E-Learning: The Hype and the Reality

This paper considers the increasing impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and the associated rise in e-learning as a recognised and respected re s e a rch area. The paper provides a summary of some of the curre n t re s e a rch areas under investigation and provides a list of characteristics of the are a . The paper goes on to consider the professional identities of re s e a rchers in the are a and the tensions which have resulted in terms of aligning with this new emergent g roup of professionals within existing institutional stru c t u res.


I n t r o d u c t i o n
E-Learning is transforming education. It provides opportunities for learning anytime, anywhere. It provides access to a wealth of re s o u rces and new forms of communication and virtual communities. Sounds familiar? These are the sound bites that pepper re s e a rch journals, conferences and the media. But the reality is that elearning is still marginal in the lives of most academics, with technology being used for little more than acting as content re p o s i t o ry or for administrative purposes. Think care f u l l y, how many really innova t i ve examples of the use of technology have you seen? So why the mismatch and are the claims about e-learning ever likely to be realised? Technologies do have great potential benefit to offer education, howe ve r this is a complex multifaceted area; we needed rigorous re s e a rch if we are going to unpick the hype and gain a genuine understanding how technologies can be used e f f e c t i ve l y.
It is a fact that there is now a wealth of digital re s o u rces and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools to support learning and teaching. In the last decade we have seen a shift from a focus on information to an emphasis on communication and a realisation that the development of content alone does not lead to more e f f e c t i ve learning, but we are still at the beginning of harnessing their potential (see for example Rave n s c roft, 2003). The fundamental question is how can technologies be used to enhance learning? Fu rt h e r m o re : • What are the technical, managerial and infrastructural re q u i rements to develop effective learning enviro n m e n t s ?
• What protocols and standards are needed to ensure materials can be easily transferred between systems?
• How can we ensure accessibility and dealing with copyright and plagiarism issues?
• What new pedagogical models are possible and what is their impact?
These are just some of the questions being addressed by re s e a rchers in an area, which c overs a spectrum of topics grouped around three main themes ? pedagogical, technical and organisational issues. E-Learning re s e a rch has expanding significantly over the last decade. Its growth is due to the substantive impact of the In t e r n e t , fuelled by national e-learning initiatives and policy drives (Conole, 2002). An influx E -L e a rning: The Hype and the Re a l i t y Conole (2004) Conole (2004) of re s e a rchers from other disciplines (such as education, computer science and p s ychology) and a growth of new centres, dedicated conferences (such as ALT-C , Ed Media, Ne t w o rked Learning, CAL) and journals (such as , ALT-J , Computers and Education and JCAL) has developed. It is eclectic in nature, covering a broad churc h of re s e a rch issues and is as yet not a rigorously defined area (Conole, Cook and Ingraham, 2003). A key tension is the struggle for recognition alongside established a reas, issues of shared dialogue and understanding for the area, and articulation of the different schools of thought. Howe ver e-learning re s e a rch has not arisen in isolation and feeds on a number of cognate disciplines; re s e a rch into technologies for learning per se has been an active area of interest with a long history (Mason, 2002).
In the next ten years we are likely to see the area dive r s i f y, although certain core foci of interest will probably emerge. Academics working in this area need to demonstrate that the re s e a rch is methodological rigorous, building appropriately on existing k n owledge and theories from feeder disciplines and feeding into policy and practice (Conole, 2004).

. Research themes and questions
This section outlines current re s e a rch themes and questions in the field, a more detailed discussion is provided elsew h e re (Conole, 2004). Early re s e a rch work in this a rea tended to focus on technological aspects, in particular the development and use of multimedia applications and software navigation (Sq u i res, Conole and Ja c o b s , 2000). Now there is a broader base of re s e a rch which has expanded in part because of the impact of the Internet and the ways in which it can be used to support learning and teaching, but also because of the increased use of different learning management e n v i ronments and systems. In particular there has been an expansion of re s e a rc h exploring the ways in which learning technologies can be used to support communication and collaboration, coupled with an increased focus on the associated pedagogical and organisational issues. Cu r rent re s e a rch interests in learning technology can be grouped around three main themes ? pedagogical, technical and organisational. These themes sit within a wider socio-cultural of factors which inform and influence the re s e a rch agenda.
The first of the these themes, is concerned with the pedagogy of e-learning, and in p a rticular the development of effective models for implementation, mechanisms for embedding the understandings gained from learning theory into the design of learning technologies and their use in learning and teaching. This area also focuses on the guidelines and good practice to support the development of e-learning skills, the literacy needs of tutors and students, understanding the nature and deve l o p m e n t of online communities and different forms of communication (and associated issues of overload) and collaboration, different mechanism for delivering and incre a s i n g flexibility and modularisation of learning opportunities and exploration of the impact of new emerging influences on learning, in particular the impact of gaming. This also covers the instructional aspects such as understanding effective design principles and promulgating good practice in the design and development of materials, exploration of different models for online courses, cultural differences in the use of online courses, re q u i rements in terms of tutor support needs, time i n vestments, mechanisms for improving the student learning experiences and i m p roving retention rates.
The second area is re s e a rch into the underpinning technology of e-learning, including the development of the technical arc h i t e c t u re to support different forms of learning and teaching, different mechanisms of monitoring and tracking activity online, exploration of the nature of different types of virtual presence, context s e n s i t i ve, mobile and smart technologies and the hard w a re and software re q u i rements. T h e re is now a substantive body of work on the development of technology standards, intero p e r a b i l i t y, learning objects and educational modeling l a n g u a g e s .
The third area re s e a rches issues which arise at organisational level, including effective strategies for integrating online courses within existing systems, development of organisational knowledge, new methods and processes for developing a learning organisation and for the seamless linking of different information processes and systems.

. Common themes across e-learning research
Despite the fact that e-learning re s e a rch covers a wide spectrum of topics, there are a number of common themes which link the different re s e a rch areas (Conole, Ingraham, Cook, 2003), such as: 1. In t e rdisciplinarity and in particular the notion of multiple voices. T h i s is concerned with how different re s e a rch perspectives influence the are a and also how problems in the practice of different disciplines differ in the adoption and use of learning technologies.

E -L e a rning: The Hype and the Re a l i t y
Conole (2004) 2. Access and inclusion, which includes issues around the widening p a rticipation agenda, equity, access to technologies, barriers to inclusion and issues around the nature and extent of the digital divide.
3. Change and in particular understanding its relationship to learning technologies. This is also concerned with motivational issues as well as exploring the drivers and rationale for change and the consequences and impact. This theme also addressed the strategies for managing and enabling change and mechanisms for implementation.
4. Convergence and intero p e r a b i l i t y, which includes exploration of d i f f e rent forms of convergence (technological, pedagogical, organisational, sectors, institutions, etc). This also considers issues associated with scalability and globalisation and the underpinning standard s needed to support intero p e r a b i l i t y.
5. Interactivity and social interaction and in particular the multimodal and social dimensions of interactivities. This explores the interactivity of different tools and the nature of the medium. It also considers interactivity at different levels of organisations and the ways in which boundaries and functional groupings have blurred as a consequence of n ew technologies. Finally it considers the potential of technologies in terms of enhancing communication and collaboration and in building n ew communities and network s .
6. Politics is a ve ry strong theme that runs across all learning technology re s e a rch. This in part relates to the over hyping which occurs leading to an over expectation of what is possible, is in part down to differe n t local agendas and infighting and partly arises from a recognition of the major changes and impact that technologies can have .

. The impotance of e-learning research
can be used is changing rapidly and little is understood about the affordances of d i f f e rent learning technologies (Conole and Dyke, 2003). T h i rd l y, partly because of the first two factors, more academics and support staff are now using technology routinely for teaching, administration and re s e a rc h .
Senior management need help in understanding the nature of e-learning to inform strategic decisions they are making in terms of thinking about how technologies impact on their business. Ot h e rwise there is a danger that they will make illinformed and rash decisions based on scant evidence. This surface approach is evident in the ways in which many institutions have choose and implemented Vi rt u a l Learning En v i ronments (VLE): for example, where in some cases institutions naive l y d e c reed that all courses must use the VLE without considering whether it was pedagogically appropriate or appreciating the associated staff development needs and time implications. Similarly there has been an ove remphasis on looking for evidence of the cost effectiveness of e-learning, when in reality we still have little understanding of the comparative costs of traditional teaching methods (Nicol and Coen, 2003).
If we accept the importance of e-learning re s e a rch there are a number of issues which need to be addressed over the next decade. As a young field, it suffers in a number of respects. Fi r s t l y, it is still eclectic in nature, not yet clearly defined and scoped. Se c o n d l y, much of the current re s e a rch is criticized for being too anecdotal, lacking t h e o retical underpinning (Mitchell, 2000). Rigorous re s e a rch methodologies are needed to ensure valid and meaningful findings. A more detailed critique of the methodological issues of e-learning re s e a rch and its epistemological underpinnings a re discussed elsew h e re (Ol i ver and Conole, 2004, forthcoming). This means more systematic re s e a rch but also a better understanding of the benefits and limitations of d i f f e rent methods and more triangulation of results. The choice of methodologies has a critical impact on how well this is achieved, depending on both the nature of the questions being considered and stakeholders in the re s e a rch findings. Bro a d l y speaking there is a tension between the needs of policy makers/senior managers and a c a d e m i c s / s u p p o rt staff. The former being more interested in potential efficiency gains and cost effectiveness, wanting to see evidence-based practice with comparison of the benefits of new technologies over existing teaching and learning methods, whilst the later are concerned with how the technologies can be used to improve the student learning experience. T h i rd l y, most institutions now have learning technology p rofessionals within their support services and many offer e-learning masters p rogrammes. Learning technologists are now re c o g n i zed as an important breed of n ew professionals providing a valuable institutional role spanning the technical and

E -L e a rning: The Hype and the Re a l i t y
Conole (2004) educational aspects of using technologies for learning. Howe ve r, there is still a d e a rth of these professionals in senior roles or at government and policy level and t h e re is an urgent need for better professional recognition for these roles. T h e re is a real danger that if clearer career paths are not developed then the more senior learning technology specialists will find alternative career pro g ression ro u t e s . Fo u rt h l y, the pace of change in terms of new technologies will continue; in part i c u l a r mobile, smart and wireless technologies are likely to have dramatic effects. Fi n a l l y, t h e re is a need for current and future developments to feed in more coherently to policy and strategy discussions both at institutional and government leve l .

. Towards a framework for e-learning
As part of the initial work of the new HEFCE-funded e-learning re s e a rch centre, a f r a m ew o rk of substantive re s e a rch questions for e-learning has been drawn up ( C a rusi, Conole et al, 2004). This consists of the follow twe l ve broad are a s : 1. Ap p roach to e-learning -How do we develop an approach (methods, t e r m i n o l o g y, models, etc) to provide precise, accurate and complete re p resentation of the end to end e-learning domain?
2. Metrics -How do we develop an appropriate set of metrics to describe aspects of e-learning?
3. User re q u i rements -How can we develop appropriate models, pro c e s s e s and techniques for gathering and understanding user re q u i re m e n t s ?
4. Evaluation -How do we design and build systems with inhere n t monitoring, feedback, evaluation and contro l ?
5. Understanding the learning process -How do we develop appro p r i a t e metrics and models to characterise the learning and social practices of individuals and groups in learning situations and how do we characterise educational materials and contexts in ways which will relate to those aspects?
6. Understanding the learner-How can we develop better methods for understanding what learners are really doing online? 7. Pedagogical models and practice -What is the gap between the potential in the pedagogical models and what is being done in practice?
8. Capturing experience -How do we capture experience in a way that we build it back into design and implementation?
9. Ideas and practice -What is the gap betwe e n teachers' expression of their teaching ideas and values and how these are operationalised and translated into practice?

E -L e a rning: The Hype and the Re a l i t y
Conole (2004) Journal of In t e r a c t i ve Media in Education, 2004 (12) Page 9 • What forms of collaborative activities we re included?
• We re the teaching and assessment activities a p p ropriate to the course content and at an a p p ropriate leve l ?
• Did the assessments enable the students to demonstrate what they had learnt?

Development
• What are the design and development issues associated with production of materials • What pedagogical models we re used and how explicit we re these?
• How well did the teaching and assessment methods map to the course learning aims and outcomes?
• What assessment methods are used?

Delivery and integration
• What are the best methods of integrating the use of ICT within the broader learning and teaching context

E -L e a rning: The Hype and the Re a l i t y
Conole (2004) Journal of In t e r a c t i ve Media in Education, 2004 (12) Page 10 • Are there pedagogical models underpinning different elearning platform and how do this influence the way the system is used • How are different tools available within learning platforms being used to support learning • What are the students views of different learning s y s t e m s • How useful did the students find the re s o u rces, we re they appropriate, usable?
• How much did they use additional re s o u rces and the i n t e r n e t ?
• Was the course information well stru c t u red and organise, we re information and re s o u rces easy to find?
• What are the students experiences of online courses • Which aspects of the system are students using and for what purpose • What communication mechanisms we re used to s u p p o rt the course and for what purposes?
• What types and degree of interaction (administration, social, task related) did the students have with each other, with the tutor?

Support
What new forms of literacy are emerging for students and t e a c h e r s • What effective mechanism can be used to provide s u p p o rt the enable teachers make effective use of technologies for their teaching • What is the baseline skill set of staff invo l ved in E -L e a rning: The Hype and the Re a l i t y Conole (2004) Journal of In t e r a c t i ve Media in Education, 2004 (12) Page 11  • How do students re c e i ve feedback on their pro g ress and is this appro p r i a t e • What we re the drop out rates on the course, how many completed?
• What elearning expertise do tutors have ?
• What support did they have in the development of the courses?
• What online support was available, how useful was it, how much did the tutors use it?

Evaluation and quality assurance
• What methods are being used to evaluate elearning c o u r s e s • What quality assurance pro c e d u res are needed for course incorporating e-learning

Standards and architecture
• De velopment of underpinning standards and re s e a rching interoperability issues • How interoperable is the system, how well does it • What quality assurance methods we re developed and u s e d ?
• What e-business modelling are being used Context and culture E -L e a rning: The Hype and the Re a l i t y Conole (2004) Journal of In t e r a c t i ve Media in Education, 2004 (12) Page 15 • An analysis of the organisational issues and challenges associated with implementing a large-scale elearning initiative and in particular consideration of the particular local context and issues within which this takes place • Documentation of information flow processes for d i f f e rent types of activities, such as assessment p rocesses, student registration, and course m a n a g e m e n t .
• How do we manage the bulk of existing materials and information on university web sites which have little or no cohere n c e and consistency and how do we m ove from this to a working and integrated MLE.
• How can we ensure that different stakeholders interact with the MLE is a useful way, how do we manage the transition from existing practices and p rocesses to effective use of the new system • Re s e a rch into understanding the accessibility issues associated with new technologies.
• Mechanisms for providing remote access to a variety of different users • What are the institutional barriers and enablers to these kinds of deve l o p m e n t s ?

Legal and ethical
• What are the legal and ethical issues (data p rotection, confidentiality etc) associated with the e l e a r n i n g • How is plagiarism going to be detected and dealt w i t h • How are accessibility being addre s s e d

Contextual factors
E -L e a rning: The Hype and the Re a l i t y Conole (2004) Journal of In t e r a c t i ve Media in Education, 2004 (12) Page 16 • What are the ethical issues associated with elearning Together these form an initial re s e a rch framew o rk which can be used as a start i n g point to more formally define and map the area of e-learning re s e a rch in order to p rovide a mechanism for develop a shared understanding of and discourse for the a rea and enabling it to be positioned credibly alongside more established are a s .

. C o n c l u s i o n
The next decade will be critical in terms of the area finding a clear niche and position alongside more established re s e a rch fields. Re s e a rch will offer us a real insight into the ways in which technologies can effectively support learning and teaching, and an understanding of how they can be used to improve organisational processes. We should also begin to see the development of new underpinning theories and models of explanation to account for the use of learning technologies, and perhaps even the emergence of new learning paradigms and working practices. Only time will tell.

R e f e r e n c e s
Beetham, H. and Conole, G. (2001). Modelling aspects of institutional d e velopments: culture, infrastru c t u re, expertise. Im p roving Student Learning Us i n g L e a rning Technologies Confere n c e, Heriott Watt, Un i ve r s i t y, Ed i n b u r g h . • How does our e-learning developments compare with international developments and how does it position the UK in terms of global competition