1. The University’s future Online Learning
Environment Consultation on the ‘Learner
Journey’

2. The purpose of these slides is to provide a brief
update on the future Online Learning
Environment consultation and its next steps;
update you on some of the key outcomes of the
School level consultations; and seek your
feedback on the ideas and potential implications
for staff.

3. Background
• The University is in the process of reviewing its Online
Learning Environment in order to make sure it meets the
needs of staff and students for the next decade
• Several core principles inherent in StudyNet will remain.
For example, the notion of a single portal which is a key
channel of communication; facilities that encourage and
support collaborative working; and rich tools to manage
assessment and feedback
• But some changes are envisaged. For example, the greater
use of 3rd party services; more timely and targeted
messaging; and enhanced data analytics
• Also key to the future is the notion of a better supported
Learner Journey
• There were a series of School-led consultations in January
and February and they have informed this stage of the
project

4. Following the School consultations, the Review Project Team
met to consider the feedback and plan the next steps:
• This part of the consultation relates to key elements of module and
programme websites in order to facilitate each Learner’s Journey through
their studies
• Following consideration of your feedback, a prototype system will be
developed to test the ideas on a zero rated module that is broadly relevant
to a range of students (eg some aspect of study skills)
• There will be, in due course, a separate consultation relating to the
challenges of enabling timely, personalised and effective communication
between staff and students, and students and students
• In case of interest, the feedback from the School-led consultations has
undergone further analysis and is available, along with a summary sheet,
at:
– http://www.studynet.herts.ac.uk/web/olefeedback/ElectronicFeedback.zip
– http://www.studynet.herts.ac.uk/web/olefeedback/PaperFeedback.zip
– http://www.studynet.herts.ac.uk/web/olefeedback/ConsultationFeedbackSummary.xlsx

5. The key messages from the School consultations,
relating to the Learner Journey included a wish for:
• A more consistent use of module websites (this does
not mean that everyone should teach in the same
way!)
• A timeline view of resources and learning/assessment
activities
• The ability for students to comment on, and
supplement, resources and learning activities
• A more effective search function
• Easier links to journal articles and other external
resources
• The ability for students to customise/personalise their
view of their module websites

6. The next three slides are illustrations of the sort
of views programme and module interfaces
could include, with particular emphasis on the
timeline. They are not ‘mock-ups’ but just try to
illustrate the concepts.

7. Programme Overview – showing timelines for the three
modules (in this case) a student is studying at that time
(‘Accounting for Business’ plus two unnamed modules)
The next slide shows the view a student would see if
they clicked on the ‘Accounting for Business’ timeline

8. Module Overview – the default view for a module, with a more
detailed timeline that includes links to the various resources
and learning activities supporting the module, including when
face-to-face sessions and assessments take place.
Students will be able to add their own comments, links and
resources to develop their own personalised Learning Journey

9. Clicking on a podcast symbol, for example, would link directly
to the relevant resource..

10. Personalised views…
• The homepage of a module website will facilitate the
students’ engagement with the Learning Activities as
prompted by the lecturer:
– The timeline shows the learning/assessment activities the
student is expected to engage with week by week
– It also has links to the resources etc
• Students might also be able to choose to view the contents
of their websites by, for example:
– Topics
– The type of learning activity
– The tutors who are responsible for particular resources and
learning activities
– Other…

11. Making this happen…
• In order to be able to
– Provide a timeline
– Enable students to personalise/reconfigure their
module views
– Enable more effective searching
….every resource and activity will have to have
relevant tags/metadata
• This doesn’t happen very much currently and
would represent a change in practice for the
majority of staff

12. How might it work?
The starting point is the module plan - eg

13. How it might work for lecturers?
• The module leader/team would create a module plan,
specifying for each Learning Activity (lectures,
coursework, assessments etc) and their associated
resources, the following:
– A Date Tag for when the activity is
– An Activity Tag, indicating the type of learning/assessment
activity
– A Topic Tag, indicating the subjects covered,
– A Tutor Tag, indicating who has primary responsibility for
that activity
• Optional tags for additional, module specific,
categories could also be created

14. The student view…
• With these components the system will then be
able to automatically render different views of
the module eg:
– The timeline view of all learning/assessment activities
for the course or module
– The view by the type of learning/assessment activities
– The view by topic – and if the topics are well chosen,
they could be aggregated into a curriculum map
– The view by tutor
– Views by other tagged categories (optional)
• With a bit of imaginative and clever programming
this could look quite smart!

15. Anticipated benefits…
• For students
– Cross-programme view of assessment , learning activities and learning
outcomes
– Better guidance on expected learning activities
– Different ways to visualise and access the module resources
– More consistent and more intuitive experience
– Better search facilities
– Potential for better understanding of programme looking forwards and
looking back
• For staff
– Automatically generates a programme view of assessment
– Shows a programme view of other learning activities (bottlenecks,
resources issues)
– Better sense of students (eg through level of student additions to
resources - enhanced data analytics will be part of the project)

16. We need your feedback…
Please consider the following and email your comments to
Greg Bowie, OLE Review Project Manager
g.bowie@herts.ac.uk by Thursday 17th April
• What advantages/disadvantages do you envisage for the
use of timelines – would they work for the programme(s)
you teach on?
• What advantages/disadvantages do you envisage if the
students have the facility personalise and reconfigure their
module websites?
• What benefits/challenges would the requirement for all
resources to have certain essential tags bring? How could
tagging be made easy for you?
• Please give any other feedback on the ideas included in this
presentation

17. THANK YOU
If you have any queries, please contact any of
the following members of the Review Project
Team:
• Jon Alltree j.r.alltree@herts.ac.uk
• Karen Barton k.barton@herts.ac.uk
• Paul Hudson p.a.hudson@herts.ac.uk