The e-Tools (1) Report: Pedagogic, Assessment and Tutoring Tools

3 Experience of those undertaking the work

Paul Bacsich (current and future developments and options)

Dr Paul Bacsich is Professor of Telematics and Head of the Virtual Campus Programme at Sheffield Hallam University. (The Virtual Campus Programme is central to the University’s commitment to exploring the uses of new technologies to extend and enhance learning opportunities, on a large scale. Currently, conferencing is used by all academic staff and all 25,000 students.) Prior work of great relevance to this study includes:

• 
  Selection of a modern Windows-based conferencing system for the Open University in 1991 (which has since become the standard for the whole OU).
  
• 
  Selection of e-learning systems (conferencing and Web-based learning) for Sheffield Hallam University in 1996 and 1997.
  
• 
  Survey of e-learning systems companies for possible purchase by a European telco.
  
• 
  A series of articles on new e-learning systems for Learning in a Global Information Society (LIGIS), the newsletter of the Europe-wide LearnTel association.
  

Peter Bates (reference sites and content issues)

Peter Bates is a Senior Research Associate in interactive digital media for the Virtual Campus Programme of Sheffield Hallam University, with several years’ prior experience as a consultant to the Open University on e-learning projects. He is also the lead partner in pjb Associates, a consultancy with many years’ experience in writing of reports on various aspects of e-education and e-training for the European Commission and European Parliament. For several years he was the Editor of and main contributor to the newsletter LIGIS, which contained many articles of relevance to this study.

Professor Robin Mason (tutoring and evaluation specialist)

Robin Mason is Professor of Educational Technology at the Open University with a global reputation in evaluation of computer conferencing and related e-learning systems on a world-wide basis. She is also a Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University with responsibility for this general area.

Dr Paul Lefrere (learning system standards and interoperability specialist)

Paul Lefrere is the Co-Director of the JISC-funded UK IMS Centre, soon to be renamed the Centre for Educational Technology Interoperability Standards (CETIS). He is an acknowledged expert in standards and interoperability of electronic publishing and e learning systems. He is also Academic Director of three projects funded under the European IST Programme which are providing state of the art appraisals of pedagogic tools and learning system standards. In late May, CETIS is running an international workshop on pedagogic e-tools (at no cost to this study), with participation from leading vendors and e university consortia in Europe and North America.

4 Summary of Prices

[Omitted]

5 Selected References

1. 
   Bacsich, P. and Mason, R., “Telematics for Distance Education in North America: Report of a Study Visit Summer 1995”, KMI Report KMI/EMRG/95/1, November 1995. (Excerpts from this have appeared in many publications and reports.)
   
2. 
   Bacsich, P., “Microsoft Exchange Server finally ships”, LIGIS (Learning in a Global Information Society Newsletter) Number 7, 1996. (Also many other LIGIS articles.)
   
3. 
   Bacsich, P., “Virtual Campus Programme Implementation Plan”, Report to Academic Board, July 1997. (The master paper for the Virtual Campus Programme at Sheffield Hallam University. Confidential in toto but heavily excerpted in some papers.)
   
4. 
   Mason, R. and Bacsich, P., Embedding computer conferencing into university teaching, Computers & Education 30 (3-4) (1998) pp. 249-258. (The distillation of OU wisdom on large-scale computer conferencing.)
   
5. 
   Bacsich, P., “Re-engineering the Campus - the view after one year” Keynote Presentation, Proceedings of 4th Hong Kong Web symposium, April 1998.
   
6. 
   Bacsich, P., “Technological Developments and the University for Industry”, Invited Presentation to Ufi conference, October 1998.
   
7. 
   Bacsich, P., Heath, A., Lefrere, P., Miller, P., Riley, K., “The Standards Fora for Online Education”, D-Lib Magazine vol.5 no. 12, December 1999 (online).
   
8. 
   Bacsich, P., “Planning and Costing Virtual Universities”, Presentation to Euro-Med conference, Israel, November 1999.
   
9. 
   Bacsich, P., “UK business models for e-learning”, Invited Presentation to 21^st Century Business Models for Online Education Markets, Vancouver, February 2000.
   
10. 
    Lefrere, P., “Real Options for Virtual Universities”, in Virtual University? Educational Environments of the Future, Wenner-Gren International Symposium, 14-16 October 1999 Edited by Henk van der Molen, Academia Europaea, 2000 (in press).
    

Annex [to the bid]

1 CVs of personnel

[Omitted]

2 Excerpts from relevant reports authored or co-authored by Paul Bacsich

From “Virtual Campus Programme Implementation Plan (1997)”

The IT components of the Virtual Campus are not radically new. They utilise the well known items of distance learning delivery, resource-based learning, computer assisted assessment, computer conferencing, email, Internet/Web information services and simple video delivered in a standard way to the desktop via a new and streamlined environment…

There are now a few “Virtual University” systems which purport to provide an integrated solution to all or most of these requirements. It is still very early days for them and the suppliers are small… It is also likely to reduce rather than increase our flexibility if we used such a system. However, the area needs careful tracking… Discussions are already under way with all the major tool vendors…

RealVideo is a system from Progressive Networks of Seattle (USA) which allows live television to be transmitted across the Internet… There are other rivals to RealVideo but we recommend that this software is used. A separate working paper gives the reasons.

[Regarding videoconferencing] Neither of these modes [of videoconferencing] meet the needs of the main distance education markets in the UK, which at present are home-based… There is at present no point in using the so-called “Internet videoconferencing” systems to deliver lectures to home. This will not be relevant until homes have faster connections to the Internet than they can get over normal telephone lines. There are two further difficulties with videoconferencing, oriented to homes or to numbers of small sites…

Fragment from the Bacsich and Mason “US Trip Report” (November 1995)

North American experience confirms the following strategies [among others] for distance education providers in Europe who are engaged in telematic-based developments:

• 
  Ensure that you have a focus on synchronous systems, both in conjunction with and instead of asynchronous systems. In particular:
  

• 
  use videoconferencing over ISDN (but do not try to use it at present over the Internet for actual teaching)
  
• 
  over the Internet, use real-time systems that actually work and give a reasonable grade of service over the Internet as it is (not as you dream it to be), such as RealAudio (or its rivals).”
  

From “Review of WEST” (which became TopClass) (LIGIS 7, March 1996)

Our view is that WEST is an interesting product which is now showing signs of maturing into something that can be used in industrial-strength teaching applications. There are some interesting technical challenges ahead for the company if it is to fight off the challenge of groupware/WWW teaching systems from bigger players (such as Microsoft Exchange, Notes and FirstClass) and produce a high-performance system in a portable way. In particular, the CGI scripting interface for building WWW applications is an inefficient methodology…