E-Learning platform EC Operating Grant Deliverable

Aim

“To train survey methodologists and build network knowledge of survey methodology.”

“To make training resources permanently available”

“To facilitate discussions and professional exchange on methodological topics”

“To increase the overall methodological capacity of the HBSC network”

“To identify growth potential and individuals with high skills within the HBSC network”

“To allocate and nurture statistical potential within the HBSC network”

Activities

● Plan and organize an E-Learning module ● Find suitable content to put on the platform ● Invite people to use and test the platform ● Develop the e-learning platform further and customize it to the needs of the

network

Deliverables & Outputs

● Module will be available after delivery of 1st training (M5) and posted thereafter

● Module for methodologists will be publicly available, hosted on the public ○ E-Learning Platform can be found here

● Website, promoted through social media channels, featured in e-newsletters and publicised at bi-annual network meetings (M6 and MIO). The ICC will also ensure that any associated training

○ E-Learning Platform was introduced at two workshop meetings ○ E-Learning Platform was introduced at the bi-annual network meeting in

Vienna (see presentation here) ● Products are shared with related projects within EU Member States. This will

ensure widespread capacity building and knowledge transfer, both within and outwith the network.

○ There was not enough time to do that within the year of the grant ● Number of visits to Methodology e-learning resources (at least one per national

team) ○ The number of registered users within the E-Learning module is 57 (date:

30th of July, 2015). ○ This number includes countries with more than one registered person.

Not all of the countries are included in this number. Future endeavours

need to address this problem.

Evaluation

Figure 1. Screenshot of the “HBSC E-Learning Platform” start page

Figure 1 shows the start page of the HBSC E-Learning platform. The start page includes information of how many users are registered (57, end of July, 2015), how many elements were uploaded (53), how many questions were answered (224), how many comments (6) were posted. At the moment the start page consists of only one module for “Survey Methodology”. However, further modules can be appended. The start page also shows the instructors of the module, and the individual progress of the person logged in.

Figure 2. Screenshot of the “HBSC E-Learning Platform” overview page with individual progress

Figure 2 illustrates the overview page of the E-Learning Platform. At the moment (end of July, 2015) seven topics are included in the platform: Multilevel Modelling, Trend Analysis, Curve Fitting, Sampling & Weighting, Structural Equation Modelling, Differential Item Functioning, and Item Response Theory (IRT). The screenshot also shows the individual progress of a person indicated by green bars reflecting the percentage of correctly answered questions for a topic.

 

 

Figure 3. Screenshot of the “HBSC E-Learning Platform” topic page with individual progress, questions and data 

 

Figure 3 illustrates the third level the HBSC E-Learning Platform, a topic page using the example of “Curve Fitting”. The topic page can include learning material of different kinds (e.g. pdfs, Word documents, powerpoint presentations, Excel sheets etc.). The topic page can also include videos (from inside and outside the platform), external links, data files, syntaxes etc. The topic page can be divided into different sub-topics. 

 

Figure 4. Screenshot of a question within the “HBSC E-Learning Platform”

Figure 4 shows a typical Multiple Choice question within the HBSC E-Learning Platform. By default people have two attempts to solve a question. This setting can be changed. Notwithstanding, an unlimited amount of attempts can lead to trial-and-error solving which contradicts the original purpose of an e-learning module.

Figure 5. Screenshot of an external link within the “HBSC E-Learning Platform”

 

Figure 5 shows a screenshot of an external link within the HBSC E­Learning Platform.                           One feature of the platform is that external links (e.g. a website on curve fitting in this                                 example) can be included within the platform. People can discuss and comment on the                           website within the platform, share links and make an external link much more than just                             an external web­address.

Figure 6. Screenshot of a video within the “HBSC E-Learning Platform”

Figure 6 shows a screenshot of a youtube video within the HBSC E­Learning Platform.                           The same feature as for external links is installed here. People can comment and                           discuss on videos, share links and thereby make the video more than an instructive film.  

Figure 7. Screenshot of a “polling-tool” within the “HBSC E-Learning Platform”

 

Figure 7 shows a screenshot of the polling­tool included in the E­Learning Platform.                         This function can be used for workshops, conferences etc. The presenter can ask a                           question, and the audience can answer using the buttons (A­H), or multiple choice                         (further down, not shown), or free­text (further down, not shown). The presenter gets                         instantaneous feedback, what the audience thinks, or how many people are following                       carefully. The tool can also be used for group quizzes (using the “team” textfield, as well                               as for individual quizzes, which makes lectures often more appealing to the audience.

Dissemination

● HBSC website (Training Sessions) ● Online Mentoring Scheme

● HBSC newsletters (internal and external stakeholder) ● Conference presentation (HBSC Spring Meeting, Vienna, June 2015)

Reflections

E-Learning is not a very concrete term. Youtube is the most important e-learning platform, because it contains thousands of instructive videos, tutorials etc. Coursera.org is another platform that contains interesting courses from the best universities from all around the world. Moodle is one of the most often used platforms to set up E-Learning platforms around the world. There is a variety of other web-services and companies that offer professional e-learning modules. The common principle of all these web-services is: (1) instructive material is shown with a possibly maximum of vividness (preferably interactive videos); (2) some degree of discursiveness is offered (interaction is possible); (3) the user can be asked several questions (of different modality and difficulty) in order to assess the learning progress and also to function as a means of instruction.

The HBSC E-Learning Platform offers all of these functionalities. The tricky question when installing this web-service was whether one of the already existing to-pay or not to pay websites shall be used or an own website shall be installed. Both solutions have benefits and disadvantages: Using already existing websites needs less effort at the beginning, but leaves less leeway later on to make adjustments to the functionality, already existing websites do not necessarily stay on the market for ever, and therefore are not certainly a sustainable solution, to-pay solutions may seem more economic on the short run, but on the long run are more expensive than for-free solutions.

For the HBSC E-Learning Platform our own website has been installed (using Active Server Pages and Visual Basic.NET). One of the main reasons for this approach was that at the same time a browsable members directory and an online mentoring scheme were planned and realized. For both systems an own authentication system is preferable offering high data safety to all people who register for these web-services. Hence, a common authentication for both the online mentoring scheme and the E-Learning platform were realized and can also be used for other requests in the future where personal authentication is needed (e.g. secure uploads, secure data requests etc.). Another benefit of this solution was that the HBSC E-Learning platform is not dependent of another web-service, has no running costs (except for the costs of the university web-server) and can be changed anytime according to the wishes of people working on it.

Introducing the E-Learning Module at two workshop conferences is a very useful strategy to introduce people to this strategy. People had three days time to get used to the functionality of the site, and the platform could be tested. The platform could also be used to share material during the workshops which makes data and material exchange much easier having a central point where material can be dropped. Including a polling tool within the platform can make group work more interactive and can help structuring workshops and group tasks in an entertaining way. However, experience with this polling tool also showed that sometimes the “old-fashioned” analog way of vote by hand can be faster, more efficient if only one question is asked. However, if several questions are asked during a whole-day workshop (e.g. as a quizz) this functionality is highly economic, because people’s total scores are calculated automatically.

Future plans

● Further technical development on the E-Learning platform including more “gimmicks” and functions that make knowledge transfer easier

● Adapt the E-Learning platform with new topics which have not been yet included (e.g. Meta-Analysis)

● Retrieve information from the online mentoring scheme once it has been established in order to update the topics of the E-Learning platform

● Organize future methods workshops or “summer schools” using the experience from the E-Learning platform and update the site based on these needs

● Customize the website to different user types within the HBSC network, e.g. include the possibility to offer translated material (e.g. russian, spanish, french, chinese etc.)

● Conduct further analyses on skills and training needs and include them in the E-Learning platform (which is available to the network; Dataset of Skills and Training Needs Questionnaire)

Appendix

Further Evidence:

E-Learning Platform

Overview on Methodology Development based on European Operating Grant