O2.3.4

=Staff engaged in e-learning strategy and policy (re)development are provided with a researched evidence base of e-learning initiatives. =

Evidence
There is a need for e-learning provision to be evidence-based because there is as yet no consensus about what constitutes quality e-learning (Usoro & Abid 2008). These authors state that, ‘effective quality strategies, initiatives and tools are very important for convincing lecturers and other stakeholders to adopt e-learning’ (p. 80). Kidney et al. (2007) believe that, ‘a quality online course would be the direct result of a course creation process that included quality assurance strategies’ (p. 18). One quality assurance strategy is to base course design on established evidence and practices that have been shown to be effective.

Staff developing online courses are very concerned to know what they are aiming for and an online database of exemplars can help. Herrington & Bunker (2002) describe developments at Edith Cowan University which have led to the production of an ‘online sampler’, where staff can turn to view examples of what online courses can/should look like. The examples include how to engineer online collaboration, buddy systems, assessment, how to support different learning methodologies and how to disseminate feedback.

Resources
Dondi et al (2006) explain how to create policy for e-learning and provide a six step guide. “For best effect quality needs to be inherent and designed into a process rather than applied after the process has been developed” (p. 32).

A significant body of evidence and good practice exemplars for e-learning currently exists online. These include many of the possibilities cited in this knowledge base e.g. see L5.1.1, L8.1.1 etc. But also large online databases such as the JISC e-learning project http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications.aspx

It is important for institutions to provide both a global evidence base, and also a database of local examples of proven good practice with e-learning.