UCL has been working to remove barriers for online and blended learning since 2013, this presentation goes alongside a workshop for ALT_C 2015 - the annual conference for the Association for Learning Technology.
2. • 11 Faculties
• 400+ CPD and short courses
• + A few MOOCs and other
35,000 students // 11,000 staff
UCL - London’s Global University
200
450
130
Undergraduate (BSc, BA)
Postgraduate taught (MSc, Ma)
Graduate research (Mphil, PhD etc)
780 programmes of study
28. Distance
Learning
HighimpactMediumimpactLowimpact
Internal audience Controlled audience Public audience
Blended
Learning
Alumni
Pre-
enrolment
CPD
Recreational
Bespoke
(for a client)
MOOCs
Taster
Courses
Public
engagement
Learning
objects,
OERs
Executive
education
Communities
(of practice or
proximity)
Widening
participation
Research
dissemination
Conferences,
exhibitions,
showcases
Types of offering by ‘impact’ and audience type
UCL’s Extended Learning Landsca
Summer
Schools
Open days
31. Legal
1. Learner status
2. Copyright / IPR
3. Accreditation
Financial
1. Business models
2. Income generation
3. How much does
it cost?
Quality
1. Design
2. Build
3. Review
Challenges
Setting some context – as others will not know what/where UCL is…
While porous, many areas of UCL are still considered a walled garden
But technology helps to remove these barriers; opening up education (in some form or another) to wider groups
But our walled garden is the Moodle-based VLE. Many complain that it is clunky; however I feel the biggest problem was it’s relatively closed nature.
So we created UCLeXtend – an open platform for course teams to create whatever they like
built for CPD and short courses (income generating) it gave us an online environment which offers three components.
But most interestingly is we pulled down a barrier – the lack of access to an online learning envrionment, we opened a few more doors for the university. But let’s explore first what those three components do…
While porous, many areas of UCL are still considered a walled garden
The course catalogue provides a space to advertise a course; resource; online space; or just thing. It’s surprising when you go ‘non-traditional’ how many people open up to hating the word ‘course’ . It’s a space for people to find your thing…
To get people on we have an open registration system; usually people are registering for a specific thing.
And then there’s the online learning environment. A clean, simple, paired-down version of Moodle. I honestly don’t think the technology as matters as much as people think; but I think it helps we’re using quite a good one.
But technology helps to remove these barriers; opening up education (in some form or another) to wider groups
But our walled garden is the Moodle-based VLE. Many complain that it is clunky; however I feel the biggest problem was it’s relatively closed nature.
So we launched UCLeXtend in mid 2013. We’ve since had around 50 courses go online – each with their own attributes…
In the very early stages we hoped the UCLeXtend platform was opening up e-learning for more than just income generating short courses. So we conducted an exercise to map the areas of activity we hoped we could attract… to start, we had a blank sheet
We came up with 18 areas
The areas of activity are very diverse and plentiful and so far we have worked with those starred – green means good use of UCLeXtend, orange is those who are on the incoming edge and the remainder still require a bit more convincing.
We came up with 18 areas
Impact could be anything – cost, reputation, displine, investment, reach
And then we mapped the area of activity onto this map. Please bear in mind that the size of the circle has no reflection on the scale of the activity (student numbers being a primary scale to consider). If we did Blended Learning and MOOCs could be huge in comparison.
And then we mapped the area of activity onto this map. Please bear in mind that the size of the circle has no reflection on the scale of the activity (student numbers being a primary scale to consider). If we did Blended Learning and MOOCs could be huge in comparison.
Looking at it another way; we took the same activities and mapped the current delivery method. Our aim was to provide more e-learning opportunities for activities on the periphery of the university.
So our plan is to provide support for those wanting to blend/go online
While porous, many areas of UCL are still considered a walled garden
As we hadn’t signed with a major MOOC platform we did an meta-analysis on MOOCs during 2013/14. We found the following 36 benefits to running moocs for institutions.