L9 5 1

=Information on the workload and timetabling implications of learning activities guides e-learning design and (re)development. =

Evidence
According to Kramarae (2003), studies indicate that students often find online discussion very time consuming. Emphasising research that shows differences in time parameters for female and male students, she recommends more research that studies time as a gendered concept: ‘women with spouses and children often must accommodate themselves to extra home-time responsibilities, a fact that has an impact on when and where they can study’ (p. 270).

There is an ongoing need to monitor the use of e-learning and ICTs for course delivery 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).

To improve e-learning outcomes it is important to learn from past mistakes, according to Ehrmann (2002), who argues that tracking progress is not only necessary to stay on course but also to identify solvable problems that can attract fresh resources (p. 55).

Validation of e-learning processes and resources is a significant stage in the full cycle of organisational learning that describes success in terms of ‘student performance, student satisfaction, staff experience, and cost effectiveness, as judged in relation to the original intentions’ (Salmon, 2000, p. 236). Salmon discusses validating as one of six activities in the iterative process of creating an effective learning organisation infrastructure that enables ‘the system to learn about itself’ (p. 237).

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). This is exactly what is described by Abdous (2009) in a pilot programme.

Resources
Foltynek & Motycka (2009) describe student feedback at Mendel University. They note that information suggests that students devote significantly less time to the studies than they should. This suggests that time management and time use advice needs to be taught to students in ongoing fashion. The authors note that with e-learning the logging of all activities and their time consumption may actually be possible. This could be done for monitoring purposes.