Seeds of e-Learning at a Research University

Bringing Online Learning to a Research-Intensive University

This case study out of UCD (University College Dublin) has a lot to relate to: UCD is a research university, just like us and the beginnings of a e-learning culture beyond the LMS are now taking root. This is published at learnmag.org

It is interesting to see that the faculty at the medical school did not want outside intervention in the form of assistance by instructional designers or e-learning specialists for translating snippets of animations, movies and graphics from their courses into a wholesome e-learning course.

I think in a situation like this, the faculty should position themselves as SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) and let the professionals take care of the course conversion process parts, i.e. Breaking up content into correctly portioned learning objects, designing testing and evaluation, recommending strategies, dealing with technology limitations and exploiting advanced features of the learning environment, which could take the SMEs years to figure out.

Read it all here:
Bringing Online Learning to a Research-Intensive University



ps. I discovered this article within hours of publication using my new Web 2.0 approach to content aggregation. Feeding trusted site RSS feeds into my iGoogle page which comes up whenever I start a browser. I am beginning to love RSS, finally useful in the way it was intended to be.