The 33rd Annual UKSG Conference was in Edinburgh this week, with a varied programme and over 850 attendees. A number of themes started to recur through the sessions and discussions, as summarised:
- Big deal bubble must burst, as it is unsustainable for many institutions
- We must move further towards open access, but it is not yet clear how
- Journal impact factor isn’t good enough anymore, we need to review the commentary and produce new ranking factors
- Linked information is nearly here, allowing informal and pre-publish conversations to be viewed and measured in a structured way on the web
- The age of the article is here, meaning metrics, usage and discoverability will increasingly be at article level rather than the ‘journal container’
- Just-in-time must replace just-in-case, as no one can maintain a full array of items that may only occasionally be required
The discussion around these issues is healthy, as is the growing volume with which librarians and researchers are willing to speak them out loud. However these key themes are notable for representing problems, not solutions. It is clear that licensing models, researcher metrics, electronic and open access still have some way to evolve to meet the growing needs and expectations of the community.
I gave two presentations and spoke in a panel session at the Durham Blackboard Users Conference in January 2010. As a few people have asked for access to the slides, here they are:
Blackboard 9 – Driving change, but in which direction?
During the last eight years there have been rapid development in pedagogies for online learning and the underlying technical systems to support these pedagogies. These systems have matured to form a next level environment, encapsulated in systems like Blackboard 9, and the expectations for Moodle 2.0.
Challenging experiences in deploying Blackboard 9.0 have highlighted the significant issues that these change processes are raising for our field, and fuelled concerns that central VLEs should be making way for more agile socially driven solutions. As many institutions are at the point of deciding what direction they believe will provide that next generation experience that we are all aiming for, this presentation opens the discussion about the extended issues they may face.
Teaching and assessing group skills
This presentation discussed the rise in the use of assessed group work in many disciplines within Higher Education over recent years because of efficiency gains, employability agendas and notably, the increased availability of online collaboration tools. An approach to collaboration was introduced that teaches about team work by focusing on assessment criteria and peer evaluation aspects of group working. A building block has been developed to deploy this methodology in a Blackboard environment. As well as discussing the concepts and challenges of groupwork assessment and introducing the methodology, the key features of the building block were highlighted.
The year is starting with the UK Blackboard Users Conference in Durham this week. One of the presentations I am giving is looking at change in the elearning field, what can be attributed to the release of Blackboard 9, and what institutions can learn from this period of change. Here is the abstract for my presentation:
Blackboard 9 – driving change but in which direction?
During the last eight years there have been rapid development in pedagogies for online learning and the underlying technical systems to support these pedagogies. These systems have matured to form a next level environment, encapsulated in systems like Blackboard 9, and the expectations for Moodle 2.0. These platforms have looked to bring the technologies implemented up-to-date (look and feel, underlying code, standards compliance) and to provide a sound platform to build on in the future.
However, the move to Blackboard 9 has been demanding for many institutions in many ways – bugs, stability and performance, staff training, staff engagement and expectation management to name but a few areas. These experiences have highlighted the significant issues that this change process is raising for our field, and fuelled concerns that central VLEs should be making way for more agile socially driven solutions. As many institutions are at the point of deciding what direction they believe will provide that next generation experience that we are all aiming for, there is value in discussing the extended issues they may face:
- Do we want the change we say we do?
- Are we capable of moving large scale VLEs forward?
- Are jumps away easier than jumps forward?
- How do we focus attention on learning and teaching and not the underlying technology?
- How can we manage expectations and change processes?
- Is our understanding of the elearning infrastructure at institutions the same as our users?
This talk will refer to the University of Dundee as a case study example, but will be discussing the broader conceptual and strategic direction of the field at this time. Discussion welcome.
