HEQC Criteria for Institutional Audit for the use of ICTs for teaching and learning.
In addition at the workshop, participants commented on the integration of eLearning issues into the draft Good Practice Guide for Distance Education prepared for another HEQC project, and to be published as one in the series of HEQC Good Practice Guides. However, workshop participants recommended that consideration be given to the publication of a set of HEQC resources on eLearning specifically (rather than only as related to distance education) to assist with institutional capacity building around ICT issues.
Finally, workshop participants stated strongly that the use of ICTs in higher education has to be dealt with systemically. Discussion pointed out that three different regulatory contexts impact on the educational use of technology – the educational sector itself which is primarily concerned with teaching and learning, the national ICT infrastructure with associated policy/regulations, and societal issues such as the ‘commodification of knowledge' and the impact of the so-called ‘information society'. It was therefore recommended that:
- The CHE consider convening a task team of people with expertise in the three related systems to look at how the regulatory frameworks articulate, and how together they can serve the goal of improved and more equitable higher education to provide equitable access to the whole sector.
Students and eLearning
The final dimension to be covered by the project was that of student literacy.
If there is a need for institutional capacity building on the issue of eLearning, there is also a need for students to understand various of the ways in which ICTs are used for teaching and learning, and issues to be mindful of in the selection of courses and institutions for eLearning.
Hence the final part of this project was to prepare copy for a simple guide to eLearning, with some tips about how to choose a quality programme.
For documents that emerged from the project, please contact Barbara Morrow at the CHE.
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