Scaling up online learning presented by Heather Price at the Learning and teaching practice experts group, 22 April 2015

1. Heather Price, Senior co-design manager. Student Experie:nce
Scaling up online learning: project update24/04/2015
Image source:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/yodelanecdotal/4092671749

2. Scaling up online learning: the project
»Working with the UK academic community to identify:
› the barriers stopping institutions from adopting more
online learning
› solutions that can address those problems
»Building pilot versions of the most promising solutions
during 2015
»Supported by a projectWorking Group with members
from across the academic community
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3. Barriers identified by the community
» Lack of clear institutional strategy for distance learning
» Cost (mainly staff time)
» Lack of understanding of what online learning is & what it entails
» Lack of information on the market for online learning
» Risk aversion
» Perceived lower value of accreditation gained via an online course
» Institutional systems are geared towards traditional on-campus learning
» Student access (poor or non-existent internet connection)
» Poor understanding of the roles needed to deliver and support online learning
» Lack of understanding around how to design an online programme
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4. Solution finding
»Online ideas and voting tool gathered:
»23 ideas
»196 votes
»48 comments
»75 users
»Refined & prioritised by the projectWorking Group
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5. The identified solutions
»Staff skills for online learning course
»Scaling up online learning toolkit
»Directory of online courses
»Partnership building service for international
online learning
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6. Scaling up online learning toolkit
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» Suggested themes:
• understanding and penetrating the market
• institutional administrative & organisational issues
• pedagogic models and staff development
• technology and tools
» Institutions that deliver online courses are seen as a key provider of content
Practical interactive online resource to help support the development and
delivery of online/distance learning programmes. Providing:
» tools, techniques, strategies and activities
At a range of levels:
» institutional, strategic, administrative and delivery

7. Staff skills for online learning
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» Incorporates a diagnostic tool for staff to assess their current skills and
requirements
» Highly practical, easy to use – helping to condense the complexities around
pedagogy and technology
Online course with a range of modules that support staff to develop the
skills they need to plan, design, create, deliver and support online learning
courses and programmes.
» Help participants to understand the learner experience
» Increases staff competence and confidence in delivering
and/or supporting online learning
» Models good practice

8. Directory of online courses
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Potential benefits:
» Enhancing the discoverability of existing UK online programmes both nationally
and internationally
» Improves information available to potential students
» Marketing tool for current and future programmes
Investigating the viability of the development of a Jisc tool which pulls
together feeds of current online courses from UK HE and FE institutions.
» Provision of market intelligence in terms of market
size and subject-specific demand (user analytics)
Service design review into the viability/need for the
directory is a key part of this strand.

9. Current activity
» Lou McGill Consultancy appointed to collate the content for
theToolkit (delivery: September 2015)
» SkillSet Ltd, working with Lou McGill appointed to develop a
diagnostic tool to assess online course development skills
(Delivery: July 2015)
» MichaelWebb (Director of technology and analytics)
developing a online course directory prototype (March 2015
onwards)
» All working closely with the projectsWorking Group
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10. Can you contribute?
»Do you have any resources that you think might be useful
to be incorporated into theToolkit?
»Are there sections or areas you would like to see covered
in theToolkit?
»Would you like to add a link to your institutions online
course listing to the prototype Online Course Directory?
»Join the project mailing list:
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=SUOLL-LIST
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11. Want to find out more…
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http://scalinglearning.jiscinvolve.org
Heather Price
h.price@jisc.ac.uk
#suoll .
Except where otherwise noted, this
work is licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND