Incubating Online Course Design and Development

at 7 sub-Saharan Africa Universities

Brenda Mallinson & Greig Krull

5th Annual Connecting Online ConferenceCO14, 8 February 2014

Project Background

Capacity Building Approach

Successes and Challenges

Outcomes

Reflection and Discussion

PHEA ETIProject Background

Vision to “support interventions in universities to make increasingly effective use of educational technology to address some of the underlying educational challenges facing the higher

educational sector in Africa”

Time span: 2009-2013

One of the Specific PHEA ETI objectives:• Build academic capacity in quality online course design and

delivery through use of a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE)

7 participating sub-Saharan Africa HEIs26 sub-projects 11 involving online / blended courses

University of Ibadan (Nigeria)

University of Jos (Nigeria)

University of Education Winneba (Ghana)

Catholic University of Mozambique (Beira)

University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania)

Kenyatta University (Kenya)

Makerere University (Uganda)

Context & Motivation• The first experience of engaging with online learning for

majority of academics

• Phase B (Implementation) planned for:– Initial Sensitisation – Series of Capacity Building Workshops (over 3 years)

• Interspersed with– Support for Design & Development of own online course– Quality Improvement Review process

• Customised for each participating HEI– Environmental Context– Specific Project Purpose

How?• Blended model• Ran ALL the capacity building on-site, f2f, in a lab, but working within a virtual

learning environment (Moodle)

Why?• The medium is the message• All the HEIs were predominately on campus, with only a few having distance

programmes in addition to their f2f• Unreliable internet access

– Sometimes facilitated a workshop the whole week without internet

– Discovered ‘Poodle’ early on • Unreliable power – generators

Implications for Course Delivery?• Importance of flexible approach

Capacity Building Programme

Sensitisation

Design & Dev of Effective Online

Courses

Supporting Course Dev & Internal

Reviewing

Multimedia Design & Dev

VLE (Moodle) in DepthQuality

Improvement of Online Courses

Quality Improvement of Multimedia

External Review & Feedback

OER Deployment

Supporting Online Learning

(Online Facilitation)

External Team

Support

Internal Team Support

Peer Support

Moodle Front End

Administration

Learning Designusing 7Cs Model(Leicester Uni)

Learning Dev using

OSS

Sensitisation – Changing the Mindset

• What is possible using supporting Edu ICTs?• What are the characteristics of online vs

traditional classroom teaching and learning?– Collaboration, interaction, resources– Changed roles of academic and student

• The importance of Learning Design• Engaging with supporting ICTs

Flexible Capacity Building Approach

Facilitated /supported by external project support team– Academics identify courses for online/blended design– Skills dev / deepen understanding via regular workshops– Customised as required for project purpose– Quality Improvement– Internal and External Review

Facilitated / supported by internal project support team– Continue to work on courses between workshops– Practical implementation - phased, mentored– Respond to feedback from QI reviews

Successes ExperiencedCourse Developers Internal Project /Unit

• High degree of enthusiasm• Keen to develop new skills• Shared achievements• Opportunity to interact and

collaborate across disciplines• Peer review a positive

experience• Increasing confidence in the

discourse, concepts, and practices of using educational technology

• Re-examined own pedagogical practices

• Appreciated external review opportunity

• Smooth running of the on-site capacity development workshops

• Local support personnel mostly present and active at the workshops

• Good leadership and commitment by local project leaders led to sustained motivation

• Some centralised eLearning support units were enhanced by the HEI

• Increased capacity for Multimedia support• Increased capacity in supporting use of

the VLE (Moodle)• Growth in deployment of online courses• Increased training for academics and

students wrt online teaching & learning• Increased collaboration with departments

Challenges ExperiencedCourse Developers Internal project /unit

• Unreliable internet access and limited bandwidth (initially)

• Unreliable local power supply• Quality of courses was

variable – many low-end• Multimedia development

more difficult than expected• Academics overextended

time-wise• On-site workshops meant that

regular work interruptions could take place

• Support staff changes led to loss of skills and experience

• Some project leaders left the institution, gap to be filled

• Support staff overextended due to increased Ed Tech activity and support required

• Quality Improvement process required considerable coordination

• Sustained effort over 4-5 years required in addition to regular duties

Outcomes

Institutional

• Raised awareness of the potential and practice of delivering online courses• Increased focus on what enhancement is necessary wrt policies, strategies, systems and

support for academic staff• Increased expertise; Research output

Project (http://www.saide.org.za/phea)

• Proportion of institutions’ courses or parts thereof (learning objects) to be made available as Open Educational Resources (OER) to be shared with other institutions

• Capacity Building workshops to become available as OERs from Saide website for any course developers or support teams to use or adapt (early 2014)

Lessons Learned

Project Support Team (Saide)

• Conducive institutional environment (Apex support)• Establish pedagogical practice of academics up front• Importance of internal centralized support units• Off-campus venues preferable for workshops• Prepare off-line solutions (e.g. Poodle)

Course Developers (Academics)

•Using supporting ICTS requires a high level of perseverance•Multimedia development requires considerable expertise•Takes time (iterations) to design, develop and pilot an online course•A blended delivery approach can add value to an on-campus environment

Reflection• What is the potential

impact of online / blended course delivery on the stakeholders?

• How can you develop or enhance capacity building processes at your institution?

• Who should be involved and at what stage?

User Involvement

Executive Management Support

Clear Statement of Requirements

Thank You!Questions?

Brenda Mallinson and Greig Krull brendam@saide.org.za / greigk@saide.org.za

Slideshare - http://www.slideshare.net/brenda6

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