Analyses of European megaproviders of e-learning

Analyses of European Megaproviders of E-learning by ` Per Arneberg, Lourdes Guardia, Desmond Keegan, Jüri Lõssenko, Ildikó Mázár, Pedro Fernández Michels, Morten Flate Paulsen, Torstein Rekkedal, ` Jan Atle Toska, Dénes Zarka Albert Sangra,

Analyses of European megaproviders of e-learning by Per Arneberg, Lourdes Guàrdia, Desmond Keegan, Jüri Lõssenko, Ildikó Mázár, Pedro Fernández Michels, Morten Flate Paulsen, Torstein Rekkedal, Albert Sangrà, Jan Atle Toska and Dénes Zarka

Analyses of European megaproviders of e-learning

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Š Megatrends Project 2007 1st edition.

Publisher: NKI Publishing House, Hans Burumsvei 30, N-1357 Bekkestua, Norway P.O. Box 111, N-1319 Bekkestua, Norway Telephone: +47 67 58 88 00/ +47 67 58 89 00 Fax: +47 67 58 19 02 E-mail: fapost@nki.no Homepage: www.nkiforlaget.no Project Homepage: www.nettskolen.com/in_english/megatrends/ Copyright Š Megatrends Project 2007. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission.

This publication was produced with funding from the Leonardo da Vinci programme of the European Commission. The sole responsibility for the content of this report lies with the authors. The Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.

ISBN 978 82 562 68191

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Analyses of European megaproviders of e-learning

Contents Foreword .................................................................................................................................... 4 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 5 Important factors for robustness and sustainability in online education................................ 7 Interviews and rating.............................................................................................................. 9 Preliminary conclusions ....................................................................................................... 11 Historical factors ...................................................................................................................... 13 History.................................................................................................................................. 15 Competence.......................................................................................................................... 19 Evolutionary development ................................................................................................... 23 Research and evaluation....................................................................................................... 27 Conclusion............................................................................................................................ 31 Technical factors ...................................................................................................................... 38 Competence in ICT .............................................................................................................. 40 Standard technologies .......................................................................................................... 44 Integrated ICT systems......................................................................................................... 48 Effective administrative systems.......................................................................................... 54 Course factors........................................................................................................................... 59 General observations ............................................................................................................ 61 The range of subjects and levels .......................................................................................... 64 The choice of topics ............................................................................................................. 67 Flexible start-up and progression ......................................................................................... 71 Focus on asynchronous communication .............................................................................. 75 Conclusion............................................................................................................................ 81 Management factors ................................................................................................................. 82 Introduction, summary of general observations................................................................... 83 Support from top management ............................................................................................. 86 Enthusiastic employees ........................................................................................................ 88 Strategies that support online education............................................................................... 90 Focus on quality ................................................................................................................... 97 Effective administrative routines ......................................................................................... 98 Predictable and manageable teacher workload .................................................................. 101 Collaboration with other institutions.................................................................................. 104 High credibility with government and public administration ............................................ 106 Industrialization.................................................................................................................. 108 Economical factors................................................................................................................. 111 Cost effectiveness............................................................................................................... 115 Stable and predictable income............................................................................................ 117 Pressure on change ............................................................................................................. 119 Flexible employment.......................................................................................................... 121 Conclusion.......................................................................................................................... 123 Additional factors................................................................................................................... 124 Conclusion.......................................................................................................................... 125 Recommendations for robust and sustainable large-scale e-learning .................................... 127 Appendix 1. Interview guide for case studies in the Megatrends project .............................. 144 References .............................................................................................................................. 146 About the authors ................................................................................................................... 147

Analyses of European megaproviders of e-learning

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Foreword This is one of four books published as a result of the Leonardo da Vinci project “Megatrends in e-learning provision”.

The first book, The Provision of e-learning in the European Union (ISBN 978 82 562 68177) presents data gathered from Norway and the 25 members of the European Union as an introductory overview of the provision of e-learning in Europe.

The second book, Megaproviders of e-learning in Europe (ISBN 978 82 562 88184), includes 26 case study articles of European megaproviders of e-learning.

The third book, E-learning initiatives that did not reach targeted goals (ISBN 978 82 562 68276), provides case study articles and analyses of nine prestigious European e-learning initiatives that did not reach their targeted goals.

The fourth book, Analyses of European megaproviders of e-learning (ISBN 978 82 562 68191), presents important success factors identified by the in-depth analyses of both the megaproviders and the discontinued initiatives identified in the project.

All four books, a comprehensive bibliography and a set of recommendations can be downloaded free of charge from the project’s web-site at: www.nettskolen.com/in_english/megatrends The partners in the ‘Megatrends in e-learning provision’ project are: • • • • • • •

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NKI Fjernundervisning (NKI Distance Education), Bekkestua, Norway Distance Education International, Dublin, Ireland Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (The Open University of Catalonia), Barcelona, Spain Eesti Infotehnoloogia Sihtasutus, (Estonian Information Technology Foundation), Tallinn, Estonia Norgesuniversitetet (Norwegian Opening Universities), Tromsø, Norway European Distance and E-Learning Network, Milton Keynes, UK Budapesti Műszaki és Gazdaságtudományi Egyetem (Budapest University of Technology and Economics), Budapest, Hungary

Analyses of European megaproviders of e-learning

Introduction

By Morten Flate Paulsen Successful online education should be robust and sustainable. It is therefore of great concern that too much of the online education that has been offered so far has been transient, unsuccessful and far from sustainable. Several examples of online education initiatives that have not been robust and sustainable are described in the article Online Education Obituaries (Paulsen 2003a). The examples are organized according to the following statements: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Many governmental online education initiatives have not been sustainable Online education consortia are often not sustainable Many commercial and investor-driven online education initiatives have failed Boardroom initiatives often fail Several high profile international ventures have been discontinued because of an unhealthy economy

The Megatrends project took its name from the article A Personal View on Future Online Education (Paulsen 2003c). This article argues that the current megatrend shows clearly that online education is shifting from small-scale experiments to large-scale, mainstream operation.

Online education initiatives that are not robust and sustainable might be acceptable in smallscale experiments, but not in large-scale mainstream operations. Therefore, it is important to identify factors that contribute to robustness and sustainability in online education.

The author’s first attempt to identify some factors of robustness and sustainability was through case studies of NKI Distance Education (Paulsen and Rekkedal 2001, Paulsen 2003b). In these case studies, the following twelve reasons for the NKI success were suggested.

1. NKI is an institution with high competence in both distance education and information technology. Both competencies have been pivotal for the development of online education.

2. Some NKI enthusiasts have always believed in online education and over many years made invaluable contributions to the Internet College.

3. NKI has been careful to only adopt standard and widely-used technology. This practice enables students to apply the software and hardware they have at their disposal with little need to buy additional equipment.

4. Students’ time flexibility has always been a focal point for NKI. It has been committed to asynchronous communication and deliberately avoided synchronous communication technologies. Communication should take place when it suits the student, not the institution.

5. After some years experience with paced courses starting twice a year, NKI made a strategic choice to focus on individual start-up and progression. The choice was based on student surveys, much internal discussion, and pilot courses that showed increasing enrolment. Hence, NKI students may start a course whenever they want and follow their individual pace of progression.

Analyses of European megaproviders of e-learning

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6. Tuition fees pay for development and operation of NKI courses, so NKI has to provide cost-effective courses. The focus is on much learning for the money.

7. The Department of Research and Development has conducted continuous research and evaluation of online education, and has accumulated knowledge and competence in online education. In addition, the Department has conducted or participated in a number of R&D projects financed externally by Norwegian and European governmental sources.

8. NKI is flexible, with little rigidity compared to public colleges. It has a number of times shown that it is capable of rapid adjustment. The employees have shown the ability to detect new trends and adapt to the changing market. This may be due to the fact that NKI has continuous enrolment and therefore experiences changes in market demands earlier than institutions that offer enrolment only once or twice a year.

9. NKI covers a wide range of subjects and levels. It is not dependent on having in-house competence in all subject areas; it has a long tradition of collaboration with other educational institutions and engaging faculty from other institutions to participate in the development and teaching of courses.

10. NKI has over many years developed high credibility with the government and public administration. It has been committed to achieving approval for public credits, certificates, and student loans.

11. NKI has chosen not to separate the Internet College from the Department of Distance Education. It has deliberately chosen to gradually enhance the online education competence for all employees in the Distance Education Department.

12. NKI has continuously focused on evolutionary development of the Internet College and the administrative systems that support it. Consequently, NKI has had more effective administrative systems than its competitors and at the same time people with high competence on these systems.

The hypothesis of the Megatrends project is that it is possible to detect specific conditions that increase the possibility of success and sustainability of e-learning programmes. Sustainability is defined as programmes being offered on a continuous basis and not phased out after a defined project period or after specific subsidies are terminated. The work undertaken within the partnership in the project application hence suggested that important factors for robustness and sustainability were: 1. high competence in both distance education and information technology; 2. enthusiastic employees who believe firmly in online education; 3. standard and widely-used technologies; 4. focus on asynchronous communication 5. individual student start-up and progression; 6. cost-effective courses (much learning for the money); 7. continuous research and evaluation; 8. flexibility to adapt to the changing market; 9. wide range of subjects and levels; 10. collaboration with other educational institutions; 11. high credibility with the government and public administration; 12. evolutionary development and effective administrative systems.

These factors were discussed and refined at the Megatrends project partner meeting in Barcelona, April 19 2006 and finalized at the project partner meeting in Budapest, September 26 2006, according to the experiences with the first case studies.

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Analyses of European megaproviders of e-learning

Important factors for robustness and sustainability in online education The final list of factors for robustness and sustainability in online education is sorted so that related factors are grouped together as 5 contextual and 25 institutional factors. An opportunity for finding additional factors is also included. The institutional factors are hence organized under the following headings: • • • • • •

Historical factors Technical factors Course factors Management, strategy and attitudes Economical factors Additional factors

The project partners expected that the factors could be hard to measure. The factors therefore were transformed to a set of interview questions that was used in the interview guide showed in Appendix 1. In that way, the list of factors was used in the interview guide and as hypotheses in the further analyses of the mega providers.

The analyses carried out in this report are based on the 25 interview transcripts conducted with European Megaproviders of online education. The interview transcripts are available in full via one of the project’s web pages (www.nettskolen.com/in_english/megatrends/workpackage4.html). All the interview transcripts have also been edited into case study articles and published in the book, Megaproviders of E-learning in Europe. The book is available in full at www.nettskolen.com/in_english/megatrends/Book2.pdf The interviews represented 8 distance education institutions, 12 institutions characterized as universities, colleges or consortia, and finally 5 corporate training providers. Hence, in this book, the project partners analyse the case studies according to the matrix model presented in Table 1 below. One side of the matrix is institutional clusters and the other is factors from the interview guide.

Table 1. Matrix of factor categories and institution types

Distance education institutions

Universities, colleges and consortia

Corporate training providers

Historical factors Technical factors Course factors Management factors Economical factors Additional factors

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Contextual factors 1. Market size (depending on country population, language used) 2. Market readiness (penetration, technology infrastructure, broadband availability) to use online technology (differences between countries) 3. Target group acceptance of e-learning (preference, reputation, legislation) 4. Digital literacy in population 5. National policy (national funding schemes)

Institutional factors Historical factors 1. long history and tradition of dealing with distance education; 2. high competence and tradition in online education; 3. evolutionary step-by-step development and scalability; 4. continuing research and evaluation related to online education; Technical factors 5. high competence in information and communication technology (ICT); 6. standard and widely-used technologies; 7. well integrated ICT systems that support online education; 8. effective administrative systems Course factors 9. wide range of subjects and levels that are attractive to students and lead to employment; 10. wise choice of topics, courses, and programs that are onlineable; 11. flexible student start-up and progression; 12. students' time flexibility leads to asynchronous communication and little focus on synchronous communication technologies; Management, strategy and attitude factors 13. support from top management; 14. enthusiastic employees who believe in online education (little resistance); 15. strategies that support online education and employees that are loyal to the strategy; 16. focus on quality; 17. effective administrative routines; 18. focus on predictable and manageable teacher workload; 19. collaboration with other educational institutions; 20. high credibility (formal and informal) with the government and public administration; 21. some sort of industrialization (division of labour, systemization, automation, rationalization, work flow management); Economical factors 22. cost-effective courses (much learning for the money); 23. stable and predictable sources of income from operation of online education; 24. pressure on the necessity to change to stay in business and flexibility to adapt to the changing market; 25. contracts with part-time tutors and course developers that allow flexible employment and use of staff to adapt to changes in markets;

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Analyses of European megaproviders of e-learning

Interviews and rating The project developed an interview guide (See Appendix 1) with 26 questions based on the factors the project wanted to investigate. The interview guide was used as the basis for the analyses of the identified megaproviders, which are listed in Table 2. All the interview transcripts are available via www.nettskolen.com/in_english/megatrends/workpackage4.html Table 2. Institutions sorted by category and rating Institution name

For short

Country

E-learning since

Public or Private

Category*

Rating

NKI Distance Education

NKI

Norway

1985

Private

D

4.8

Open Universiteit Nederland

OUNL

Netherlands

1987

Public

D

3.9

Dennis Gabor College

GDF

Hungary

2004

Private

D

3.7

UNED – Universidad Nacional de Educaión a Distancia

UNED

Spain

2000

Public

D

3.7

NKS

NKS

Norway

1987

Private

D

4.3

Universitat Oberta de Catalunya

UOC

Spain

1995

Public

D

4.3

Universidade Aberta

Aberta

Portugal

2001

Public

D

3.4

The Open University of the United Kingdom

OUUK

UK

1988

Public

D

4.0

Hungarian Telecom

T-Com

Hungary

1996

Private

C

4.5

ÉLOGOS

ÉLOGOS

Spain

2000

Private

C

4.1

Learn Direct

Learn Direct

UK

1999

Public

C

4.1

EDHEC Business School Lille-Nice

EDHEC

France

2000

Private

C

3.2

CrossKnowledge

CK

France

2000

Private

C

4.0

Staffordshire University

Staffordshire

UK

1997

Public

U

3.8

Scuola IaD, Università di Roma Tor Vergata

ScuolaIaD

Italy

1998

Public

U

3.7

Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

ULPGC

Spain

2002

Public

U

3.7

Virtuelle Hochschule Bayern

BVU

Germany

2000

Public

U

3.6

Oncampus, Fachhochschule Lübeck

Oncampus

Germany

1997

Public

U

3.5

Sør-trøndelag University College

HiST

Norway

1986

Public

U

3.5

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid

UPM

Spain

2000

Public

U

3.5

The University of Leicester

Leicester

UK

2000

Public

U

3.5

The University of Ulster

Ulster

UK

1997

Public

U

3.5

Manchester Metropolitan University

MMU

UK

1995

Public

U

3.3

BI Norwegian School of Management, Distance Education Centre

BI Norway

1990

Private

U

4.1

University of Tartu

Tartu

Estonia

1995

Public

U

3.1

University of Liège

Liège

Belgium

2000

Public

U

na

* D= Distance education institution, U=University, college, or consortium, C= Corporate training provider

The project also developed a rating scheme in which three independent researchers read all the interview transcripts and rated each of the factors on a scale from 5 = very much true to 1 = very little true. The result from the rating process is shown in Table 3 and Figure 1.

Analyses of European megaproviders of e-learning

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Ratings are not available for the Virtual Campus of the University of Liège

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Analyses of European megaproviders of e-learning

3,6 ND 3,3 4,8 3,3 ND 4,8 4,8 4,8 4,8 4,0 4,0 4,4 4,5 4,3 4 4 2,5 3,8 4,0 3,5 3,0 4,0 4,0 4,2 4,1 3,8 3,3 4,8 4,8 3,5 1,8 1,4 1,0 3,0 1,0 4,0 3,8 4,0 2,8 2,8 3,0 4,0 4,0 3,3 3,4 3,3 3,8 2,2 2,3 2,5 4,0 4,8 4,5 4,2 4,0 3,8 3,4 3,0 4,5 3,7 3,8 3,4 3,3 3,4 3,3 5,0 5,0 5,0 5,0 4,8 4,8 4,3 5 3 3,2 3,5 3,3 4,8 4,8 4,0 4,5 4,6 4,0 3,8 3,9 3,6

2,8 2,5 4,3 4,0 5,0 5,0 4,4 4,0 5 5 3,7 1,3 4,5 3,3 4,0 5,0 4,2 3,8 4,3 1,8 3 3,8 4,7 4,3 3,5 ND 4,8 2,0 4,3 3,5 2,3 3,3 4,3 3,0 3,3 4,5 4,0 4,0 4,0 4,5 3,8 4,0 3,8 3,5 5,0 4,3 4,5 3,8 5 2,4 4,0 4,0 5,0 4,4 4,7 3,8 4,1 3,7

Mean value per institution

25. Contracts with part-time tutors & course developers

24. Pressure on the necessity to change

4,2 4,8 3,8 5,0 3,6 5 3,4 4,0 4,2 2,8 4,8 4,8 4,2 4,4 4,6 4,2 3,4 3,8 4,0 5,0 4,3 4,2 3,6 5,0 4 3,8 4,4 4,2 4,2

23. Stable and predictable sources of income from operation

20. High credibility with the government

2,8 2,3 4,2 4,3 4,4 2,3 3,8 2,0 3,3 2,8 4,3 1,8 3,4 2,0 4,4 4,0 3,8 2,4 4,0 4,6 4,8 3,5 4,8 5,0 3,5 4,2 4,2 4,3 3,6

22. Cost-effectiveness

19. Collaboration with other institutions

4,4 4,6 3,6 3,0 5,0 4,0 4,0 3,5 4,6 4,8 5,0 4,6 5,0 5,0 5,0 4,5 4,8 4,8 4 4,8 4 4,3 4 4 3,6 4,0 3,2 3,2 3,0 4,0 4,0 2,0 4,3 4,4 4,1 3,7 5,0 3,3 3,7 2,8 4 4,8 3,5 3,5 4,6 4,2 NA 3,2 4,4 3,8 2,4 3,6 2,8 NA NA NA 4,8 4,8 NA 4,0 3,4 4,2 2,6 3,8 4,0 3,4 2,5 3,0 4,6 4,8 4,2 4,0 3,5 4,0 1,8 4,7 4,4 4,2 3,6 3,0 3,5 3,5 4,3 4,0 4,1 4,1 3,2 3,6 4,6 4,6 4,4 3,0 4,6 4,0 4,6 4,0 2,8 4,3 4,2 4,2 2,6 1,8 3,0 2,0 4,6 4,8 4,6 4,4 3,8 3,9 4,2 3,5 4,1 4,2 3,7 3,6

21. Some sort of industrialization

18. Predictable and manageable teacher workload

4,4 3,6 4,4 4,0 4,6 3,7 2,8 3,0 3,8 4,7 3,2 4,4 4,0 3,6 3,4 4,2 3,6 4,2 3,0 3,0 3,0 3,7 4,3 5,0 4,2 3,6 4,0 4,2 3,8

17. Effective administrative routines

5,0 4,2 4,8 4,7 4,6 4,3 4,6 2,0 4,3 4,5 4,8 4,4 3,8 4,2 4,6 2,2 2,6 4,4 5,0 4,2 4,7 4,1 4,8 4,4 4,8 4,6 5,0 4,7 4,3

16. Focus on quality

4,5 5,0 5,0 5,0 4,8 4,3 4,0 4,0 4,6 4,5 4,3 4,3 2,3 3,3 4,0 4,3 3,3 4,3 4,0 4,8 4,0 3,9 2,3 2,3 3 4,3 4,4 3,2 4,0

15. Strategies that support online education

13. Support from top management

4,3 1,5 4,5 1,0 3,5 1,3 3,0 1,0 2,5 1,0 1 1,8 1,5 1,3 1,0 1,3 2,0 3,8 4,5 2,3 1,0 1,9 5,0 5,0 5 1,8 4,8 4,3 2,6

14. Enthusiastic employees

12. Focus on asynchronous communication

4,0 4,0 4,8 4,0 4,5 4,5 4,0 4,3 4,5 4,3 4,7 4 3,3 4,0 3,0 4,0 4,1 4,1 4,5 4,3 2 3,8 4,8 4,3 3,5 ND 4,5 ND 4,8 4,0 2,0 3,0 4,5 3,3 2,0 4,3 4,5 3,0 4,5 3,8 2,3 4,5 3,6 3,8 3,3 4,0 3,8 ND 3,5 4,3 3,3 3,8 3,2 4,2 3,4 4,1 3,7 4,0

11. Flexible student start-up and progression

10. Wise choice of topics

4,3 3,3 3,3 4,3 3,0 3,3 5,0 5,0 5,0 5,0 5,0 5,0 5 3 3,3 4,3 4,7 3,7 4,7 3,3 3,3 5,0 3,0 3,0 4,7 3,8 3,8 5,0 4,0 3,0 5 3 3 5,0 2,0 ND 4,7 4,3 3,5 5,0 ND 3,7 5,0 3,7 3,3 5,0 1,7 2,0 4,0 2,0 2,3 5,0 4,7 4,7 5,0 1,3 3,0 4,7 1,7 2,3 4,8 2,8 3,0 4,8 2,8 3,1 4,7 4,3 4,3 5,0 4,0 ND 5 4,3 4,5 5,0 3,0 2,7 4,8 4,8 4,4 4,9 4,1 4,0 4,8 3,4 3,5

9 Wide range of subjects and levels

4,7 4,7 5,0 5,0 4 3,7 4,3 3,0 4,3 4,5 3,5 3,3 3,5 3,7 4,0 5,0 3,3 4,7 3,5 3,3 3,5 3,8 4,3 5,0 5 2,7 5,0 4,4 4,1

8. Effective administrative systems

4,7 4,7 5,0 4,3 2 3 3,0 4,0 3,8 3,8 4 3,7 3,0 4,0 2,7 5,0 2,7 2,3 4,0 3,0 2,3 3,4 3,0 2,3 4,5 1,0 4,2 3,0 3,4

7. Well integrated ICT systems

6. Based on standard technologies

3. Evolutionary development

4,7 3,3 4,3 4,3 5,0 5,0 5,0 3,0 4,7 4,7 3,7 4,7 4,3 3,7 3,0 5,0 4,3 4,2 3,0 4,8 3 4,5 3,7 ND 3,3 3,0 3,7 3,3 3,3 3,7 5,0 4,7 3,0 3,7 4,7 4,7 3,3 4,8 3,0 3,3 3,3 4,5 3,5 4,1 2,7 1,3 5,0 2,7 3,3 4 2,3 4,3 4,8 5,0 3,6 3,5 3,8 4,0

5. High competence in ICT

4,3 5,0 5,0 3,5 5 4,3 4,3 4,0 4,4 1,8 3 2,7 2,0 1,0 1,0 4,3 2,7 3,7 2,8 1,0 1,5 2,3 1,3 1,0 4,5 1,3 4,6 2,6 3,0

4. Continuing research

OUNL, Mean value OUUK, Mean value NKI, Mean value UOC, Mean value NKS, Mean value UNED, Mean Value GDF, Mean value Aberta, Mean value Distance Education institutions ULPGC, Mean value UPM, Mean value Leicester, Mean value Ulster, Mean value MMU, Mean value Stafford, Mean value HiST, Mean value Tartu, Mean value BI, Mean value ScuolaIaD, Mean value BVU, Mean value Oncampus, Mean value Universities and colleges CrossK, Mean value Learn Direct, Mean value ELOGOS, Mean value EDHEC, Mean value T-Com HU, Mean value Corporate training providers Average for the whole

2. High competence in online education

Institution

1. Long history in online /distance/flexible education

Table 3. Summary of ratings

3,9 4,0 4,8 4,3 4,3 3,7 3,7 3,4 4,0 3,7 3,5 3,5 3,5 3,3 3,8 3,5 3,1 4,1 3,7 3,6 3,5 3,6 4,0 4,1 4,1 3,2 4,5 4,0 3,8

Figure 1. Average rating of the 25 factors

All Categories Universities and Colleges

Distance Education Institutions

Corporate Training Providers

25. Contracts w ith part-time tutors & course developers 24. Pressure on the necessity to change 23. Stable and predictable sources of income from operation 22. Cost-effectiveness 21. Some sort of industrialization 20. High credibility w ith the government 19. Collaboration w ith other institutions 18. Predictable and manageable teacher w orkload 17. Effective administrative routines 16. Focus on quality 15. Strategies that support online education 14. Enthusiastic employees 13. Support from top management 12. Focus on asynchronous communication 11. Flexible student start-up and progression 10. Wise choice of topics 9 Wide range of subjects and levels 8. Effective administrative systems 7. Well integrated ICT systems 6. Based on standard technologies 5. High competence in ICT 4. Continuing research 3. Evolutionary development 2. High competence in online education 1. Long history in online /distance/flexible education

0,0

1,0

2,0

3,0

4,0

5,0

6,0

Preliminary conclusions The rating shows that all factors are not equally important for all institutions, so obviously it is possible to become a megaprovider without focusing on all the 25 factors. However, the variations in ratings are relatively small, so the 25 factors that were originally chosen seem to be well informed choices.

Table 3 and Figure 1 indicate that, with just two exceptions, the 25 factors are important for the megaproviders. The two exceptions are: Factor 1. Long history of online/distance/flexible education. This seems to be an important factor for the distance education institutions (average rating = 4.6), but not for the universities (average rating = 2.3) and the corporate training providers (average rating = 2.6).

Factor 11. Flexible student start-up and progression. The view on this differs among the distance education institutions (average rating = 3.0), the universities have little emphasis on this (average rating = 1.9), and the corporate training providers have much emphasis on this factor (average rating = 4.3).

The factors 1 and 11 are however of importance for many of the institutions, so the following two recommendations have been formulated according to the research:

Analyses of European megaproviders of e-learning

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Factor 1: Learn from institutions with a long history and tradition of dealing with distance education.

Factor 11: Weigh the potential benefits of flexible start-up and progression against the advantages of being able to work with stable groups in virtual classrooms.

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Analyses of European megaproviders of e-learning

Historical factors

By Desmond Keegan This is an analysis of the historical context of the institutions which were identified by the Megatrends in e-learning provision project as being European megaproviders of e-learning.

The analysis is based on the first 22 interview transcripts that were available. This analysis does not include UNED, Universidade Aberta and Hungarian Telecom.

The 22 megaproviders were divided into three categories: • • •

Open universities and distance education institutions Universities and colleges, including consortia Corporate training providers.

This study is one of a series of studies on the data collected on the megaproviders. It focuses on the historical context of the institutions. The other studies focus on technical issues, courses, management, strategy and attitudes, and economic factors.

The thesis of these studies is that robust and sustainable online education is based on a series of factors. For historical context these criteria are: • • • •

Long history in online/distance/flexible education High competence in online education Evolutionary development Continuing research.

Data on these factors was collected from each of the 22 institutions by asking the following questions: • • • •

How would you describe the history of distance education in your institution?

How has competence is e-learning developed in your institution and how has it contributed to your success?

Has this development been abrupt or would you describe it more as a gradual step-bystep process?

How has online education been followed up by evaluation and research and how has this contributed to your success?

The rating of the historical factors is presented in Table 4 and Figure 2.

Analyses of European megaproviders of e-learning

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14

3. Evolutionary development

4. Continuing research

4,3 5,0 5,0 3,5 5 4,3 4,3 4,0 4,4 1,8 3 2,7 2,0 1,0 1,0 4,3 2,7 3,7 2,8 1,0 1,5 2,3 1,3 1,0 4,5 1,3 4,6 2,6

2. High competence in online education

Institution OUNL, Mean value OUUK, Mean value NKI, Mean value UOC, Mean value NKS, Mean value UNED, Mean Value GDF, Mean value Aberta, Mean value Distance Education institutions ULPGC, Mean value UPM, Mean value Leicester, Mean value Ulster, Mean value MMU, Mean value Stafford, Mean value HiST, Mean value Tartu, Mean value BI, Mean value ScuolaIaD, Mean value BVU, Mean value Oncampus, Mean value Universities and colleges CrossK, Mean value Learn Direct, Mean value ELOGOS, Mean value EDHEC, Mean value T-Com HU, Mean value Corporate training providers

1. Long history in online /distance/flexible education

Table 4. Rating of historical factors

4,7 3,3 4,3 4,3 5,0 5,0 5,0 3,0 4,7 4,7 3,7 4,7 4,3 3,7 3,0 5,0 4,3 4,2 3,0 4,8 3 4,5 3,7 ND 3,3 3,0 3,7 3,3 3,3 3,7 5,0 4,7 3,0 3,7 4,7 4,7 3,3 4,8 3,0 3,3 3,3 4,5 3,5 4,1 2,7 1,3 5,0 2,7 3,3 4 2,3 4,3 4,8 5,0 3,6 3,5

4,7 4,7 5,0 4,3 2 3 3,0 4,0 3,8 3,8 4 3,7 3,0 4,0 2,7 5,0 2,7 2,3 4,0 3,0 2,3 3,4 3,0 2,3 4,5 1,0 4,2 3,0

Analyses of European megaproviders of e-learning

Figure 2. Rating of historical factors

Historical Factors Universities and Colleges

Distance Education Institutions

Corporate Training Providers

4. Continuing research

3. Evolutionary development

2. High competence in online education

1. Long history in online /distance/flexible education

0,0

0,5

1,0

1,5

2,0

2,5

3,0

3,5

4,0

4,5

5,0

In what follows summaries of the replies from the 22 institutions are provided to each of the four questions.

History 1. How would you describe the history of distance education in your institution?

Open universities and distance education institutions Open Universiteit Nederland (OUNL) The Dutch Open University. The OUNL was established in 1984. From the beginning it was active in distance education and online education. In 1987 it put its first electronic learning environment, Studienet, online.

The Open University of the United Kingdom (OUUK). The OUUK was established in 1969 to develop high quality distance education to students and developed its supported open learning model. Today it is the United Kingdom’s largest university, teaching annually 35% of all parttime students.

NKI. NKI was established in Norway in 1959. It was originally a Norwegian branch of a leading Swedish correspondence school. A gradual development that started around 1985 has made online delivery increasingly important. In 2006 online students for the first time outnumbered correspondence students and NKI expects that in the future all courses and programmes will be based on online teaching.

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Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) The Open Universuty of Catalonia. The Open University of Catalonia was created in 1995 by the Catalan government. It is a fully accredited distance education university with its headquarters in Barcelona. The UOC has developed in partnership with key stakeholders in Catalonia from both the public and private sectors. The institution was created with the aim to complement the Catalan university system in the sense that it made university studies available to everybody, regardless the work, residence, age or other factors, by offering highly flexible courses and study programs through technology based distance teaching and learning. The UOC intends to provide the highest quality university education delivered via the latest information technologies.

NKS, Norway. Distance education at NKS dates back to 1914. Operations were based on correspondence teaching, known as first generation distance education, for decades. Around 1987/1988 a project called Portacom used a predecessor of the internet. Ordinary uses of the Internet started around 1997/1998 when some of the courses were made available on the WWW The first LMS (Learning Management System), Luvit, was introduced in 2000.The recent growth in NKS enrolment figures is due to online students.

Denis Gabor College, Hungary. Dennis Gabor College, a private college that is based on commercial income, was founded in 1992, therefore it is one of the oldest institutions in the field of distance education in Hungary. As with many other institutions that provide education online, the roots of Dennis Gabor College also reach back to paper-based distance education, distributed by mail correspondence.

Universities and colleges, including consortia Universidad de Las Palmas de Grand Canaria (ULPGC). The University of Las Palmas, Grand Canaria Island. Although the first full degree was launched in the academic year 2001-2002, our current situation is the result of a number of antecedents and of a context that have promoted this reality. Some examples are: •

• •

The “Centro de Innovación para la Sociedad de la Información” (CICEI; Centre of Innovation for the Information Society) and the introduction and translation into Spanish of WebCT as a training platform when only very few universities in the world knew this system.

The provision of some courses, master degrees and doctorates through this platform for years.

The fact of being a university with a large number of studies related to ICT, which allowed us to be very up to date and have our own staff for tasks of development and maintenance.

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), Spain. The Polytechnic University of Madrid. The Universidad Politécnica de Madrid was established as a public university in 1971 but its origins are much older. In fact, it is the result of a merging process which brought together several different technical coleges and science institutes in Madrid. The GATE (Gabinete de Tele-Educación) was created in 1991 in order to integrate ICT in the UPM’s educational program. The main activities of the cabinet are to coordinate the e-learning courses offered in the university and to give support and training to teachers and staff that wish to provide online teaching to their students.

University of Leicester, United Kingdom. Distance learning at the University of Leicester began in the faculties of management and law (MBA, MA Law) as an additional revenue 16

Analyses of European megaproviders of e-learning

earner. It flourished in post graduate courses and professional development courses for 14 years. Most e-learning has been in on-campus courses. It was a question of encouraging academics to participate.

University of Ulster, Northern Ireland. The University of Ulster’s history of distance education was low key until 1998. In the period 1997-1999 there were a number of e-learning initiatives especially in Biomedical and Education. In 1999 a new Vice Chancellor brought the initiatives together and gave e-learning a new priority as a key initiative. E-learning was brought in to meet Biomedical and other demands. The Institute of Life Long Learning was founded. A virtual learning environment (VLE), WebCT, was installed.

University of Staffordshire, United Kingdom. The University of Staffordshire does not have much of a history of distance education. It has a history of delivery overseas of distance education courses with partner organisations in places like Hong Kong or Singapore, especially in computing courses. Our Geographers were under threat as not many people wanted to do a degree at a ‘New University’ in Geography. Now they have many hundreds of Masters degree students at a distance by e-learning.

Manchester Metropolitan University, United Kingdom. Manchester Metropolitan University is not a distance education institution. It is blended learning that has come to the fore today and e-learning is an important part of the blended learning package. We do offer distance education courses but they are not a driver of e-learning .

Sør-Trøndelag University College (HiST), in Norway, is a dual mode publicly financed higher education institution with several departments. Large scale e-learning has mainly been done in one of these departments, Department of Informatics and e-Learning (AITeL). The Department of Informatics and e-Learning (AITeL) at HiST supplied distance education as elearning since 1986. From 1986 to 1990 HiST had major activities in developing and supporting software for net based education called Winix. This was the first software world wide giving the learners the possibilities to work in a graphical interface (Windows) and through that using services like e-conferences and e- mail with attachments and a lot of other functions based on Unix services. The courses became very popular and by the year 2001 AITeL, who was the largest supplier of courses, had 5745 enrolments.

The University of Tartu, Estonia. The year 1995 may be considered to be the beginning of elearning at the University of Tartu when the first e- mail based course was delivered for the students of the Faculty of Mathematics. In 1998 the first web-based course in the WebCT environment was developed and delivered at our university. Since this year, the number of web-based courses has continuously increased. At the end of 2005 University of Tartu approved the e-learning strategy 2006-2010 which sets the tasks in developing e-learning in 3 categories: • • •

Support high-quality studies focused on the student and involving new target groups Increase the e-learning competence of the teaching staff, students and assistance personnel and develop cooperation models for e-learning Ensure high level of infrastructure and support services for e-learning.

BI Norwegian School of Management. BI Norwegian School of Management (BI) has a sixteen-year-old history of distance education in. Distance Education was started in 1989. The first group in 1990 was in many ways early adapters of modern distance education, since

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electronic communications was an integrated part of the study concept. Thus, BI Distance Education (BI DE) has not had a period with distance education based on a traditional correspondence school model. Rather, BI DE went straight to a technology based model.

University of Rome II Tor Vergata Scuola IaD. The Scuola Istruzione a Distanza (IaD) is a distance education academic epartment operating within a face-to-face educational environment (University of Rome Tor Vergata is the mother Institution). Scuola IaD arises in 1996 formerly as CoFoDi, a multi-discipline Committee set up with an exclusive qualitycontrol purpose. Only in 1998 IaD launched its own first specialization course.

Bavarian Virtual University. Virtuelle Hochschule Bayern (VHB), Germany. The Bavarian Virtual University is an institute set up by all nine state universities and all 17 state universities of applied sciences in Bavaria. A further ten universities in Bavaria outside the jurisdiction of the Bavarian Ministry of Higher Education have also become members The VBH was founded in May 2000. Its emergence was the result of the work of promoters of elearning in the Bavarian universities as well as the decision of the Ministry of Higher Education that these efforts should be coordinated in the best possible way.

Lübeck University of Applied Sciences Oncampus, Germany. The history of online education at Lübeck University of Applied Sciences (LUAS) is based on large third party projects dealing with online distance education. The aim has been to gain more target groups for higher education by part-time study programmes. Close cooperation with universities is one of the main success factors. LUAS started the activities 1997 as lead partner in the German national flagship project “Virtual University of Applied Sciences” (VFH). Within a consortium of universities the aim was to implement full online distance study programmes in engineering and computer science (Bachelor and Master level). At this stage, the Oncampus methodology of 80 % online teaching and 20 % presence phases was decided. All e-learning activities of LUAS and all activities with relation to the consortiums VFH and BSVC are today bundled under the name “Oncampus”.

Corporate Training Providers CrossKnowledge, France. Crossknowledge has passed through 3 stages: Learning portals from 2000 until 2002; Blended learning from 2002 until 2005; Distance instructor-led training from 2005 until 2007.

Learn Direct, United Kingdom. Learn Direct had no background in distance education. It was a new foundation that came straight to e-learning. It was set up for the first time in 1999-2000.

Learn Direct got a lot of help from government and many of the staff had a good background in distance education skills and this helped a lot. Today Learn Direct has 600 online courses and enrols 500.000 e-learning students annually. ÉLOGOS, Spain. ÉLOGOS entered the field of distance education over 15 years ago. From the beginning it has always been at the state of the art and it has succeeded in keeping its position as a leading company in Spain. The total annual e-learning market was €143 millions in 2006. ÉLOGOS has about 20% of this market.

EDHEC, France. With the creation of our campus at Nice in 1991, EDHRC needed to guarantee its pedagogical identity with regard to courseware, evaluation and the range of methodological processes. The professors, the administration and the students quickly got the habit of exchanging and sharing information by email and Intranet links. In 1999 the head of 18

Analyses of European megaproviders of e-learning

the Executive MBA programme wanted to go further than just offering course assistance on line. His objective was to to encourage cooperation at a distance between professors and students and between the students themselves. In 2000 EDHEC launched its first e-learning modules. In 2001 we wanted to facilitate the integration of students returning directly to their second year at EDHEC after obtaining a university degree or diploma. We therefore developed new e-learning modules for them, as soon as their enrolment was confirmed. Since 2001 all our programmes (and thus all our students) took on e-learning. There were online course supports, foundation courses by e-learning, revision packages and self evaluation packages. The important thing is that EDHEC’s e-learning strategy allows us to improve our learning processes.

Competence 2. How has competence in e-learning developed in your institution and how has it contributed to your success?

Open universities and distance education institutions Open Universiteit Nederland (OUNL) The Dutch Open University. To fullfill its mission of encouraging innovation in higher education the Open Universiteit Nederland needed expertise of a specific kind. At the Open University of the Netherlands, that expertise is channelled through the Educational Technology Expertise Centre (OTEC). The Educational Technology Expertise Centre wants to be a leading party, nationally and internationally, in the field of educational technology. OTEC has a lot of experience in designing, developing and implementating electronic learning environments. This means that systems, pedagogy and technology have been developed within the institution itself. Over 20 years of experience in the field have made. OTEC one of the leading players in this field in Europe and internationally.

The Open University of the United Kingdom (OUUK). The OUUK first introduced eLearning using the IBM PC in three courses in 1988 (we were using eLearning before this by using teletext terminals in study centres). These were courses in computing and technology. Since then there has been a gradual increase in the use of eLearning mainly in the Technology, Computing and Business Faculties, though with some good examples in other Faculties such as Science. This meant that certain areas of the university were building considerable experience and competence, whilst in other areas competence remained lower. It would have seemed odd not to be using a computer to support studies in Technology, computing and Business, so the introduction of eLearning in these subjects kept them up to date and relevant for students. With the introduction of asynchronous computer conferencing in 1992 we were able to build on the benefit of greater communication to build learning communities for distance students and introduce different pedagogies such as group work and accessing digital library resources. There is evidence that provision of these tools helped with student retention.

NKI, Norway. As distance education was the basis for NKI when it was established in Norway and always has been an important part of the organisation as a whole management has had focus on competence development in the field. As examples concerning competence development NKI took early initiatives concerning research and development work in the field. The research focused on practice related areas, such as student support, follow up, personal tutoring and organisational issues. It was emphasised that expert staff on all levels

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should be involved in research projects. Further, NKI introduced already in 1978 the obligatory “Course for tutors” to spread distance education educational competence throughout the organisation. This course is after many updates and revisions offered online today to secure that all NKI online tutors both have practical experience as online learners and theoretical background for their work. It was also a major step forward in competence development when the management around 1995 understood that competence and understanding of online teaching and learning was not something that could be left to a few selected people in the development department, but that it was necessary that all staff of NKI Distance Education (course developers, sales and marketing personnel, tutor and student service personnel and office staff) had a basic understanding of what a gradual change from correspondence to online education meant for their work.

Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) The Open University of Catalonia. It is certainly difficult to compare the UOC’s case with the majority of institutions that offer e-learning scenarios. The UOC has been created as a virtual university right from the beginning. In that aspect, competence in e-learning has always been there and without it, the UOC would not even have been less successful. It just wouldn’t exist. On the other hand it is true that competence develops constantly. The UOC started with a very small number of students (about 100) and offered a material centered teaching and learning model that was partly inspired by the traditional distance education models. In fact, in the beginning, the virtual campus’ main function was material delivery. It was only with time that the stress moved from the material centred model towards a pedagogy that focused much more on the student and on learning processes. The pedagogical model of the UOC as it evolved with time is certainly the result of a development process in e-learning competencies and an important factor for success.

NKS, Norway. Competence in e-learning has been developed with a basis in strong competence in correspondence teaching. The same staff that ran correspondence teaching started to run web based courses. Correspondence and online teaching share several basic features. In particular, they are both designed to stimulate and facilitate dialogue between student and tutor. Therefore, it was not necessary to develop an entirely new online teaching pedagogy. Adapting existing (first generation) distance education pedagogy to an online environment was the only new issue for NKS. This had several positive effects. First, the transition was fairly easy for the staff and online teaching with high quality could be delivered very soon after the Internet was taken into use. Second, existing competence in (first generation) distance education pedagogy made it easier for NKS to make the decision to switch to online teaching. In addition, a sober attitude to online teaching that was neither hostile nor over enthusiastic towards the new technology, but had expectation that were more rooted in realities. A person was employed to help implementing online teaching. He trained staff and helped with system implementation.

Dennis Gabor College, Hungary. E-learning has been introduced to the Distance Education practice of the college relatively recently (2004) to broaden the portfolio of the offerings. The transition is gradual; therefore the college staff has time to adapt to the new practices. The course designing activities of the teachers are assisted by technical professionals. The administrational tasks are carried out fluently, however somewhat more technical assistance in software and course development would improve the courses and help teachers’ work.

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Universities and colleges, including consortia Universidad de Las Palmas de Grand Canaria (ULPGC). The University of Las Palmas, Grand Canaria Island. ULPGC’s distance education program is something we are very proud of. We offer all kinds of studies, from graduate studies up to postgraduate and doctorate programmes. There are very few Spanish universities that offer graduate studies in a context of distance education. At the same time there are only a few that address students outside their geographical area, especially in a context like ours, where the university is located on an island thousands of kilometres away from mainland.

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), Spain. The Polytechnic University of Madrid.

Competence in e-learning has basically developed by carrying out experimental projects, mainly initiated on an individual basis, that are analyzed, evaluated and conceptualized by the GATE (Gabinete de Tele-Educación) in order to make them available for general use. For this purpose, the GATE has a special team dedicated to the exploration of possibilities of elearning. It also considers and analyzes every initiative that comes from other vice presidencies. In that sense, the development of e-learning competence relies up to a considerable extent on individual initiatives that are gathered by the cabinet in order to turn them into feasible projects applicable to the institution’s educative program. It possibly is the bottom-up approach that has contributed to the success of the university’s e-learning activity so far. Thanks to this approach new projects were more likely to cover real needs.

The University of Leicester, United Kingdom. In an ideal world if you could design from scratch and buy in expertise it would be good. In fact the university adopted Blackboard 5 years ago. A few people were keen advocates of e-learning and got a good 2000 staff involved and provided practical help. All this was campus based. Then two and a half years ago the university took a new approach and a scaling up of e-learning and appointed two leading academics from the Open University, Professor Gilly Salmon and Dr David Christmas to head up the e-learning and the distance learning activities.

The University of Ulster, Northern Ireland. Competence was developed in looking after elearning behind the scenes. It was an institutional development and not a niche group. There was a focus on user support, studying online and orientation. Access to library resources was important and the library service was integrated into e-learning. Competence was developed in three areas: technical; user support and staff development.

Manchester Metropolitan University, United Kingdom. Competence in e-learning has developed organically and over a very long period. Since 1995 there has been a whole institution interest in e-learning . Very quickly a single platform was established; this was a proprietary VLE, WebCT Version 1.1. The skills were learned on WebCT. The beginnings of e-learning at MMU could be described as ‘from the middle out’. It was not ‘top down’ or ‘management led’ nor was it ‘bottom up’ or a staff initiative.

Staffordshire University, United Kingdom. The development of competence in e-learning at the Staffordshire University has been described at length in Stiles’ (2003) article ‘Embedding e-learning in a higher education institution’. It is a fairly distinctive story. The university entered e-learning as a means of making the university distinctive, with a focus of learner centeredness. The university had a Learning Development Centre, which is now called the Learning Development and Innovation Centre. Senior management made it clear that success in e-learning was not optional – e-learning had to succeed. E-learning followed a classical

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21

roll-out strategy which made little impact. The university then went to funding projects in faculties to contribute to the corporate pattern.

Sør-Trøndelag University College (HiST), Norway. Most of the employees in the Department of Informatics and e-Learning (AITeL) have their degrees in Computer Science. Our study programmes are also directed towards bachelor degrees in ICT. Every employee has to take at least one formal pedagogical course with a half- year duration. In this course there are some topics related to e-learning. Nearly every employee in AITeL gives e-learning courses as part of their duty. It was very important for the department to have a common quality standard for all the courses. For the students this means that they know how the courses are organised, when the learning activities will take place, how much learning material will be supplied and how many exercises and assignments they have to complete to be able to take the exam. For the academics this is similarly important because they have to produce the learning material using the same template, they have to communicate with the students using the same tools and they have to correct exercises giving comments and advice using the same standards. Before the start up of each semester the coordinator of the distance education goes through the elearning model and all its elements with both new and experienced teachers and student assistants.

Norwegian School of Management (BI). Knowledge of distance education methodology combined with modern technology competence has contributed largely to our success. The first communication system (called BIT= BI teleconference-system) was developed in close cooperation with the BI IT-department and used up to 1996, when the Internet was implemented for the purpose of tutoring and communication. In 1997 all courses were internet-based and the self-developed e-learning system, called ‘Apollon’, was established.

“Apollon” is an LMS. Thus, technological development at BI Distance Education (BI DE) has been done by IT staff in house in the main organization (BI). With the development of “Apollon”, BI DE employed its own staff for technical development. Today, we refine and improve systems that have for a large part been developed in-house. This allows us to (easily) adapt the systems to our own (local) needs. This is one of the keys to our success. The fact that Bi DE had considerable IT competence in house, allowed us to adapt quickly to the internet when this became widely available around 1995. This is partly why we consider having self-made systems and in-house technical competence as a key to our success.

University of Rome II Tor Vergata Scuola IaD. Since its start-up the Scuola Istruzione a Distanza (IaD)’s principle and purpose was to re-run those same steps that characterized the history and the evolution of distance education on a wider space-time scale, with reference to the development of the information and communication technologies used within the educational activities.

Bavarian Virtual University. Virtuelle Hochschule Bayern (VHB), Germany. From the outset, the VHB was based on the competence of the foremost e-learning experts in the Bavarian universities. Given the large variety of the member universities and the even larger breadth of the pedagogical and research interests of the professors concerned, there has been a noticeable development of competence during the first six years of the VHB’s existence. The VHB supports competence development by financing courses for online-tutors. The courses are organized by Munich University’s Institute of Pedagogy. All tutors working on VHB-courses are encouraged to take part in these courses.

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LĂźbeck University of Applied Sciences (LUAS) Oncampus, Germany. Oncampus, the elearning department of LUAS, consistently employs e-learning professionals in technology, didactics, project management and marketing. All activities concentrate on the development and operation of online study programmes on the basis of the Oncampus methodology.

Collaboration with universities or other partners is essential to manage the e-learning business. Every online mentor involved has been prepared in special training. Without any doubt, competence building has been a crucial factor for the success of Oncampus.

Corporate Training Providers CrossKnowledge, France. Each Innovation has a market test in before global roll out.

People’s competence has to change. CrossKnowledge hires external consultants and invests a lot in the existing team.

Learn Direct, United Kingdom. Competence in e-learning at Learn Direct was essentially due to the fact that we had some of the best people in the relevant areas: in e-learning content development; in e-learning standards; in instructional design; in technology skills. Choosing the right LMS system was central to success. The Learn Direct LMS is internally developed and maintained.

ELOGOS, Spain. ELOGOS has evolved according to the market, starting with interactive videodiscs and CBT applications. Finally the company developed online solutions on its own platform, customized content development and the most advanced processes of service delivery.

EDHEC, France. There was no resistance to change in the Information Technology culture at EDHEC. We gave information and training to all the users, we gave a range of very simple applications to the professors, allowing them to become autonomous in producing their own content. But the foremost factor in the success of e-learning at EDHEC was the support of the Group Directorate General. E-learning is a major strategic channel for the Group.

Evolutionary development 3. Has this development been abrupt or would you describe it more as a gradual step-bystep process?

Open universities and distance education institutions Open Universiteit Nederland (OUNL) The Dutch Open University. It has been a gradual stepby-step process.

The Open University of the United Kingdom (OUUK). Development was progressing in a step-by-step fashion, but we published our Teaching and Learning strategy in 2001 which set some ambitious targets for the adoption of eLearning. Principally target 6.5: Establish the critical baseline of IT provision for all students by 2002; build IT elements into programmes to achieve compulsory IT elements for all University degrees by 2005; increase Web-focused courses to at least 20 by 2002.

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This set out that we would provide optional eLearning activity on all courses from 2002 and all named degrees would contain some courses that contained eLearning elements by 2005.

The 2004 Learning and Teaching Strategy took these targets further forward, for instance: There will be an increase in the numbers of courses where the use of ICT is required over the period 2006-07 and by 2007 around 60% of Level 2 courses and 75% of Level 3 Courses will have compulsory ICT elements.

Setting such targets and setting out a policy for eLearning as an institutional strategy brought about a step change in the pace of change.

NKI, Norway. Both competence development and the development of distance education and specifically online education has clearly been a step-by-step process. In the beginning both competence and systems development involved only some few dedicated persons, mainly employees involved in research and development. In fact, seen historically, we see gradual and continuous development as one important factor for what we today see as successful development and transition of NKI Distance Education (NKI DE) from a correspondence based to an online learning based distance education institution. The technical system for administration and delivery of online education at NKI DE has to a large extent been developed by NKI DE itself. High competence in information technology is available inhouse. This also allowed NKI DE to start with online education early, already around 1985, when Internet connection through simple modems became available. In addition, having its own systems has made it possible to let the systems undergo a gradual evolution, because improvements have been based on changing existing systems rather than introducing entirely new ones. This is different from a situation one might have had if systems were bought from commercial developers, in which case one might have to replace systems if the manufacturer could not provide a desired improvement.

Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) The Open University of Catalonia. The development has been a gradual process based on analysis and evaluation of the experience gathered in the implementation and execution of courses and programmes. The development of the European Higher Education Area according to the Bologna Declaration of 1999 is another factor that is having its influence on course design, definition of competences, production and distribution.

NKS, Norway. The development has been gradual. A predecessor of modern online teaching was introduced early (Portacom). Also, the transition from first generation (correspondence) teaching to online learning has been gradual and is still going on.

Dennis Gabor College, Hungary. The transition is a gradual, on-going procedure. The management intends to provide most of the courses electronically as well, while also keeping the original, paper-based versions. The importance of online materials is continuously growing. The most sudden step in the progress was the introduction of the electronic administration system (ETR) and the learning management systems (LMS), called ILIAS. Every student and teacher has access to these integrated systems, but to what extent the users exploit their functions, is their free choice.

Universities and colleges, including consortia Universidad de Las Palmas de Grand Canaria (ULPGC). The University of Las Palmas, Grand Canaria Island. It has been a gradual step-by-step process established in our “Plan

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Estratégico Institucional 2002-2006” (Strategic Institutional Plan). The ULPGC’s Strategic Institutional Plan for the period 2002 to 2006 sets as objective nº 6: To enhance the use of the ULPGC’s Virtual Campus in order to develop the academic teaching processes fomenting an open and flexible pedagogical model that combines the intensive use of ICT with face to face assistance.

In order to develop it, this objective is transformed into concrete actions: Creation of a model for instructional design in order to coordinate and promote the creation and updating of contents on the course’s Web pages and the teaching/learning process that is carried out in the classrooms and laboratories.

Actions Apart from this, the Strategic Institutional Plan ULPGC mentions another important point:

To promote the degree holders’ entry into the working market contributing to their loyalty towards the university and to promote the continuing training of professionals developing strategies that meet the needs identifies in different contexts of society, economy and public administration.

This results in the strategy II that leads to the creation of the “Centro de Formación Continua ULPGC” (Centre for Continuing Training) and to an impulse of the training activities that cover the needs of different sectors and social groups.

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), Spain. The Polytechnic University of Madrid. Elearning has developed slowly. Being rather a bottom-up than a top-down process, the creation and integration of online courses for graduate students has been a slow process where the teacher has the initiative to do the first step towards the digitalization of his course. Once the teacher applies for the process of creating an online course the decision about whether it is going to be carried out or not is taken in the respective centre or faculty. Decisions about the production of online-courses in the area of staff training and postgraduate programmes are taken by the staff training council (mesa de formación) and the commission for postgraduate studies (commission de posgrado), respectively. Every single initiative is analyzed and evaluated in order to decide the feasibility within the institution’s structure.

The University of Leicester, United Kingdom. N/a.

The University of Ulster, Northern Ireland. In staff development the Institute of Life Long Learning provides consultancy and makes learning technologists available, especially in curriculum development and the use of tools. Fully online e-learning uses a course team approach with a focus on content and communication. Gilly Salmon’s e-Moderation initiative made courses in e-Moderation essential at the University of Ulster.

Manchester Metropolitan University, United Kingdom. The development of e-learning was not ‘from the bottom up’. It was a grouping of professors in the middle who recommended it to both staff and management. In the period 2003-2004 e-learning finally became established.

Huge demand overwhelmed the middle and e-learning was adopted in a new phase led by management.

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Staffordshire University, United Kingdom. Staffordshire University has a very long history of e-learning dating back to 1997. This had an instructional focus and Lotus Learning Space was installed for e-learning in 1998. The university then changed its VLE from Lotus Learning Space to Blackboard. This was a traumatic experience but was necessary to scale up e-learning to an industrial level. Developed expertise in Lotus Learning Space was a requirement for participation and two day courses were organised which were two -thirds pedagogy. By 2002 we had a very good spread of expertise but there were gaps in it. We developed an Integrative Approach to Staff Development. This embedded e-learning into quality control and into academic planning. We worked with the staff on validation and on quality assurance with workshops at intervals. The newest developments involve workplace modules in e-learning for 30 Masters Credits. Since 2002 there is competence based on delivery workshops for development. The essence is putting the right support staff with the academics at the right time.

Sør-Trøndelag University College (HiST), Norway. The development has been gradual. Since 1986 there has been a tremendous techno logical development. The increased bandwidth and the developmentof new tools gives us the possibility to support much more advanced pedagogical settings now than before within reasonable costs.

University of Tartu, Estonia. This is more like a step by step process. We have quite a lot of teachers who create their e-course initially by the help of educational technologists knowing nothing about the technical design. After using their e-courses for some years, they have participated in training courses and started to make technical work themselves asking help only in the case of some complicated problems.

Norwegian School of Management (BI). It has definitely been a step-by-step process based on the experiences with the electronic classroom from the early nineties. When technology changed in the mid-nineties, we did not allow for any interruption in the use of electronic media since this was regarded as a very important part of the distance education concept.

University of Rome II Tor Vergata Scuola IaD. It was a step by step process that implied passing from the former use of the mail medium, through CMC (computer mediated communication), up to the full achievement of the e-learning technologies, exploited both as self-learning and as cooperative learning. In our experience, competence was built on the praxis-theory-praxis dialectics: a former praxis-approach (field-experience and experimentation) let arise questions, the answers to which gave birth to the building of scientific theories, also through the support of former field literature. The scientific acquisitions achieved subsequently set the conditions for further experimentation, and so on.

Bavarian Virtual University. Virtuelle Hochschule Bayern (VHB), Germany. After the “Big Bang” of the VHB’s foundation, development has taken the form of a gradual step-by-step process. This applies not only to the competence development of the people working for the VHB, but also to the development and use of learning management systems (LMS) and platforms as well as to the software the VHB uses for administrative purposes. Given its history, and also the needs of the different disciplines, a variety of LMS is employed within the VHB framework. As these different LMSs are updated from time to time, the development in the VHB as a whole can be regarded as a continuous process of improvement.

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Lübeck University of Applied Sciences (LUAS) Oncampus, Germany. As collaboration with many partners implicates large effort, the development and implementation of online programmes could only have been generated step-by-step.

Corporate Training Providers CrossKnowledge, France. This development has been abrupt. E-learning is growing at a 60% annual rate over the last 5 years.

Learn Direct, United Kingdom. A major development was the creation of 790 Learn Direct centres across the UK. These centres have tutors for learning, machines for student use and motivational factors for encouraging students to continue in study.

ELOGOS, Spain. E-Learning has been developed gradually undertaking continuing investments in innovation that have grown year after year, while the demand became more mature. ÉLOGOS avoided making strong investments in the first part of this decade when the market was still developing.

EDHEC, France. E-learning was a natural development of our pedagogical practices, nevertheless, we proceeded gradually. We acquired experience for one year with the cohort of students in the Executive MBA and with a small number of professors. From that, e-learning spread to other programmes year by year.

Research and evaluation 4. How has online education been followed up by evaluation and research and how has this contributed to your success?

Open universities and distance education institutions Open Universiteit Nederland (OUNL) The Dutch Open University. The Educational Technology Expertise Centre (OTEC) combines research, development and implementation.

It has a solid reputation in the field of evaluation research and quality control. This is the result of its monitoring and evaluation activities within the OUNL. The results of this evaluation research forms input for the research, development and implementation processes.

OTEC actively participates in European and national projects in the field of innovation of education in order to share and develop its expertise. And the expertise of OTEC is available for other institutions in collaboration projects.

The Open University of the United Kingdom (OUUK). The OUUK has a large academic unit – The Institute of Educational Technology - who do institutional research evaluating student performance with eLearning. They are also responsible for academic staff development so can feed their findings back into staff development programmes. This has made a significant contribution to the quality of our eLearning materials and activities.

NKI, Norway. One factor that has characterised the development of distance education at NKI Distance Education (NKI DE), is that courses, tutoring and other teaching support activities have been subject to thorough evaluation since the start in 1959. This has, of course, been done to improve course delivery, administrative routines and so on. More thorough research has also been carried out since the NKI DE Research and Development Department as Analyses of European megaproviders of e-learning

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established in the early 70ies. During the last two decades the research has mainly focussed on online education. The research has partly been financed and carried out by NKI DE alone.

However, NKI has also been involved in projects financed by Norwegian state grants and by the European Commission. In our view, there is no doubt that participation in externally funded projects has been an important factor for success. Research directly related to the development challenges appears to have been important for the build up of high competence in how to organise and deliver online education.

Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) The Open University of Catalonia. The UOC is part of the Catalan public university system. It is the Agency for the Quality of the University System in Catalonia that coordinates and maintains educational standards for all universities in the country, and so for the UOC. As there is no similar agency for the supervision of distance universities, the UOC is working with the Agency to establish indicators for measuring quality in a virtual learning environment. Quality criteria and indicators for the new Catalan and Spanish online programmes are also defined in collaboration with the Spanish National Agency for Quality and Evaluation.

NKS, Norway. Several years ago, NKS used to run large evaluation projects. Due to stricter economy, this is no longer the case. Therefore online education is not followed up by research at NKS today. Now quality is monitored through large student surveys that are carried out regularly. But the most important quality monitoring is probably happening through the daily contact between staff and students. Based on feedback here and the larger student surveys, various aspects of teaching and courses are adjusted. Often, one can see from student feedback that they are more satisfied after such adjustments. To summarise the answer to this question, online education is not, at present, followed up by research, but by formal and informal quality monitoring.

Dennis Gabor College, Hungary. The results of continuous internal evaluations, carried out within the institution by surveys, questionnaires and discussions at evaluation fora is fed back to improve the operation. The experiences of working with the electronic systems is introduced and discussed periodically at the ILIAS conferences – organised by the programme developers –, where the responsible staff of the College become up to date with advancements of the LMS, and can improve the system and its use based on what they learnt at these conferences.

Universities and colleges, including consortia Universidad de Las Palmas de Grand Canaria (ULPGC). The University of Las Palmas, Grand Canaria Island. Every year we hold workshops in which we debate and present our experiences, as well as meetings where we evaluate each course and the impact of the improvements that have been undertaken. At the same time we participate in national and international congresses where we analyze our model. The courses and the applied innovations are subject to evaluation through surveys carried out among teachers and students. The results of these surveys are published.

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), Spain. The Polytechnic University of Madrid.

Evaluation has always been a key instrument in the implementation and application process of e-learning projects and courses. In addition to the evaluation processes, GATE (Gabinete de Tele-Educación) runs a technological observatory that carries out research on pedagogical and technical issues in the e-learning context. The observatory is an important instrument to keep the institution up to date. One interesting example is the evaluation of a large number of e28

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learning platforms undertaken by the GATE and the Department of Electronic systems and Control (SEC). The project’s results played a substantial role in the decision of choosing MOODLE as the university’s VLE. The University of Leicester, United Kingdom. The Beyond Distance Research Alliance has been founded. The 4 quadrants strategy document has been published listing new and existing technologies and pedagogies for e-learning. Professor Salmon has published ‘Flying not flapping: a strategic framework for e-learning and pedagogical innovation in higher education institutions’. The university works closely in research with the UK Higher Education Academy. There has been extensive benchmarking. The research focus is on outcomes for student learning and for institutional change.

The University of Ulster, Northern Ireland. There is a lot of ongoing quality evaluation of courses. E-learning came out well from a recent official evaluation by the United Kingdom Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) for Higher Education The Life Long Learning Institute is a central unit and does not contact students directly. Library and student induction services are highly regarded and contribute to the recent university bid for funding for ‘Centres of Excellence’.

Manchester Metropolitan University, United Kingdom. E-learning has been followed up by evaluation and research. One of the change levers since 1997 has been the Learning and Teaching Fellowship Scheme. Since then more robust research work has been undertaken.

There were 45 people with Learning Development projects. Then a scholarship approach was introduced. This has all led to the creation of an on-campus e-learning journal called Learning and Teaching in Action. There has also been some publication in refereed journals.

Staffordshire University, United Kingdom. The majority of academics are poor at evaluating e-learning. Quality assurance is evaluation of what you have done. There is no mass evaluation of e-learning . We do research in nationally funded research projects. We got £1.5 million from JISC for major projects. The focus was on individualised support of work based learning using technology.

Sør-Trøndelag University College (HiST), Norway. Our e-learning activities are directly a consequence of the research we did in previous projects. However it was necessary for us to take a broader perspective than only focusing on pedagogical or technical outcomes to make the results sustainable.We conduct a complete evaluation in every subject every second year.

In this evaluation we ask about how the students consider: • • •

the content of the course (relevant, up to date etc) the learning activities administrative systems, routines etc

Based on this information about the courses we do the necessary upgrading.

University of Tartu, Estonia. Prior to the decision in January 2000 to consider e-learning strategically important, several analyses were made to calculate the costs of e-courses and the readiness of teachers and students. Currently some research is done together with other institutions under the umbrella of the Estonian e-University consortium. In 2004-2005 a thorough analysis was made among different student groups about the role of ICT –based teaching and learning to students’ learning approach (deep or surface). In addition, a survey

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was carried out in 2003 by the Estonian e-University consortium involving all the largest public and private universities in Estonia to assess the readiness of the teaching staff to use ICT as a tool in the learning process.

Norwegian School of Management (BI). There have continuously been term evaluations by students and other users (cooperate partners) throughout the years, as well as regular evaluations by faculty in workshops and seminars. The development has always been in close cooperation with faculty and other users (administration and the learners themselves). As regards research, we have relied heavily on the experiences made by other online education institutions and companies.

University of Rome II Tor Vergata Scuola IaD. If evaluation and research historically characterize our institution’s origin, the awareness of the intimate and synergic relation between these, on one hand, and the educational elaboration and offer, on the other, keeps being one of our operative cornerstones.

Bavarian Virtual University. Virtuelle Hochschule Bayern (VHB), Germany. Evaluation plays a central role in the VHB’s overall concept. Before it is accepted by the VHB, every new course is evaluated by experts from Bavarian and other universities. The students evaluate their courses every semester and, after five semesters, the courses are again evaluated by experts. This elaborate and effective quality management has contributed significantly to the success of the VHB. Pedagogical research on e-learning is conducted by individual professors on the basis of their courses. In 2005, the VHB was evaluated by an international group of experts.

Lübeck University of Applied Sciences (LUAS) Oncampus, Germany. Evaluation has been an important factor for today´s range and alignment of Oncampus study programmes. The evaluation tools are: survey amongst students and mentors, automatic feedback functions integrated in course material, reviews within the content production process. Oncampus is not conducting research on online education, but innovations are being integrated in the production process continuously.

Corporate Training Providers CrossKnowledge, France. Every year CossKnowledge conducts surveys with its clients at 2 levels: • •

Corporate satisfaction & needs Learner satisfaction & needs

Our clients are involved in R&D through deployment steering committees and board for elearning research & development. This is key to success.

Learn Direct, United Kingdom. Research at Learn Direct is now getting under way. This is government backed research and uses both the public and the private sector. A major focus is the UK’s QIA (Quality Improvement Agency). Much of the research is comparison of Learn Direct activities with best practice. Research on pedagogy is focused on the Learn Direct way of doing things. We have learned by our mistakes. We are developing a manual of best practice in e-learning. Previous research studies had highlighted the importance of hard-toreach learners and Learn Direct set out on this path to access the hard-to-reach earners.

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ELOGOS, Spain. E-Learning has always been a decisive element of our program and we are considered the leading firm in the main companies and institutions of the country.

EDHEC, France. There is no link between the developments in e-learning and the different fields of research of the professors at EDHEC.

Conclusion The data in this report is built up from the responses of 22 megaproviders of e-learning in Europe to questions on a series of criteria. These criteria are: • • • •

Robust and sustainable online education is based on a long history in online/distance/flexible education.

Robust and sustainable online education is based on high competence in online education Robust and sustainable online education is based on evolutionary development Robust and sustainable online education is based on continuing research.

Criterion 1. Robust and sustainable online education is based on a long history in online/distance/flexible education.

It cannot be said that criterion 1 is well supported by the data.

It is true that the institutions in Group 1 Open universities and distance education institutions, the three Open Universities (OUNL, OUUK and UOC) and the two distance education institutions (NKS and NKI) have a long and successful history of distance education, in the case of NKS dating back to 1914.

It is clear that these institutions believe that there is a specific pedagogy for teaching at a distance and that the skills and strategies developed for teaching at a distance are applicable to distance education, e-learning and even mobile learning.

For these institutions the Megatrends in e-learning project is very much a study of how they have built up success in electronic distance education (generally known as e-learning) side by side with, or as a replacement for, the multi-media distance education provision in which they were so successful.

In the case of Group 2 Universities and colleges, including consortia the picture is not so clear.

The University of Leicester says that most development has been in on-campus courses. The University of Staffordshire says that the view that a successful history of distance education is needed for success in e-learning is wrong and that their history of distance education courses in Hong Kong and Singapore was not a driver of e-learning. Manchester Metropolitan University says that they offer distance education courses but this is again not a driver of elearning.

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Developments in information and communications technologies (ICT), rather than distance education, are cited by 7 institutions: ULGPC, UPM, VHB, University of Tartu, SørTrøndelag University College (HiST), and BI. Group 3 institutions Corporate training providers are mainly recent foundations and the group does not support criterion 1. Learn Direct, with 500.000 students and the largest of the megaproviders, prides itself on being an e-learning foundation from the start and attracts and keeps staff because of their focus on e-learning. There is little emphasis in their responses on distance education or on open learning or on flexible learning. They are e-learning specialists.

CrossKnowledge, with 250.000 students, again shows little distance education focus. Both ELOGOS and EDHEC moved into e-learning from an ICT focus, rather than distance education.

Criterion 2. Robust and sustainable online education is based on high competence in online education It was unlikely that any of the megaproviders would respond in the negative to criterion 2 on competence in e-earning.

One can, however, identify clusters of responses which indicate the major contributors to elearning competence. These are: 1. An expert centre which developed institutional competence.

OUNL OTEC. ‘The Educational Technology Expertise Centre (OTEC) wants to be a leading party, nationally and internationally, in the field of educational technology’.

UPM GATE. ‘The GATE (Gabinete de Teleeducación) has a special team dedicated to the exploration of possibilities of e-learning’.

2. Uneven development with some departments ahead of others.

OUUK. ‘Certain areas of the university were building considerable experience and competence, whilst in other areas competence remained lower’.

3. Research and development in the field of e-learning.

NKI. ‘The research focused on practice related areas, such as student support, follow up, personal tutoring and organisational issues’.

4. Competence present from the start (hiring of e-learning experts) UOC. ‘Competence in e-learning has always been there and without it, the UOC would not exist.’

Learn Direct. ‘Competence in e-learning at Learn Direct was essentially due to the fact that we had some of the best people in the relevant areas: in e-learning content development; in elearning standards; in instructional design; in technology skills.

5. Adapting distance education competence to e-learning.

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NKS. ‘Adapting existing (first generation) distance education pedagogy to an online environment was the only new issue for NKS’.

ULPGC. ‘We offer all kinds of studies, from graduate studies up to postgraduate and doctorate programmes. There are very few Spanish universities that offer graduate studies in a context of distance education’.

BI. ‘The knowledge of distance education methodology combined with modern technology competence has contributed largely to our success.’

6. A few keen advocates University of Leicester. ‘A few people were keen advocates of e-learning and got a good 2000 staff involved and provided practical help.

Manchester Metropolitan University. ‘The skills were learned on WebCT’. Manchester Metropolitan University uses the picturesque terminology ‘from the middle out’ to describe the process. ‘The beginnings of e-learning at MMU could be described as ‘from the middle out’. It was not ‘top down’ or ‘management led’ nor was it ‘bottom up’ or a staff initiative’.

7. Competence developed by doing it.

The University of Ulster. ‘Competence was developed in looking after e-learning behind the scenes’.

8. Funding projects Staffordshire University. ‘Senior management made it clear that success in e-learning was not optional – e-learning had to succeed. E-learning followed a classical roll-out strategy which made little impact. The university then went to funding projects in faculties to contribute to the corporate pattern’.

EDHEC. ‘We gave information and training to all the users, we gave a range of very simple applications to the professors, allowing them to become autonomous in producing their own content’.

9. Assistance of technical professionals and running courses.

Sør-Trøndelag University College. Most of the employees in AITeL have their degrees in Computer Science. Every employee has to take at least one formal pedagogical course with a half- year duration. In this course there are some topics related to e-learning.

Dennis Gabor College. E-learning has been introduced to the DE practice of the college relatively recently (2004) to broaden the portfolio of the offerings. The course designing activities of the teachers are assisted by technical professionals.

Norwegian School of Management (BI) The knowledge of distance education methodology combined with modern technology competence has contributed largely to our success.

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Lübeck University of Applied Sciences (LUAS). Oncampus, the e-learning department of LUAS, consistently employs e-learning professionals in technology, didactics, project management and marketing. Every online mentor involved has been prepared by special training.

Criterion 3. Robust and sustainable online education is based on evolutionary development As might be expected all the megaproviders stated that development had been gradual and step-by-step except for the two market leaders CrossKnowledge, which had reached 250.000 students in a very short time and Learn Direct which had quickly reached 500.000 enrolments per year.

The question asked was: Has the competence in e-learning development been abrupt or would you describe it more as a gradual step-by-step process?

Four categories of responses can be identified: 1. The development of competence in e-learning has been gradual and step-by-step.

70% of the institutions chose this response. These were: OUNL, NKS Norway, UPM Spain, Università Roma II Tor Vergata Italy, VHB Germany, LUAS Germany, UOC Spain, NKI Norway, HiST Norway University of Tartu Estonia, Dennis Gabor College Hungary, BI Norway, ELOGOS Spain and EDHEC France.

2. The development of competence in e-learning was gradual but accelerated by executive decisions and documents OUUK states: Development was progressing in a step-by-step fashion, but we published our Teaching and Learning strategy in 2001 which set some ambitious targets for the adoption of eLearning. Principally target 6.5: Establish the critical baseline of IT provision for all students by 2002; build IT elements into programmes to achieve compulsory IT elements for all University degrees by 2005; increase Web-focused courses to at least 20 by 2002.

This set out that we would provide optional eLearning activity on all courses from 2002 and all named degrees would contain some courses that contained eLearning elements by 2005.

ULPGC states: It has been a gradual step-by-step process. The ULPGC’s Strategic Institutional Plan for the period 2002 to 2006 sets as objective nº 6 of the Strategic Axis I (Teaching) the following: To enhance the use of the ULPGC’s Virtual Campus in order to develop the academic teaching processes fomenting an open and flexible pedagogical model that combines the intensive use of ICT with face to face assistance.

3. Special developments Manchester Metropolitan University states: The development of e-learning was not ‘from the bottom up’. It was a grouping of professors ‘in the middle’ who recommended it to both staff

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and management. In the period 2003-2004 e-learning finally became established. Huge demand overwhelmed the middle and e-learning was adopted in a new phase led by management.

Staffordshire University states: Staffordshire University has a very long history of e-learning dating back to 1997. This had an instructional focus and Lotus Learning Space was installed for e-learning in 1998. The university then changed its VLE from Lotus Learning Space to Blackboard. This was a traumatic experience but was necessary to scale up e-learning to an industrial level. Developed expertise in Lotus Learning Space was a requirement for participation and two day courses were organised which were two -thirds pedagogy.

By 2002 we had a very good spread of expertise but there were gaps in it. We developed an Integrative Approach to Staff Development. This embedded e-learning into quality control and into academic planning. We worked with the staff on validation and on quality assurance with workshops at intervals. The newest developments involve workplace modules in elearning for 30 Masters Credits (30 credits towards a masters degree for those who take the elearning course). Staff don’t have to apply for the Masters Credits if they do not want to.

Since 2002 there is competence based on delivery workshops for development. The essence is putting the right support staff with the academics at the right time.

4. Development of competence in e-learning has been abrupt CrossKnowledge states: This development has been abrupt. E-learning is growing at a 60% annual rate over the last 5 years. From beginnings in 2000 CrossKnowledge has moved to 250.000 students.

Learn Direct states: Learn Direct was set up in 1999-2000. Today it has 500.000 students per year. From the start it only hired staff who were competent in e-learning and dedicated to it. A further development was the creation of 790 Learn Direct centres across the UK. These centres have tutors for learning, machines for student use and motivational factors for encouraging students to continue in study.

Criterion 4. Robust and sustainable online education is based on continuing research.

The question asked was: How has online education been followed up by evaluation and research and how has this contributed to your success?

This question is different from the criterion as it introduces the focus on evaluation and reduces the emphasis on research.

The replies may be summarised as saying that most institutions do regular evaluation of their processed but there is little research and publication. This is a disturbing finding.

The replies are mixed and can be grouped into five categories: 1. Solid research and publishing OUNL reports: OTEC combines research, development and implementation. It has a solid reputation in the field of evaluation research and quality control. This is the result of its monitoring and evaluation activities within the OUNL.

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OUUK reports: We have a large academic unit – The Institute of Educational Technology who do institutional research evaluating student performance with eLearning. They are also responsible for academic staff development so can feed their findings back into staff development programmes. This has made a significant contribution to the quality of our eLearning materials and activities.

The University of Leicester reports: The Beyond Distance Research Alliance has been founded. Professor Salmon has published widely. The university works closely in research with the UK Higher Education Academy. There has been extensive benchmarking. The research focus is on outcomes for student learning and for institutional change.

Staffordshire University reports: We do research in nationally funded research projects. We got ÂŁ1.5 million from JISC for major projects. The focus was on individualised support of work-based learning using technology.

Manchester Metropolitan University reports: E-learning has been followed up by evaluation and research. One of the change levers since 1997 has been the Learning and Teaching Fellowship Scheme. Since then more robust research work has been undertaken. Then a scholarship approach was introduced. This has all led to the creation of an on-campus elearning journal called Learning and Teaching in Action.

2. Evaluation mainly For this grouping the focus is on evaluation. This is a highly important task and is often an annual process of evaluating the learning materials and the institutional processes with a view to improvement. There seems to be less focus on research and publishing. This is a large grouping comprising: ULPGC Canary Islands, UPM Spain, University of Ulster Northern Ireland, HiST Norway, University of Tartu Estonia, Dennis Gabor College Hungary, BI Norway, VHB Germany, LUAS Germany, CrossKnowledge France, Learn Direct United Kingdom.

3. External evaluation UOC reports: The UOC is part of the Catalan public university system. It is the Agency for the Quality of the University System in Catalonia that coordinates and maintains educational standards for all universities in the country, and so for the UOC. As there is no similar agency for the supervision of distance universities, the UOC is working with the Agency to establish indicators for measuring quality in a virtual learning environment.

4. Evaluation without research NKS reports: Several years ago, NKS used to run large evaluation projects. Due to stricter economic controls, this is no longer the case. Therefore online education is not followed up by research at NKS today. Now quality is monitored through large student surveys that are carried out regularly.

5. No link

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EDHEC reports a rather unusual situation: There is no link between the developments in elearning and the different fields of research of the professors at EDHEC.

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Technical factors

By Morten Flate Paulsen The analysis of the technical factors was based on the answers from all 25 institutions to the following four questions: • • • •

How would you describe competence in information and communication technology in your institution?

To which extent are e-learning courses in your institution based on widely used technologies that can be taken into use by students without requiring them to buy additional hardware or software? (in addition to what they have from before) How would you describe the integration between different IT-systems that are involved in e-learning in your institution? How has this contributed to your success?

What are the strengths and weaknesses of your e-learning administrative systems (from enrolment through delivery to certification)?

The results from the rating of the answers to these questions are presented in Table 5 and Figure 3.

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4,7 4,7 5,0 5,0 4 3,7 4,3 3,0 4,3 4,5 3,5 3,3 3,5 3,7 4,0 5,0 3,3 4,7 3,5 3,3 3,5 3,8 4,3 5,0 5 2,7 5,0 4,4

8. Effective administrative systems

7. Well integrated ICT systems

6. Based on standard technologies

Institution OUNL, Mean value OUUK, Mean value NKI, Mean value UOC, Mean value NKS, Mean value UNED, Mean Value GDF, Mean value Aberta, Mean value Distance Education institutions ULPGC, Mean value UPM, Mean value Leicester, Mean value Ulster, Mean value MMU, Mean value Stafford, Mean value HiST, Mean value Tartu, Mean value BI, Mean value ScuolaIaD, Mean value BVU, Mean value Oncampus, Mean value Universities and colleges CrossK, Mean value Learn Direct, Mean value ELOGOS, Mean value EDHEC, Mean value T-Com HU, Mean value Corporate training providers

5. High competence in ICT

Table 5. Rating of technical factors

4,3 3,3 3,3 4,3 3,0 3,3 5,0 5,0 5,0 5,0 5,0 5,0 5 3 3,3 4,3 4,7 3,7 4,7 3,3 3,3 5,0 3,0 3,0 4,7 3,8 3,8 5,0 4,0 3,0 5 3 3 5,0 2,0 ND 4,7 4,3 3,5 5,0 ND 3,7 5,0 3,7 3,3 5,0 1,7 2,0 4,0 2,0 2,3 5,0 4,7 4,7 5,0 1,3 3,0 4,7 1,7 2,3 4,8 2,8 3,0 4,8 2,8 3,1 4,7 4,3 4,3 5,0 4,0 ND 5 4,3 4,5 5,0 3,0 2,7 4,8 4,8 4,4 4,9 4,1 4,0

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Figure 3. Rating of technical factors

Technical Factors Universities and Colleges

Distance Education Institutions

Corporate Training Providers

8. Effective administrative systems

7. Well integrated ICT systems

6. Based on standard technologies

5. High competence in ICT

0,0

1,0

2,0

3,0

4,0

5,0

6,0

Competence in ICT 5. How would you describe competence in information and communication technology in your institution?

ICT competence is important for the megaproviders, but obviously, the ICT competence varies among different groups of staff. Tartu and UKOU for example distinguishes between tutor competence and staff competence. The rating does however indicate that the perceived ICT competence is regarded as higher in the Distance Education institutions (4.3) and the corporate training providers (4.4) than in the universities, colleges and consortia (3.8).

The distance education providers report that they have technical staff with high ICT competence. Other groups of staff have the competence they need to conduct their work. NKI, UOC, OUNL and OUUK seem to have especially high ICT competence, which may be due to much internal development of ICT systems for e-learning.

Among the universities, colleges and consortia HiST, BI and ULPG seem to have relatively high ICT competence related to e-learning. The consortia are special since they draw on the cumulative ICT competence of its member universities. The remaining institutions seem to be rather vague regarding ICT competence, which may indicate that e-learning is just one of many issues related to ICT competencies in several of these institutions.

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All corporate training providers report that they have high competence in ICT. Learn Direct has 100 people with high expertise in ICT. CrossKnowledge brings together a strong blend of competences in order to address the whole e-learning value chain and integrate the different IT components. At EDHE, there is an ICT culture that is spread by the e-learning courses and services. ELOGOS has a solid experience in the use of technology and Hungarian Telecom has an E-Team with very high ICT competence.

The following is a summary of the answers provided by the institutions.

Distance education institutions NKI Distance Education. There is no doubt that the fact that the institution had internal competence in information and communication technology has been a major reason for the solutions and strategies for the development of systems for online education. In fact, the idea of developing distance education solutions based on computer conferencing came from the staff of the NITH. The initial developments were a result of the driving force coming from key academics of the NITH, that the first conferencing system was developed mainly as a result of academic motivation, and that the decision makers within NKI DE believed in the idea and that a close cooperation between the two NKI departments was established for using the conferencing system for distributing the first online courses. However, there is little doubt that it was necessary for future success that the necessary competence in information and communication technology for development of systems for online education was built up within NKI DE and integrated with the internal distance education competence. Today NKI DE has within its research and development department a systems development group with competence for internal continuous development of the learning management system, SESAM (Scalable Educational System for Administration and Maintenance), according to specified pedagogical and organisational needs.

NKS. The competence varies among different groups of staff. Each group has the competence needed to operate and utilise the systems they have at their disposal. For example, teachers and course developers have necessary competence in pedagogical systems, but they can not be considered leading experts of such systems. However, when it comes to connecting pedagogy with these systems, the competence must be considered high. NKS has an IT department with four persons which take care of system development and maintenance. Thus, in this department, general technical competence is high. NKS has developed its own student administrative system. Other systems are bought from commercial developers. The IT department works to make these systems operate together.

Dennis Gabor College. The academic staff still needs time to get used to the use of ICTs. At the moment, still considerable reservation can be observed from their sides; however, they are strongly encouraged to master these new competencies. Would they need assistance, there is competent technological staff to answer questions and help with implementation of online courses. Tangible statistics (such as hours spent online in the LMS) prove that with time the teachers/tutors become more and more advanced and comfortable with the use of ICTs. Open Universiteit Nederland (OUNL). It should be described as above average to excellent.

The Open University of the United Kingdom (UKOU). Regarding basic ICT skills, all staff are competent in the use of ICT for word processing, e-mail and information literacy. Regarding skills to develop effective use of ICT in teaching and learning, an increasing number of staff are competent at designing eLearning activities. We also have a large media development

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unit, so as long as academics are skilled in specifying eLearning activities these can be realised through our technical teams.

Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC). Competence in information and communication technology is very high. It has been very high from the very beginning because the creation of a fully virtual university from scratch needed a highly competent technical team to implement all the necessary hard and software elements. Competence has evolved according to the changing needs regarding the maintenance of the virtual campus and the integration of new tools and functions.

UNED. There are two levels of users in the UNED: firstly, (typically the younger staff) who are able to use most aspects of ICT available (and are keen to learn new techniques and tools as they appear), and secondly, (typically older staff), who have difficulties using services that go beyond simple Web browsing and email.

Universities, colleges and consortia Scuola IaD. As for competence within our institution’s information and communication technology system, we have always aimed to keep within the forecasted international standards. Nevertheless, we never conceived our institution’s ICT performances as selfaimed. In particular, the information technologies are, in our experience, basically exploited to gain customers’ confidence in the enrolling phase, and assure this is maintained throughout the educational delivery and certification phases. What we firmly refuse is an “imagineaimed” use of the information technologies. As for the communication aspect, we analogously aim to use the technological mean by constantly paying attention to the educational aspects and specifically to the improvement of the integration between the different communication codes.

The University of Ulster. E-learning has been, since 2000, seen from an institutional perspective from the view of information and communications technologies. With the very large scale developments there was a need for resilience and scalability. There is full linkage from e-learning to student enrolment and the library services. E-learning and the library and staff development are integrated services.

Manchester Metropolitan University. It has taken time to forge a relationship between elearning and the university information systems. We now have competence in information systems, though this was not available during the ‘middle out’ period. We now have the technology capability, a robust system and an established platform. We are now moving from WebCT Campus Edition to WebCT Vista, both of which are run by the information systems people.

Sør-trøndelag University College. Our institution is a University College for students taking Bachelor degrees in computer engineering. Therefore I can say that the IT competence in our institution is very high.

The University of Leicester. It depends on what you compare it with. In recent government benchmarking the university came out really well. Knowledge management, however, would be poor if compared with the Open University.

Staffordshire University. We were doing Research and Development with JISC in 1996 and developing our own VLE called COSE. This work has been stable over the years. We are

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quite well known for research in e-learning and have been constantly at the front end of elearning development, both pedagogic and technical.

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. The competence in information and communication technology has grown with time. Obviously, in the beginning, skills and knowledge were at a minimum. The creation of the GATE as a canalizing factor has certainly contributed to a reasonable and at the same time effective increase of competence among teachers and technicians.

Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Competence is very high. We have a very strong team of technicians specialized on our own technical developments. At the same time we have created an own enterprise “ULPGC-TIC” (ULPGC-ICT) that has even started receiving contracts for external developments.

Virtuelle Hochschule Bayern.The VHB can draw upon the cumulative ICT competence of its member universities. The central service unit employs few technical staff of its own. This situation could change, should the member universities wish to establish centralised support for a LMS. This issue will be discussed in the near future.

Oncampus. Our key competence is the development and implementation of online distance study programmes. For this purpose, Oncampus follows an integrated production process.

Several technical tools have been developed and implemented to manage this challenge.

BI Norwegian School of Management. The IT department of BI Norwegian School of Management took part in the first developments of the so-called BIT-system. When we in 1995 decided that Internet was the future technology, we looked for partners who might offer a web-based learning tool, but this was an early phase in the development of e-learning. We therefore engaged our own IT-developers who had special Internet competence. They developed the first e-learning management system as early as in 1997.

University of Tartu. Most of teachers are competent in using PowerPoint, web for information searching, e-mail, university study information system etc. More complicated skills are not so widely spread, for example creating web pages, recording audio and video files, creating animations, designing courses in LMS. Teachers’ ICT skills depend on the faculty of the teachers. In some faculties ICT competences are very good (for example Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics, Faculty of Economics), but in some faculties quite poor (for example Faculty of Philosophy).

Corporate training providers Learn Direct. Learn Direct has 100 people with high expertise in information and communication technology. This expertise allows half a million students a year to study by elearning at Learn Direct. The Learn Direct LMS is internally developed. It is robust and has only 3 minutes downtime a week. It has a working rate of 99.98%. It handles online chats, tutor reports and student qualifications. However, some course development or course purchase is non-compliant because it is a home developed system.

CrossKnowledge. CrossKnowledge brings together a strong blend of competences in order to address the whole e-learning IT value chain and integrate the different IT components: Elearning modules, User interface, Web-based and data-driven applications, Networks and performance.

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EDHEC Business School. EDHEC is not more competent in the use and integration of the new information and communication technologies (ICTs) than any other French Grande Ecole. On the other hand there is an ITC culture that is spread by the e-learning courses and services. ÉLOGOS. The company has solid experience in the use of technology. In addition, ALCATEL, one of the former owners of the company was simultaneously one of the main clients which made it necessary to have a large number of expert consultants in ICT at disposal. This has undoubtedly contributed to define the technological profile of the internal team of consultants. In this sense it is day to day practice to use technology in projects and teams that deliver training and consultancy services to the clients.

Hungarian Telecom. The ICT competence of the above described E-Team (an 8 person elearning group responsible for specific tasks such as methodology advancement, operation support and development: 3 people are responsible for multimedia and pedagogy, 2 for project management and another 3 for operation and its development) is very high – after all the success of T-Com’s online education is seriously dependent on their knowledge and performance.

Standard technologies 6. To which extent are e-learning courses in your institution based on widely used technologies that can be taken into use by students without requiring them to buy additional hardware or software? (in addition to what they have from before) The institutions seem to agree that it is important to apply widely used technology as far as possible. Standard PC equipment with an Internet connection and a browser seem to be a common requirement. Some courses or applications (such as for example video conferencing) may however require broadband access and special software to be installed on the PC. The technologies that were explicitly mentioned by the institutions are listed in Table 6.

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Corporate training providers

Universities and colleges

Distance Education institutions

Table 6. Technologies mentioned in the interviews

Institution OUNL OUUK NKI UOC UNED NKS GDF ULPGC UPM Leicester Ulster MMU Stafford HiST Tartu BI ScuolaIaD BVU Oncampus CrossK Learn Direct ELOGOS EDHEC T-Com HU

LMS mentioned

Other technologies mentioned

FirstClass, Moodle

CD, Star Office

Self-developed (IDESSolutionsTM) CD ILIAS MOODLE

SCORM, CD

CD, broadband WebCT Lotus Learning Space, Blackboard, Self-developed (COSE) WebCT Based on Microsoft dot.net technology, Banner

MS Office Mathcad, APSTest, Horizon Wimba for videoconferencing, Windows media player Java applets, Macromedia flash, pdf

Broadband Javascript, Ajax, Macromedia Flash Player SCORM Flash Adobe Flash, Windows Media Player

All the distance education providers clearly state that they rely on widely used technologies that students can use without buying additional hardware and software. However, some of the institutions report that in certain specific courses special software is necessary, and some experiments with the newest technologies are made.

The universities, colleges and consortia also clearly state that it is important that e-learning is based on widely used technologies. Several of them emphasize that the solutions not require any additional expenses for the students. HiST states that the software used in the courses can be downloaded from the Internet for free.

The corporate training providers also state that their courses are based on open standards and that the students don’t need to purchase any specific hardware or software.

The following is a summary of the answers provided by the institutions.

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Distance education institutions NKI Distance Education. Courses are generally based on widely used technology that can be taken into use by students without requiring them to buy additional hardware or software. In principle, NKI DE has a potential for using fairly advanced technology, but has chosen not do so because one wants their courses to be broadly available. For example, materials based on complicated multimedia may exclude students with old computers unable to run them.

NKS. Courses are based almost exclusively on widely used technologies that can easily be used by students. Only very rarely are students required to buy additional software.

Dennis Gabor College. Since the academic year 2006-2007, ILIAS is fully operational. The system comprises all courses and modules, including all electronically accessible material, i.e. course descriptions and supporting documents, such as SCORM compatible e-learning modules, lecture ppt-s, self assessment tests and manuals. Most of the softwares used in online education are widely used ones. In certain specific courses (such as “Basics of programming”) special softwares are introduced, but even in these cases instructions are given about how to download and install these programmes. In case of large video files, where not the software itself but the speed of students’ Internet connection may cause difficulties in viewing, the College provides a collection of these files on CDs for the students’ convenience.

Open Universiteit Nederland (OUNL). Even though we experiment with the newest technologies, what we offer our students as structural e-learning is based on proven technologies and standard hardware/software. Additional hardware is not necessary.

Additional obligatory software is provided when needed. When students participate in innovative pilot projects, the hardware/software (when needed) are provided.

The Open University of the United Kingdom (UKOU). In general we try to use standard browser technology. Currently our main asynchronous communication tool (FirstClass) needs client software, but this is provided on a free applications CDROM to all staff and students.

Our multimedia simulations play on standard media players. Our documents are transmitted in PDF format and Acrobat reader is free software (also on the CDROM). If a word processor is needed then it is possible to use the shareware Star Office (also on the CDROM). So although students need to load additional software none of it needs to be bought.

Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC). The technical requirements on the client side do not include any special items. The minimum equipment would be a Pentium-Based PC with 32 MB RAM (Random Access Memory), 1.2 Gb hard disk, a Windows 95 Operating System or higher. An Internet Browser and Connection to the Internet with minimum of 28 Kb/s is necessary.

UNED. The technical requirements on the client side do not include any special items. Every student has to have a computer able to read multimedia resources and equipped with a CDRom player, apart form a reliable Internet connection.

Universities, colleges and consortia Scuola IaD. Our students don’t need (in the current third generation distance learning phase)and never needed throughout the former phases - the aid of any additional hardware or software, which means they don’t need and never needed to personally face any additional cost.

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The University of Ulster. Course development for widely used technologies underpins all our activities. Some statistical packages are on CD Rom. The general requirement is for a reasonable specification to make use of the availability of broadband.

Manchester Metropolitan University. No additional expense is required by students to take the e-learning courses. Just the normal WebCT requirements.

Sør-trøndelag University College. All our e-learning courses are based on a standard home computer with MS Office. None of the courses requires additional hardware or software. The needed software used in the courses can be downloaded from Internet for free.

The University of Leicester. We agree with this policy. It is absolutely critical for our distance learning operation. No specific software has to be installed to do our e-learning courses.

Every University of Leicester student must have regular access to the Internet. There are, however, many university library machines so nothing has to be bought.

Staffordshire University. Nothing has to be bought by students. We have always used basic VLEs and our own development, COSE. We migrated from Lotus Learning Space to Blackboard and worked at integrating systems into Blackboard. We have been a pioneer in the academic use of eBooks (Ebrary), with access to hundreds of thousands of ebooks and online databases.

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. The e-learning courses at UPM are always based on widely used technology in order to make sure that every student can access and run the courses without any special skills, hardware or software. The only thing necessary to be able to follow a UPM online course is a computer with a standard configuration and an Internet connection. This form of accessibility is considered a key issue for success.

Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Our distance learning platform is based on MOODLE, a free license platform that can be used without major equipment. The only tools needed are a basic computer and an Internet connexion.

Virtuelle Hochschule Bayern. It is necessary for all course developers to ensure that students equipped with ordinary (not high-end) hard- and software can use the VHB’s courses. The interpretation of what can be regarded as “ordinary” may vary between the disciplines, e.g. students of engineering will have at their disposal software which may be unknown to students of law.

Oncampus. The access to oncampus programmes is provided on basis of widely used technologies. Broadband internet connection is advisable.

BI Norwegian School of Management. The e-learning platform development today is based on Microsoft dot.net-technology. The students do not have to buy any additional hardware or software to attend courses. However, students need to install free software to run java applets, Macromedia flash and read pdf-documents.

University of Tartu. The University of Tartu has used learning management system WebCT for developing and delivering e-courses since 1998 and using this LMS does not require any additional software. WebCT courses are accessible by students via the web browsers (Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Netscape). Only in very few cases special software is needed (e.g.

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Mathcad, APSTest). In the case of using videoconferencing or Horizon Wimba tools, students needs microphone and earphones. Watching video clips and recorded video lectures require Windows media player or other similar software which can be freely acquired from the Internet.

Corporate training providers Learn Direct. Learn Direct students do not have to purchase software to do Learn Direct courses. Hardware requirements have low standards compared to even 3 years ago. There are students who can study at the office or at home. The Learn Direct centres are available for use for those who need them. There is a centre only minutes away from each student. Only McDonnells has more locations in the UK than Learn Direct. Learn Direct centres are friendly places with a welcoming attitude and biscuits etc. Thus Learn Direct students have 3 possibilities for study: home, office or Learn Direct centre.

CrossKnowledge. Our e-learning solutions are Web-based and only use open standards (HTML, Javascript, Ajax architecture) or widely used multimedia plug-in (Macromedia Flash Player) for animations, video and audio files. These Web-based applications can be viewed using Explorer but also Firefox, the Open Source browser that run on Microsoft, Apple and Linux machines.

EDHEC Business School. All our courses are accessible to students without the need for purchasing specific hardware or software. The e-learning materials contain printed documents and ‘rich content’ in FLASH. ÉLOGOS. The tools and applications developed by ÉLOGOS itself and the ones ordered from third parties have to fulfil certain requirements regarding usability, compliance with the market standards and easy handling. Clients and students can access the company’s courses and platforms using standard browsers. Also, the contents designed for clients follow the SCORM standard in order to be able to incorporate them into SCORM compliant platforms.

Hungarian Telecom. T-Com avoids the application of proprietary solutions, they use web standard programmes and technologies exclusively (Adobe Flash, Windows Media Player, etc.), so that the learners would only have to use their web browsers to access the course contents.

Integrated ICT systems 7. How would you describe the integration between different IT-systems that are involved in e-learning in your institution? How has this contributed to your success?

The integration between the learning management system and the student administration system seems to be a crucial issue. The integration with other systems is also significant. The answers confirm that well integrated ICT systems are important for the institutions success, and that many institutions want better integration.

The distance education providers NKI, UOC and UNED claim to have well integrated ICT systems and that this has been a critical factor for the success of the online courses. It is especially interesting to note that NKI and UOC in more detail have described the integration of their internally developed online educations solutions. The remaining distance education 48

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institutions report that they want better integrated ICT systems to become more effective and efficient.

Among the universities, colleges and consortia, the University of Ulster, ULPGC and BI report that they have well integrated systems. The remaining institutions indicate that the systems can be better integrated and provides various examples of this. The two consortia rely on each individual member’s ICT systems and do not provide any central integration.

The corporate training providers CrossKnowledge and Hungarian Telecom report to have well integrated systems. Learn Direct states that integration is good, but that they focus more on robustness and scalability.

The following is a summary of the answers provided by the institutions.

Distance education institutions NKI Distance Education. The high competence in information technology at NKI DE is used to develop and integrate different systems. NKI has a number of self-developed and commercial applications that together make up a system for student support services and administration (Figure 4).

A central component is “student administrative system”, STAS. This has been developed at NKI DE over many years to satisfy a number of needs, including registration of assignments, monitoring student progression, distributing new learning materials and paying tutors. STAS is NKI DE’s master system and it is integrated with all other essential systems such as accounting, logistic, prospective and partner systems.

STAS was initially developed for correspondence courses and bar code registration of assignments. Initially it was not suited to serving online students, as there were no connections between the Internet systems and the administrative systems. It was necessary to develop STAS further to handle online students efficiently. The integrated development of STAS and the LMS system for online learning, SESAM (also self-developed), is taking place continuously. Both systems are designed to handle continuous student enrolment and individual progression schedules.

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Figure 4. NKI’s integrated systems for online student support

Agresso (www.agresso.com) is a commercial accounting system that handles tuition fees, invoices, wages, etc. SYSA is a system for presentation of information about local partners that organize face-to-face classes as support for NKI DE’s courses. Onyx and Multi-Case are commercial purchased systems. Onyx handles marketing activities and requests from prospective students, while Multi-Case is a commercial logistics system for administration and shipments of textbooks and miscellaneous physical learning materials. When course enrolments are registered in STAS, Multi-Case automatically initiates shipment of the corresponding physical course materials. FEB is a self-developed business portal where all courses and programmes offered by NKI are presented. Prospective students may register or apply to courses directly via FEB. In addition to course information, FEB also includes a comprehensive database of articles with news, frequently asked questions, and more general information on distance and online education.

NKS. This depends on who you ask. For students, the systems are integrated well enough for them to experience smooth and seamless links between services offered by different systems.

However, for the staff operating these services, the situation is different. Less than perfect integration for example means that functions located in one of the systems are not available through a common interface but must be operated through each system separately. This means that administrative routines are more resource consuming than they could have been if the systems were better integrated, and it means that we still have a way to go before we have perfect integration. Nevertheless, we believe that even this imperfect system has contributed to our success.

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Dennis Gabor College. The administration system (ETR) is compatible with the LMS (ILIAS), however they are not single sign-on systems. Where necessary, the system administrator/project leader helps teachers transform data from one system to the other. Both systems have been translated to Hungarian, that ensures their accessibility for all students and staff. It is important to highlight the significant raise in the number of online users in the past 6-12 months, due to which phenomenon the LMS is working increasingly as a soft skills administrational and communicational platform as well, in addition to ETR. Open Universiteit Nederland (OUNL). It’s a quite complex process. There is a need (from the view of cost-effectiveness) to reduce the number of different systems; but there is also a challenge to see which contributions new systems/new technology can provide to onlineeducation.

The Open University of the United Kingdom (UKOU). This is an area where we have suffered by being ahead of the game. We have a suite of different systems/ applications performing different parts of our eLearning infrastructure. Integration is much harder than it would be if we had adopted a single VLE (though that would probably have other downsides such as limiting our pedagogic choices). We are about to introduce a VLE based on Moodle which will address some of these issues.

Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC). The Campus VirtualTM, which was developed by the Information Systems Department at UOC, is an Internet-based e-learning delivery and support system that uses a client-server web technology and common interface to integrate wide set of services and applications. All functions of the Campus VirtualTM are applications that have been designed to provide an efficient environment for tele-cooperation and elearning. Campus VirtualTM uses the IDEASolutionsTM platform, which was also developed

by UOC. IDEASolutionsTM has been designed specifically for e-learning through the Internet. The continuous assessment and development of this platform has allowed UOC to build up a market product that can be adapted to a number of educational contexts. As such, it is of real interest to other institutions wishing to provide virtual university services.

IDEASolutionsTM is installed over Oracle Database, Oracle Application Server and Netscape Web Server. It has been developed with the most frequently used programming languages on the market and uses Transmission Control Protocol and HTTPS Internet protocols. It is adaptable to the Instructional Management Standard for the management of training programmes. The fact that the entire technological infrastructure of the university has been designed as a whole, integration of different IT-systems is not really an issue.

UNED. At this moment in time a high level of integration has been achieved between the online courses and the databases underlying the different IT systems in the university. This integration has proved to be a critical factor for the success of the online courses.

Universities, colleges and consortia Scuola IaD. What we unfortunately must highlight is that the integration between the different IT systems cannot be considered currently satisfying, in our institution such as - we believe - within the landscape of international distance education institutions: what appears to be fairly inadequate is the “technical mean” itself, where for “inadequate” we mean ‘unable to recreate, while bettering it, the same level of cognitive, emotional and relational studentstrainers and students-students integration which characterizes presence education environments’.

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The University of Ulster. Every module has its module space on the VLE. Student e-learning accounts are created at enrolment. There is complete integration between the student record system and course enrolment. In each module space there are deep links to the library.

Students have automatic access to all library resources, databases and journals and need no additional credentials to access these resources. The library service is integrated into the enrolment system. There is an immediate link from the university homepage to the library and to the subject librarian’s homepage.

Sør-trøndelag University College. Answer from AITeL: We have several systems: 1) A web shop for buying the courses, 2) An accounting system for invoices, payment through credit cards online etc. 3) A student administrative system to register the student at correct study programme, organise the exams, etc and finally 4) a learning management system for all the learning activities. In other words: Not a very flexible system. Earlier we had one single system to administer the whole process starting with the student buying the course until the exam was finished. But requirements from the director and rector of the institution changed all this. All the e-learning activity should be put into the procedures and systems used for the rest of the students, i.e. campus students. But these systems were not prepared or planned for e-learning students and we therefore had to make some shortcuts and do some manual work between the systems. Not an ideal situation, but we had no choice. We were forced to do so.

In the long run of course it is best with one system handling all students, both campus and distance students, but the current IT-system was not prepared for this change.

The University of Leicester. We do not have this IT systems integration, there are, for example, no student records on Blackboard. It is desirable but not essential. Our emphasis in e-learning is on pedagogy, not on systems.

Staffordshire University. The integration between Information Technology systems is very important. Our VLE has direct links into the Management Information System and to the Library but we have not yet installed e-enrolment. Our approach is to use the IMS specifications. We were one of the first UK universities involved in contributing to IMS and to IMS web-based services.

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. All e-learning activity that happens in and around GATE is based on MOODLE as the institutional VLE running in the institution. Although it is true that there are some own developments in the field of learning management systems within the university as a whole, like AulaWeb and ARFO, in the specific context of the distance learning cabinet it is certainly an advantage not having to deal with several different systems and the need to integrate them under a common purpose. The GATE decided to use MOODLE, because it is a very comprehensive platform regarding the numerous resources it offers and after having analyzed the results of the mentioned evaluation of e-learning platforms. It was considered important not to depend on the services of a commercial provider and to be able to introduce as many changes as necessary in the original configuration or code of the application in order to adapt it to the institution’s needs and requirements. Another factor worth to mention is to see that there is an important academic community that uses and improves MOODLE constantly.

Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. All aspects related to the information and communication systems are integrated under one single service. There is one single access code to e-administration, to e-mail and to the virtual campus. Actually the e-administration

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and the e-mail service were there before the implementation of e-learning. Therefore the latter was integrated into the earlier systems.

Virtuelle Hochschule Bayern. In the VHB with its more than 30 member universities, a variety of LMS is in use. As far as we can judge from the students’ evaluation, this plurality of LMS and platforms does not constitute a problem for the students. Critical remarks related to specific features of specific systems (which were then improved), not to the fact that a variety of systems is used. All courses are on the servers of member universities; no central course-server is used. This could change, at least partially, should the member universities vote for a change of policy.

Oncampus. The production and delivery of Oncampus distance study programmes takes place within a harmonised technical framework. The application of technology within regular university business of LUAS and other university partners (presence courses) could be, however, more integrative and broadened. Thus, synergies have not been exploited yet.

BI Norwegian School of Management. The system is integrated with the student administration system (Banner) as well as other IT-systems used at BI. We also use standard third party IT-programs and software, that are integrated with the e-learning system. We believe that integration of IT-systems is an essential factor for success – and will be of even greater importance in the future for those institutions that want to succeed in the e-learning market.

University of Tartu. Our learning management system is not integrated with study information system (separate authentication, no data exchange between LMS and SIS). IT-systems integration with LMS is the activity we have to deal with in the near future. Our e-learning strategy 2006-2010 states: “Ensure required exchange of data between different information systems (SIS, course database, e-learning environment, database of learning objects, tutor database) and develop global authentication system (University computer network, e-learning environment).”

Corporate training providers Learn Direct. The integration between Information Technology systems is good; it’s a good idea to have it all linked. At Learn Direct, however, the focus is more on robustness and scalability. The goal is that the system does the basic things well all the time.

CrossKnowledge. We have built strong integration links between the front office and back office systems, in order to speed-up the delivery of new modules and of new training courses.

Our project managers can very easily roll-out new courses with few parameters, using our powerful back-office CrossKnowledge Deployer.

EDHEC Business School. Our e-learning platform is directly linked to all the websites of EDHEC. The students’ identification criteria are the same for accessing all the services (email, sessions, international services, use of time and e-learning). On the other hand we wanted the platform and all the e-learning policy decisions to be controlled by another service other than the Computer Centre. E-learning is first and foremost a methodological and pedagogical sector. We did not want the technical teams to impose their view or their course formatting.

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ÉLOGOS. Due to the ability and competence of the company’s team in the field of technology, the possible problems derived from processes of integration of contents and applications in different environments that might even be incompatible are usually solved efficiently and to full satisfaction of the clients.

Hungarian Telecom. Every learning related IT systems are compatible with each other and the corporate HR interface, therefore the management and transmission of data is easy and simple. This plays a quite important role in the smooth running and success of T-Com’s elearning practice.

Effective administrative systems 8. What are the strengths and weaknesses of your e-learning administrative systems (from enrolment through delivery to certification)?

The rating indicates that the corporate training providers (4.0) and the distance education institutions (3.8) have better administrative systems for e-learning than the universities, colleges and consortia (3.1).

The main technical issues related to the administrative systems seem to be how well they are integrated and how efficient they are. All types of institutions seem to focus on the necessity of systems integration and many of the institutions want improved systems integration.

The distance education providers seem to be most satisfied with the systems integration, and the corporate training providers seem to have the clearest focus on effective systems that are highly automated and deliver new courses quickly and efficiently.

The universities and colleges seem to have a special challenge since their administrative systems and routines often depend on systems that first of all have to suit the universities traditional students. This is well illustrated by this statement from HiST when it had to adapt to the university system: Integrated technical systems allowed the institution to run operations with a high degree of efficiency and this was an important factor for sustainability. Now the institution is experiencing the flip side of this. The integrated systems have been abandoned and replaced with less efficient (and not integrated) systems designed for on campus operations. This has lead to loss of efficiency and may threaten survival of the large scale operations.

The consortia have a special challenge related to systems integrations since the member institutions often depend on their own systems and are not interested in integration with a consortium system.

The following is a summary of the answers provided by the institutions.

Distance education institutions NKI Distance Education. We find that the integration of the systems is vitally important for the total functionality, efficiency, and quality of student support services and for costefficiency of online education. The fact that the critical systems can be developed together

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and continuously is very important, and, of course, also that these developments take place as a result of actual pedagogical, organisational and market related needs.

NKS. The strength is that one has managed to connect different systems to something that actually works and that from the student perspective provides seamless services. The weakness is that the different parts are not fully integrated and does not provide seamless information and services for the staff.

Dennis Gabor College. Both the administrative system and the LMS are very user-friendly.

Their weakness originates from the human weakness of asking questions first before reading instructions or the help menu. This, in case of so many users, means that considerable attention is required from the tutors and technical administrators. The only real challenge is the technical motivation of the staff at the educational department, whose responsibility is the administration. They are confident in the use of ETR, but they are not yet fully aware of the use of ILIAS that is gradually also providing platform for administrational questions, therefore should be attended by the educational department personnel too.

Open Universiteit Nederland (OUNL). The strength is that it is integrated in one administrative system, called SPIL. The weakness is that – because of this integration – changes require a complex process.

The Open University of the United Kingdom (UKOU). Strengths: robustness, scaleability, automated processes (imagine having to do hand workarounds for 180,000 students).

Weaknesses: system was developed some time ago and it does not easily adapt to changes in business processes. For instance initially the system was intended for staff use on the campus network, now we want to provide more interactive services for students logging in from the Internet.

Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC). The UOC is a private entity with the vocation of a public service, and it is part of the university network of Catalonia. For this reason, the main administrative issues are basically the same as those for other universities in Spain. The biggest issue the UOC needed to manage was its virtual character, and the underlying philosophy of permitting students to undertake all their studies from home. The tool that has been developed to meet this objective allows integrating the whole range of administrative functions and services is ergonomic, intuitive, easy-to-use, flexible and based on market standards. It has a customizable interface and is language independent. It holds, therefore, considerable strengths from the point of view of the administrative user and is also a very interesting solution for various different company and departmental contexts.

UNED. The e-learning administrative systems work well although there is currently no certification provided by them. They integrate data pulled from different databases and data sources.

Universities, colleges and consortia Scuola IaD. A weakness that, instead, specifically characterizes our institution, to be although framed within the historical delay of the Italian administrative systems, is the way the certification processes are managed, due to the damaging complexity and continuous changes of the administrative procedures. Such administrative operating style causes unpleasant delays of the certificates’ mail delivery. While admitting our weakness, we also wish to highlight our strength, which we believe to be in the deep ability we developed over the years and

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regularly perform, to welcome our “customer”, in the way that appears more suitable for the individual user and/or individual circumstance, our availability to answer to any request our customer feels he/she needs to express and satisfy.

The University of Ulster. The strengths are that it is not a top down approach and that the library is integrated into the VLE. Manchester Metropolitan University. In essence we needed to respond to the e-learning administrative requirements. We needed a scalable system. We were doing all we could but the systems were not integrated. Now WebCT Vista will sweep all these problems aside. It will give us a fresh start, a good scalable system with an all new student record system integrated into it. The system will be driven by new webforms which are being designed from scratch.

Sør-trøndelag University College. Weaknesses: We have to use several systems with manual transfer of students and student data between the systems. The systems don’t support flexible start-up, flexible progression and flexible exam date. Many problems with LMS-system.

Could not list all here. One serious problem with LMS in the e-learning context is lack of public areas where coming students could take a look into running courses, look at part of the learning material and learning activities and next decide if he/she should take that course.

Staffordshire University. There is no e-enrolment. The Student Records System is directly linked into the VLE. Quality assurance and academic planning are also linked to it.

Weaknesses are that the administration is not linked to e-learning and course catalogues and prospectuses are not online. We want to be able to aggregate all course descriptions (for instance, all the biology courses in the United Kingdom) in a project with Manchester Metropolitan University and JISC, called XCRI. Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. The administrative system, and here we’re mainly talking about enrolments and registrations, runs with ORACLE. The integration of both systems, MOODLE and ORACLE, is not always easy and it was necessary to develop intermediate applications in order to ensure a correct communication between the two systems. However, this has never been a fundamental problem, apart from the increased workload for technicians.

The main strengths are the successful running of the courses, the efficient quality evaluation system, the production of contents and resources, and the implementation of e-learning in general. The main weaknesses are the need to carry out enrolments and registrations with a second system (ORACLE) and the certification process is complicated, particularly in continuing training courses.

Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Our main weaknesses have to do with the fact that we are originally a face to face university and the administrative systems have to learn how to work without having the user in sight. At the same time the user has to learn to carry out all necessary actions without necessarily having verbal or direct contact with anybody.

Nevertheless it can be considered strength that there are strong computing systems that supported e-administration even before the institution started its distance learning program.

These systems were created for on campus students which meant a real step forward regarding the requisites of distance education and administration.

Virtuelle Hochschule Bayern. Within the VHB framework several systems are in use. All courses are administered by the people responsible, i.e. by professors of the member

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universities or by members of their staff. It might be argued that this is not the most effective solution, but to transfer the existing courses to a single system would not be economically feasible. For the course catalogue and for registration, we use a central system. The second generation of this system is in preparation and will eliminate some shortcomings which were highlighted by the technical part of the evaluation.

Oncampus. Strengths: Oncampus uses technical tools that have been developed for individual needs, e. g. Oncampus-portal matches with the requirements of a professional distance study course management, SAKAI learning platform provides a very high scalability (system can be broadened easily, flexibility on interfaces is provided), and Oncampus e-learning material is throughout flexible for customisation purposes and usage.

Weaknesses: Oncampus activities are linked with the regular university administrations. In this context, the use of technology is not established as much as possible.

BI Norwegian School of Management. The administrative module of ‘Apollon’ enables all administrators to easily enrol students and establish virtual classrooms, groups etc. (integrated with the student administration system ‘Banner’). The fact that the e-learning system is developed at our own institutions allows for a rapid and innovative development of new modules. We regard this as a great advantage in the development and business of distance education. ‘Banner’ allows for a wide range of services for administrative following-up of the students up to the certification of each student. It also includes “a web for student service” (self service-module for exam enrolment etc.) We might, however, have a potential in further exploring the question of automatisation. This may rationalize administrative work and other routines.

University of Tartu. WebCT server management and course administration is accomplished jointly at the Estonian e-University consortium level which is certainly the strength, saving necessary human and financial resources for these tasks at the universities level. At the same time LMS management and administration at the consortium level makes it more difficult to integrate the different IT systems. For example every consortium member university has different SIS and this makes it complicated to integrate LMS and SIS of each particular institution.

Corporate training providers CrossKnowledge. The main strength of our e-learning administrative system lies in the speed of delivery of our projects: • • • •

Our CrossKnowledge Deployer system allows the project managers to deliver quickly and efficiently new courses New learners can be enrolled very quickly either through massive enrolment list uploaded with back office or with automated connections through powerful Web Services Learners can link directly from their Corporate Intranet environment to our LMS without entering again their login and password, thanks to our SSO interface (Single Sign On) Our powerful LRM system (Learner Relationship Manager)

We don’t offer certification services and processes today.

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EDHEC Business School. Strengths: autonomous organisation directly supported by the Director General. Very strong support for all requests for the creation of new accounts and new course enrolments. Weaknesses: not having enough internal resources; the pedagogical approach is not always precise enough; collaborative working could be more developed; few examples of online assessment (as opposed to self correction). ÉLOGOS. The administrative systems have evolved, based on the company’s own developments, focussing on the client’s needs (access to administration, data-tracking, new functions…) on one hand, and covering the needs of improvement in the business processes, optimizing the activity chain on the other hand. The latter produced an improvement in the processes of student contact, enrolment and data capture, programming, monitoring processes and tutoring, reporting, notifying and evaluation of students’ progress, quality control of the training process, emission of diplomas and certificates etc. The current result is an efficient system that provides information and support to the administrative side of the training and allows guaranteeing the efficiency of the training cycle with an optimized use of resources.

Hungarian Telecom. Definite strengths of the company’s administrative systems are their tailor-made characteristics, how the method of creating online material suits the work of teachers/tutors. The methodology is very fine, containing multi-faceted elements, allowing personalisation and scheduling. The online assessment developed is professional. Regarding T-Com’s online educational weaknesses, they still have a lot to improve on their blended learning courses. However this is yet in a premature stage, the gradual improvement is visible.

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Course factors

By Pedro Fernández Michels, Albert Sangrà and Lourdes Guàrdia This chapter provides an analysis of the answers given by 24 institutions (Universidade Aberta is not included) to the 4 questions of the Megatrends-interview guide (Appendix 1) related to the courses offered in the providers’ online teaching and training programmes. The 4 questions related to the topic “courses” were the following: • • • •

Which types of subjects are covered by online education in your institution and what is the relative importance of different subjects?

How would you describe the “onlineability” of the subjects your institution has chosen for e-learning?

Do the online courses provided by your institution have flexible start-up and progression?

What is the role or importance of synchronous and asynchronous communication between students and teachers and among students themselves?

The underlying hypothesis regarding the success of mega providers of e-learning are that the following four factors contribute to robust and sustainable e-learning provision: • • • •

A wide range of subjects and levels a wise choice of topics flexible student start-up and progression and the focus on asynchronous communication.

The rating based on the answers to the questions is presented in Table 7 and Figure 5.

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60

10. Wise choice of topics

11. Flexible student start-up and progression

12. Focus on asynchronous communication

Institution OUNL, Mean value OUUK, Mean value NKI, Mean value UOC, Mean value NKS, Mean value UNED, Mean Value GDF, Mean value Aberta, Mean value Distance Education institutions ULPGC, Mean value UPM, Mean value Leicester, Mean value Ulster, Mean value MMU, Mean value Stafford, Mean value HiST, Mean value Tartu, Mean value BI, Mean value ScuolaIaD, Mean value BVU, Mean value Oncampus, Mean value Universities and colleges CrossK, Mean value Learn Direct, Mean value ELOGOS, Mean value EDHEC, Mean value T-Com HU, Mean value Corporate training providers

9 Wide range of subjects and levels

Table 7. Rating of course factors

4,0 4,0 4,8 4,0 4,5 4,5 4,0 4,3 4,5 4,3 4,7 4 3,3 4,0 3,0 4,0 4,1 4,1 4,5 4,3 2 3,8 4,8 4,3 3,5 ND 4,5 ND 4,8 4,0 2,0 3,0 4,5 3,3 2,0 4,3 4,5 3,0 4,5 3,8 2,3 4,5 3,6 3,8 3,3 4,0 3,8 ND 3,5 4,3 3,3 3,8 3,2 4,2 3,4 4,1

4,3 1,5 4,5 1,0 3,5 1,3 3,0 1,0 2,5 1,0 1 1,8 1,5 1,3 1,0 1,3 2,0 3,8 4,5 2,3 1,0 1,9 5,0 5,0 5 1,8 4,8 4,3

4,5 5,0 5,0 5,0 4,8 4,3 4,0 4,0 4,6 4,5 4,3 4,3 2,3 3,3 4,0 4,3 3,3 4,3 4,0 4,8 4,0 3,9 2,3 2,3 3 4,3 4,4 3,2

Analyses of European megaproviders of e-learning

Figure 5. Rating of course factors

Course Factors Universities and Colleges

Distance Education Institutions

Corporate Training Providers

12. Focus on asynchronous communication

11. Flexible student start-up and progression

10. Wise choice of topics

9 Wide range of subjects and levels

0,0

0,5

1,0

1,5

2,0

2,5

3,0

3,5

4,0

4,5

5,0

The 24 institutions that provided answers and data to these topics are: For Norway NKI, BI, NKS, Sørtrøndelag University College (HiST)

For Spain UPM, ELOGOS, UOC, ULPGC, UNED

For Italy SCUOLAIaD

For the UK UKOU, Learn Direct, MMU, Staffordshire University, University of Leicester, University of Ulster

For Germany BVU, Oncampus

For Estonia TARTU

For Hungary GDF, Hungarian Telecom

For the Netherlands OUNL

For France EDHEC, CrossKnowledge

General observations Table 8 shows the rating values based on the answers given by the 24 institutions. It proposes the division between three main types of institutions, the Distance Education Institutions Analyses of European megaproviders of e-learning

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(light grey), the Universities, Colleges and Consortia, the latter namely BVU and Oncampus (dark grey) and the Corporate Training Providers (white).

It also shows the arithmetical averages for the ratings given for each factor (green) and the averages of the rating coming from each institution (orange). A third mean value is shown in blue. It refers to the average rating of the success factors within every single group of institutions.

A high rating means that the underlying hypothesis is supported by the given answers. A low rating means that this hypothesis is less supported.

One particular difficulty that was revealed during the analysis of the interview transcript is the fact that questions 9 and 10 do not clearly ask for the levels covered by online programmes as suggested by the hypothesis (e.g. undergraduate, graduate or postgraduate) nor do they differentiate between subjects and topics. In spite of this terminological disparity in the analysis framework, interviewees contributed with sufficiently detailed information in order to get a satisfying picture regarding the accuracy of the stated hypothesis.

At the end of this chapter, the findings based on the information given by the interviewed megaproviders are going to be compared with what the project team has been able to find out about how some important discontinued initiatives of e-learning provision dealt with the organization and implementation of their courses.

The first interesting general impression one gets by analyzing the gathered data is that there is a remarkable difference between the universities and the other two types of institutions concerning the average rating of the factors in total. The global value to all four factors given by distance education institutions is 3.9 whereas it goes down to 3.8 in the case of corporate training providers and only 3.3 in the case of universities, colleges and consortia. The difference of almost 15 % between distance education institutions and universities indicates less concern about course related issues in universities than in the other two institution categories.

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Distance Education Institutions Average Cluster

Universities Colleges Consortia

Average Cluster Corporate Training Providers Average Cluster Arithmetic Mean Factors

GDF OUNL OUUK NKI UOC NKS UNED

3,3 4 4,8 4,5 4,5 4,5 4 4,23 ULPGC 4,5 UPM 2 Leicester 4,8 Ulster 3,5 MMU 4,5 Staffordshire 4,8 HiST 2 Tartu 4,5 BI 2 ScuolaIaD 4,5 BVU 4,5 Oncampus 2,3 3,66 CrossK 3,3 Learn Direct 3,8 ELOGOS 3,5 EDHEC 3,3 T-Com HU 4 3,58 3,84

Arithmetic Mean Institutions

12. Focus on asynchronous communication

11. Flexible student startup and progression

10. Wise choice of topics

9. Wide range of subjects and levels

Institution

Table 8. Ratings and arithmetical averages for the course factors of the 24 interviewed institutions

4 4 4 4,5 4,3 4,3 4 4,16 4,3 3,8 4,3 ND ND 4 3 3,3 4,3 3 3,8 4,5 3,83 4 ND 4,3 3,8 4 4,025

3 4,3 1,5 4,5 1 3,5 1 2,69 1 1 1,8 1,5 1,3 1 1,3 2 3,8 4,5 2,3 1 1,88 5 5 5 1,8 4,5 4,26

4 4,5 5 5 5 4,8 4 4,61 4,5 4,5 4,3 2,3 3,3 4 4,3 3,3 4,3 4 4,8 4 3,97 2,3 2,3 3 4,3 4,5 3,28

3,98

2,57

4,04

3,6 4,2 3,8 4,6 3,7 4,3 3,3 3,9 3,6 2,8 3,8 2,4 3,0 3,5 2,7 3,3 3,6 4,0 3,9 3,0 3,3 3,7 3,7 4,0 3,3 4,3 3,8

Universities, colleges and consortia find every single suggested factor less responsible for their success than distance education institutions do. Certainly the rating that contributes most to the poor overall score is the one for flexible start-up and progression. Interestingly this is at the same time the factor that raises the score of Corporate Training Providers. Within the four factors, this type of institutions considers flexible start-up and progression the most important factor for success. The score given to flexible start-up and progression by Corporate Training Providers is more than double the one given by Universities, colleges and consortia.

This high rating approximates them to the overall score held by Distance Education Institution in spite of having a lower rating in the three other factors.

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If we looked only at the other three factors (range of subjects, choice of topics and asynchronous communication), the overall score for each group of institutions would be the following: Distance Education Institutions Universities, Colleges, Consortia Corporate Training Providers

4.3 3.8 3.6

It is clear that eliminating the hypothesis about flexible start-up and progression we can observe a converging movement between Distance Education Institutions and Universities, whereas Corporate Training Providers appear at a much greater distance (0.7 points instead of 0.1 points).

The hypothesis that a focus on asynchronous communication contributed to the success of the institution seems to be widely accepted. It received the clearest overall support, especially backed by distance education institutions.

In the following, these and more observations are going to be treated in more detail.

The range of subjects and levels Not all of the interviewed institution indicated clearly in which educational levels they offer e-learning, due to the mentioned terminological differences between the questions and the formulation of the success factors. Nevertheless it is clear that there is a focus on academic education, due to the fact that higher education institutions are the vast majority within the identified megaproviders of e-learning (19 academic institutions versus 5 corporate providers).

In an overall view it is clear that there is a wide range of subjects suitable for online education. Figure 6 shows the subjects mentioned by the institutions regarding the times they appear in the interview transcripts.

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Figure 6. Subjects mentioned in interviews

Range of subjects (fields) 25 20 15 10

Technical subjects

22

Economy/business

19 17

Social sciences Health sciences 12

Natural sciences Law

8 6

5

5

6

Languages

4 2

2

Others (Humanities‌) Art and design

0

According to market Frequency of appearance in replies

Wide range

Nevertheless the overall rating for a wide range of subjects and levels as a decisive factor for robust and sustainable online education (3.8) is not spectacular considering that the highest score out of all 25 factors for success is 4.8 (for the hypothesis that robust and sustainable online education is based on standard technologies). The lowest value (for flexible start-up and progression) is 2.6. The value of 3.8 is therefore average.

Interpreting the variety of subjects given in the interviews it might be necessary to talk about another differentiation between the institutions. On one hand we find institutions that have a low initial specialization regarding their field of educational activity (either contents or target group). To this group belong: ULPGC, the University of Tartu, UKOU, UOC, BVU, NKI, Scuola IaD, EDHEC, Ulster, Staffordshire, Leicester, NKS, ELOGOS, Learn Direct, UNED, Oncampus, MMU, OUNL, HiST and Hungarian Telecom.

As these institutions mainly belong or are related to higher education in general, the range of subjects normally covers the whole spectrum of academic fields of knowledge. This circumstance might result in a higher consideration of the importance of a wide range of subjects in online courses (4.0).

On the other hand, we can find institutions that can be described as initially specialized, as for example the business schools or the technical universities. Two relatively clear examples are: UPM (subjects related to engineering and architecture) and BI (finance, administration and management). Others are GDF, CROSSKNOWLEDGE, and AITeL. As these schools and colleges do not offer a wide range of subjects, their consideration of the importance of this factor might be naturally lower than in the other group (2.6). Figure 7 illustrates the important difference between the two mentioned groups of institutions regarding their valuation of the importance of offering a wide range of subjects.

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Figure 7. Importance of offering a wide range of subjects Specialized and non specilized institutions 4,5 4 4

3,5

3 2,6 2,5

Business and IT specialization Not initially specialized 2

1,5

1

0,5

0

Rating

It was interesting to investigate if there was any sign of virtuality being the mobile for a specific profile of course offer regarding subjects and range. Here it can be said that none of the collected information indicates explicitly that the virtual character of the courses was decisive for the variety of subjects offered. The configuration of the programmes seems to be much more related to market demand, customer needs and popularity of certain subjects.

UOC (Univeristat Oberta de Catalunya) “In an effort to provide an education that is complementary to what the other universities in Catalonia have to offer, the UOC has developed courses and degree programmes that are increasingly in demand but that conventional universities are not proposing in sufficient quantity to meet this growing demand.”

NKS “However, an overriding principle is subjects are chosen according to demands in the market and then we adapt the course to pedagogical requirements. […] the most important issue is whether there is a market for a course.”

BVU “The relative importance of [our] fields of study (measured in terms of student enrolment) has varied over the years. In its first three years, the VHB offered courses in Business Sciences, Computer Science, Engineering, Health and Key Qualifications. Initially, there was demand mostly for courses in Key Qualifications and Health. Later, the demand for courses in Business Sciences rose significantly. In the academic year 2005/06, Law courses were most popular.”

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Oncampus “All subjects are of the same importance for LUAS and its consortiums, because the aim is to gain new target groups for academic education. The programmes were therefore implemented after market analysis.”

NKI “Because academic competence in the subjects being taught are not kept in-house but bought from academics at other institutions, NKI DE can be more flexible in choice of subjects than can traditional education institutions. […] Market considerations determine whether a course or programme is developed or not.”

BI “BI is depending on continuous research and cooperation with corporate business and this will influence the subjects taught.”

HT “T-Com partially is working on a project basis, contracting for the development of courses on demand.”

One can clearly see that the vast majority of courses offered in an online environment belong to technical and economical subjects in general (engineering, computer technology, health sciences, medicine, physics and chemistry, architecture etc.). To be mentioned as particularly well covered are business/management and mathematics/computing. In clear disadvantage at an overall view we can find subjects as law, languages, arts and social sciences.1 Conclusion A wide range of subjects is only considered of relative importance. Institutions that are already specialized regarding the subjects they offer rate this factor on a fairly low scale of importance. The variety of subjects is not seen as directly related to the online character of the offered courses. The over-average presence of technical and economical subjects needs a different explanation and does not seem to indicate that the analyzed institutions consider other subjects less suitable for e-learning.

The choice of topics Similarly to the findings regarding the variety of subjects, the online character of the course delivery does not appear to be an important factor for choosing one or the other subject to be included in the program. The institutions generally do not consider that there are subjects that cannot be delivered online, although it seems to be admitted that there are differences in the degree of suitability.

1 An exception in that aspect might be TARTU, where we can find a fairly balanced situation (154 e-learning courses for Social Sciences, Education and Philosophy&Languages in comparison to 160 courses for Biology&Geography, Economics, Maths and Informatics and Medicine altogether).

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Figure 8. Subjects declared as onlineable Subjects/topics declared as "onlineable"

9 8 8 7

Every/almost every subject 6

Business, management, economy

5

Engineering, computing

4

Mathematics 3

Law

3

Education

2 2 1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

Interior design Individual & theoretical learning

0

Qualitative aspects Num ber of tim es the answ er w as given

Numeric subjects

In addition, different institutions seem to have adopted a different view on “onlinebility�. As a consequence one subject can be seen as unsuitable for e-learning by one institution and at the same time considered supportive for online scenarios by another institution. The list below shows the main constraints and supportive elements for e-learning mentioned by the interviewees. They are linked with an AND when they are in tune with each other and they are linked with a BUT when they contradict each other.

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Constraints to online teaching and learning Editing problems in mathematics (BI).

AND Mathematics at university level does not go well and Computing Departments are weak for e-learning (LEICESTER).

AND In mathematics and interior design there are assignments that are more easily submitted by post than by the Internet (NKI).

BUT Topics that imply argumentation, presentation, holding a plea, etc.

(OUNL) Difficulties in designing simulation tools for technical subjects (UPM/UOC).

AND Stress on declarative or conceptual knowledge in technical subjects cause problems in creating debates for asynchronous environments (UPM) AND Difficulties of visualizing certain contents on the screen or deliver them online (NKI) AND The science and engineering subjects have problems with the correct use / presentation of mathematical symbols. (UNED) Topics that require practical training (NKS)

BUT

Elements mentioned as supportive for online teaching and learning Rather in numeric than in discursive disciplines (UKOU, about computer assisted formative assessment).

BUT

BUT

Qualitative subjects (BI).

BUT

Possibilities of didactic design in engineering and computer sciences (Oncampus).

AND Need of individual theoretical study (NKI) BUT Relevance of media competence and online collaboration skills for expected jobs (Oncampus)

Staff and economical constraints regarding the development of new subjects or topics (UOC) The listed factors for “onlinebility” offered by the different institutions reflect a considerable degree of contradiction that might be due to each institution’s particular view on the possibilities and limitations virtuality offers regarding their specific context.

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Nevertheless, again, most of them rather seem to make their decisions either according to the market demands or simply continuing their traditional orientations. In this sense, former face-to-face business schools or technical universities, for example, are likely to offer what they have always been offering in their on campus programmes.

Conclusions In summary, we can say that the online character of education does not significantly influence on the choice of subjects (we can find a wide range of subjects in all cases, either within certain fields or covering different fields) nor does it have a clear effect on the choice of individual subjects. Admitting certain difficulties, like the editors for mathematic formulas, virtual laboratories and the concerns about possible problems with fostering debates or collaborative learning around remarkably declarative subjects, the questionnaires do not reflect a feeling of impossibility regarding the virtual delivery of any topic, subject or group of subjects. Particularities are solved adapting the pedagogical approach to the special requirements of every subject (which can occasionally lead to blended approaches that would not meet the criteria of the MEGATRENDS project). An example for such a flexible approach is what the Spanish corporate training provider ÉLOGOS says: ÉLOGOS "Certainly there are subjects that are more difficult to handle in a totally virtual environment, whereas others can be taught especially well with ICT. ÉLOGOS works with a range of different scenarios that include blended learning, distance learning, distance learning based on materials delivered on CD-Rom and others."

The considerably high overall score of almost 4 has to be interpreted according to the question that was formulated in the survey. Institutions were asked how they considered the “onlineability” of the topics or subjects offered in their programmes. It is fairly predictable that institutions consider “onlineable” what they offer online. Interestingly it is again the group of Universities, Colleges and Consortia that give the lowest score for hypothesis 10 (namely 3.83) which could be explained, one more time, with the fact that the variety of their offer is so big that it produces more borderline cases of virtualized subjects or topics that can be seen more problematic than others.

Nevertheless it would be interesting to contrast the mentioned figures with the variety and number of subjects in the face-to-face context of each institution or country in order to validate the information given by the interviewed institutions. A significant deviation from the normal distribution of subjects could be an indicator for a relevant relation between the offered subjects and the fact that they are delivered in a virtual context.

Another interesting point to clarify is the possibility that certain institutions or faculties are more likely to introduce and promote online teaching and learning because their field of activities is already closer to the technical issues regarding virtual teaching and learning environments. The step towards the use of virtual platforms could be easier to achieve in an institution or department that deals with informatics, than in a language or art faculty, due to higher competence. This would partly explain the massive presence of technical subjects in the examined programmes. In the same line one can see the following observation given by the UK Open University:

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UKOU “Our main driver has been that students have had to supply their own equipment, rather than the onlineability of the subject. So we have introduced eLearning faster in Faculties where students have had better access to computers and the Internet.�

Virtuality seems to be more relevant when it comes to the decision about the educational context to use it in: there is not a single example of online teaching and training in primary or secondary education. All the institutions surveyed for this study operate in the field of higher education, postgraduate programmes, vocational training and lifelong learning. Online courses are therefore offered to adult learners that are mostly intending to complement an already existing training history.

Flexible start-up and progression As shown in Figure 9, the majority of the analyzed institutions do not offer flexible start-up and progression.

Figure 9. Start-up and progression Flexible start-up and progression 16 14 14

12

10

8 7 6

4 2 2

0

Not flexible

Totally flexible

Partly flexible

The hypothesis that flexible start-up and progression is an important factor for robust and sustainable online education is therefore not supported by the findings. The Corporate Training Providers are the only group that considers this hypothetical factor more important than the other three factors. OUNL, NKI and SCUOLAIaD are the only institutions belonging to the other groups that have given ratings above 4.

A recurrent reason for rejecting a flexible system regarding start-up, progression and completion of courses is the fact that online study programmes are embedded in traditional academic structures like credit systems, periodical exams, compulsory face-to-face practice sessions, etc.

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Another important impediment is the high costs for tutors that would have to be available beyond the conventional time frames of the educational institutions.

Table 9 gives a relation of the reasons given in favour or against flexible start-up and progression. The fields in blue are related to the organizational and administrative aspects and form the majority of the mentioned impediments for flexibility as understood in factor 11.

Table 9. Comments regarding flexible start-up and progression

Too costly Not flexible in order to help/motivate students Flexible start-up and progression reduces flexibility Not flexible due to face-to-face phases Not flexible due to group work Not flexible due to fixed exam periods Not possible due to the institution's model in general (semesters, enrolment, etc.)

2 times 2 times 1 time 2 times 1 time 2 times 6 times

The fact that interviewees considered flexible start-up and progression an impediment to flexibility seems to be a strange contradiction but has to do with two different kinds of flexibility. One refers only to start-up dates, finishing dates and a general framework for online assessment. The other one refers to the independence from time and space boundaries thanks to asynchronous online learning, but possibly also to the fact that keeping students in cohorts makes it possible to adapt learning activities to specific contexts, whereas the individualized learning path of a student working on flexible progressions is more likely to be definite in order to keep learning results between different individuals comparable.

The already mentioned high rating for the corporate training providers in this cluster (4.26) is probably due to the fact that these institutions offer services to companies and individuals that have already fully entered a working life and are looking for a type of training that is not offered by university type institutions. Flexibility is, in this segment, an important factor and certainly one of the selling points for the products institutions like ÉLOGOS, T-Com HU, CrossKnowledge and others provide. None of these institutions mention a concern about the coordination between flexible start-up and progression and organized student communication and collaboration. Some of the answers seem to indicate that communication between students is not an essential part of the learning process or that communication takes place mainly between individual learners and their tutors, but the gathered material is not clear enough to allow any definite conclusion regarding this assumption.

CrossKnowledge "Thanks to CrossKnowledge self-assessments, each programme is individualised. [...] With 100 % distance learning, the synchronous communication consists of phone points with the tutor, or of virtual classes and represents 10 % of the total course. " ÉLOGOS "Communication takes place via e-mail and forums as well as through programmed events that are carried out in a chat-like environment."

Learn Direct "The role of synchronous and asynchronous communication is a balance between the two."

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HUNGARIAN TELECOM "The company’s findings show little willingness of their learners to communicate with each other, especially in real time. In fact, it would be possible to trigger student to student communication (by synchronous platforms) with assignments where they must collaborate, but that would have a bad influence on learner centeredness and flexibility."

The following table gives an overview of the pros and contras concerning flexibility in startup and progression given by each institution.

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Table 10. Pros and cons concerning flexibility in start-up and progression

Reasons in favour of flexible start-up and progression

Reasons against flexible start-up and progression

Students like flexible start-up and progression and want it and research shows a 92% student satisfaction rate with access. (Learn Direct)

Flexibility or even a non-stop system would be too costly regarding the workload and duty periods that would be generated on the teacher side. (UOC)

It seems that adult part-time learners that are NKI DE’s main target group appreciate flexibility and freedom.

Enrolments increased after changing to flexible start-up and progressions solutions and pedagogy more related to distance education philosophies.

(NKI) OUNL is an open university in many meanings, also concerning starting dates and flexible progression. In this respect we are e.g. more flexible than the British Open University as OUNL students generally can start a course at any time. As a result of priority to flexibility it is natural that emphasis has to be put on asynchronous communication.

(OUNL)

This policy would reduce flexibility and is not suitable for elearning courses. Our Distance learning programme has four starting bases and reasonable flexibility of progression.

Flexible start-up means no group work, high drop-out and you don’t have any flexibility. (LEICESTER) We do not have flexible start-up dates or flexible progression.

The university business model does not favour it.

(STAFFORDSHIRE) Students start courses when the semester starts, but progress according to their own pace and finish as it suits them. (GDF) A determined and structured time organization is considered a valuable help for the students in their task of managing their online learning experience. (UPM) Our distance education offer follows the same patterns as the classical face-to-face education which is why start-up and finish are clearly defined in advance. (ULPGC) […] students have to earn their credits by passing a face-toface or written examination at the end of each course […] and this influences the flexibility of the start-up and the progression. Moreover […] it would be too costly to employ tutors throughout the year, and professors are not generally available for teaching purposes outside the normal teaching periods. (BVU) We find that pacing the timetable with continuous assessment provides a framework that motivates students. Also eLearning opens up the possibility of collaborative project work. This cannot be undertaken if you don’t have students at the same place in the course at the same time. (UKOU) No, because the online mentoring and presence phases are binding part of the programmes. Therefore, courses start twice a year (summer and winter term). (Oncampus) E-learning courses run every semester starting in September and January. All are post-graduate courses. Compulsory modules lead to optional ones. They enrol in a credit bearing module first, not the programme. (Ulster)

Interestingly, one of the institutions (NKI) combines the possibility of flexible start-up and progression with the obligation of each student to design and follow a personal study plan that

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has to be handed in. This model makes it possible to work within a fixed framework on an individual scale. Both guidance, on one hand, and individual independence from generalized timetables, on the other hand, are given at the same time.

Conclusion The given panorama in the questionnaires does not allow us to consider flexible start-up and progression an important factor for robust and sustainable e-learning provision.

The answers given by the interviewees allow us to identify different conceptions of flexibility.

This fact was particularly clear in the statement given by the University of Leicester in the sense that flexible start-up and progression would lead to a loss of flexibility.

In this context, and considering the main target group of online education which are people that need flexibility in designing their learning path and timetable due to a wide range of other obligations, it seems to be necessary to differentiate between the flexibility in terms of startup dates, finishing dates and a general framework for online assessment on one hand, and the flexibility given by the independence from space and concrete attendance timetables on the other hand. The latter, that is to say flexibility on a smaller scale, seems to be a much more important factor than flexibility understood as the elimination of fixed dates, possibly due to the conviction that keeping cohorts of students the learning activities can always be modified, adapted, changes up to a certain extend. Flexible start-up and progression creates a higher degree of individualized learners, which makes it necessary to standardize activities in order to keep results comparable.

Focus on asynchronous communication Apart from the fact that communication in general is considered a key factor in online teaching and learning, the survey results show a clear preference for asynchronous communication tools.

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Figure 7: Types of communication Type of communication 20

19

18

16

14

Asyn. Or mostly asyn.

12

Mostly Synchronous

10

8

Both 6

4

2

3

1

0

Number of times a particular answer was given

Synchronous communication is mainly offered as an additional channel that is rarely related to the core teaching and learning activity. Asynchronous communication is considered a possibility for flexible progression whereas synchronous communication is seen as an impediment to flexibility.

UOC "[...] the UOC is opting for an asynchronous model, which allows greater flexibility for students."

OUNL "As a result of priority to flexibility it is natural that emphasis has to be put on asynchronous communication."

BVU "Synchronous communication places severe limits on flexible start-up and progression.

Therefore, teaching and learning in most of our courses is based on asynchronous forms of communication."

NKI "Teaching is largely based on asynchronous communication. Because progression is flexible, synchronous communication between students would be hard to arrange. Therefore, video and telephone conferences are not used. Chat is available in some courses for communication between students, but participation in this is strictly voluntary."

Specifically, online communication is seen as a way to overcome isolation and individual learning approaches, two phenomena that are likely to appear in teaching and learning scenarios that are based on sheer content delivery using file servers and online data bases, in order to focus on the social aspect of learning.

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Tartu "Learning is a social activity and communication plays an important role in learning. The communication tools in an online learning environment create the opportunity for communication and socialisation between the learners."

There seems to be a certain disagreement in the interpretation of the value of synchronous communication. This disparity reaches from the interpretation of the learners' preferences to the overall appraisal of synchronicity. Some institutions indicate that there is little interest in having synchronous communication; others mention a considerable request for it. Some say that synchronicity is useful and important; some consider it an almost negligible sideline.

Scuola IaD " As for the courses’ modality, although we are aware that the synchronous way allows a more efficient ‘teacher-students’ and ‘students-students’ integration, and despite the huge request of synchronous distance learning courses, about 70% of our educational offer is asynchronous."

Leicester "Asynchronicity means working together. Synchronous use gets e-learning a bad name."

NKS "There are also possibilities for synchronous communication, but students show little interest in this. When synchronous (or near synchronous) communication has been tried out, for example through discussion forum and chat forum, students are often reluctant to participating."

ULPGC "Synchronous communication is optional and has more of a social function rather than an academic one. Only the language courses where teacher and students have to speak and see each other, synchronous communication is required at some moments."

Telecom-HU “In the late nineties T-Com had experimented with the use of synchronous communication in their “teaching in distance” practice but these initiatives had failed. Now, with the exploitation of broadband access, new perspectives have arisen, however it is expected to remain a relatively minor part of e-discussions. The company’s findings show little willingness of their learners to communicate with each other, especially in real time."

CrossKnowledge, Learn Direct, ÉLOGOS and the University of Ulster are the four institutions that gave the lowest score to the hypothesis that the use of asynchronous communication tools was the key to sustainability and success in e-learning. They are also the ones that describe synchronous communication as important or as a fundamental part of their course dynamics. In the cases of the Corporate Training Providers and considering asynchronous communication is considered exceptionally useful for social and collaborative learning scenarios, this data strengthens the hypothesis that they are less reluctant to individual learning than the great majority of the analyzed institutions.

Conclusion It is clear that the vast majority of institutions focus strongly on asynchronous communication. This is mostly justified with pedagogical considerations (group work, Analyses of European megaproviders of e-learning

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collaboration, social learning) and a higher degree of flexibility (synchronous communication needs planning and participants commitment regarding time schedules). The focus on asynchronous communication scenarios is therefore considered a clear factor for success in the endeavour of creating a robust and sustainable e-learning provision.

Comparison with the Discontinued Initiatives If we compare the results given by the analyzed megaproviders with the data gathered around the discontinued initiatives, the basic question has to be if there are considerable differences between both groups of institutions regarding the way they handled their course offer and its organization.

Nevertheless, this comparison is not easy to carry out because the information the project team could gather about the Discontinued Initiatives dose not come in the same conceptual categories as the data received through the megatrend questionnaire. There is little explicit information about the range of offered subjects, the choice of topics, the flexibility in start-up and progression and the preferred type of communication. Even so it can be interesting to try an interpretation of the things learned about the Discontinued Initiatives in order to formulate relatively defendable assumptions regarding the way they dealt with the 4 stated factors for success in the “course� context.

It is striking that all of the 7 identified discontinued initiatives started their activity between 1998 and 2000, a period that falls together with the big dot-com hype. Expectations in the business potential of ICT based training were certainly very high and led to experiments that can look considerably risky from today's perspective.

Regarding the context of courses, one can identify some interesting parallelisms within the studied group of institutions: The majority of the institutions show a certain lack of control over all or some aspects of the offered courses. The clearest cases are the broker type organizations or the networks that function as hub for other institutions. Brokers do not develop courses themselves under a defined framework of quality, pedagogical objectives and target centeredness. The California Virtual University is the institution that has the clearest broker profile.

The California Virtual University is an example of an e-learning consortium in which consortium members delegate the tasks of advertising and offering their online courses to a predominant entity. It represents a low level of institutional integration where revenue sharing, adapted scheduling, common admission criteria, comparable quality standards and transferable accreditation criteria are not relevant. Every consortium member keeps full independence and deals the whole range of academic services and obligations once a student has made the way through the CVU-Website and arrived to the member's enrolment system.

The Competence Network for Norwegian Business and Industry (NKN) and IT Fornebu Knowation are networks or tried to function as such. Their course provision relied widely or completely on the programmes designed by other providers or institutions. Information collected for NKN says: The intention was that NKN should establish itself as the centre of a national network for lifelong and work related learning with all types of courses at all levels from all types of educational providers. Although the profile was on e-learning, a belief in the cost

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effectiveness of e-learning and that the market was ready for Internet based learning, especially at the workplace, the NKN catalogue included all kinds of teaching- learning forms.

But also The Hungarian SWI Freeweb Company relied on a variety of different course developers that converged only vaguely under certain guidelines for quality and business issues.

SWI used its own free web banner advertising potential to recruit course writers/tutors. They established a filtering system to find the appropriate course writers either in business terms or in terms of quality. There was no special training for writers, only the course-content management system, the already done courses, and templates. The service started to suffer from quality problems in case of the most popular courses, users complained about their tutors not responding. It was a well known fact that tutors became overloaded with students, but they could not estimate the workload needed to tutor on-line students.

Such a context is not comparable to a situation where courses are developed by staff members or departments that are strongly committed to the philosophy and basic directions of their institution, even less to organizations with a clear division of tasks and functions.

The described lack of control minimizes the possibilities to influence on the range of subjects and the choice of topics as it has been analyzed in the previous chapters of this document. Broker type organizations usually offer the courses of their collaborating institutions regardless of the suitability of their content, their quality or their target centeredness and can, therefore, suffer from negative effects, such as a lack of homogeneity, coherence and capacity to meet the target’s needs.

Broker type organizations can also suffer from a lack of support by the approached potential collaborators due to the incompatibility of pedagogical and/or business models. This seems to have happened in the case of IT Fornebu, an institution that did not succeed in convincing others to support the project with active collaboration.

Because of ITFK’s failure to establish collaborations with universities and other content providers, they did not succeed in developing courses with a wide range of subjects and levels.

Other organizations lack control over other aspects of the courses they provide. The UK euniversity was involved in course development but did not award its own degrees. Instead, it contracted with other UK universities to offer theirs.

Not awarding one’s own degrees takes the ground from under the project’s claim to be the UK e-University. The ability to award one’s own degrees may be taken as important for the status of being a university.

The US Open University completely relied on its parent organization, the UKOU, regarding course provision and did not succeed in meeting the particular needs of its US-American target group.

Because of its quality curriculum, the OU enrolled 200,000 students worldwide in 2003. As it happened, though, several aspects of the OU curriculum did not fit the U.S. market.

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Americans aren’t as interested in the “Greeks and Romans … and some of the courses had a distinctly European slant on things,” explained Jarvis, or what he called the “queen and cricket problem.”2 The Alliance for Lifelong Learning seems to be the only example of a process of course development under a clearly defined purpose, but missed the needs of the approached target group by concentrating on “edutainment” instead of taking advantage of the academic reputation of its member institutions, Oxford, Stanford and Yale (Princeton had abandoned the project at an early stage).

Course content was developed by faculty members of the three universities, and free public access was made available to a unique online library of some 12,000 academic websites. The course provision was in the field of ‘edutainment’, that is the highly prestigious degree courses and awards of Oxford, Stanford, Princeton and Yale were not available.

The cases of the USOU and The Alliance for Lifelong Learning are interesting as they seem to represent a clear example of an insufficient market analysis regarding the needs and expectations of the targeted clients. Their course offer was not picked up in the expected way by their audience.

In the case of the Alliance for Lifelong Learning, this negative reaction of the targeted market might be related to the fact that the profile of the online course provision was not in tune with the highly prestigious degree courses and awards the member institutions were known for in the face-to-face context. The case of the USOU is an example of product mismatch provoked by transferring a course model designed for one specific market to a considerably different one. The courses made for European students were not suitable for the US-American audience. Moreover, the USOU did not even select the correct target: Like many companies established during the dot-com boom, the USOU expected many more enrolments than it got. As Jarvis put it, “The market was softer than we thought,” with a worsening economy prompting the dot-com bust. Furthermore, the OU curriculum is largely for undergraduates. By focusing on baccalaureate degree-seeking students as its primary market, the fledgling USOU had to compete with 3,885 U.S. institutions of higher education.

These U.S. institutions had greater visibility and more experience in the U.S. marketplace and greater familiarity with American students. “The biggest mistake we made was getting started with undergraduate education,” noted Jarvis. “The OU MBA is one of the largest and most highly regarded in Europe…. We should have done an MBA or Americanized the OU MBA first.” As it turned out, the challenge of making inroads in the U.S. undergraduate market was one that USOU would not have enough time to solve.3 These two very clear cases contrast with the findings in the megaproviders analysis where we learned that courses were widely designed and subjects chosen based on market demands.

The analyzed discontinued initiatives do not give sufficient information about the importance of asynchronous communication and the possibilities of flexible start-up and progression.

2

Jarvis, R (2002) Lessons learned in launching the USOU. Distance Education and Training Council 76th Annual conference, 14-16 April 2002.

3 Jarvis, R (2002) Lessons learned in launching the USOU. Distance Education and Training Council 76th Annual conference, 14-16 April 2002.

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Conclusion In a general view, the examples of Discontinued Initiatives seem to indicate that a lack of definition and homogeneity in the course provision can be problematic. Not to be able to regulate the range and the choice of topics or to issue own degrees due to a complete dependence on what collaborating institutions are prepared to contribute with, can result in a lack of quality, coherence and credibility and can lead to low enrolment rates as shown in the case of the UK e-University, the CVU or Hungarian SWI. Another factor that seems to have a certain impact is the importance of adapting the course offer to the needs and expectations of the targeted market. This was a recurrent point in the considerations of the megaproviders and it seems to have been neglected up to a certain extend by some of the identified discontinued initiatives as shown in the cases of the USOU and the Alliance for Lifelong Learning.

In an overall view one can get the picture that course provision can lead to failure when it is not based on the clear objective of covering real needs and expectations, when it lacks a recognisable framework for pedagogical principles and quality, when it is not anchored in recognised accreditation systems and lacks relevance regarding its content and when it is subordinated to business strategies that rely heavily on the assumption that ICT are a value in itself and, therefore, guarantee revenue and success.

Summing up, online course providers seem to have more possibilities of succeeding in their endeavour when they adapt their course offer to market demands, based on thorough market research, when they keep the range of offered subjects and topics within the margin they can cover with the given economical and personal resources, when they assure standards of quality and supports this with relevant accreditations and when they meet the needs of flexibility and meaningful learning processes that characterize a predominantly adult target group.

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Management factors

By Ildikó Mázár and Dénes Zarka This analysis of 9 factors for success from management consideration is based on interviews conducted with 23 of the 25 institutions. UNED and Universidade Aberta were not included in the analysis.

82

18. Predictable and manageable teacher workload

19. Collaboration with other institutions

20. High credibility with the government

21. Some sort of industrialization

4,4 4,6 3,6 3,0 5,0 4,0 4,0 3,5 4,6 4,8 5,0 4,6 5,0 5,0 5,0 4,5 4,8 4,8 4 4,8 4 4,3 4 4 3,6 4,0 3,2 3,2 3,0 4,0 4,0 2,0 4,3 4,4 4,1 3,7 5,0 3,3 3,7 2,8 4 4,8 3,5 3,5 4,6 4,2 NA 3,2 4,4 3,8 2,4 3,6 2,8 NA NA NA 4,8 4,8 NA 4,0 3,4 4,2 2,6 3,8 4,0 3,4 2,5 3,0 4,6 4,8 4,2 4,0 3,5 4,0 1,8 4,7 4,4 4,2 3,6 3,0 3,5 3,5 4,3 4,0 4,1 4,1 3,2 3,6 4,6 4,6 4,4 3,0 4,6 4,0 4,6 4,0 2,8 4,3 4,2 4,2 2,6 1,8 3,0 2,0 4,6 4,8 4,6 4,4 3,8 3,9 4,2 3,5

2,8 2,3 4,2 4,3 4,4 2,3 3,8 2,0 3,3 2,8 4,3 1,8 3,4 2,0 4,4 4,0 3,8 2,4 4,0 4,6 4,8 3,5 4,8 5,0 3,5 4,2 4,2 4,3

4,2 4,8 3,8 5,0 3,6 5 3,4 4,0 4,2 2,8 4,8 4,8 4,2 4,4 4,6 4,2 3,4 3,8 4,0 5,0 4,3 4,2 3,6 5,0 4 3,8 4,4 4,2

3,6 4,8 4,8 4,8 4,4 4 3,8 3,0 4,2 3,3 3,5 1,0 4,0 2,8 4,0 3,4 2,2 4,0 4,2 3,4 3,7 3,3 5,0 5,0 4,3 3,2 4,8 4,5

17. Effective administrative routines

4,4 3,6 4,4 4,0 4,6 3,7 2,8 3,0 3,8 4,7 3,2 4,4 4,0 3,6 3,4 4,2 3,6 4,2 3,0 3,0 3,0 3,7 4,3 5,0 4,2 3,6 4,0 4,2

16. Focus on quality

5,0 4,2 4,8 4,7 4,6 4,3 4,6 2,0 4,3 4,5 4,8 4,4 3,8 4,2 4,6 2,2 2,6 4,4 5,0 4,2 4,7 4,1 4,8 4,4 4,8 4,6 5,0 4,7

15. Strategies that support online education

14. Enthusiastic employees

Institution OUNL, Mean value OUUK, Mean value NKI, Mean value UOC, Mean value NKS, Mean value UNED, Mean Value GDF, Mean value Aberta, Mean value Distance Education institutions ULPGC, Mean value UPM, Mean value Leicester, Mean value Ulster, Mean value MMU, Mean value Stafford, Mean value HiST, Mean value Tartu, Mean value BI, Mean value ScuolaIaD, Mean value BVU, Mean value Oncampus, Mean value Universities and colleges CrossK, Mean value Learn Direct, Mean value ELOGOS, Mean value EDHEC, Mean value T-Com HU, Mean value Corporate training providers

13. Support from top management

Table 11. Rating of management factors

Analyses of European megaproviders of e-learning

Figure 10. Rating of factors related to management, strategy and attitudes

Factors related to management, strategy and attitudes Universities and Colleges

Distance Education Institutions

Corporate Training Providers

21. Some sort of industrialization 20. High credibility w ith the government 19. Collaboration w ith other institutions 18. Predictable and manageable teacher w orkload 17. Effective administrative routines 16. Focus on quality 15. Strategies that support online education 14. Enthusiastic employees

13. Support from top management

0,0

0,5

1,0

1,5

2,0

2,5

3,0

3,5

4,0

4,5

5,0

Introduction, summary of general observations The interviewed organizations are very colourful, have different backgrounds, size and history, yet their statements allow the conclusion that the investigated success factors are often considered and described nearly the same way by interviewees having common characteristics. Based on this observation, above the commonly agreed 3 institution categories (i.e. Distance Education Institutions; Universities, Colleges and Consortia and Corporate Training Providers) we determined additional clustering possibilities4 for each question where such similarities occurred in the answers. Another interesting finding that came right after the first reading of the reports is that there are certain keywords and topics highlighted in many of the parallel answers, regardless of the interviewees’ characteristics. Realizing the importance of these topics can well be the secret of and explanation for the megaproviders’ success.

4

Such clusters are e.g. old vs young, large vs small institutions, etc. (see detailed discussions based on these clusters in the factor analysis subchapters) Analyses of European megaproviders of e-learning

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Figure 11 Summary and ranking of the arithmetical averages of rating values

The institutions’ success in the 9 management related questions, analyzed below, is not always easy (or even possible) to rate based on their answers. Not every interviewee understood the questions the same way. Also, depending on the answering person’s position, the depth and accuracy of the answers varied. Some interviewees were not in the position to judge certain factors, others had prejudices (e.g. in the case of leadership support or teachers’ workload, sometimes the managers seemed to have a brighter picture than teachers or technology experts). Therefore the ranking of the institutions or the factors themselves was a rather hard task (see the whole rating table in Figure 11). With this notice in mind, by averaging the rating values, the result we got is that the four most successful e-learning megaproviders are NKI, Hungarian Telecom, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya and NKS, and the most important success factors in management are (1) the nature and extent of support coming from the leadership, (2-4) the presence of strategies supporting online education, (2-4) the level of credibility with the government and (2-4) quality assurance in many respects.

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14. Enthusiastic employees

15. Strategies that support online education

16. Focus on quality

17. Effective administrative routines

18. Predictable and manageable teacher workload

19. Collaboration with other institutions

20. High credibility with the government

21. Some sort of industrialization

OUNL OUUK NKI UOC NKS DE average ULPGC UPM Leicester Ulster MMU Stafford HiST Tartu GDF BI ScuolaIaD BVU Oncampus Uni/Coll average CrossK Learn Direct ELOGOS EDHEC T-Com HU Corp. average

13. Support from top management

Institution

Table 12 Management factor rating average values of the 23 interviewed institutions

5,0 4,2 4,8 4,7 4,6 4,7 4,5 4,8 4,4 3,8 4,2 4,6 2,2 2,6 4,6 4,4 5,0 4,2 4,7 4,2 4,8 4,4 4,8 4,6 5,0 4,7 4,4

4,4 3,6 4,4 4,0 4,6 4,2 4,7 3,2 4,4 4,0 3,6 3,4 4,2 3,6 2,8 4,2 3,0 3,0 3,0 3,6 4,3 5,0 4,2 3,6 4,5 4,3 3,9

4,4 5,0 4,6 5,0 4,8 4,8 5,0 4,0 4,6 4,4 2,8 4,8 3,4 4,0 3,6 4,6 3,5 4,4 3,5 4,0 4,6 4,6 2,8 2,6 5,0 3,9 4,2

4,6 4,0 4,8 5,0 4,8 4,6 3,3 4,8 4,2 3,8 NA 4,8 4,2 3,4 4,0 4,8 4,0 4,2 3,5 4,1 4,6 4,0 4,3 1,8 5,0 3,9 4,2

3,6 4,0 5,0 5,0 4,0 4,3 3,7 3,5 NA 2,4 NA NA 2,6 2,5 3,2 4,2 1,8 3,6 4,3 3,2 4,4 4,6 4,2 3,0 4,5 4,1 3,7

3,0 3,5 4,6 4,5 4,8 4,1 2,8 3,5 3,2 3,6 NA 4,0 3,8 3,0 3,2 4,0 4,7 3,0 4,0 3,6 3,0 4,0 4,2 2,0 4,5 3,5 3,7

2,8 2,3 4,2 4,3 4,4 3,6 2,8 4,3 1,8 3,4 2,0 4,4 4,0 3,8 3,8 2,4 4,0 4,6 4,8 3,6 4,8 5,0 3,5 4,2 4,5 4,4 3,7

4,2 4,8 3,8 5,0 3,6 4,3 2,8 4,8 4,8 4,2 4,4 4,6 4,2 3,4 3,4 3,8 4,0 5,0 4,3 4,1 3,6 5,0 4,0 3,8 4,5 4,2 4,2

3,6 4,8 4,8 4,8 4,4 4,5 3,3 3,5 1,0 4,0 2,8 4,0 3,4 2,2 3,8 4,0 4,2 3,4 3,7 3,3 5,0 5,0 4,3 3,2 4,5 4,4 3,8

3,9 4,0 4,8 4,3 4,3 4,3 3,7 3,5 3,5 3,5 3,3 3,8 3,5 3,1 3,7 4,1 3,7 3,6 3,5 3,6 4,0 4,1 4,1 3,2 4,7 4,0

In the light of the previous statement about the different views of different kinds of staff members, it is important to note that the top 3 factors have been considered important regardless the position of the interviewees. On the other hand it is interesting to compare the rating values of different types of institutions (Table 13). The order of the ratings at DE and traditional universities and colleges are almost the same, even though the rates given by DE institutions are (almost) always about 0.5 points higher. At the same time the corporate megaproviders rate somewhat different factors as more important, and these are “Collaboration with other institutions”, “Some sort of industrialization” and “Enthusiastic employees”. If we take a closer look at how these companies operate, it is easy to understand why their success can be much more dependent on these 3 factors than the success of public institutions. However, the quantitative analysis results also shed light on similarities between DE and corporate institutions. Based on the figures we can allow the assumption that these two types of institutions consider all the 9 management factors more important than

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representatives of universities and colleges. This can be explained by their professional experience and business interest just as well.

21. Some sort of industrialization

20. High credibility with the government

19. Collaboration with other institutions

18. Predictable and manageable teacher workload

17. Effective administrative routines

16. Focus on quality

15. Strategies that support online education

14. Enthusiastic employees

13. Support from top management

Table 13 Average management ratings within and overall the 3 institution categories (highest values marked in red)

Distance Education average

4,7 4,2 4,8 4,6 4,3 4,1 3,6 4,3 4,5 4,3

University/College average

4,2 3,6 4,0 4,1 3,2 3,6 3,6 4,1 3,3 3,7

Corporate average

4,7 4,3 3,9 3,9 4,1 3,5 4,4 4,2 4,4 4,2 4,5 4,0 4,2 4,2 3,9 3,7 3,9 4,2 4,1

Support from top management 13. How would you describe involvement from the institution leadership in terms of being supportive, and how has this been important for success?

This factor, as Figure 11 shows, has received the highest scores for being important in the consideration of the institution’s success in management, and second most important factor overall. Where the management support was lacking and the success of e-learning megaprovision was the result of the teachers’ and students’ efforts (a more bottom-up approach), it has been clearly indicated that the leadership’s support would have strengthened or accelerated the process of the online education development. Where managerial support was present, its role and importance was firmly reflected in the answers.

We can confidently state that there is a considerable difference between the managerial attitudes at institutions that were transferring their former traditional education to online, and those who already had distance educational experience (either as their main profile or just on course- or educational module level). The top management seemed much more reserved from and critical about e-learning at institutions that did not have practice in any form of open, flexible and distance education. The ones that already had know-how about distance teaching, were not so dubious about the potentials of online education (Table 14).

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14. Enthusiastic employees

15. Strategies that support online education

16. Focus on quality

17. Effective administrative routines

18. Predictable and manageable teacher workload

19. Collaboration with other institutions

20. High credibility with the government

21. Some sort of industrialization

OUNL OUUK NKI UOC NKS DE average ULPGC UPM Leicester Ulster MMU Stafford HiST Tartu GDF BI ScuolaIaD BVU Oncampus Uni/Coll average CrossK Learn Direct ELOGOS EDHEC T-Com HU Corp. average

13. Support from top management

Institution

Table 14 Average values of the 3 institution clusters’ management factor ratings for managerial support

5,0 4,2 4,8 4,7 4,6 4,7 4,5 4,8 4,4 3,8 4,2 4,6 2,2 2,6 4,6 4,4 5,0 4,2 4,7 4,2 4,8 4,4 4,8 4,6 5,0 4,7 4,4

4,4 3,6 4,4 4,0 4,6 4,2 4,7 3,2 4,4 4,0 3,6 3,4 4,2 3,6 2,8 4,2 3,0 3,0 3,0 3,6 4,3 5,0 4,2 3,6 4,5 4,3 3,9

4,4 5,0 4,6 5,0 4,8 4,8 5,0 4,0 4,6 4,4 2,8 4,8 3,4 4,0 3,6 4,6 3,5 4,4 3,5 4,0 4,6 4,6 2,8 2,6 5,0 3,9 4,2

4,6 4,0 4,8 5,0 4,8 4,6 3,3 4,8 4,2 3,8 NA 4,8 4,2 3,4 4,0 4,8 4,0 4,2 3,5 4,1 4,6 4,0 4,3 1,8 5,0 3,9 4,2

3,6 4,0 5,0 5,0 4,0 4,3 3,7 3,5 NA 2,4 NA NA 2,6 2,5 3,2 4,2 1,8 3,6 4,3 3,2 4,4 4,6 4,2 3,0 4,5 4,1 3,7

3,0 3,5 4,6 4,5 4,8 4,1 2,8 3,5 3,2 3,6 NA 4,0 3,8 3,0 3,2 4,0 4,7 3,0 4,0 3,6 3,0 4,0 4,2 2,0 4,5 3,5 3,7

2,8 2,3 4,2 4,3 4,4 3,6 2,8 4,3 1,8 3,4 2,0 4,4 4,0 3,8 3,8 2,4 4,0 4,6 4,8 3,6 4,8 5,0 3,5 4,2 4,5 4,4 3,7

4,2 4,8 3,8 5,0 3,6 4,3 2,8 4,8 4,8 4,2 4,4 4,6 4,2 3,4 3,4 3,8 4,0 5,0 4,3 4,1 3,6 5,0 4,0 3,8 4,5 4,2 4,2

3,6 4,8 4,8 4,8 4,4 4,5 3,3 3,5 1,0 4,0 2,8 4,0 3,4 2,2 3,8 4,0 4,2 3,4 3,7 3,3 5,0 5,0 4,3 3,2 4,5 4,4 3,8

It is also interesting to regard the common characteristics within the institution categories “public” and “private”. Private institutions are much more autonomic in decision making, therefore the support coming from the leadership is usually more positive and more common in this cluster. Public institutions, even if they are well known and successful, tend to be less independent and more bureaucratic in managerial decision making.

The nature of support can also be multi-folded. Some institutions reported personal support and encouragement by further education and training provided to the institution’s employees and/or the provision of specific certification schemes, others highlighted the presence of financial assistance and other types of staff promotion. One interviewee (EDHEC) also mentioned the introduction of new e-learning products that, in their case, has lead to new students and resources. Some of the interviewees already mentioned at this point the

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importance of institutional strategies and standardization of LMSs, administration systems and ICT tools that can also be considered as support from the leadership.

One alert we have got from a bad experience of one of the interviewees is to avoid attitudes changing from supportive by trying to understand e-learning mechanisms to more formalistic support that can end up in “one size fits all” ways of thinking.

Enthusiastic employees 14. How would you describe the attitudes of the different groups of staff towards online teaching? How has this affected your success?

One of the predictable results of our survey was the nature and extent of competences of different groups of successful e-learning megaproviders’ staff. It has been noted repeatedly how important an overall positive attitude is and that is often subject to appropriate competences and at least some basic knowledge about e-learning. Without these the practice of online education may suffer serious consequences. If the teachers were reluctant to follow ICT development and use modern technology in their teaching, it would be just as detrimental as the lack of technological or managerial support.

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14. Enthusiastic employees

15. Strategies that support online education

16. Focus on quality

17. Effective administrative routines

18. Predictable and manageable teacher workload

19. Collaboration with other institutions

20. High credibility with the government

21. Some sort of industrialization

OUNL OUUK NKI UOC NKS DE average ULPGC UPM Leicester Ulster MMU Stafford HiST Tartu GDF BI ScuolaIaD BVU Oncampus Uni/Coll average CrossK Learn Direct ELOGOS EDHEC T-Com HU Corp. average

13. Support from top management

Institution

Table 15 Average values of the 3 institution clusters’ management factor ratings for employee enthusiasm

5,0 4,2 4,8 4,7 4,6 4,7 4,5 4,8 4,4 3,8 4,2 4,6 2,2 2,6 4,6 4,4 5,0 4,2 4,7 4,2 4,8 4,4 4,8 4,6 5,0 4,7 4,4

4,4 3,6 4,4 4,0 4,6 4,2 4,7 3,2 4,4 4,0 3,6 3,4 4,2 3,6 2,8 4,2 3,0 3,0 3,0 3,6 4,3 5,0 4,2 3,6 4,5 4,3 3,9

4,4 5,0 4,6 5,0 4,8 4,8 5,0 4,0 4,6 4,4 2,8 4,8 3,4 4,0 3,6 4,6 3,5 4,4 3,5 4,0 4,6 4,6 2,8 2,6 5,0 3,9 4,2

4,6 4,0 4,8 5,0 4,8 4,6 3,3 4,8 4,2 3,8 NA 4,8 4,2 3,4 4,0 4,8 4,0 4,2 3,5 4,1 4,6 4,0 4,3 1,8 5,0 3,9 4,2

3,6 4,0 5,0 5,0 4,0 4,3 3,7 3,5 NA 2,4 NA NA 2,6 2,5 3,2 4,2 1,8 3,6 4,3 3,2 4,4 4,6 4,2 3,0 4,5 4,1 3,7

3,0 3,5 4,6 4,5 4,8 4,1 2,8 3,5 3,2 3,6 NA 4,0 3,8 3,0 3,2 4,0 4,7 3,0 4,0 3,6 3,0 4,0 4,2 2,0 4,5 3,5 3,7

2,8 2,3 4,2 4,3 4,4 3,6 2,8 4,3 1,8 3,4 2,0 4,4 4,0 3,8 3,8 2,4 4,0 4,6 4,8 3,6 4,8 5,0 3,5 4,2 4,5 4,4 3,7

4,2 4,8 3,8 5,0 3,6 4,3 2,8 4,8 4,8 4,2 4,4 4,6 4,2 3,4 3,4 3,8 4,0 5,0 4,3 4,1 3,6 5,0 4,0 3,8 4,5 4,2 4,2

3,6 4,8 4,8 4,8 4,4 4,5 3,3 3,5 1,0 4,0 2,8 4,0 3,4 2,2 3,8 4,0 4,2 3,4 3,7 3,3 5,0 5,0 4,3 3,2 4,5 4,4 3,8

Here as well, we can see different general phenomena at traditional-to-online and distance-toonline educational institutions (Table 15). Usually, when the transition is from traditional to online, staff training and development is a must. Traditional teachers are often resistant to integrate ICT use into their educational practice and have difficulties to adapt to the new requirements of their institutions. In case this inability manifests in negative teacher attitudes, the institution has to provide motivation for the teachers to change or – in the worst case – replace them with competent and more enthusiastic employees in order to safeguard the institution’s route towards successful e-learning (mega)provision, as several interviewees suggest.

In case the traditional-to-online transition happens bottom-up, often the leadership is the weak point of the progress. To diminish their doubts and strengthen their trust in the potentials of online education provision, decision makers must be informed about e-learning research, good

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practices and success stories. As it is stated under the previous question, the support of the institutional leadership is a very important success factor.

Almost the same applies for private vs. public institutions as for distance-to-online vs. traditional-to-online ones, for more or less the same reasons that are stated at the previous question. Private institutions’ success depends on the number of enrolled students, therefore they must improve their services as much as they can. Their staff needs to have positive attitude to achieve overall satisfaction. Public institutions might not always see this transition so pleasant. Their staff is used to certain modus operandi and, unless they are seriously motivated, which is less likely than in the case of private institutions, they are often not in favour of drastic changes.

The practices of successful e-learning megaproviders offer useful ways of preventing and/or solving attitudinal problems.

• • • • •

One way is applying top-down push by (for instance) financial means in case self motivation does not exist amongst the staff.

Another strategy is to try to suppress high expectations and replace them with downto-earth attitude.

It is recommended to identify and use convincing benchmarks of successful institutions with size and characteristics of the one in question.

To motivate the online teachers, it is worth to consider applying flexible employment schemes and helping out the regular staff when needed with part time employees and reward appropriately additional workloads.

Surveying the skill types needed in the institution and contract suitable staff can save time and trouble in the long run, but sometimes it can simply be of help to employ young, presumable more open and digitally more confident, people as we have learnt from the responses.

Strategies that support online education 15. Does your institution have a strategy for online education? If yes, what is (briefly) the content of the strategy and how is it followed up by employees in your organisation?

This question was one of the bottlenecks, as many of the interviewees, especially those who were rather involved with teaching or technological support, could not always tell much about overall institutional strategies. Even if they existed, sometimes they have not been read thoroughly or the documents were confidential, or recently released. However, those circa 8 strategies that are introduced in more detail have provided us with useful information and, we believe, they could serve as good benchmarks for institutions willing to improve their online education by introducing new strategy elements.

The most highlighted aspects of the online education strategies in most cases are: • • •

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the digitalization of course material, the development of standardized LMSs and administrational systems, provision of suitable technological support and maintenance of ICT infrastructure,

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• • •

the ideal combination of learner centered, teacher (or institution) centered and technology centered models, supply education on demand and just in time and cost efficiency.

In some cases the entire staff has been involved with the development of the institutional strategy, in less desirable cases the employees more closely related to the delivery of education are only expected to execute the instructions of the global plan. It has been noted with unease by a couple of the interviewed institutions that the e-learning strategy is integral part of their more general educational strategies. Where the strategic visions and actions are not centralized, this factor, as contributor to the overall institutional success, were given lower rates by both the institution’s representative and the external evaluator (i.e. the project partners). On the other hand, one institution (UPM) characterized their strategy as a mediated bottom-up approach, in which the first initiative came from individual employees. From the rating of UPM’s strategy factor (4,0) we can assume that this bottom-up approach can also result in success, and from the institution’s answer we can gather that their secret is their evaluation protocol and the promotion of the individual initiatives.

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14. Enthusiastic employees

15. Strategies that support online education

16. Focus on quality

17. Effective administrative routines

18. Predictable and manageable teacher workload

19. Collaboration with other institutions

20. High credibility with the government

21. Some sort of industrialization

OUNL OUUK NKI UOC NKS DE average ULPGC UPM Leicester Ulster MMU Stafford HiST Tartu GDF BI ScuolaIaD BVU Oncampus Uni/Coll average CrossK Learn Direct ELOGOS EDHEC T-Com HU Corp. average

13. Support from top management

Institution

Table 16 Average values of the 3 institution clusters’ management factor ratings for strategies

5,0 4,2 4,8 4,7 4,6 4,7 4,5 4,8 4,4 3,8 4,2 4,6 2,2 2,6 4,6 4,4 5,0 4,2 4,7 4,2 4,8 4,4 4,8 4,6 5,0 4,7 4,4

4,4 3,6 4,4 4,0 4,6 4,2 4,7 3,2 4,4 4,0 3,6 3,4 4,2 3,6 2,8 4,2 3,0 3,0 3,0 3,6 4,3 5,0 4,2 3,6 4,5 4,3 3,9

4,4 5,0 4,6 5,0 4,8 4,8 5,0 4,0 4,6 4,4 2,8 4,8 3,4 4,0 3,6 4,6 3,5 4,4 3,5 4,0 4,6 4,6 2,8 2,6 5,0 3,9 4,2

4,6 4,0 4,8 5,0 4,8 4,6 3,3 4,8 4,2 3,8 NA 4,8 4,2 3,4 4,0 4,8 4,0 4,2 3,5 4,1 4,6 4,0 4,3 1,8 5,0 3,9 4,2

3,6 4,0 5,0 5,0 4,0 4,3 3,7 3,5 NA 2,4 NA NA 2,6 2,5 3,2 4,2 1,8 3,6 4,3 3,2 4,4 4,6 4,2 3,0 4,5 4,1 3,7

3,0 3,5 4,6 4,5 4,8 4,1 2,8 3,5 3,2 3,6 NA 4,0 3,8 3,0 3,2 4,0 4,7 3,0 4,0 3,6 3,0 4,0 4,2 2,0 4,5 3,5 3,7

2,8 2,3 4,2 4,3 4,4 3,6 2,8 4,3 1,8 3,4 2,0 4,4 4,0 3,8 3,8 2,4 4,0 4,6 4,8 3,6 4,8 5,0 3,5 4,2 4,5 4,4 3,7

4,2 4,8 3,8 5,0 3,6 4,3 2,8 4,8 4,8 4,2 4,4 4,6 4,2 3,4 3,4 3,8 4,0 5,0 4,3 4,1 3,6 5,0 4,0 3,8 4,5 4,2 4,2

3,6 4,8 4,8 4,8 4,4 4,5 3,3 3,5 1,0 4,0 2,8 4,0 3,4 2,2 3,8 4,0 4,2 3,4 3,7 3,3 5,0 5,0 4,3 3,2 4,5 4,4 3,8

As we look at the ratings in Table 16 we can observe that the far most confident type of institutions in this question is the DE institutions. For them, the ultimate goal is the transition from a more correspondence-based course delivery to partly or completely online education.

At universities and colleges the aim is rather to develop and/or strengthen online support of traditional learning. The figures related to the 5 corporate entities are bipolar, there are three strong and two weak institutions. We must admit, however, that the low scores here are the result of poor, insufficient answers given by these two interviewees, not necessarily their answer’s content.

On top of the above summary of findings, it is highly recommended to study more closely the individual responses of 6 selected institutions, i.e. UOC, ULPGC, the Open University UK, BI and Tartu. These institutions’ answers to the question “Does your institution have a

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strategy for online education? If yes, what is (briefly) the content of the strategy and how is it followed up by employees in your organisation?” are quoted below.

UOC The core of the UOC’s online education strategy is to overcome time and space barriers in order to offer students the highest possible degree of flexibility when they are carrying out their studies. Therefore the institution offers its entire academic program online, apart from providing the whole range of online administration and student/staff support. This was considered the most adequate way to respond to the educational demands of society, respecting at the same time the need of flexibility.

This underlying principle leads to the development of the institutions online teaching and learning model that encloses a clear strategy of online education.

The UOC tries to combine the best aspects of three different learning models, the media centred model, and the teacher centred model and the student centred model. It is considered that the balance can be found in a point that is closer to the student than to the teacher and closer to the latter than to media and technology which should remain a tool serving the other two elements.

In a virtual environment it is vital to keep student’s motivation on a high point. One important aspect in this objective is the freedom given to the students regarding the organization and planning of their own learning strategies and working rate. Students need to feel involved in every aspect of their learning process. They have to be engaged in meaningful activities communicating and collaborating with their peers. However, inductive methods used by teachers, together with learning materials, provide guidance and orientation, enabling students to follow the right path, thus facilitating the teacher’s role of making things easier.

ULPGC In the ULPGC’s Strategic Institutional Plan 2002-2006, the university fixes as objective 6, Strategic axis I (teaching): “To enhance the use of the ULPGC’s Virtual Campus in order to develop the academic teaching processes fomenting an open and flexible pedagogical model that combines the intensive use of ICT with face to face assistance.”

In order to develop it, this objective is transformed into concrete actions. The following table shows the strategies and the actions that are related to the Estructura de Teleformación ULPGC (Distance Education Structure ULPGC).

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Strategic Axis I. TEACHING Objective I.6.

Strategy 1

Actions

Strategy 2

Actions

To enhance the use of the ULPGC’s Virtual Campus in order to develop the academic teaching processes fomenting an open and flexible pedagogical model that combines the intensive use of ICT with face to face assistance.

To enlarge the provision of official studies by distance education in order to ease the access to higher education studies to those that can not assist regularly to face to face courses in the university.

To offer the complete degree in psycho-pedagogical studies online, progressively incorporating both of its courses into the online context.

(I.6.1.1) To constitute a unit responsible for the implantation and maintenance of the technical systems on which our distance education is based. (I.6.1.2) To establish common actions with national and foreign organisations in order to offer online or blended degrees and courses. (I.6.1.3) To update the university’s provision of distance education working on already existing face-to-face degrees as well as on new degrees and postgraduate degrees previously carrying out the necessary evaluation of feasibility. (I.6.1.4) To negotiate the contracts with the local public administration in order to create multimedia rooms that support distance teaching and learning. (I.6.1.5) To use the ULPGC’s virtual campus as a support platform for face-to-face teaching and learning that takes place in the university itself.

An impulse to the creation and the dissemination of pedagogical projects, courses and teaching plans of every centre and department via the university’s Web in order to homogenize their presentation and facilitate the access to them. (I.6.2.1) Creation of a model for instructional design in order to coordinate and promote the creation and updating of contents on the course’s Web pages and the teaching/learning process that is carried out in the classrooms and laboratories. (I.6.2.2) To open new online programmes for optional courses and courses of free configuration. There is a strong demand for this kind of courses. To offer them online makes it easier for students to complete their training without having to commute between different campuses. (I.6.2.3)

Apart from this, the Strategic Institutional Plan ULPGC mentions another important point within objective nº 2 of the strategic axis IV: To promote the degree holders’ entry into the working market contributing to their loyalty towards the university and to promote the continuing training of professionals developing strategies that meet the needs identifies in different contexts of society, economy and public administration.

This results in the strategy II that leads to the creation of the “Centro de Formación Continua ULPGC” (Centre for Continuing Training) and to an impulse of the training activities that cover the needs of different sectors and social groups. This continuing training is defined in the following way:

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Programming, execution and monitoring of a set of institutional training programmes that are carried out either in a face-to-face context or via the Virtual Campus ULPGC. These programmes have a wide range and are structured in a coherent way around issues that meet particular needs of training in the most important market niches and activity sectors. (IV.2.2.2.)

Open University UK Student-centred objectives The application of ICT-based methods of learning, teaching and student support should allow students to; 1)

experience and benefit from a wide range of effective learning opportunities mediated by ICTs (e.g., collaborative learning, resource-based learning, group project work, computer-assisted formative assessment, online tutorial support, information search and evaluation, integrated multi-media assisted learning);

2)

experience a graduated development of ICT skills and eLearning skills as they progress along a pathway to a named degree or other qualification;

3)

achieve particular outcomes required by the University’s award structure or external body expectations: (e.g. programme-based learning outcomes, QAA benchmark statement objectives, criteria of “graduateness”, professional body accreditation requirements);

4)

develop, through using ICTs in OU study, a range of modern work-related and independentlearning skills that enhance their employability in the knowledge economy and increase for them the pleasure and effectiveness of future learning experiences;

5)

achieve OU qualifications and more general learning outcomes that are the equal of those of other UK universities;

6)

experience an enhanced sense of participation in a “community of learners” during their OU study.

University Objectives To provide the learning materials, services and support that allow OU students to achieve the objectives set out above, and to deliver the tenets of the Vision Statement, the University should achieve the set of objectives set out below.

1)

construct a OU-wide framework for the development of eLearning materials, services and support, which would achieve the following sub-objectives: i)

maximise the collective understanding of effective uses of eLearning;

ii)

enhance information sharing about eLearning across units;

iii)

move past ”lone ranger” eLearning development by individuals and course teams;

2)

place pedagogic effectiveness and robustness as well as efficiency of delivery at the centre of our activities in eLearning creation and implementation;

3)

assure delivery of learning outcomes for which eLearning provides the only, or the most effective, delivery mechanism;

4)

ground present practice, to the greatest extent possible, in evidence from research, evaluation and successful practice;

5)

learn from other eLearning providers (both the successes and the failures) in order to surpass the competition in levels of “learning excellence” and student appreciation;

6)

deliver adequate levels of appropriate training to staff (central, regional and ALs) and to students;

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7)

provide the appropriate ICT infrastructure (VLE, the Enterprise Content Management System (ECMS), the Customer Relations Management System (CRM), digital assets, structured authoring) and assure its continuing development;

8)

use the “OU Futures” strategic objectives (especially numbers 1,2,3,4,5 and 9) to orient the development of the eLearning policy;

9)

through OU-based research, evaluation and “horizon-scanning”, maintain informed awareness of pedagogic and technological future developments – bring from the “horizon” to the “operational” as quickly as appropriate.

An action plan was drawn up to deliver these objectives and progress against the plan is monitored.

BI Strategic reports were of course made previous to the establishment of the Distance Education. In the BI strategy documents in the mid-nineties it was emphasized that the experiences with modern technology made at The Distance Education Centre should influence also other teaching at BI. After the EQUIS-accreditation of BI an ICT task force was set down to implement an e-learning system for all BI (2000-2002). After the implementation The Elearning Centre was established and organized as part of Distance Education Centre. Today this unit is responsible for developing content, following up e-learning projects and giving input to BI strategies. More flexible education in the regional schools as well as the central business school in Oslo is the main goal. The Distance Education Centre itself has of course a business strategy plan with an action plan that is evaluated yearly within the business unit, covering the following fields: study program development, pedagogical and technological development, marketing, administration, organization. The strategic plans are in general followed up loyally by employees of BI and BI DE. Tartu University of Tartu has an e-learning strategy 2006-2010 approved by the Council of the University of Tartu December 23, 2005. According to e-learning strategy, the aim of the University of Tartu in developing e-learning is to create a modern, flexible and internationally open educational process supportive of efficient and independent learning. In order to achieve the established objective, the University of Tartu sets itself the tasks in developing e learning in 3 categories: I. II. III.

Support high-quality studies centred on the student and involvement of new target groups II Increase the e-learning competence of the teaching staff, students and assistance personnel and develop cooperation models for e-learning Ensure high level of infrastructure and support services for e-learning

As only the first year of the strategy is currently running, it is hard to say if employees follow the strategy or not. In general the strategy paper itself does not initiate the activities. Faculties and central administration units have to make certain and detailed action plans and control the fulfilment of these plans. The support (both emotional and financial) from university management and Rectors Office is the key factor in strategy implementation.

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Focus on quality 16. How does your institution deal with quality issues related to online education and has quality contributed to success?

Quality is one of the most important key considerations in all types of education, let it be traditional, distance or online. Perhaps that is the reason why this was the survey’s most unanimously answered question (the minimal deviation of the rates is sensible from Table 17). Apart from one negative answer, stating that success is not measurable by quality assessment, every institution listed several practical ways of their evaluation procedures.

14. Enthusiastic employees

15. Strategies that support online education

16. Focus on quality

17. Effective administrative routines

18. Predictable and manageable teacher workload

19. Collaboration with other institutions

20. High credibility with the government

21. Some sort of industrialization

OUNL OUUK NKI UOC NKS DE average ULPGC UPM Leicester Ulster MMU Stafford HiST Tartu GDF BI ScuolaIaD BVU Oncampus Uni/Coll average CrossK Learn Direct ELOGOS EDHEC T-Com HU Corp. average

13. Support from top management

Institution

Table 17 Average values of the 3 institution clusters’ management factor ratings for quality considerations

5,0 4,2 4,8 4,7 4,6 4,7 4,5 4,8 4,4 3,8 4,2 4,6 2,2 2,6 4,6 4,4 5,0 4,2 4,7 4,2 4,8 4,4 4,8 4,6 5,0 4,7 4,4

4,4 3,6 4,4 4,0 4,6 4,2 4,7 3,2 4,4 4,0 3,6 3,4 4,2 3,6 2,8 4,2 3,0 3,0 3,0 3,6 4,3 5,0 4,2 3,6 4,5 4,3 3,9

4,4 5,0 4,6 5,0 4,8 4,8 5,0 4,0 4,6 4,4 2,8 4,8 3,4 4,0 3,6 4,6 3,5 4,4 3,5 4,0 4,6 4,6 2,8 2,6 5,0 3,9 4,2

4,6 4,0 4,8 5,0 4,8 4,6 3,3 4,8 4,2 3,8 NA 4,8 4,2 3,4 4,0 4,8 4,0 4,2 3,5 4,1 4,6 4,0 4,3 1,8 5,0 3,9 4,2

3,6 4,0 5,0 5,0 4,0 4,3 3,7 3,5 NA 2,4 NA NA 2,6 2,5 3,2 4,2 1,8 3,6 4,3 3,2 4,4 4,6 4,2 3,0 4,5 4,1 3,7

3,0 3,5 4,6 4,5 4,8 4,1 2,8 3,5 3,2 3,6 NA 4,0 3,8 3,0 3,2 4,0 4,7 3,0 4,0 3,6 3,0 4,0 4,2 2,0 4,5 3,5 3,7

2,8 2,3 4,2 4,3 4,4 3,6 2,8 4,3 1,8 3,4 2,0 4,4 4,0 3,8 3,8 2,4 4,0 4,6 4,8 3,6 4,8 5,0 3,5 4,2 4,5 4,4 3,7

4,2 4,8 3,8 5,0 3,6 4,3 2,8 4,8 4,8 4,2 4,4 4,6 4,2 3,4 3,4 3,8 4,0 5,0 4,3 4,1 3,6 5,0 4,0 3,8 4,5 4,2 4,2

3,6 4,8 4,8 4,8 4,4 4,5 3,3 3,5 1,0 4,0 2,8 4,0 3,4 2,2 3,8 4,0 4,2 3,4 3,7 3,3 5,0 5,0 4,3 3,2 4,5 4,4 3,8

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Quality may apply to education in many ways. It can mean the quality of course content and its delivery, the competences of the teaching staff or the quality of learning administration systems. The responses suggest that the longer the history, the more hands-on experience the institutions have. To illustrate how the interviewed megaproviders benefit from their evaluation practices, let us list the highlights of their responses: •

• • • •

Frequent internal / external evaluation – of e.g. conformity with international standards like SCORM, return on (financial) investment, reach of target group, the institution’s LMS / administration system / ICT infrastructure or student satisfaction by anonymous student questionnaires; National accreditation, ISO-2000, EQUIS, TQM; Monitoring teachers / teaching, evaluate teachers’ competencies and suggest trainings accordingly; Accreditation / certification; Benchmarking with institutions of similar educational profile.

The above considerations are important, but not efficient enough when standing alone without proper follow-up and accompanying research (on benchmarks, evaluation tools and procedures). Many interviewed megaproviders report the necessity of drawing guidelines based on the outcome of quality assessment exercises and realizing the recommended changes as quickly and frequently as possible.

Effective administrative routines 17. How would you describe the effectiveness of your administrative routines in online education?

The importance of this question is over average, however, it is not in the top five. If we analyse in greater detail that fact, which in some ways may contradict a well-known professional fact that administration is much stronger and much more important than in traditional educational circumstances, we may find the following.

Mostly universities and colleges did not answer the question or answered that it would be too time consuming. In other segments we also meet very brief answers. This fact suggests that: • • •

The question was not clearly stated, ”effective administrative routines” may be regarded as a fuzzy question The question was implicitly containing other more specific questions For many institutions this question is leading to a very complex explanation which the interviewee did not want to start.

Despite the difficulties, we try to provide one possible explanation to this question that we extracted from the interviews.

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14. Enthusiastic employees

15. Strategies that support online education

16. Focus on quality

17. Effective administrative routines

18. Predictable and manageable teacher workload

19. Collaboration with other institutions

20. High credibility with the government

21. Some sort of industrialization

OUNL OUUK NKI UOC NKS DE average ULPGC UPM Leicester Ulster MMU Stafford HiST Tartu GDF BI ScuolaIaD BVU Oncampus Uni/Coll average CrossK Learn Direct ELOGOS EDHEC T-Com HU Corp. average

13. Support from top management

Institution

Table 18 Average values of the 3 institution clusters’ management factor ratings for administrational considerations

5,0 4,2 4,8 4,7 4,6 4,7 4,5 4,8 4,4 3,8 4,2 4,6 2,2 2,6 4,6 4,4 5,0 4,2 4,7 4,2 4,8 4,4 4,8 4,6 5,0 4,7 4,4

4,4 3,6 4,4 4,0 4,6 4,2 4,7 3,2 4,4 4,0 3,6 3,4 4,2 3,6 2,8 4,2 3,0 3,0 3,0 3,6 4,3 5,0 4,2 3,6 4,5 4,3 3,9

4,4 5,0 4,6 5,0 4,8 4,8 5,0 4,0 4,6 4,4 2,8 4,8 3,4 4,0 3,6 4,6 3,5 4,4 3,5 4,0 4,6 4,6 2,8 2,6 5,0 3,9 4,2

4,6 4,0 4,8 5,0 4,8 4,6 3,3 4,8 4,2 3,8 NA 4,8 4,2 3,4 4,0 4,8 4,0 4,2 3,5 4,1 4,6 4,0 4,3 1,8 5,0 3,9 4,2

3,6 4,0 5,0 5,0 4,0 4,3 3,7 3,5 NA 2,4 NA NA 2,6 2,5 3,2 4,2 1,8 3,6 4,3 3,2 4,4 4,6 4,2 3,0 4,5 4,1 3,7

3,0 3,5 4,6 4,5 4,8 4,1 2,8 3,5 3,2 3,6 NA 4,0 3,8 3,0 3,2 4,0 4,7 3,0 4,0 3,6 3,0 4,0 4,2 2,0 4,5 3,5 3,7

2,8 2,3 4,2 4,3 4,4 3,6 2,8 4,3 1,8 3,4 2,0 4,4 4,0 3,8 3,8 2,4 4,0 4,6 4,8 3,6 4,8 5,0 3,5 4,2 4,5 4,4 3,7

4,2 4,8 3,8 5,0 3,6 4,3 2,8 4,8 4,8 4,2 4,4 4,6 4,2 3,4 3,4 3,8 4,0 5,0 4,3 4,1 3,6 5,0 4,0 3,8 4,5 4,2 4,2

3,6 4,8 4,8 4,8 4,4 4,5 3,3 3,5 1,0 4,0 2,8 4,0 3,4 2,2 3,8 4,0 4,2 3,4 3,7 3,3 5,0 5,0 4,3 3,2 4,5 4,4 3,8

Looking at the issue in greater detail it can be seen that institutions which are dedicated to DE, organisations that are either public or private, are stating that effective administration is very important. In these two segments the questions are mostly answered and the responses provide professional evidence for the differences between the two institution types. Detailed answers suggest that in case of dedicated DE institutions effective administration means effective and integrated LMS systems with well defined workflow. This system is designed and built to the purpose, and institutions allocate important resources to it. It is also observable, that those systems are constantly maintained, analysed and monitored by the management. In other terms: student administration, in case of corporate on-line training providers and dedicated on-line providers, must have been a new and challenging task in the organisation and all who are successful nowadays have done it well, using much effort in

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time, energy and finance. We may look at effective administration as a very important factor to success.

Universities and colleges have problems with administration. The ones who answered the question did not rate this factor as the top issue in their success, they were quite critical about themselves. But this criticism may come from the fact that traditional educational organisations have long traditions in student administration, which is a complex task. This task may be different in face-to-face educational practices. As this is always an issue in the institution, the question may have been sensitive. Some answers suggest that organisations in many cases started their administration by using their old university admin system, and did not pay attention to this segment. Traditional administrative systems on the other hand regard effectiveness in the effectiveness of mass administration and to minimize clerk workload and false handling of important documents. Some institutions are even proud of this type of attitude, and are still working on making the system more effective, e.g. more rigid and institution centred.

In the case of higher education, we may end up with the idea that the question must be dealt with professionally, however success of HE organisations come from elsewhere.

The effectiveness of administrative systems comes from different areas: •

Integration of systems: Interviewees report that effective administration may mean that old existing LMS routines and systems had to be integrated into one software in order to exclude multiple login systems and multiple databases on the same set of students. This is not an easy task, but seems to be successfully managed in many cases. Integrated systems, ultimately, may reduce administrational workload and may provide a flexible and easy to use admin system.

•

Another issue here is the source of the LMS systems. The tension is between own development and external purchase. It seems that both approaches may lead to success, however tailor made systems are reported more frequently. Mixed approaches can be observed as well, so there is no dominant solution, and every case needs to be observed separately. Here we may mention that at the early period of LMS system development, there were no real on-line standards in administration and many packaged software were quite limited in terms of use and flexibility.

•

Effectiveness of administration is mostly understood as the automatization of processes. All our interviewees report to try to automatize their administration work as extensively as possible. This effectiveness can be observed later in: fulltime access to admin systems by learners, flexible and quick use on student side, reduced workload on staff. Some institutions regard automatization as an opportunity for staff to be able to deal more with human issues, e.g. with student problems. This aspect can be also regarded as a possibility that students administer themselves. Some institutions look at this effect as a benefit to the students (flexible personal profiles).

•

Another indicator of fluent and effective administration is response time by administrators. Some institutions use standards of 24/48 hours response time, which may be monitored by the LMS systems.

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Analyses of European megaproviders of e-learning

•

In case of outsourced or third party LMS and systems service may occur when exchanging data. While course administration seems to be fluent, diploma and certification processes should be administered carefully as course suppliers may want to keep their diploma administration intact and it may cause different procedures from other on-line administration from enrolling to the end of the course.

•

Effective administrative routines may include follow-up and advice to students in successful institutions.

Predictable and manageable teacher workload 18. To which extent do teachers involved in online education have predictable and manageable workloads?

This factor was important to megaproviders, but did not reach the top categories. The answers were quite homogeneous; however we may observe some differences. Institutions answered differently to questions according to their background. Having analysed this, we observed that teacher workload may be considered on both the course design and on the tuition side.

Those institutions, at which these procedures are separated, answered in a different way while higher educational institutions may have combined the two in their answers. Some respondents interpreted the question only by the first or the second possible type of workload.

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14. Enthusiastic employees

15. Strategies that support online education

16. Focus on quality

17. Effective administrative routines

18. Predictable and manageable teacher workload

19. Collaboration with other institutions

20. High credibility with the government

21. Some sort of industrialization

OUNL OUUK NKI UOC NKS DE average ULPGC UPM Leicester Ulster MMU Stafford HiST Tartu GDF BI ScuolaIaD BVU Oncampus Uni/Coll average CrossK Learn Direct ELOGOS EDHEC T-Com HU Corp. average

13. Support from top management

Institution

Table 19 Average values of the 3 institution clusters’ management factor ratings for teacher workload’s predictability and management

5,0 4,2 4,8 4,7 4,6 4,7 4,5 4,8 4,4 3,8 4,2 4,6 2,2 2,6 4,6 4,4 5,0 4,2 4,7 4,2 4,8 4,4 4,8 4,6 5,0 4,7 4,4

4,4 3,6 4,4 4,0 4,6 4,2 4,7 3,2 4,4 4,0 3,6 3,4 4,2 3,6 2,8 4,2 3,0 3,0 3,0 3,6 4,3 5,0 4,2 3,6 4,5 4,3 3,9

4,4 5,0 4,6 5,0 4,8 4,8 5,0 4,0 4,6 4,4 2,8 4,8 3,4 4,0 3,6 4,6 3,5 4,4 3,5 4,0 4,6 4,6 2,8 2,6 5,0 3,9 4,2

4,6 4,0 4,8 5,0 4,8 4,6 3,3 4,8 4,2 3,8 NA 4,8 4,2 3,4 4,0 4,8 4,0 4,2 3,5 4,1 4,6 4,0 4,3 1,8 5,0 3,9 4,2

3,6 4,0 5,0 5,0 4,0 4,3 3,7 3,5 NA 2,4 NA NA 2,6 2,5 3,2 4,2 1,8 3,6 4,3 3,2 4,4 4,6 4,2 3,0 4,5 4,1 3,7

3,0 3,5 4,6 4,5 4,8 4,1 2,8 3,5 3,2 3,6 NA 4,0 3,8 3,0 3,2 4,0 4,7 3,0 4,0 3,6 3,0 4,0 4,2 2,0 4,5 3,5 3,7

2,8 2,3 4,2 4,3 4,4 3,6 2,8 4,3 1,8 3,4 2,0 4,4 4,0 3,8 3,8 2,4 4,0 4,6 4,8 3,6 4,8 5,0 3,5 4,2 4,5 4,4 3,7

4,2 4,8 3,8 5,0 3,6 4,3 2,8 4,8 4,8 4,2 4,4 4,6 4,2 3,4 3,4 3,8 4,0 5,0 4,3 4,1 3,6 5,0 4,0 3,8 4,5 4,2 4,2

3,6 4,8 4,8 4,8 4,4 4,5 3,3 3,5 1,0 4,0 2,8 4,0 3,4 2,2 3,8 4,0 4,2 3,4 3,7 3,3 5,0 5,0 4,3 3,2 4,5 4,4 3,8

Looking at the institution types, DE institutions ranked the importance of workload the highest, as in their routine no other type of activity can balance the possible overload of teachers. We may observe that at this type of institution the activities are treated by clearly separating the different types of workload and look at different tasks as designed and observable activities.

Universities normally practice e-learning provision as only part of their service, therefore the whole activity is less organised, less industrialised. We can see a bigger variety of approaches and solutions, “hand-made models” and techniques. This is natural from the following points of views:

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• • •

Higher education is the field where innovation and new techniques are born, so staff is used to doing new things in other fields as well.

In HE institutions e-learning activity is not dominant, only part of many other duties, such as research, face-to-face tuition, etc.

Workload in HE institutions is not as measurable as in the case of companies. HE staff are usually more used to working under flexible circumstances.

Looking at university level, a special problem occurs (the same as in quality issues): Higher education institutions have long tradition in handling face-to-face and academic workload and in many cases those are well regulated and mutually agreed by means of accounting and contracting schemes, which do not fit in new teacher roles. Different institutions cope with this problem differently.

Private institutions focus on well managed systems and automated services to avoid overload and tend to limit human intervention (paying extra in case of overload), or they look at tutor services as retail shop services and manage flexible workload needs with flexible structures.

The manageability of workload has several different perspectives: •

The manageability of workload can be strengthened by separating design from tutoring. Some other megaproviders separate course creation, but also separate assignment evaluation from tutoring.

•

Separating some aspects of teacher work is mentioned in greater detailed when megaproviders mention the need of clear job and time descriptions. This may lead to thorough task analysis of teacher (tutor) work on one hand, and a design process where all tutor tasks are qualified in time.

•

Some respondents see the workload problem increasing tutor motivation by remuneration. In some other institutions remuneration simply means extra payment. It is common in higher educational institutions where planning and workflow design is not on agenda.

•

At some megaproviders tutors are paid by the tutored assignments, which in many schemes seem to be a good indicator for workload. This technique sums up all tuition efforts like correspondence and oral communication to the upcoming assignment.

•

Some megaproviders underline that synchronous communication must be separated from asynchronous communication as they should be planned administered and managed differently.

•

In higher education management of workload sometimes simply means to keep group size per tutor minimal. Some respondents mention 10-15 student/tutor as an ideal number to avoid work overload.

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Collaboration with other institutions 19. To which extent does your institution collaborate with other educational institutions and how has this affected success?

Collaboration seems an important factor for megaprovision, however, it is not the hottest issue in the average of all types of institutions. This moderate figure can be split into two categories: Dedicated distance educational institutions and traditional higher education institutions rated the importance to the success as near average, while private e-learning providers ranked this factor as very important to reach success. Looking at the details, the two profiles can be easily distinguished.

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Analyses of European megaproviders of e-learning

14. Enthusiastic employees

15. Strategies that support online education

16. Focus on quality

17. Effective administrative routines

18. Predictable and manageable teacher workload

19. Collaboration with other institutions

20. High credibility with the government

21. Some sort of industrialization

OUNL OUUK NKI UOC NKS DE average ULPGC UPM Leicester Ulster MMU Stafford HiST Tartu GDF BI ScuolaIaD BVU Oncampus Uni/Coll average CrossK Learn Direct ELOGOS EDHEC T-Com HU Corp. average

13. Support from top management

Institution

Table 20 Average values of the 3 institution clusters’ management factor ratings for institutional collaboration

5,0 4,2 4,8 4,7 4,6 4,7 4,5 4,8 4,4 3,8 4,2 4,6 2,2 2,6 4,6 4,4 5,0 4,2 4,7 4,2 4,8 4,4 4,8 4,6 5,0 4,7 4,4

4,4 3,6 4,4 4,0 4,6 4,2 4,7 3,2 4,4 4,0 3,6 3,4 4,2 3,6 2,8 4,2 3,0 3,0 3,0 3,6 4,3 5,0 4,2 3,6 4,5 4,3 3,9

4,4 5,0 4,6 5,0 4,8 4,8 5,0 4,0 4,6 4,4 2,8 4,8 3,4 4,0 3,6 4,6 3,5 4,4 3,5 4,0 4,6 4,6 2,8 2,6 5,0 3,9 4,2

4,6 4,0 4,8 5,0 4,8 4,6 3,3 4,8 4,2 3,8 NA 4,8 4,2 3,4 4,0 4,8 4,0 4,2 3,5 4,1 4,6 4,0 4,3 1,8 5,0 3,9 4,2

3,6 4,0 5,0 5,0 4,0 4,3 3,7 3,5 NA 2,4 NA NA 2,6 2,5 3,2 4,2 1,8 3,6 4,3 3,2 4,4 4,6 4,2 3,0 4,5 4,1 3,7

3,0 3,5 4,6 4,5 4,8 4,1 2,8 3,5 3,2 3,6 NA 4,0 3,8 3,0 3,2 4,0 4,7 3,0 4,0 3,6 3,0 4,0 4,2 2,0 4,5 3,5 3,7

2,8 2,3 4,2 4,3 4,4 3,6 2,8 4,3 1,8 3,4 2,0 4,4 4,0 3,8 3,8 2,4 4,0 4,6 4,8 3,6 4,8 5,0 3,5 4,2 4,5 4,4 3,7

4,2 4,8 3,8 5,0 3,6 4,3 2,8 4,8 4,8 4,2 4,4 4,6 4,2 3,4 3,4 3,8 4,0 5,0 4,3 4,1 3,6 5,0 4,0 3,8 4,5 4,2 4,2

3,6 4,8 4,8 4,8 4,4 4,5 3,3 3,5 1,0 4,0 2,8 4,0 3,4 2,2 3,8 4,0 4,2 3,4 3,7 3,3 5,0 5,0 4,3 3,2 4,5 4,4 3,8

In case of HE and DE institutions, where cooperation is less important, but still affects the success, we find the culture of less business oriented ideas like cooperation and collaboration. The answers are rich in highlighting this rather academic attitude. They like to keep in touch, set up and keep dialogue with each other, continue cooperation on many levels from regional through national until EU and international level. They find cooperation useful for finding synergies and for greater funding in different levels. Another classic field of academic collaboration is research. Here we find interest in obtaining results of others and share resources for mutual research. Sharing good practices, exchange courses, are also good reasons for dialog, but many respondents find the benefit of cooperation in enrichment of internal experience. Some megaproviders are, per se, the outcome of collaboration of universities like the Bavarian Virtual University.

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On the other side we see private organizations where collaboration is ranked much more important for the business success. Cooperation is vital for private institutions for reaching the market through traditional brands and “labels,” so that they may offer blended learning as well. Cooperation is also an element for sharing experiences and to become global. Private institutions see important human resources in collaboration. This is the only cost effective way for them to access the appropriate number and quality of training and teaching staff. This fact can be derived from their business models: Most of them specialize to develop and offer only a part of the course where staff has to be employed full time, e.g. course design, interactive course material and LMS software. Other parts in e-learning provision, e.g. academic input and delivery of human support must be outsourced, for example via institutional cooperation with traditional teaching and training bodies. This element is reinforced by the fact that e-learning models shift slowly from pure online access to more substantial human support services under the umbrella term: blended learning. Another important element of cooperation for private institutions, apart from fund raising, is capital accumulation (joint ventures).

Let us list some of the popular reasons for cooperation: • • • • • • • •

Benchmarking, research and experience exchange; Technological and methodological collaborations for example around the use of the same LMS; Developing wide portfolios and common solutions (technological and administrative terms); Using resources of other HE: contracting staff; No sufficient internal resources; Enrichment of provision; Recognition is justified by collaborations; Thematic conferences.

High credibility with government and public administration 20. How would you describe the credibility of your institution (both formal and informal) with the government and public administration and how has this been an important criterion for success?

Credibility is clearly one of the most important factors among the 25. Government credibility is one of the top five factors, and this is not segmented in the three types of institutions, however the real reasons for that are slightly different.

In many cases the respondents did not separate credibility from governmental funding. In those cases, low level of funding or other administrative issues indicated to respondents a lower level of importance in credibility. In other cases credibility was clearly distinguished from administrative and funding issues.

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14. Enthusiastic employees

15. Strategies that support online education

16. Focus on quality

17. Effective administrative routines

18. Predictable and manageable teacher workload

19. Collaboration with other institutions

20. High credibility with the government

21. Some sort of industrialization

OUNL OUUK NKI UOC NKS DE average ULPGC UPM Leicester Ulster MMU Stafford HiST Tartu GDF BI ScuolaIaD BVU Oncampus Uni/Coll average CrossK Learn Direct ELOGOS EDHEC T-Com HU Corp. average

13. Support from top management

Institution

Table 21 Average values of the 3 institution clusters’ management factor ratings for the level of institutional credibility with the government

5,0 4,2 4,8 4,7 4,6 4,7 4,5 4,8 4,4 3,8 4,2 4,6 2,2 2,6 4,6 4,4 5,0 4,2 4,7 4,2 4,8 4,4 4,8 4,6 5,0 4,7 4,4

4,4 3,6 4,4 4,0 4,6 4,2 4,7 3,2 4,4 4,0 3,6 3,4 4,2 3,6 2,8 4,2 3,0 3,0 3,0 3,6 4,3 5,0 4,2 3,6 4,5 4,3 3,9

4,4 5,0 4,6 5,0 4,8 4,8 5,0 4,0 4,6 4,4 2,8 4,8 3,4 4,0 3,6 4,6 3,5 4,4 3,5 4,0 4,6 4,6 2,8 2,6 5,0 3,9 4,2

4,6 4,0 4,8 5,0 4,8 4,6 3,3 4,8 4,2 3,8 NA 4,8 4,2 3,4 4,0 4,8 4,0 4,2 3,5 4,1 4,6 4,0 4,3 1,8 5,0 3,9 4,2

3,6 4,0 5,0 5,0 4,0 4,3 3,7 3,5 NA 2,4 NA NA 2,6 2,5 3,2 4,2 1,8 3,6 4,3 3,2 4,4 4,6 4,2 3,0 4,5 4,1 3,7

3,0 3,5 4,6 4,5 4,8 4,1 2,8 3,5 3,2 3,6 NA 4,0 3,8 3,0 3,2 4,0 4,7 3,0 4,0 3,6 3,0 4,0 4,2 2,0 4,5 3,5 3,7

2,8 2,3 4,2 4,3 4,4 3,6 2,8 4,3 1,8 3,4 2,0 4,4 4,0 3,8 3,8 2,4 4,0 4,6 4,8 3,6 4,8 5,0 3,5 4,2 4,5 4,4 3,7

4,2 4,8 3,8 5,0 3,6 4,3 2,8 4,8 4,8 4,2 4,4 4,6 4,2 3,4 3,4 3,8 4,0 5,0 4,3 4,1 3,6 5,0 4,0 3,8 4,5 4,2 4,2

3,6 4,8 4,8 4,8 4,4 4,5 3,3 3,5 1,0 4,0 2,8 4,0 3,4 2,2 3,8 4,0 4,2 3,4 3,7 3,3 5,0 5,0 4,3 3,2 4,5 4,4 3,8

As the education system in the EU is largely the responsibility of governments, most of the respondents reported the importance of credibility to government as high. This may have related directly in case of public institutions or indirectly by private institutions. In case of private institutions, respondents related business or market success not only as credibility to customers, but also as credibility to governments. In many cases the market itself is also financed and influenced by governments.

Looking at the mentioned factors of credibility, the following issues should be highlighted: •

Government (regional or national) relations, official awards and appreciation are all important for many institutions for fund raising. This issue is discussed in terms of Analyses of European megaproviders of e-learning

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normative and tendering context as well. In some cases governmental funding is declining as the activity becomes vital in business terms, while credibility is still important and high.

•

Credibility with the government may appear in opposite way as well: In some cases government credibility is dependent on mega provision as educational situation needs large numbers of enrolment (BVU). In other cases the megaprovider’s success is an indicator of a government policy (University for industry).

•

Some respondents underlined the importance of the independence from government, but in those cases long term sustainability requires credibility of the institution.

•

An important factor of measurable credibility is accreditation and auditing: This is obviously building credibility with the government and business as well.

•

Credibility at some respondents mean: building brands. If the initiative is governmental, this brand building is depending on credibility with government.

•

Although this factor reached high importance among other factors, some respondents clearly stated the low importance and dependence of the government. However they stated business credibility with clients as important on the educational market.

•

In some cases credibility with government was important at start-up to solve administrative problems and financial problems. In those cases informal contacts could end up with changes in legislation (scholarships, student status) and therefore those relations approved to be vital to educational and business success.

•

Some respondents where establishment was made by government felt that credibility is “built in”.

•

Business providers reported hard work to gain credibility. In some cases (Gábor Dénes College in Hungary) DE used to have low reputation, but many years of operation built up credibility in government and on the market as well. This process was observable at older major DE institutions as well, mostly everywhere in Europe.

•

Some megaproviders see important momentum in building credibility with government by recruiting internationally recognised staff members visible on conferences and in research work.

Industrialization 21. How are you able to handle the large number of online courses and students?

This factor showed a very similar pattern of importance rate as No. 17: Effective administrative routines. This may suggest that the interpretation was common of the two questions, however this latter contrasted more the differences.

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Analyses of European megaproviders of e-learning

14. Enthusiastic employees

15. Strategies that support online education

16. Focus on quality

17. Effective administrative routines

18. Predictable and manageable teacher workload

19. Collaboration with other institutions

20. High credibility with the government

21. Some sort of industrialization

OUNL OUUK NKI UOC NKS DE average ULPGC UPM Leicester Ulster MMU Stafford HiST Tartu GDF BI ScuolaIaD BVU Oncampus Uni/Coll average CrossK Learn Direct ELOGOS EDHEC T-Com HU Corp. average

13. Support from top management

Institution

Table 22 Average values of the 3 institution clusters’ management factor ratings for the level of industrialization

5,0 4,2 4,8 4,7 4,6 4,7 4,5 4,8 4,4 3,8 4,2 4,6 2,2 2,6 4,6 4,4 5,0 4,2 4,7 4,2 4,8 4,4 4,8 4,6 5,0 4,7 4,4

4,4 3,6 4,4 4,0 4,6 4,2 4,7 3,2 4,4 4,0 3,6 3,4 4,2 3,6 2,8 4,2 3,0 3,0 3,0 3,6 4,3 5,0 4,2 3,6 4,5 4,3 3,9

4,4 5,0 4,6 5,0 4,8 4,8 5,0 4,0 4,6 4,4 2,8 4,8 3,4 4,0 3,6 4,6 3,5 4,4 3,5 4,0 4,6 4,6 2,8 2,6 5,0 3,9 4,2

4,6 4,0 4,8 5,0 4,8 4,6 3,3 4,8 4,2 3,8 NA 4,8 4,2 3,4 4,0 4,8 4,0 4,2 3,5 4,1 4,6 4,0 4,3 1,8 5,0 3,9 4,2

3,6 4,0 5,0 5,0 4,0 4,3 3,7 3,5 NA 2,4 NA NA 2,6 2,5 3,2 4,2 1,8 3,6 4,3 3,2 4,4 4,6 4,2 3,0 4,5 4,1 3,7

3,0 3,5 4,6 4,5 4,8 4,1 2,8 3,5 3,2 3,6 NA 4,0 3,8 3,0 3,2 4,0 4,7 3,0 4,0 3,6 3,0 4,0 4,2 2,0 4,5 3,5 3,7

2,8 2,3 4,2 4,3 4,4 3,6 2,8 4,3 1,8 3,4 2,0 4,4 4,0 3,8 3,8 2,4 4,0 4,6 4,8 3,6 4,8 5,0 3,5 4,2 4,5 4,4 3,7

4,2 4,8 3,8 5,0 3,6 4,3 2,8 4,8 4,8 4,2 4,4 4,6 4,2 3,4 3,4 3,8 4,0 5,0 4,3 4,1 3,6 5,0 4,0 3,8 4,5 4,2 4,2

3,6 4,8 4,8 4,8 4,4 4,5 3,3 3,5 1,0 4,0 2,8 4,0 3,4 2,2 3,8 4,0 4,2 3,4 3,7 3,3 5,0 5,0 4,3 3,2 4,5 4,4 3,8

The pattern showed that for traditional universities industrialisation is not vital, however important. In handling large numbers they see a large number of tools to handle the problem.

HE institutions, where tuition is delivered in several forms and models, industrialisation seems to play a less important role than at DE and private institutions.

DE and private megaproviders ranked industrialisation as a very important element of their success and it was more explicit as the above mentioned “Effective administrative routines”.

This formulation of the question caused less confusion and reached the “ring the bell” effect.

All private institutions ranked this factor very high and the most common element was the

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robust LMS and IT system background. At this segment of providers industrialisation and engineering is rather a positive label, while at HE those two factors tend to be negative.

Handling large numbers of learners generated the following solutions, reported by the interviewed megaproviders: • • • • • • • • • • • • •

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Online tutors can live anywhere, flexible recruitment Personal enthusiasm Multidisciplinary team, clear division of labour 24 hours support, prompt reaction Specialised work routine Specialist advisors Templates in course design Robust technology, competent technicians Flexible and powerful systems Ease of LMS use Automatic access to resources (digital libraries / OER) Support from leadership Tough management

Analyses of European megaproviders of e-learning

Economical factors

By Jüri Lõssenko The following analysis sets out to identify and highlight the most prevailing and common aspects of success in regard to economical issues in three identified categories of institutions: • • •

Open universities and distance education institutions Universities, colleges and consortia Corporate training providers

The basis for this are the interviews conducted with 23 of the 25 institutions (Universidade Aberta and UNED were not included) and subsequent rating of the answers from all 25 institutions against 25 identified success factors. For economical issues these factors are: • • • •

Cost effectiveness Stable and predictable sources of income from operation Pressure on the necessity to change Contracts with part-time tutors and course developers

Answers to the following questions provided necessary data: • • • •

How would you describe the cost-effectiveness of online education in your institution?

How has cost-effectiveness affected success?

To which extent is income from operation of online education stable and predictable?

To which extent does your institution experience pressure to be flexible to be able to adapt to a changing market?

To which extent does your institution apply a strategy of flexible employment and use staff to adapt to changes in markets?

The results from the rating of the answers to the questions are provided in Table 23 and Figure 12.

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111

112

25. Contracts with part-time tutors & course developers

Institution OUNL, Mean value ND 3,3 OUUK, Mean value 3,3 ND NKI, Mean value 4,8 4,8 UOC, Mean value 4,0 4,0 NKS, Mean value 4,5 4,3 UNED, Mean Value 4 2,5 GDF, Mean value 4,0 3,5 Aberta, Mean value 4,0 4,0 Distance Education institutions 4,1 3,8 ULPGC, Mean value 4,8 4,8 UPM, Mean value 1,8 1,4 Leicester, Mean value 3,0 1,0 Ulster, Mean value 3,8 4,0 MMU, Mean value 2,8 3,0 Stafford, Mean value 4,0 3,3 HiST, Mean value 3,3 3,8 Tartu, Mean value 2,3 2,5 BI, Mean value 4,8 4,5 ScuolaIaD, Mean value 4,0 3,8 BVU, Mean value 3,0 4,5 Oncampus, Mean value 3,8 3,4 Universities and colleges 3,4 3,3 CrossK, Mean value 5,0 5,0 Learn Direct, Mean value 4,8 4,8 ELOGOS, Mean value 5 3 EDHEC, Mean value 3,5 3,3 T-Com HU, Mean value 4,8 4,0 Corporate training providers 4,6 4,0

24. Pressure on the necessity to change

23. Stable and predictable sources of income from operation

22. Cost-effectiveness

Table 23. Rating of economical factors including all 25 institutions

2,8 2,5 4,3 4,0 5,0 5,0 4,4 4,0 5 5 3,7 1,3 4,5 3,3 4,0 5,0 4,2 3,8 4,3 1,8 3 3,8 4,7 4,3 3,5 ND 4,8 2,0 4,3 3,5 2,3 3,3 4,3 3,0 3,3 4,5 4,0 4,0 4,0 4,5 3,8 4,0 3,8 3,5 5,0 4,3 4,5 3,8 5 2,4 4,0 4,0 5,0 4,4 4,7 3,8

Analyses of European megaproviders of e-learning

Figure 12. Rating of economical factors

Economical Factors Universities and Colleges

Distance Education Institutions

Corporate Training Providers

25. Contracts w ith part-time tutors & course developers

24. Pressure on the necessity to change

23. Stable and predictable sources of income from operation

22. Cost-effectiveness

0

0,5

1

1,5

2

2,5

3

3,5

4

4,5

5

Table 24 illustrates the relative importance of the economical factors for each specific institution and also for every category. It indicates quite predictably that these factors bear more significance for DE establishments and, in particular, for corporate training providers.

Since universities and colleges tend to depend also to a certain extent on public funding, their motivation to be, for example, as cost-effective as possible is not as high as institutions solely reliant on income from student fees.

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OUNL OUUK NKI UOC NKS GDF Distance Education institutions ULPGC UPM Leicester Ulster MMU Stafford HiST Tartu BI ScuolaIaD BVU Oncampus Universities and colleges CrossK Learn Direct ELOGOS EDHEC T-Com HU Corporate training providers Mean value for the whole

ND 3,3 4,8 4,0 4,5 4,0 4,1 4,8 1,8 3,0 3,8 2,8 4,0 3,3 2,3 4,8 4,0 3,0 3,8 3,4 5,0 4,8 5 3,5 5,0 4,7 3,8

3,3 ND 4,8 4,0 4,3 3,5 4,0 4,8 1,4 1,0 4,0 3,0 3,3 3,8 2,5 4,5 3,8 4,5 3,4 3,3 5,0 4,8 3 3,3 5,0 4,2 3,7

2,8 4,3 5,0 4,4 5 4,5 4,3 4,3 3 4,7 3,5 4,8 4,3 2,3 4,3 3,3 4,0 4,0 3,8 3,8 5,0 4,5 5 4,0 5,0 4,7 4,1

2,5 4,0 5,0 4,0 5 3,3 4,0 1,8 3,8 4,3 ND 2,0 3,5 3,3 3,0 4,5 4,0 4,5 4,0 3,5 4,3 3,8 2,4 4,0 4,0 3,7 3,6

Mean value

22. Cost-effectiveness 23. Stable and predictable sources of income from operation 24. Pressure on the necessity to change 25. Contracts with part-time tutors & course developers

Institution

Table 24. Rating of economical factors including 23 of 25 institutions

2,8 3,8 4,9 4,1 4,7 3,8

1.

3,9 2,5 3,3 3,8 3,1 3,8 3,1 3,0 4,3 4,0 4,0 3,8 4,8 4,4 3,9 3,7 4,8

2-3.

2-3.

As for institutions, 4 instances can be clearly identified where the economical factors seem to be of utmost importance for success: NKI, CrossKnowledge, Hungarian Telecom and NKS. What sets them apart from the rest and what are the common traits and differences behind the higher and lower ratings will be discussed below.

In general it is no surprise that economical issues are quite relevant for all successful online education providers and this is mostly driven by the market pressure. The importance of being flexible and able to adapt to the changing environment seems to be the key here.

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An analysis of the answers to the four interview questions on economy is provided in the following.

Cost effectiveness 22. How would you describe the cost-effectiveness of online education in your institution? How has cost-effectiveness affected success?

Firstly and inevitably the importance of cost-effectiveness seems to be in correlation with public funding received by each particular institution. As illustrated by Table 25, corporate training providers hold cost-effectiveness in high regard. On the other hand, University of Tartu, for example, receives the majority of income from public grants, thus explaining the low rating.

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OUNL OUUK NKI UOC NKS GDF Distance Education institutions ULPGC UPM Leicester Ulster MMU Stafford HiST Tartu BI ScuolaIaD BVU Oncampus Universities and colleges CrossK Learn Direct ELOGOS EDHEC T-Com HU Corporate training providers Mean value for the whole

ND 3,3 4,8 4,0 4,5 4,0 4,1 4,8 1,8 3,0 3,8 2,8 4,0 3,3 2,3 4,8 4,0 3,0 3,8 3,4 5,0 4,8 5 3,5 5,0 4,7 3,8

3,3 ND 4,8 4,0 4,3 3,5 4,0 4,8 1,4 1,0 4,0 3,0 3,3 3,8 2,5 4,5 3,8 4,5 3,4 3,3 5,0 4,8 3 3,3 5,0 4,2 3,7

2,8 4,3 5,0 4,4 5 4,5 4,3 4,3 3 4,7 3,5 4,8 4,3 2,3 4,3 3,3 4,0 4,0 3,8 3,8 5,0 4,5 5 4,0 5,0 4,7 4,1

2,5 4,0 5,0 4,0 5 3,3 4,0 1,8 3,8 4,3 ND 2,0 3,5 3,3 3,0 4,5 4,0 4,5 4,0 3,5 4,3 3,8 2,4 4,0 4,0 3,7 3,6

Mean value

22. Cost-effectiveness 23. Stable and predictable sources of income from operation 24. Pressure on the necessity to change 25. Contracts with part-time tutors & course developers

Institution

Table 25. Rating of cost-effectiveness including 23 of 25 institutions

2,8 3,8 4,9 4,1 4,7 3,8

1.

3,9 2,5 3,3 3,8 3,1 3,8 3,1 3,0 4,3 4,0 4,0 3,8 4,8 4,4 3,9 3,7 4,8

2-3.

2-3.

One of the key aspects especially stressed by the traditional distance education institutions are low running costs of the courses against large number of students attending each course. This, however, immediately raises the all-important quality problem. Striving towards maximum cost-effectiveness can have an impact on the quality of the courses. To achieve good scalability, some compromise on the content and delivery part is very likely. Secondly, when it comes to cost-effective institutions, payments to teachers are proportional with the number of students participating in the courses. In this way, costs on salaries are more or less in balance with income generated from the student fees.

Traditional universities with not so long history in e-learning, on the other hand, tend to struggle with this issue. MMU, for example, has acknowledged that their cost model in regard to e-learning has to change and currently e-learning is not cost-effective. Moreover, there is 116

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evidence that public universities do not strive for cost-effectiveness putting the emphasis on student outcomes. It seems that finding the right balance between cost-effective operations and strong graduation and research outputs is quite complicated, depending largely on the funding schemes and priorities of each institution.

Stable and predictable income 23. To which extent is income from operation of online education stable and predictable?

It becomes quite clear from the answers that income from online education in the majority of the cases is stable and predictable regardless of the category where the particular institution belongs. However, it seems that the importance of this factor depends solely on whether and to what extent the institution depends on public financing. As seen from Table 26, the rating tends to be lower for larger public universities and higher for private establishments.

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OUNL OUUK NKI UOC NKS GDF Distance Education institutions ULPGC UPM Leicester Ulster MMU Stafford HiST Tartu BI ScuolaIaD BVU Oncampus Universities and colleges CrossK Learn Direct ELOGOS EDHEC T-Com HU Corporate training providers Mean value for the whole

ND 3,3 4,8 4,0 4,5 4,0 4,1 4,8 1,8 3,0 3,8 2,8 4,0 3,3 2,3 4,8 4,0 3,0 3,8 3,4 5,0 4,8 5 3,5 5,0 4,7 3,8

3,3 ND 4,8 4,0 4,3 3,5 4,0 4,8 1,4 1,0 4,0 3,0 3,3 3,8 2,5 4,5 3,8 4,5 3,4 3,3 5,0 4,8 3 3,3 5,0 4,2 3,7

2,8 4,3 5,0 4,4 5 4,5 4,3 4,3 3 4,7 3,5 4,8 4,3 2,3 4,3 3,3 4,0 4,0 3,8 3,8 5,0 4,5 5 4,0 5,0 4,7 4,1

2,5 4,0 5,0 4,0 5 3,3 4,0 1,8 3,8 4,3 ND 2,0 3,5 3,3 3,0 4,5 4,0 4,5 4,0 3,5 4,3 3,8 2,4 4,0 4,0 3,7 3,6

Mean value

22. Cost-effectiveness 23. Stable and predictable sources of income from operation 24. Pressure on the necessity to change 25. Contracts with part-time tutors & course developers

Institution

Table 26. Rating of stable and predictable income including 23 of 25 institutions

2,8 3,8 4,9 4,1 4,7 3,8

1.

3,9 2,5 3,3 3,8 3,1 3,8 3,1 3,0 4,3 4,0 4,0 3,8 4,8 4,4 3,9 3,7 4,8

2-3.

2-3.

Fluctuations of the needs of the market are seen as the main threats to stability of income.

Adaptations and ability to foresee the changes are the key issues for guaranteeing that long term strategies of each institution can be realised without any major drawbacks. In many instances institutions protect themselves against rapid changes by offering a large variety of courses and see this as an important safeguard against sudden drops in income.

When it comes to universities and colleges, especially larger traditional universities, then in most cases it was quite complicated for them to distinguish between income from online distance education and other activities. Since it usually adds up only to a small percentage of the total income, they do not see this as relevant of a factor as DE institutions and corporate training providers.

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Another issue that can be noted from the answers is that many institutions saw external variables as a threat to their financial stability and planning. Government policies were stressed on several occasions regardless of the country where the institution was based. It seems that countries where the government has a stronger stance over the education sector, the vulnerability is more evident.

Pressure on change 24. To which extent does your institution experience pressure to be flexible to be able to adapt to a changing market?

It is clearly evident from the responses that every institution experiences at least some sort of market pressure. The importance of being able to adapt to the changing markets can be seen from the ratings in Table 27, thus making flexibility one of the key factors of megaprovision.

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OUNL OUUK NKI UOC NKS GDF Distance Education institutions ULPGC UPM Leicester Ulster MMU Stafford HiST Tartu BI ScuolaIaD BVU Oncampus Universities and colleges CrossK Learn Direct ELOGOS EDHEC T-Com HU Corporate training providers Mean value for the whole

ND 3,3 4,8 4,0 4,5 4,0 4,1 4,8 1,8 3,0 3,8 2,8 4,0 3,3 2,3 4,8 4,0 3,0 3,8 3,4 5,0 4,8 5 3,5 5,0 4,7 3,8

3,3 ND 4,8 4,0 4,3 3,5 4,0 4,8 1,4 1,0 4,0 3,0 3,3 3,8 2,5 4,5 3,8 4,5 3,4 3,3 5,0 4,8 3 3,3 5,0 4,2 3,7

2,8 4,3 5,0 4,4 5 4,5 4,3 4,3 3 4,7 3,5 4,8 4,3 2,3 4,3 3,3 4,0 4,0 3,8 3,8 5,0 4,5 5 4,0 5,0 4,7 4,1

2,5 4,0 5,0 4,0 5 3,3 4,0 1,8 3,8 4,3 ND 2,0 3,5 3,3 3,0 4,5 4,0 4,5 4,0 3,5 4,3 3,8 2,4 4,0 4,0 3,7 3,6

Mean value

22. Cost-effectiveness 23. Stable and predictable sources of income from operation 24. Pressure on the necessity to change 25. Contracts with part-time tutors & course developers

Institution

Table 27. Rating of pressure on change including 23 of 25 institutions

2,8 3,8 4,9 4,1 4,7 3,8

1.

3,9 2,5 3,3 3,8 3,1 3,8 3,1 3,0 4,3 4,0 4,0 3,8 4,8 4,4 3,9 3,7 4,8

2-3.

2-3.

Flexibility is achieved by a number of means. Some more prevalent ones mentioned were offering wide variety of programmes that are strongly relevant and also refocusing quickly depending on the demand. It was noted on several occasions that institutions tend to spot the changes early enough to be able to carry out swift adjustments. Yet again, traditional universities are the ones that require more time to reprioritise, whereas Learn Direct, for example, claims that they “can achieve 7-9 month turn around time on changed priorities�.

However, achieving optimum flexibility can be hampered by a number of obstacles. Most of them are technical: there are scalability issues, systems and their operational requirements are not always up to handle fast and wide-scale changes. Decision-making process can be in certain occasions tedious and time-consuming. So success in this area depends largely on the

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procedures adapted within the organisation in regard to management, communication, roles and responsibilities.

Flexible employment 25. To which extent does your institution apply a strategy of flexible employment and use staff to adapt to changes in markets?

It can be noted in most cases that flexibility in the employment strategies is very important for achieving success in online distance education. Usually it involves a combination of fixed staff and part-time employees. In addition, outsourcing is another factor that facilitates institutions to adapt to changes. Again, differences in importance can be seen comparing traditional universities with private and distance education institutions as illustrated by ratings in Table 28.

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OUNL OUUK NKI UOC NKS GDF Distance Education institutions ULPGC UPM Leicester Ulster MMU Stafford HiST Tartu BI ScuolaIaD BVU Oncampus Universities and colleges CrossK Learn Direct ELOGOS EDHEC T-Com HU Corporate training providers Mean value for the whole

ND 3,3 4,8 4,0 4,5 4,0 4,1 4,8 1,8 3,0 3,8 2,8 4,0 3,3 2,3 4,8 4,0 3,0 3,8 3,4 5,0 4,8 5 3,5 5,0 4,7 3,8

3,3 ND 4,8 4,0 4,3 3,5 4,0 4,8 1,4 1,0 4,0 3,0 3,3 3,8 2,5 4,5 3,8 4,5 3,4 3,3 5,0 4,8 3 3,3 5,0 4,2 3,7

2,8 4,3 5,0 4,4 5 4,5 4,3 4,3 3 4,7 3,5 4,8 4,3 2,3 4,3 3,3 4,0 4,0 3,8 3,8 5,0 4,5 5 4,0 5,0 4,7 4,1

2,5 4,0 5,0 4,0 5 3,3 4,0 1,8 3,8 4,3 ND 2,0 3,5 3,3 3,0 4,5 4,0 4,5 4,0 3,5 4,3 3,8 2,4 4,0 4,0 3,7 3,6

Mean value

22. Cost-effectiveness 23. Stable and predictable sources of income from operation 24. Pressure on the necessity to change 25. Contracts with part-time tutors & course developers

Institution

Table 28. Rating of flexible employment including 23 of 25 institutions

2,8 3,8 4,9 4,1 4,7 3,8

1.

3,9 2,5 3,3 3,8 3,1 3,8 3,1 3,0 4,3 4,0 4,0 3,8 4,8 4,4 3,9 3,7 4,8

2-3.

2-3.

A tendency indicated by several institutions involves decreasing the number of permanent staff and increasing the percentage of employees with part-time contracts in the near future.

Another issue that is seen as key is implementing an employment scheme that allows scaling up the number of employers in certain programmes as their popularity rises.

Most traditional universities, however, do not employ separate personnel for online education.

As MMU states: “e-learning brings no employment issues as all the work is done by full time staff�. So for these institutions flexible employment can mean contracts for up to 2-3 years as opposed to establishments that employ people for specific programmes only. A completely different case is VHB. As a consortium they do not employ teaching personnel, teaching is performed by personnel contracted by member universities. This allows maximum flexibility and quick adaptation to change.

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Conclusion It would be a strong understatement to state that economical factors are not essential to megaproviders of online distance education. However, it became evident from the responses that the importance depends largely on different aspects. Firstly, whether the legal status is public or private or more specifically, to what extent the institution is dependent on public funding. Secondly, experience in online and distance education. The speed of adaptation to outside drivers and market changes, institutional procedures and decision-making processes are better organised within institutions with longer history in this area. And thirdly, when looking at economical factors specifically in online distance education, significant differences arise whether analysing an institution solely reliant on distance education or a university where, albeit a megaprovider, online distance education forms only a small part of its economical grasp.

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Additional factors

By Per Arneberg and Morten Flate Paulsen This is an analysis of the final question in the survey: 26. What other factors have contributed to sustainability, robustness and the achievement of critical mass in your institution?

The additional factors that the institutions have mentioned as keys to success as a megaprovider are listed in Table 29.

Table 29. Additional factors sorted by number of occurrences

Factor Enthusiast in an early phase

Number of occurrences 3

Good marketing

2

The institution is a well known brand name 2 Teaching is available in a large number of languages 1 (French, English, Spanish, German, Polish, Chinese and Japanese) Services with added value are given together with 1 teaching, for example project management an change management planning Credibility and reputation of a highly ranked academic 1 (Prof. Salmon) Being a young university created a strong social 1 demand Need to reach the level of veteran universities as 1 quickly as possible The opportunity of not having to make the same 1 mistakes as other universities The fact of not being tied to a consolidated team 1 The fact of being located in a territory with need of 1 distance education Students have no additional costs compared with on 1 campus university educations Using competence and infrastructure of member 1 universities (VHB is a consortium) Transparency in all decisions, especially in funding 1 Successful lobbying techniques with government 1 Being part of a larger institutions allows for stability 1 in recruitment of staff and students

Institutions Ulster, On Campus, NKI NKS, Learn Direct Learn Direct, BI CrossKnowledge CrossKnowledge Leicester ULPGC ULPGC ULPGC ULPGC ULPGC VHB VHB VHB Learn Direct BI

Based on this table, two obvious questions can be asked. First, how important do these additional factors seem to be compared with the 25 factors that have been hypothesised to be

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the most important by the Megatrends project? Second, are there any consistent patterns among the additional factors?

Considering the first question, it should be noted that out of the 17 institutions that data have been gathered from, 10 point out additional factors as keys to success. Thus, almost 60% of the institutions mention other factors than the 25 originally hypothesised as important for their success. This implies that additional factors are not without importance for the larger picture.

For some of the institutions, the additional factors are also listed among the five most important factors. For these institutions, the additional factors are clearly more important than many of the 25 hypothesised factors. Unfortunately, data on the five most important factors are available for only a few of the 17 institutions. Therefore, it is not possible with the present data to evaluate whether the additional factors are generally more important than many of the originally postulated factors, or whether this is limited to a small number of the institutions that have been examined.

When answering the second question, patterns among the additional factors, it should be noted that most of the factors are mentioned by only one institution. Thus, they are not clustered around one or a few key factors. Rather, the general picture is that a multitude of different factors seems to be operating. This lends support to the interpretation that there are different ways to become a megaprovider and/or that different external factors impose different developmental routes.

However, some minor similarities do exist when looking at the additional factors. Good marketing is mentioned by two institutions. So is having a well known brand name, which also is important when doing marketing. Thus, the marketing aspect may indeed be an important factor. In addition, having had enthusiasts that worked to promote online teaching in an early phase is mentioned by three institutions, suggesting that also this factor could be added to a list of factors that may be important for becoming a megaprovider.

Conclusion Marketing and branding are additional factors which are identified as important for several of the megaproviders. This leads to the following two factors which should be added to the 25 factors that already have been discussed: High competence and good practice in marketing Marketing is emphasised as an additional success factor by NKS and Learn Direct. NKS states that good marketing is clearly vital for student recruitment. NKS therefore continuously work with marketing strategy, in particular searching for the best media to advertise in and claims that this has changed substantially during recent years. Learn Direct explains that it advertises online, on news programmes and TV. Well known brand names The importance of branding is highlighted by Learn Direct, BI, and Scuola. Learn Direct perceives its brand as vital for success, and its marketing people are retail brand people. BI has a well known brand in Norway and many of the students are adults who know the

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institution well. Scuola also believes that its mother institution’s prestige and good reputation has contributed strongly to its success.

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Recommendations for robust and sustainable large-scale e-learning Per Arneberg, Desmond Keegan, Jüri Lõssenko, Ildikó Mázár, Pedro Fernández Michels, Morten Flate Paulsen, Torstein Rekkedal, and Dénes Zarka The following is a list of 34 recommendations for robust and sustainable provision of largescale e-learning. This list of recommendations is based on: 1. The 25 factors proposed in the analyses of 26 megaproviders of e-learning in Europe 2. The two additional factors that were suggested by the analysis of the 26 megaproviders 3. The seven factors that were suggested through the analysis of the 10 e-learning initiatives that did not reach targeted goals The recommendations are listed below and explained in more detail in the following.

Recommendations based on the 25 factors proposed in the analyses 1. Learn from institutions with a long history and tradition of dealing with distance education; 2. Build high competence and tradition in online education; 3. Focus on evolutionary step-by-step development and scalability; 4. Promote continuing research and evaluation related to online education; 5. Develop high competence in information and communication technology (ICT); 6. Use standard and widely-used technologies; widely-used technologies enable students to apply the software and hardware they have at their disposal with little need to buy and install additional equipment; 7. Acquire well integrated ICT systems that support online education; 8. Develop effective administrative systems; 9. Provide a wide range of subjects and levels that are attractive to students and lead to employment; 10. Select a wise choice of topics, courses, and programs that are onlineable; 11. Weigh the potential benefits of flexible start-up and progression against the advantages of being able to work with stable groups in virtual classrooms; 12. Focus on asynchronous communication. Students' time flexibility leads to asynchronous communication and little focus on synchronous communication technologies; 13. Make sure to receive support from top management; 14. Attract enthusiastic employees who believe in online education; 15. Develop strategies that support online education and make sure that the employees are loyal to the strategy; 16. Focus on quality; 17. Develop effective administrative routines; 18. Focus on predictable and manageable teacher workload; 19. Consider collaboration with other educational institutions; 20. Strive for high formal and informal credibility with the government and public administration;

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21. Establish some sort of industrialization such as division of labour, systemization, automation, rationalization, and work flow management; 22. Focus on cost-effective courses that give much learning for the money; 23. Secure stable and predictable sources of income from operation of online education; 24. Utilize the pressure on the necessity to change as a means to be flexible, to stay in business and to adapt to the changing market; 25. Prefer contracts with part-time tutors and course developers that allow flexible employment and use of staff to adapt to changes in markets; Recommendations based on additional factors 26. Develop high competence and good practice in marketing; 27. Treasure well known brand names; Recommendations derived from discontinued initiatives 28. Realize that hard-nosed market research is essential for the success of any e-learning initiative; 29. Plan carefully for and control carefully the revenue and expenses. Seeding funding dries up quickly; 30. Choice of courses and their accreditation is crucial; 31. Define precisely the relationships of your initiative to existing providers and define precisely the institutional model you will adopt; 32. Plan carefully to manage both educational and business activities; 33. Avoid top-down political and boardroom initiatives; 34. Avoid consortia of institutions that compete with each other and the consortium.

Recommendations based on the 25 factors proposed in the analyses The analyses confirmed that 23 of the 25 factors are important for the megaproviders.

However, the analyses do not confirm that Factor 1: “Long history” and factor 11: “Flexible student start-up and progression” are important for the megaproviders. However, the factors are included but the corresponding recommendations are rephrased.

Robust, sustainable, large-scale e-learning should, when possible, be based on the following set of recommendations:

Institutional recommendations Recommendation 1: Robust, sustainable, large-scale e-learning should, when possible, be based on learning from institutions with a long history and tradition of dealing with distance education.

The wording of recommendation 1 of the Megatrends in e-learning provision project had to be changed during the course of the project. The original wording ‘Robust, sustainable, largescale e-learning should be based on a long history of online/ distance/ flexible education’ was not fully supported by the data collected during the project. The data collected during the project was grouped into three clusters: (i) Open universities and distance education institutions, (ii) Universities and colleges including consortia, (iii) Corporate training providers. The support for the original wording amongst (i) Open universities and distance education institutions, was good. Amongst (ii) Universities and colleges including consortia it was patchy as many face-to-face universities and colleges considered they had achieved the 128

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status of Megaprovider of e-learning without passing through ‘a long history in distance education’. The original wording was not supported by (iii) Corporate training providers, most of whom, like Learn Direct and CrossKnowledge were recent foundations, founded specifically as e-learning specialists and had no distance education background. The new wording, as presented above, can be accepted by all. This is because there is a world of difference between traditional, conventional education and training provision in which students are educated in groups in school classrooms, university lecture rooms, laboratories or training centres, and distance education or e-learning in which the student is usually separated from the teacher, lecturer or trainer and also from the learning group. The skills and strategies for this form of provision were first worked out in the field of distance education and these decisions benefit the field of e-learning too.

Recommendation 2: Robust, sustainable, large-scale e-learning should, when possible, be based on building high competence and tradition in online education.

This criterion was established from the responses of the Megaproviders to the question ‘how has competence in e-learning developed in your institution and how has it contributed to your success?’

Competence in online education is a fundamental prerequisite for success in e-learning. It is not a characteristic that would have been prevalent in universities as recently as 20 years ago, although, at that time, many universities were leaders in the use of educational technology.

For e-learning, competence is required in the educational use of the internet and, more specifically the World Wide Web. Skills in the design of learning materials for the World Wide Web have to be learned, strategies for the mentoring and tutoring of students via the internet have to be developed, the usage of Learning Management Systems (LMSs) or Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) has to be mastered. Nine different strategies for developing competence in e-learning can be identified amongst the Megaproviders. These are: • • • • • • • • •

The creation of an expert centre to develop institutional competence Uneven development with some departments leading others Research and development in the field of e-learning Hiring of e-learning experts Adapting distance education competence to e-learning The influence of a few keen advocates Competence developed on the job, by doing it Funding internal e-learning projects Assistance of technical professionals and provision of courses for staff.

Recommendation 3: Robust, sustainable, large-scale e-learning should, when possible, be based on focusing on evolutionary step-by-step development and scalability.

This criterion was built up by the Megaproviders’ answers to the question: ‘has the development of e-learning competence in your institution been abrupt or would you describe it more as a gradual step-by-step process?’ Nearly all the institutions accept this criterion and promote the concept that successful e-learning provision, that is robust and sustainable, is the result of evolutionary development. The main objector is CrossKnowledge, which went abruptly from 0 to 250.000 students in 5 years. Development at Learn Direct, which today has 500.000 students, must also have been rapid. Again four different patterns in dealing with this criterion can be identified: Analyses of European megaproviders of e-learning

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• • • •

Development of competence in e-learning has been gradual and step-by-step (70 % of institutions) Development of competence in e-learning was gradual but accelerated by executive decisions and official documents (2 institutions) Special developments (2 institutions) Development has been abrupt (2 institutions).

Recommendation 4: Robust, sustainable, large-scale e-learning should, when possible, be based on promoting continuing research and evaluation related to online education.

It is clear that all the Megaproviders have developed policies and procedures for the evaluation of their e-learning processes, their e-learning course materials, their e-learning enrolments and their e-learning success. E-learning research and the publication of e-learning research are less well developed in some institutions.

The replies are mixed and can be grouped in 5 categories: • • • • •

Solid research and publishing (5 institutions) Mainly evaluation (11 institutions) External evaluation (1 institution) Evaluation without research (1 institution) No link between e-learning practice and research practice (1 institution).

Technical recommendations Recommendation 5: Develop high competence in information and communication technology (ICT).

ICT competence is important for the megaproviders, but obviously, the ICT competence varies among different groups of staff. Tartu and UKOU for example distinguish between tutor competence and staff competence. The rating does however indicate that the perceived ICT competence is regarded as higher in the Distance Education institutions (4.3) and the corporate training providers (4.4) than in the universities, colleges and consortia (3.8).

The distance education providers report that they have technical staff with high ICT competence. Other groups of staff have the competence they need to conduct their work. NKI, UOC, OUNL and OUUK seem to have especially high ICT competence, which may be due to much internal development of ICT systems for e-learning.

Among the universities, colleges and consortia HiST, BI and ULPG seem to have relatively high ICT competence related to e-learning. The consortia are special since they draw on the cumulative ICT competence of its member universities. The remaining institutions seem to be rather vague regarding ICT competence, which may indicate that e-learning is just one of many issues related to ICT competencies in several of these institutions.

All corporate training providers report that they have high competence in ICT. Learn Direct has 100 people with high expertise in ICT. CrossKnowledge brings together a strong blend of competences in order to address the whole e-learning value chain and integrate the different IT components. At EDHE, there is an ICT culture that is spread by the e-learning courses and

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services. ELOGOS has solid experience in the use of technology, and Hungarian Telecom has an E-Team with very high ICT competence.

Recommendation 6: Use standard and widely-used technologies; widely-used technologies enable students to apply the software and hardware they have at their disposal with little need to buy and install additional equipment.

The institutions seem to agree that it is important to apply widely used technology as far as possible. Standard PC equipment with an Internet connection and a browser seem to be a common requirement. Some courses or applications (such as for example video conferencing) may however require broadband access and special software to be installed on the PC. All the distance education providers clearly state that they rely on widely used technologies that students can use without buying additional hardware and software. However, some of the institutions report that in certain specific courses, special software is necessary, and some experiments with the newest technologies are made.

The universities, colleges and consortia also clearly state that it is important that e-learning is based on widely used technologies. Several of them emphasize that the solutions do not require any additional expenses for the students. HiST states that the software used in the courses can be downloaded from the Internet for free.

The corporate training providers also state that their courses are based on open standards and that the students don’t need to purchase any specific hardware or software.

Recommendation 7: Acquire well integrated ICT systems that support online education.

The integration between the learning management system and the student administration system seems to be a crucial issue. The integration with other systems is also significant. The answers confirm that well integrated ICT systems are important for the institutions success, and that many institutions want better integration.

The distance education providers NKI, UOC and UNED claim to have well integrated ICT systems and that this has been a critical factor for the success of the online courses. It is especially interesting to note that NKI and UOC in more detail have described the integration of their internally developed online educations solutions. The remaining distance education institutions report that they want better integrated ICT systems to become more effective and efficient.

Among the universities, colleges and consortia, the University of Ulster, ULPGC and BI report that they have well integrated systems. The remaining institutions indicate that the systems can be better integrated and provides various examples of this. The two consortia rely on each individual member’s ICT systems and do not provide any central integration.

The corporate training providers CrossKnowledge and Hungarian Telecom report to have well integrated systems. Learn Direct states that integration is good, but that they focus more on robustness and scalability.

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Recommendation 8: Develop effective administrative systems.

The rating indicates that the corporate training providers (4.0) and the distance education institutions (3.8) have better administrative systems for e-learning than the universities, colleges and consortia (3.1).

The main technical issues related to the administrative systems seem to be how well they are integrated and how efficient they are. All types of institutions seem to focus on the necessity of systems integration and many of the institutions want improved systems integration.

The distance education providers seem to be most satisfied with the systems integration, and the corporate training providers seem to have the clearest focus on effective systems that are highly automated and deliver new courses quickly and efficiently.

The universities and colleges seem to have a special challenge since their administrative systems and routines often depend on systems that first of all have to suit the universities’ traditional students. This is well illustrated by this statement from HiST when it had to adapt to the university system: Integrated technical systems allowed the institution to run operations with a high degree of efficiency and this was an important factor for sustainability. Now the institution is experiencing the flip side of this. The integrated systems have been abandoned and replaced with less efficient (and not integrated) systems designed for on campus operations. This has lead to loss of efficiency and may threaten survival of the large scale operations.

The consortia have a special challenge related to systems integrations since the member institutions often depend on their own systems and are not interested in integration with an consortium system.

Course recommendations Recommendation 9: Provide a wide range of subjects and levels that are attractive to students and lead to employment.

The results of the survey do not permit any strong statement being drawn about the importance of a wide range of subjects and levels offered to the students. Those megaproviders that do offer a wide range of subjects consider it as an important factor – score of 4.0. Those that do not offer an expansive range of different subjects only give an average score of 2.6 to this factor. In both cases we are talking about successful large-scale e-learning initiatives.

The clear common ground that can be found among most of the interviewed institutions is the convenience to choose subjects and levels according to existing market demands and popularity. Therefore it is recommendable that subjects and levels should be chosen after a thorough analysis of the educational needs of the society, the possibility of attracting a large number of clients and clear opportunities of knowledge transfer into the labour market.

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Recommendation 10: Select a wise choice of topics, courses and programs that are onlineable.

The analysis has shown that there is no common understanding about the onlienability of topics. Rather, we can observe a very particular view of the institution regarding the possibilities and limitations virtuality gives, depending on the specific context they are operating in. Put in another way, we can say that the online character of education does not have a clear influence on the choice of subjects or topics. Or even in a more drastic way: The concept of “onlineability� turned out to be quite subjective and its interpretation depends on the experiences, competences and expertise of each institution.

Therefore the recommendation would be to choose those topics, courses and programs the institution feels comfortable enough with to face all the possible problems that can arise while offering them online under reasonable parameters of quality. Consider adapting the pedagogical approach to the special requirements of every subject and even consider forms of blended learning if face-to-face episodes do not seem to be avoidable.

Recommendation 11: Weigh the potential benefits of flexible start-up and progression against the advantages of being able to work with stable groups in virtual classrooms.

The results of the survey show that flexibility in start-up and progression is not considered a key concept in e-learning provision. In fact, the factor received the lowest score of all 25 factors. It became clear that fixed timetables and dates, apart from being compulsory in many institutions and countries and closely linked to university organisation and policies, seem to contribute a better learning management by the students and to better possibilities of organising group work, collaboration and social learning. The concept of flexibility is widely seen in a different way: it is the independence of space and concrete timetables of physical attendance that seems to be a much more important factor than the absence of fixed starting dates and a generally structured progression. It is therefore recommendable to weigh the potential benefits of flexible start-up and progression, and the advantages being able to work with stable groups in virtual classrooms.

Recommendation 12: Focus on asynchronous communication. Students’ time flexibility leads to asynchronous communication and little focus on synchronous communication technologies.

The findings indicate that the vast majority of institutions consider asynchronous communication to be the best way of providing significant and effective learning scenarios in a virtual environment. The new ICT have made distance education communicative in the sense that fluent collaboration and social learning is possible. The recommendation is to take advantage of these new possibilities and this clear improvement in distance education.

Asynchronity allows for communication without being tied to fixed time schedules as with synchronous communication that forces students to commit to be present at certain times in chats or similar environments. The recommendation is to offer flexibility within the possibility of communicating and collaborating with peers.

It is also a recommendation not to rely on the apparent attraction of synchronous communication tools. What seems to be an opportunity of reproducing face-to-face dynamics in a virtual environment (questioned by many, anyway), does not seem to find the support amongst the students themselves. Many of the interviewed institutions claimed that, even

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when offered, synchronous communication environments were rarely frequented by the users, whom clearly favoured the possibilities of communicating in an asynchronous way.

Management, strategy and attitude recommendations Recommendation 13: Robust, sustainable and large-scale e-learning initiatives should make sure to receive support from their top management.

This factor has received the highest scores for being important in the consideration of the institution’s success in management, and second most important factor overall. In the discontinued activities this factor did not seem to be so important. Where the management support was lacking and the success of e-learning megaprovision was the result of the teachers’ and students’ efforts (a more bottom-up approach), it was clearly indicated that the leadership’s support would have strengthened or accelerated the process of online education development. Where managerial support was present, its role and importance was firmly reflected in the answers.

There is a considerable difference between the managerial attitudes at institutions that were transferring their former traditional education to online and those who already had distance educational experience (either as their main profile or just on course- or educational module level). The top management seemed much more reserved from and critical about e-learning at institutions that did not have practice in any form of open, flexible and distance education.

The ones that already had know-how about distance teaching, were not so dubious about the potentials of online education Private institutions are much more autonomic in decision making; therefore the support coming from the leadership was usually more positive and more common in this cluster.

Public institutions, even if they are well known and successful, tend to be less independent and more bureaucratic in managerial decision making.

Recommendation 14: Enthusiastic employees who believe in online education are key robustness and sustainability factors of successful large-scale e-learning initiatives.

One of the predictable results of our survey was the nature and extent of competences of different groups of successful e-learning megaproviders’ staff. It has been noted repeatedly how important an overall positive attitude is and that is often subject to appropriate competences and at least some basic knowledge about e-learning. Without these the practice of online education may suffer serious consequences. If the teachers were reluctant to follow ICT development and use modern technology in their teaching, this would be just as detrimental as the lack of technological or managerial support.

Here as well, we can see different general phenomena at traditional-to-online and distance-toonline educational institutions. Usually, when the transition is from traditional to online, staff training and development is a must. Traditional teachers are often resistant to integrate ICT use into their educational practice and have difficulties adapting to the new requirements of their institutions. In case this inability manifests in negative teacher attitudes, the institution has to provide motivation for the teachers to change or – in the worst case – replace them with competent and more enthusiastic employees in order to safeguard the institution’s route towards successful e-learning (mega)provision, as several interviewees suggest.

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Recommendation 15: Robust and sustainable e-learning initiatives should have strategies that support online education to be and remain successful.

This factor was one of the bottlenecks, and reached high rank in importance both at successful institutions and at discontinued activities, as many of the interviewees, especially those who were rather involved with teaching or technological support, could not always tell much about overall institutional strategies. Even if they existed, sometimes they have not been read thoroughly or the documents were confidential, or recently released. However, those circa 8 strategies that are introduced in more detail have provided us with useful information and, we believe, they could serve as good benchmarks for institutions willing to improve their online education by introducing new strategy elements.

The most highlighted aspects of the online education strategies in most cases are: • • • • • •

the digitalization of course material, the development of standardized LMSs and administrational systems, provision of suitable technological support and maintenance of ICT infrastructure, the ideal combination of learner centred, teacher (or institution) centred and technology centred models, supply education on demand and just in time and cost efficiency.

Recommendation 16: Focus on quality.

Quality is one of the most important key considerations for success in all types of education, let it be traditional, distance or online. Perhaps that is the reason why this was the survey’s most unanimously answered question. Apart from one negative answer, stating that success is not measurable by quality assessment, every institution listed several practical ways of their evaluation procedures.

Quality may apply to education in many ways. It can mean the quality of course content and its delivery, the competences of the teaching staff or the quality of learning administration systems. The responses suggest that the longer the history, the more hands-on experience the institutions have.

Recommendation 17: Effectiveness of administrative routines is a key success factor for e-learning providers.

The importance of this question is over average, in the combined analysis of success, and for discontinued activities it is the third most important factor.

Looking at the issue in greater detail it can be seen that institutions which are dedicated to DE, organisations that are either public or private, are stating that effective administration is very important. In these two segments the questions are mostly answered and the responses provide professional evidence for the differences between the two institution types. Detailed answers suggest that in case of dedicated DE institutions effective administration means effective and integrated LMS systems with well defined workflow. This system is designed and built to the purpose, and institutions allocate important resources to it. It is also observable, that those systems are constantly maintained, analysed and monitored by the management. In other terms: student administration, in case of corporate on-line training Analyses of European megaproviders of e-learning

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providers and dedicated on-line providers, must have been a new and challenging task in the organisation and all who are successful nowadays have done it well, using much effort in time, energy and finance. We may look at effective administration as a very important factor to success.

Recommendation 18: Robust and sustainable e-learning initiatives should be able to predict and manage teacher/tutor workloads.

This factor was important to megaproviders, but did not reach the top categories. The answers were quite homogeneous; however we may observe some differences. Institutions answered differently to questions according to their background. Having analysed this, we observed that teacher workload may be considered on both the course design and on the tuition side. Those institutions, at which these procedures are separated, answered in a different way while higher educational institutions may have combined the two in their answers. Some respondents interpreted the question only by the first or the second possible type of workload.

Looking at the institution types, DE institutions ranked the importance of workload the highest, as in their routine no other type of activity can balance the possible overload of teachers. We may observe that at this type of institution the activities are treated by clearly separating the different types of workload and look at different tasks as designed and observable activities.

Recommendation 19: Collaboration with other educational institutions can safeguard the success and sustainability of e-learning providers’ initiatives.

Collaboration seems an important factor for megaprovision, however, it is not the hottest issue in the average of all types of institutions. This moderate figure can be split into two categories: Dedicated distance educational institutions and traditional higher education institutions rated the importance to the success as near average, while private e-learning providers ranked this factor as very important to reach success.

In private organizations, collaboration is ranked much more important for the business success. Cooperation is vital for private institutions to reach the market through traditional brands, and “labels� so that they may offer blended learning as well. Cooperation is also an element for sharing experiences and to become global. Private institutions see important human resources in collaboration. This is the only cost effective way for them to access the appropriate number and quality of training and teaching staff. This fact can be derived from their business models: Most of them specialize to develop and offer only a part of the course where staff has to be employed full time, e.g. course design, interactive course material and LMS software. Other parts in e-learning provision, e.g. academic input and delivery of human support must be outsourced, for example via institutional cooperation with traditional teaching and training bodies. This element is reinforced by the fact that e-learning models shift slowly from pure online access to more substantial human support services under the umbrella term: blended learning. Another important element of cooperation for private institutions, apart from fund raising, is capital accumulation (joint ventures).

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Recommendation 20: High credibility with the government can often be a success factor for sustainable and robust e-learning provision.

Credibility is clearly one of the most important factors among the 25 success factors.

Government credibility is one of the top five factors, and this is not segmented in the three types of institutions, however the real reasons for that are slightly different. On the other hand this factor was not of great importance in most of the discontinued activities.

In many cases the respondents did not distinguish between credibility and governmental funding. In those cases, low level of funding or other administrative issues indicated to respondents a lower level of importance in credibility. In other cases credibility was clearly distinguished from administrative and funding issues.

As the education system in the EU is mainly the responsibility of governments, most of the respondents reported the importance of credibility to government as high. This may have related directly in case of public institutions or indirectly by private institutions. In case of private institutions, respondents related business or market success not only as credibility to customers, but also as credibility to governments. In many cases, the market itself is also financed and influenced by governments.

Recommendation 21: Some sort of industrialization is important to consider for successful e-learning provision.

This factor showed a very similar pattern (concerning success factors) of importance rate as factor number 17: Effective administrative routines. This may suggest that the interpretation was common of the two questions, however this latter contrasted more the differences.

The pattern showed that for traditional universities industrialisation is not vital, however important. In handling large numbers they see a large number of tools to handle the problem.

HE institutions, where tuition is delivered in several forms and models, industrialisation seems to play a less important role than at DE and private institutions.

DE and private megaproviders ranked industrialisation as a very important element of their success and it was more explicit as the above mentioned “Effective administrative routines”.

This formulation of the question caused less confusion and reached the “ring the bell” effect.

All private institutions ranked this factor very high and the most common element was the robust LMS and IT system background. At this segment of providers industrialisation and engineering is rather a positive label, while at HE those two factors tends to be negative.

Economical recommendations Recommendation 22: Focus on cost-effective courses that give much learning for the money.

Cost-effectiveness is the single most important factor in the combined analysis for both successful megaproviders and discontinued initiatives. On the other hand, this does not prevent an institution from being a large-scale e-learning provider by putting less emphasis on this issue. However, it must be noted that the latter applies to large universities which do not depend on profit from its online initiatives. It appears that the key aspect here is to aim towards keeping the running costs of the courses as low as possible and at the same time strive for maximum number of students attending each course.

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Recommendation 23: Secure stable and predictable sources of income from operation of online education.

This factor rated as the second most essential in the analysis. The importance is more evident with distance teaching institutions and corporate training providers, but not so much with universities and colleges. The main recommendations here are to foresee and react quickly to possible changes in the market needs and have a large variety of courses on offer in different subject fields. However, external variables that are more difficult to identify and influence can have a stronger impact on this factor. These include, for example, possible policy changes at the governmental level.

Recommendation 24: Utilize the pressure on the necessity to change as a mean to be flexible, to stay in business and to adapt to the changing market.

The importance of this factor is relatively high when it comes to successful institutions, but is rated significantly lower regarding discontinued initiatives. Megaproviders have definitely experienced at least some sort of market pressure as opposed to failures that in some cases did not even reach the implementation phase. Evidently, two main aspects are identified. Firstly, optimal flexibility can be achieved by paying attention to technical issues: scalability of systems and ability to adapt to fast and extensive changes. Secondly, the swiftness of organisational procedures and decision-making processes in regard to management, communication, roles and responsibilities.

Recommendation 25: Prefer contracts with part-time tutors and course developers that allow flexible employment and use of staff to adapt to changes in markets.

Flexible employment of staff ranked as the fourth important factor in the combined analysis for both successful megaproviders and discontinued initiatives. However, the term “flexible employment� has several different interpretations. Full-time contracts for 2-3 years are deemed flexible by a number of traditional universities, as opposed to employing staff only for particular programmes. One common recommendation deriving from the analysis is to strive towards flexible employment schemes, increasing the number of part-time personnel and being able to scale the number of employees up or down quickly depending on the actual need and popularity of different programmes that are offered.

Recommendations based on additional factors The analysis implies that additional factors are not without importance for the larger picture.

For some of the institutions, the additional factors are also listed among the five most important factors. For these institutions, the additional factors are clearly more important than many of the 25 hypothesised factors. However, it should be noted that most of the factors are mentioned by only one institution. Therefore, it is not possible with the present data to evaluate whether the additional factors are generally more important than many of the originally postulated factors, or whether this is limited to a small number of the institutions that have been examined.

Marketing and branding were additional factors which were identified as important for several of the megaproviders. This leads to the following two additional recommendations:

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Recommendation 26: Develop high competence and good practice in marketing.

Marketing is emphasised as an additional success factor by NKS and Learn Direct. NKS states that good marketing is clearly vital for student recruitment. NKS therefore continuously work with marketing strategy, in particular searching for the best media to advertise in and claims that this has changed substantially during recent years. Learn Direct explains that it advertises online, on news programmes and TV. Recommendation 27: Treasure well known brand names.

The importance of branding is highlighted by Learn Direct, BI, and Scuola. Learn Direct perceives its brand as vital for success, and its marketing people are retail brand people. BI has a well known brand in Norway and many of the students are adults who know the institution well. Scuola also believe that its mother institution’s prestige and good reputation has contributed strongly to its success.

Recommendations derived from discontinued initiatives Recommendation 28: Hard-nosed market research is essential for the success of any elearning initiative.

This criterion was built up from the 10 case studies of e-learning initiatives which failed to reach targeted goals. It is, nevertheless, applicable to all e-learning initiatives. Totally unrealistic enrolment projections characterise nearly all the initiatives which failed to reach targeted goals. Many of these initiatives were promoted by institutions of the highest prestige.

The British Government put up â‚Ź93.000.000 for the UKeU, but hard-nosed market research was conspicuously lacking. Enrolment targets of 500.000 were bandied about for initiatives that in fact enrolled only a few thousand students at most. This applies to the Alliance for Lifelong Learning sponsored by Stanford, Oxford, Yale and Princeton Universities. It applies to the Scottish Interactive University, sponsored by the Government of Scotland and HeriotWatt University. The case study presented in the Megatrends project of the British initiative Learn Direct (sic) shows that an e-learning institution can, in fact, enrol 500.000 students.

This case study should be analysed with precision by all those contemplating the foundation of an e-learning initiative.

Recommendation 29: E-learning initiatives should plan carefully for and control carefully their revenue and expenses. Seeding funding dries up quickly.

The evidence from the case studies is that few, if any, of the initiatives that failed to reach targeted goals, controlled carefully their revenue and expenses. Most of them underestimated the costs of producing quality e-learning materials, most of them failed to budget for the costs of updating the e-learning materials on a regular basis, most of them failed accurately to count the costs of servicing the students enrolled in their programmes. A worrying pattern emerges from nearly all the case studies presented with regard to seeding funding. Stage 1 is that seeding funding, often generous, is provided by government, sponsors or industry. Stage 2 is that the seeding funding is quickly used up. Stage 3 is that further seeding funding is applied for. Stage 4 is that this further funding is refused. Stage 5 is that the institution is closed down; demonstrating graphically that the institution had not planned carefully to control revenue and expenses.

Recommendation 30: Choice of courses and their accreditation is crucial.

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The choice of courses for an e-learning initiative needs to be made with care. The Alliance for Lifelong Learning was refused the prestigious degrees of Stanford, Oxford, Princeton and Yale for their clientele and collapsed and failed as a result. Its offering of general interest courses like ‘The poetry of World War I’ was also a failure and demonstrated that there was no market for such offerings. The Næringslivets Kompetansenett (NKN) failure demonstrated that citizens are not students, and that workers are not students, and that the Norwegian government’s ideal of developing competence throughout society by e-learning was not shared by workers. In general, the choice of courses for these systems needs to focus on qualifications which enable a worker to progress to the next level of his or her profession, or to focus on a qualification that is essential for a worker to hold on to his or her job, and not face retrenchment. The accreditation of courseware for e-learning is also crucial and should not be taken for granted, especially if the courses are to be offered overseas. The Open University of the United Kingdom was rightly proud of its distance education degrees and of the courseware for these degrees which was admired worldwide. It failed, however, to get these courses accredited at university level in the United States of America for its United States Open University, which was therefore closed down before the lengthy application period for accreditation was completed.

Recommendation 31: It is important that those planning e-learning initiatives should define precisely the relationships of their initiative to existing providers and define precisely the institutional model they will adopt.

It has been pointed out a number of times in the Megatrends studies that a number of the initiatives which failed to reach targeted goals were competitors for enrolments with existing providers and, in some cases, were even competitors for enrolments with their own sponsoring institutions. The UKeU was a competitor for students with the Open University of the United Kingdom and with other British universities who had worked hard at building up distance education clienteles overseas. The Bedriftsuniversitetet in Norway was in competition for students with the powerful Norwegian institutions that founded it. The institutional model of the California Virtual University was unstable, as the consortia establishing it refused to release to it sufficient educational roles to make it viable. The 21 universities and colleges who founded and managed Scottish Knowledge again created an unviable institutional structure.

Recommendation 32: E-learning initiatives should plan carefully to manage both their educational and business activities.

E-learning initiatives should plan carefully for both their educational and business activities and adopt a management structure which allows both to be managed successfully. Bacsich has said that an e-university must be both a university and a business and that it is difficult to do both well. The British Government Parliamentary Committee criticised the management of the UkeU for behaving like a business and not like an educational management team. ITFK was criticised by Norwegian educationists as being redundant to educational needs and founded by businessmen who knew little about education. In all the case studies presented by the Megatrends project on e-learning initiatives which failed to reach targeted goals, one can see evidence of failure of educational management or business management or both.

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Recommendation 33: Avoid top-down political and boardroom initiatives.

Many governmental online education initiatives have not been sustainable. These initiatives are often very visible and expensive. One reason for the problems might be inconsistent policy due to changing governments and political disagreements. Compromises and lack of market knowledge may also contribute to sub-optimal decisions as indicated in these examples described by Paulsen (2003a): Winix was an LMS system that the Norwegian Ministry of Education initiated in 1988. According to a 1994 article in Computerworld Norway4, the Office of the Auditor General (Riksrevisjonen) showed that the project spent more than € 10 million in the nineties. In 1992, it was clear that the project had failed. The software was not finished on time, and several companies that depended on Winix lost much money.

The Danish Ministries of Education and Research initiated a Danish Virtual University in a mission statement on March 27, 2000. The € 5 million budget for the period 2000-2003 was intended to support the development of Web-based courses and provide information about the courses. The next government shut down the initiative, partly as a result of lacking support from the affected institutions. The only remaining result seems to be a portal providing information about further and continuing education (www.unev.dk) that was initiated by the Danish University Rectors’ Conference and scheduled to open in August 2003.

The Megatrends project has studied some political initiatives in more detail. A short introduction of them is provided in the following: The UK e–University was launched in February 2000 by the Secretary of State for Education who appointed the UK Government’s Higher Education Funding Council for England to take charge of the project. The project was effectively wound up in 2005 after spending £50 million of public money but having succeeded only in attracting 900 students.

IT Fornebu Knowation was a result of the controversial political decision to establish a worldclass research and development center for information and communication technology when the old Oslo International Airport was shut down in 1998. The project was the subject of continual political and bureaucratic quarrelling. Some critics claimed that the project’s main objective was to secure valuable real estate properties in an attractive area. The center needed educational enterprises and IT Fornebu Knowation was a key player to attract educational activity. A number of video-conference studios were located and planned around the country.

The opponents of the project claimed that the selected technology and locations were chosen to get the necessary support from local members of parliament. The company experienced a difficult economic situation, and has more or less disappeared after several reorganizations and mergers.

The Competence Network of Norwegian Business and Industry (Næringslivets Kompetansenett (NKN)). NKN (www.nkn.no) was a commercial company established in August 2000. It was owned by the Confederation of Norwegian Business and Industry (www.nho.no), the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions, and Telenor, which is the largest telecommunication company in Norway. The powerful owner institutions wanted to show their vigour and dedication to supporting further and continuing education in the workforce. The dot-com hype also helped the initiation of NKN. It was primarily a provider of LMS services to companies (customers) in collaboration with course and content providers (partners). But NKN was never able to cover its costs and the shareholders lost nearly € 10

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million. To avoid the bad publicity of a bankruptcy, the owners decided to pay off the creditors with about € 1 million and to sell NKN to the CEO for a symbolic sum in 2002.

The Scottish Interactive University was started in Scotland on 15 October 2002 and was closed four years later on 17 April 2007. It was born as Scottish Knowledge collapsed, and Heriot-Watt University and the Scottish Enterprise development agency of the Government of Scotland were the major promoters of this consortium of Scottish universities.

Recommendation 34: Avoid consortia of institutions that compete with each other and the consortium.

Online education consortia are often not sustainable. It is easy to find good reasons for collaboration between educational institutions, but in real life individuals and institutions usually are much more committed to themselves than to the consortium. In general, one may suspect that a consortium of prestigious institutions hardly can be whole-hearted. A relatively weak external consortium secretariat could easily be overlooked or opposed by powerful factions within the institutions. There is also a chance that individual institutes, departments, and even institutions could compete with the consortium in bids for external contracts. This is obviously not a viable environment for a consortium.

The following consortia are studied in the project: The Alliance for Lifelong Learning was established on 28 September 2000. It was founded by the four prestigious universities: Stanford University from California, USA, Oxford University from Oxford, England, Yale University of New Haven, Connecticut, USA and Princeton University of New Jersey, USA. Princeton withdrew after a few months. The alliance ceased activities in late 2005 and was officially closed in March 2006. The budget was $12M, and it is clear that the initiative failed since only 600 enrolled.

Bedriftsuniversitetet (www.bedriftsuniversitetet.no) was a consortium established as a company in 2000 by four prestigious Norwegian institutions: the University of Oslo, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norwegian School of Management, and the SINTEF research institute. The aim was to offer both traditional education and e-learning to corporations and organizations. In April 2003, the general assembly decided to shut down the operation. A message posted at Bedriftsuniversitetet’s homepage referred to a decreasing market for tailor-made competency building at the college and university level, and stated that there was no basis for continuation of a company at the costs a consortium requires.

California Virtual University (CVU) was a high profile venture with a dismal history. It was launched in April 1997 as a joint project of the University of California, California State University, California Community Colleges and the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities. In April 1999, Stephen Downes wrote an interesting analysis claiming that the CVU dream lay in ruins. In his analysis5, he stated: “While on the one hand this is just another story of an unprofitable enterprise biting the dust, on the other hand it is a story of wider impact because CVU was seen in some quarters as a model for the future. The failure will affect online learning in general, and the reasons for the collapse attributed to weaknesses in the medium as a whole”.

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www.newstrolls.com/news/dev/downes/column041499.htm

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Scottish Knowledge was a short-lived partnership between Scotland’s 21 higher education colleges and universities which offered online courses and distance education courses to students around the world. It was founded in 1997 and closed in 2002. It had offices in the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, the USA and in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Additional comments on selection of courses Going through the list of recommendations, one may argue that four of the recommendations are related to making wise decisions about which courses to provide. These recommendations are: 9: Provide a wide range of subjects and levels that are attractive to students and lead to employment.

10: Select a wise choice of topics, courses and programs that are onlineable.

28: Hard-nosed market research is essential for the success of any e-learning initiative.

30: Choice of courses and their accreditation is crucial.

This may imply that it is especially important to pay extra attention to which courses that should be offered as e-learning.

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Appendix 1. Interview guide for case studies in the Megatrends project In this interview guide the terms “e-learning” and “online education” is used interchangeably.

Contextual factors Please provide relevant information about: 1. Market size (depending on country population, language used) 2. Market readiness (penetration, technology infrastructure, broadband availability) to use online technology (differences between countries) 3. Target group acceptance of online education (preference, reputation, legislation?)

4. Digital literacy in population 5. National policy (national funding schemes)

Institutional factors Historical factors 1. How would you describe the history of online education in your institution?

2. How has competence in online education developed in your institution and how has it contributed to your success?

3. Has this development been abrupt or would you describe it more as a gradual step-bystep process)?

4. How has online education been followed up by evaluation and research and how has this contributed to your success?

Technical factors 5. How would you describe competence in information and communication technology in your institution?

6. To which extent are e-learning courses in your institution based on widely used technologies that can be taken into use by students without requiring them to buy additional hardware or software? (in addition to what they have from before) 7. How would you describe the integration between different IT-systems that are involved in e-learning in your institution? How has this contributed to your success?

8. What are the strengths and weaknesses of your e-learning administrative systems (from enrolment through delivery to certification)?

Course factors 9. Which types of subjects are covered by online education in your institution and what is the relative importance of different subjects?

10. How would you describe the “onlineability” of the subjects your institution has chosen for e-learning?

11. Do the online courses provided by your institution have flexible start-up and progression?

12. What is the role or importance of synchronous and asynchronous communication between students and teachers and among students themselves?

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Management, strategy and attitude factors 13. How would you describe involvement from the institution leadership in terms of being supportive, and how has this been important for success?

14. How would you describe the attitudes of the different groups of staff towards online teaching? How has this affected your success?

15. Does your institution have a strategy for online education? If yes, what is (briefly) the content of the strategy and how is it followed up by employees in your organisation?

16. How does your institution deal with quality issues related to online education and has quality contributed to success?

17. How would you describe the effectiveness of your administrative routines in online education?

18. To which extent do teachers involved in online education have predictable and manageable workloads?

19. To which extent does your institution collaborate with other educational institutions and how has this affected success?

20. How would you describe the credibility of your institution (both formal and informal) with the government and public administration and how has this been an important criterion for success?

21. How are you able to handle the large number of online courses and students?

Economical factors 22. How would you describe the cost-effectiveness of online education in your institution?

How has cost-effectiveness affected success?

23. To which extent is income from operation of online education stable and predictable?

24. To which extent does your institution experience pressure to be flexible to be able to adapt to a changing market?

25. To which extent does your institution apply a strategy of flexible employment and use staff to adapt to changes in markets?

Additional factors What other factors have contributed to sustainability, robustness and the achievement of critical mass in your institution?

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References Paulsen, M. F. 2003a. Online Education Obituaries. In Online Education and Learning Management Systems. Global E-learning in a Scandinavian Perspective, M. F. Paulsen, 145150. Bekkestua: NKI Forlaget. Retrieved from www.studymentor.com/studymentor/Obituaries.pdf 08.11.06.

Paulsen, M. F. 2003b. NKI Fjernundervisning: Two Decades of Online Sustainability. In Online Education and Learning Management Systems. Global E-learning in a Scandinavian Perspective, M. F. Paulsen, 271-292. Bekkestua: NKI Forlaget. Retrieved from www.studymentor.com/studymentor/NKI.pdf 08.11.06.

Paulsen, M. F. 2003c. NKI Fjernundervisning: Two Decades of Online Sustainability. In Online Education and Learning Management Systems. Global E-learning in a Scandinavian Perspective, M. F. Paulsen, 314-323. Bekkestua: NKI Forlaget.

Paulsen, M. F. and T. Rekkedal. 2001. The NKI Internet College: A Review of 15 Years Delivery of 10,000 Online Courses. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning. Volume 1, Number 2. Retrieved from www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/17/354 08.11.06.

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About the authors Per Arneberg holds a PhD in biology and has worked as a lecturer and scientist at the University of Tromsø in Norway for a number of years. He has published several papers in highly ranked international scientific journals and has led development of distance education in biology. During the last years he has worked in Norway Opening Universities, a governmental agency established to stimulate development of distance education and general application of learning technology in higher education. Arneberg has written articles, conducted surveys and edited a number of books in this field. These are available at www.nuv.no.

Lourdes Guàrdia is lecturer of the Department of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Open University of Catalonia (UOC). She is professor of the Master’s Degree in Education and ICT (e-learning) at UOC. Since 1996 she has being working at UOC with different roles; as the Head of Multimedia Instructional Design Department for six years, as the educational and innovation project’s coordinator at the Educational and Methodological Innovation Strategic Area for two years, and as a lecturer the last three years. She’s currently involved in the Ph.D. programme in Educational Sciences at the Universidad del País Vasco. She’s also got a Degree in Linguistics and Master in Train the Trainers for second language acquisition at the Universitat de Barcelona. Her focus interest in research is instructional design, educational technology and e-learning. She participated in several innovation and research European and National projects.

Desmond Keegan was the foundation Chief Executive Officer of the Italian open university system, the Consorzio per l’Uiversità a Distanza. Today he is managing director of Distance Education International in Dublin, Ireland. He has designed, administered and brought to a successful conclusion more than 20 European projects. He has contributed extensively to the literature of distance education, e-learning and mobile learning including: • • • • • • •

Sewart D, Keegan D and Holmberg B (eds) (1983) Distance education: international perspectives.

London and New York: Croom Helm. 446 pp. 2nd printing: Routledge 1985.

Keegan D e Lata F (eds) (1984) L'università a distanza. Riflessioni e proposte per un nuovo modello di università. Milano: Angeli. 173 pp.

Keegan D (1986) Foundations of distance education. London and New York: Croom Helm. 282 pp.

Second edition: Routledge, 1990, Third edition: Routledge 1996.

Keegan D (ed) (1993) Theoretical principles of distance education. London and New York: Routledge. pp 272. Harry K, John M and Keegan D (1993) Distance education: new perspectives. London and New York: Routledge. pp 348.

Keegan D (ed) (1994) The industrialization of teaching and learning. Otto Peters on distance education. New York and London: Routledge. pp 260.

Keegan D (1997) Distance training in the European Union. Brussels: The European Commission, 100pp. Weidenfeld G and Keegan D (eds)(1999) L'enseignement à distance à l'aube du troisième millénaire. Poitiers: CNED. 360 pp.

Keegan D (2000) Distance training: taking stock at a time of change. London: Routledge, 152 pp.

Keegan D (2002) The future of learning. From eLearning to mLearning. Hagen:FernUniversität (ZIFF) 176 pp.

Jüri Lõssenko is a project manager of the Estonian e-Learning Development Centre where he is involved in developing, supporting and implementing e-learning initiatives in Estonian higher and vocational education. His responsibilities include coordinating national e-learning projects financed by the European Social Funds and several Community programme projects

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as well as participating in numerous national and international working groups and organisations.

Ms. Ildikó Mázár graduated at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics in 2002 as bio-engineer, and, in 2002 she completed a distance educational course entitled “Course development, learning management”. Since September 2002 she obtained her first job at the European Distance and E-Learning Network (EDEN) as Project Manager (earlier Project Co-ordinator).

Pedro Fernández Michels is researcher in the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) and teacher for German as a foreign language. He has been working in the field of education and language acquisition since 1990 and started implementing virtual learning environments for language courses in 2004. He holds a B.A. in German and Spanish Philology, a Postgraduate Degree in Didactics for German as a Foreign Language and a Máster in E-Learning, specialized in instructional design.

Morten Flate Paulsen is Professor of Online Education and Director of Development at NKI Distance Education in Norway. He has worked with online education since 1986 and published many books, reports and articles about the topic. Many of his publications and presentations are available at his personal homepage at http://home.nettskolen.com/~morten/.

His book Online Education and Learning Management Systems is available via www.studymentor.com.

Torstein Rekkedal is Professor of Distance Education and Director of R & D at NKI Distance Education, Norway. He has worked in distance education research since 1970. He has produced a stream of research publications in the field of distance education and online learning. He has chaired the research committees of the European Association for Distance Learning (EADL) and the International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE). In 2003 he was conferred honorary doctor of the British Open University for his research work in the field. He has for many years chaired the standing committee for quality of the Norwegian Association for Distance and Flexible Education. Home page: http://home.nettskolen.com/~torstein/ Albert Sangrà is full professor at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), where he has been director for Methodology and Educational Innovation (1995-2004), in charge of the educational model of the university. He is currently the academic director of the Official Master s Degree in Education and ICT (e-learning). His main research interests are the use of ICT in education and training and quality in e-learning. He has played the role of consultant in several virtual training projects in Europe, America and Asia. He is currently member of the Executive Committee of the European Distance and E-learning Network (EDEN) and also member of the Advisory Board of the Portugal s Universidade Aberta. He got a Degree in Education at the Universitat de Barcelona, a Postgraduate Degree in Applications of Information Technology in ODE at The Open University of the UK and a Diploma on Strategic Use of IT in Education at Harvard University.

Dénes Zarka has been working as head of development and adult education expert at the Centre for Learning Innovation and Adult Learning of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics since 1997. He worked as Project Manager at the Budapest Training Technology Centre in 1992-1997. His current work includes managing ODL projects, planning and developing of distance education and e-learning courses and service systems

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related to the developed, adapted learning materials (network of tutors, specification of courses, staff, tutor training, sale). He often gives methodological lectures and workshops on content development. Furthermore he is experienced with ODL and ICT research, corporate relations and market research. He is member of the Board of Experts in the National Council for Distance Education, in the Foundation For Open Learning in Vocational Education and at the Public Foundation of Apertus on the field of ODL, adult education and quality assurance.

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