Online learning and its users

Through an investigation of the virtual learning environment VLE and its adoption, the book will challenge some accepted views of the place of technologies in higher education, and will

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ONLINE LEARNING AND ITS USERS

Lessons for Higher

Education

C McAVINIA

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Figure 3.3 Three mediated systems within one activity system as

Figure 4.1 The formal stages leading to adoption of the virtual

learning environment (VLE) in a higher education

institution 102

Figure 4.2 The activity of selecting a virtual learning environment

(VLE) 104

Figure 4.3 The activity of supporting mainstreaming of the virtual

Figure 4.4 Different activities using technology, and enhancing

Figure 4.5 The activity of supporting mainstreaming of the virtual

Figure 4.6 The activity of reacting to departments’ needs 124

Figure 5.1 The activity of teaching the language module efficiently 147

Figure 5.3 Georgia’s Activity—publishing to foster student

Figure 5.4 Liz’s Activity—publishing to make a reading list

accessible 157

Figure 5.5 Jo’s Activity—publishing to reduce stress on students 159

Figure 5.6 An unshared Object between Lecturers and Central

Supporters 161

Figure 6.2 The activity of undertaking and completing coursework 172

Figure 6.3 An unshared Object between students and lecturers 184

Table 5.1 Attitudes Towards the VLE and Towards Increasing

Table 6.1 What Did Students Expect to Find in the VLE? n = 56 167

Claire McAvinia works as a Learning Development Officer at the Learning, Teaching & Technology Centre (LTTC) in Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT), Ireland Her role involves teaching on and coordinating DIT’s Post-graduate Diploma in Third Level Learning and Teaching, and contributing

to the MSc in Applied eLearning and MA in Higher Education, as well as the LTTC’s workshops, research, and developmental projects Claire was previously Learning Technologist at Maynooth University, mainstreaming the adoption of a virtual learning environment across the institution, and managing a wide range of projects in teaching and learning Before joining Maynooth in 2004, Claire worked in the United Kingdom at the University

of Surrey and University College London, gaining extensive experience in the use of e-learning integrated with learning and teaching development She holds a BA and PhD from Trinity College Dublin, an MA from the University of Kent, and postgraduate certificates in learning and teaching from University College London and the Open University Her research interests are in curriculum design, the development of academic practice, Activity Theory, digital literacies and computer-assisted language learning

There is a reason why, at the end of many stories, the hero rides off into the sunset It’s because staying would be hellish After their work has been done, they would get in the way, disrupt the peace, remain discontent; and who could live with that?

This book is important because it is not about heroes Too much research

in the field of educational technology has a hero, and typically, it’s the nology The claims are grand; the stakes are high Pantomime villains are lined up to be knocked down, often by fairly flimsy flourishes People seem

tech-to go along with it all, though, because who doesn’t enjoy a rousing tale?The trouble is, research that valorises technology, research that grants it the power to determine educational futures, has relatively little to say about the everyday lives of the people who actually do education The experiences

of learners, teachers, managers and other professionals is much more complex than these tales of valour allow The message of this book—that our institutions are living communities, not merely systems to be impacted

by technology—is a salutary reminder not to lose sight of the realities of peoples’ experiences

This book is all about those realities It is about what actually happens when technology is adopted in Higher Education As a result, it gives us the stories we need, rather than the ones we might most enjoy These stories are not always easy to hear: they call into question what matters to us, why we have made the choices (and mistakes) we have, and why we continue to make the same choices (and mistakes) over and over again, whether that be with Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), MOOCs or some other new, shiny innovation

What is particularly wise about this work is that we know VLEs, and most of us are pretty clear: they’re not heroic The wisdom of looking closely

at this familiar, almost invisible technology, is that it is no longer so new and

so shiny, and no longer blinds us to the actions of the people who make it, use it, struggle with it, reject it, and so on As a result, studying VLEs allows

us to understand change, and how people make those changes, rather than holding up technology as some kind of fetish, as if by purchasing it or taking out an institutional subscription, we could buy all the changes for which it has come to stand

There is, however, a subtle but important caveat One nice point within this work hangs on the very idea that technology can come to stand for innovation All of us who are responsible for education face the ongoing anxiety caused by the seemingly endless stream of unfamiliar, sometimes overwhelming, new developments The radical promise of each new tech-nology is hyped up, all the way to its inevitable collapse The analysis here, however, reveals the ways in which institutions claim to be innovative sim-ply by adopting a new system, even though teachers and students continue

to use successful, tried-and-tested approaches, refusing to abandon thing they know works just so they can jump onto the latest pedagogic bandwagon The literature in the field may hold a sense of disillusionment about the unfulfilled potential of technology, but this sleight of hand is a skillful and impressive achievement: it allows educators the space for peda-gogic evolution while saving face for institutions that want to offer students

every-a cutting-edge experience

To work, this rhetorical flourish relies on a wider trope in the tional technology literature: the idea that technology has revolutionised society The printing press is dragged out time and time again as a point of comparison, positioned as an epoch-defining technology to persuade us that such things are possible We all know that technological development has enabled global communication; intensified business; let people meet and talk and learn and even fall in love, despite the barriers of geography Fewer people remember, though, that the technology that let this happen was the telegraph Or the telephone Or even the postal service Of course, it would

educa-be disingenuous to suggest there is nothing new about the Internet—but it

is just as disingenuous to pretend that nothing like this has ever happened before, and that we have nothing to learn from the past

One of the great strengths of this particular account is that we get that wider picture: placing the study reported here into a wider historical con-text, complete with stories of disillusionment, shows why this work is so important This is not about something that happened long ago, in a galaxy far, far away Using the VLE is something that has a history, one that explains how we came to be in the situation we find ourselves in It something that

is happening now—each and every day—to the majority, if not the totality,

of our staff and students And what could be more important than that?

Martin Oliver

Professor of Education and Technology

UCL Institute of Education

UK

This book was inspired by the very kind and constructive feedback I received from my doctoral examiners Robin Goodfellow and Lorna Carson, and my doctoral supervisor Breffni O’Rourke I am very grateful to them for encouraging me to undertake the project of returning to the thesis and changing it into a text that might be useful to a wider audience Robin Goodfellow provided insights into how I might adapt the research, but more importantly helped me to see that it could have potential practical use for other people His positive encouragement has been greatly appreciated

It was my great good fortune to work with Martin Oliver some years ago

He originally suggested that I undertake doctoral research long before I considered it myself, and he has now very generously written the Foreword

to this book I am indebted to him for his support as a colleague and friend and thank him sincerely here

Many other people have helped and encouraged me along the way, ticularly my colleagues at the Learning, Teaching & Technology Centre (LTTC) and elsewhere in Dublin Institute of Technology I would particu-larly like to thank the Director of the LTTC, Jen Harvey, for her support and kindness in facilitating completion of this book Although it is some time ago, my previous employers at Maynooth University facilitated two periods of study leave in the latter stages of the research which were invalu-able, and which are acknowledged once again here I would also like to acknowledge particularly the participants in the research across all of the sites involved They gave of their time willingly and cheerfully, and many continued to provide positive words of encouragement even after their par-ticipation had concluded

par-Colleagues and friends have provided constant help and support to me, and some have also generously read draft sections of this work at various stages I would like to thank very sincerely Alison Farrell, Mary Delaney, Terry Maguire, Maeve Martin, Jane Secker, Colleen McKenna, John Keating, and Tom Murphy I would also like to thank Claire McDonnell, Orla Hanratty, Roisin Donnelly, Pauline Rooney, Frances Boylan, Dolores McManus, Linda Boyd, Daphne Mulvey, Kevin O’Rourke, Damian Gordon, Fred Mtenzi, and Ciarán O’Leary for the many formal and informal conversations about all aspects of the development of teaching in a digital age which have enabled me to think through the issues raised in this book

Harriet Clayton, Glyn Jones, and George Knott at Chandos/Elsevier have been so helpful throughout each stage of the proposal, reviews, and eventual writing of this book They have been meticulous in their advice and in the editing, and therefore any errors remaining in this text must be my responsibility.

Finally, I would like to thank friends and all my family, Caroline, Deirdre, Joanne, and Fidelma, and most especially my father Oliver, Ruth, Neil and Louise, Romy and Naoise They have all been at my side throughout the years of this research in all its forms and it would quite simply have been impossible to undertake any of this work without their support I dedicate this book to my parents, Oliver and Brenda

REASONS FOR WRITING

This book is concerned with reexamining the impact of online technologies

on the practices of learning and teaching in higher education Through an investigation of the virtual learning environment (VLE) and its adoption, the book will challenge some accepted views of the place of technologies

in higher education, and will argue that there has been a repeated cycle of hype and disillusionment accompanying the development of online learning

in this sector While researchers have documented this cycle previously, finding new strategies and solutions to the challenge has proved extremely difficult Why are some people reluctant to use technology, and why have

we seen costly and time-consuming failures? Are students going to outpace their lecturers in their use of new technologies? How will technology-enhanced learning affect campus-based education in the next number of years? The book will seek to explore these questions by looking at the experience we have had through the introduction and mainstreaming of the single most widely used educational technology in higher education—the VLE The evidence presented here will suggest that we can answer at least some of our questions now, and if we ask different and new questions

in future, we will have a better chance of breaking the cycle of hype and disappointment

Given the range and availability of numerous technologies which act with education, this book is bounded by the examination of one in particular The VLE at campus-based higher education institutions (HEIs) will be the focus of the discussion presented VLEs, also referred to as Learn-ing Management Systems (LMS), or Course Management Systems (CMS), are used pervasively in higher education in the developed world (Educause Learning Initiative, 2014; OECD, 2005; Williams van Rooij, 2011) VLEs and particularly Open Source (www.opensource.org) systems such as Moo-dle (www.moodle.org) are also widely used in the developing world VLEs/LMSs/CMSs are web-based systems which are usually password-protected and allow people to make a range of digitised materials and online activities available to students As such, the VLE offers a valuable lens through which

inter-to view the adoption of technologies in higher education

The research presented in this book was originally undertaken for a doctoral study examining the adoption of a VLE at an HEI in Ireland The

research encompassed other sites in the Republic of Ireland and captured their experiences in the adoption and mainstreaming of their VLEs The spur for the research was the observation that, from the mid-2000s onwards, educational researchers were suggesting with some degree of disappointment that the VLE had been used predominantly to store and disseminate course materials The discourse around this has continued to develop (Brown, 2010; Macfadyen & Dawson, 2012; Phipps, Cormier, & Stiles, 2008; Stiles, 2007; Weller, 2007), and implies that something rather different was anticipated with the introduction of the VLE Perhaps this was that VLEs should become interactive learning environments, or provide classroom-like activities online (Conole, 2004; Donnelly & O’Rourke, 2007; Palmer & Holt, 2009; Stiles, 2007), or failing that, that they should support more interactive teaching in class in some ways At the time of undertaking the research, my professional role related to the support and management of an institutional VLE Annual evaluation surveys had shown that the predominant use of the system at that institution was indeed to carry course notes and supporting materials However, the usage of the system was also pervasive amongst staff and students Their feedback about

it was overwhelmingly positive, and usage data indicated that visits to the VLE were growing rapidly each year If the system was offline for any reason, even for brief periods, huge numbers of user queries were immediately received This experience conflicted with the literature, and with an apparent disillusionment amongst e-learning researchers The reasons for this were unclear However, literature investigating the use of other educational technologies suggested similar patterns of disillusionment at the lack of exploitation of the technology (Conole, 2009; Kirkup & Kirkwood, 2005; Mayes, 1995; McMullin, 2005) Examinations of the uptake and use of the VLE had been undertaken to find out how people were using these systems in practice (Browne & Jenkins, 2003; Heaton-Shrestha, Edirisingha, Burke, & Linsey, 2005; McGill & Hobbs, 2007; Vogel & Oliver, 2006) but there were no institution-wide studies that could clearly account for different patterns of adoption (Coates, James, & Baldwin, 2005; Graham, Woodfield, & Harrison, 2013)

While the VLE is now mainstreamed and “an integral part of the technological furniture of higher education” (O’Rourke, Rooney, & Boylan, 2015, p 1), social media have also become prevalent inside and outside higher education (Phipps et al., 2008) Ownership of mobile

Research Centre, 2014; Statista.com, 2015) Many writers and ners have seen these developments as heralding a revolution in

practitio-education, and one which our existing educational structures and isations will not be able to resist (Barber, Donnelly, & Rivzi, 2013) More recently, the advent of the MOOC has captured attention and become a key area of development in e-learning in higher education It poses the possibil-ity of reinventing university structures, or so we are told (Chiappe-Laverde, Hine, & Martinez-Silva, 2015; Jacoby, 2014; Wilby, 2014) In this book, I will argue that we are overlooking the key lessons learnt from previous “revolu-tions,” but that these can help us as we enter a complex phase of the devel-opment of online learning The case of the VLE is key here, and it is the story of this system which forms the central thesis of this book The VLE is used pervasively, it was the focus of positive discussion in the 2000s as the means to reinvent higher education, and yet it is now regarded with a strong sense of disillusionment Exit strategies have been openly discussed (Groom

organ-& Lamb, 2014; Seery, 2015; Stiles, 2007) even as estimates of spending on VLEs predict much further investment over the next five years (Dahlstrom, Brooks, & Bichsel, 2014; Initiative, 2014) What implications does this have for the adoption of other technologies in the future? It is not enough to say that each technology is different, and therefore that each experience of adopting that technology is different This book will examine the adoption

of the VLE beyond usage figures and system logs to see how the technology has interacted with learning and teaching practices The evidence presented leads to a proposal that we examine incoming and emergent technologies for education from a different perspective, and with a more complete evaluative toolkit Through asking different questions, and by using particular theoretical and methodological frameworks, I will suggest that we can derive lessons for our practice which are transferable and from which we can learn before embracing The Next Big Thing

AIMS AND SCOPE

The focus of this book is, therefore, to examine how an older but still vasive technology currently in place in HEIs has been adopted and used, because such an examination has the potential to inform our next steps at a critical time The book presents a framework of analysis that can be used in your institution to analyse practice there, and I share the findings from my use of that framework in the research presented here I argue that through this kind of analysis we can get closer to understanding a lot more about the impact of technologies on teaching and learning, and move beyond data about uptake and use The aims of this book are theoretical and practical, to give the reader practical methods underpinned by a firm theoretical stance

per-The intention is that this book will be useful to anyone engaged with the development or support of e-learning in an educational institution, and perhaps beyond The research involved participants in management, aca-demic development, user support, lecturing, and learning Their experi-ences and activities have the potential to inform decision-making about the future of online learning in higher education.

A NOTE ON THE STUDY

The examples presented in this book are necessarily bounded: I focus on publicly funded HEIs, with the research having been conducted in Ireland However, the literature provides access to broader fields of investigation and

is drawn on as widely as possible to validate the study presented here and test its findings The dataset analysed and used to present the case studies in this book was collected between 2007 and 2010 The research design was subject to ethical approval following a number of submissions to the rele-vant institutional research ethics committees Approval was granted for each phase of the research Participants were fully briefed as to the purposes of the research and the likely publications deriving from it, and gave their informed written consent at each stage Given the size of the Irish higher education sector and the small teams working within it to support online learning, particular care was needed to protect the anonymity of the partici-pants and has been a key concern in writing this book I have taken every measure to ensure this confidentiality and anonymity here Throughout this book, institutions and individuals will be given pseudonyms The findings presented are based on aggregated analyses of the data and therefore will not

be attributable to any one institution, any individual’s role, or any individual set of working practices The gap between completion of this research and the writing of this book means that all of the individual interview partici-pants are now in different roles in their organisations Where it has been unavoidable, I have withheld direct quotation from the data in a case where any individual might be identifiable I would like to acknowledge here once more the participants’ generous participation in this research

A NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY

It is useful to define some key terms before progressing into the main body

of the book Terminology describing the use of technology in education is

in a constant state of flux, and this can make discussion of the field extremely

difficult (Bliuc, Goodyear, & Ellis, 2007; Rosenblit, 2005; Rosenblit & Gros, 2011) This book will refer to the use of web-based technologies for learning and teaching in higher education as “online learn-ing” or (for brevity) “e-learning.” These terms are selected in preference to

Guri-“learning technology,” and “technology-enhanced learning” as more nomical, generic, and practical However, it is worth noting here that “learn-ing technology” and “technology-enhanced learning” are terms widely used by practitioners and informing the labelling of roles such as learning technologist E-learning is sometimes interpreted as the provision of com-mercial training software (for example, in Pailing (2002)); the term is not used to have that meaning here

eco-The term “support” will be used to encompass the technical help and pedagogical guidance provided by people working in online learning in HEIs These people will be understood to be members of a central service, such as a teaching and learning service, in their institutions Developmental activities focused on enhancing teaching by academics and faculty in HEIs through accredited courses, workshops, projects and research will be referred

to as “academic development.” This work is usually undertaken by “academic developers” in the teaching and learning service of an institution As in the case of e-learning support, this may not be the same in every institution and the positions and titles of people involved in this work may vary (Gosling,

2009) E-learning support and academic development will be understood

as taking place as part of a central service within HEIs, unless otherwise specified in the text

Throughout this book, reference will be made to people teaching in higher education However, these people may be lecturers or senior lecturers, associate or assistant professors, full professors, postgraduate tutors, emeritus staff or part-time adjunct faculty In Ireland and the United Kingdom we would tend to refer to them as lecturers or academics, internationally they might be known as “faculty.” For consistency and ease of reference, the term “lecturer” will be used to mean anyone undertaking formal teaching

in an HEI

The “virtual learning environment (VLE),” “learning management tem (LMS)” or “course management system (CMS)” have already been defined briefly and will be used to mean a web-based system, usually pass-word-protected, to which electronic materials (documents, images, media files, web links) can be published, and in which people can participate in online activities (discussion forums, quizzes) Access to such a system is available from anywhere provided the user has access to the Internet, and

sys-has a login VLEs are commonly used in educational settings to carry course information and communications, as well as facilitating completion of assessments and coursework The use of the word “virtual” is not intended

to mean a three-dimensional space in the VLE, nor is “virtual reality” used, although some researchers have used the term “virtual learning environ-ment” in this way before VLEs became pervasive (for example, Follows (1999))

Finally, the terms “adoption” and “mainstreaming” are used throughout

in relation to new technologies Adoption is used to mean the decision to use the technology, whether this decision is taken by someone in manage-ment on behalf of the institution, or by a teacher or student Mainstreaming

is used to mean the formal provision, and promotion, of a technology across

a whole institution after a test phase or pilot project In this context, the text presented will treat everyone in the institution as a “user” of the technology but as we will see, the experiences of users will be very different depending

on their perspective and purpose

AN OVERVIEW OF THIS BOOK

The following nine chapters of this book will develop the themes touched

on in this Introduction, present the research undertaken, and discuss its implications for practice Chapter Enter the VLE begins with a detailed consideration of the development of educational technologies in HEIs First, the development of online learning will be considered Then, the VLE will be described, and its uptake in HEIs in Ireland and elsewhere will be discussed The chapter identifies a trend in the literature towards disappoint-ment with the outcomes achieved so far from online learning

Chapter Challenges and Disappointments will critique this evidence, examining the organisational, pedagogical and methodological issues found

in analysing relevant research The chapter questions our reliance on single, small-scale case studies in particular While authors claim that generalisa-tions should not be made from such studies, it will be shown that this is done time and again in the search for useful models and approaches to online learning In conclusion, the chapter asks how the case of the VLE might be analysed to discover the reasons for what has been regarded as its limited use

Chapter Activity Theory proposes a way of reexamining online learning

in higher education, using Activity Theory (Engeström, 1987) It will be suggested that this theoretical framework has value because it takes account

of the social and contextual factors at play in the ways people use ogy The chapter provides an account of Activity Theory, the ways in which

technol-it has been applied in a range of settings, and technol-its use in e-learning research The means by which Activity Theory was implemented and made opera-tional during the research presented in this book will be described The research methodology will be described and presented in a format that will allow the reader to use it in his/her own work, should they wish to do so.Chapters Lessons for e-Learning Management and Support, Lessons for Teaching in Higher Education and Lessons from Our Learners will present the analysis of the adoption of VLE based on the aggregated data gathered from the participating HEIs in this study Within this analysis will

be case studies of individual use from the perspectives of managers, support staff, lecturers and students The experiences of these groups as revealed through the research and analysis of the data will be modelled as activity systems Themes will be identified for further discussion in relation to the adoption and use of the VLE, from management level to specific subject disciplines

Chapter Learning to Break the Cycle presents a further discussion of key issues and questions identified in the previous three chapters Alterna-tive proposals will be made for the adoption and mainstreaming of other new technologies in HEIs, informed by the detailed analysis undertaken in this research as well as the existing findings in literature These proposals address the problems (“contradictions”) identified through activity theo-retic analysis, discussing them as opportunities for change and development The discussion suggests in turn that we have the means of breaking the cycle of hype and disappointment in online learning in higher education.Chapter Lessons for the Future—The VLE and the MOOC will present one further example of activity theoretic analysis to test the proposals being made Massively Open Online Courses or MOOCs have emerged as a key direction in technology-enhanced learning for higher education in recent years This chapter will examine this phenomenon through the lens of Activity Theory, and using the available data in the literature to model activity systems The MOOC experience, it will be argued, bears strong resemblance to previous examples of the cycle of hype and disappointment surrounding online learning, particularly the VLE However, it can also point the way forward if we allow ourselves to think of technologies in terms of social practices and the remediation of activities

Chapter Conclusions will draw conclusions from the work overall to signpost some future directions, particularly for practitioners supporting

online learning and academic development, who seek to enhance learning

in higher education through the adoption of new technologies The chapter invites the reader to take a broader perspective too, reconsidering our ambi-tions for technology as the means to level access to higher education This concern can be tied to the theme being explored throughout this book, the fundamental interaction between the activities we undertake and the tools

we use in those activities

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All rights reserved.

Enter the VLE

1.1 INTRODUCTION

My professional role for more than 15 years has been to work with academics

to help develop and enhance their teaching in higher education, including the use of online learning The reported issues of underuse (Kanuka & Kelland, 2008; Njenga & Fourie, 2010; Zemsky & Massy, 2004) and even ‘cyclical fail-ure’ (Mayes, 1995, p 1) of technologies in higher education are therefore of strong professional concern, and concern the many individuals and teams working in similar areas The limited uptake of technologies is not only dis-heartening but implies a possible misalignment of our work with that of our academic colleagues and their students If there is limited use of technologies, this also calls into question the investment made in them, and the return on this investment for institutions (Laurillard, 1993, 2001, 2008) These issues lie

at the heart of this book: to address them it is important first to revisit how computerisation came to higher education institutions (HEIs), how and why institutions began to use the Internet as part of teaching and learning, and the eventual emergence and adoption of the virtual learning environment (VLE)

1.2 THE DEVELOPMENT OF ONLINE LEARNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION

A series of fundamental changes have taken place in higher education since the 1980s, at the same time that computers, and later the Internet, became available and affordable There are many comprehensive studies document-ing and debating the changes to the management, structure and funding of higher education between 1985 and 2015 (Bell, Neary, & Stevenson, 2009; Christensen & Eyring, 2011; Henkel, 2000; Shattock, 2013; Taylor, 1999) The focus of this section will be to highlight significant changes paving the way for the introduction of online learning, and in particular the VLE

1.2.1 Global and Local Changes

Policy change led to rapid expansion in higher education in the United Kingdom and Ireland from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s (Laurillard,

1993, 2001), alongside which modularisation and semesterisation processes

led to the restructuring of programmes and the academic timetable overall (Henkel, 2000) Quality enhancement and assurance processes were intro-duced, with implications for teaching quality and feedback (Taylor, 1999) The Research Assessment Exercise in the United Kingdom became the most significant driver for academic activity in most institutions (Lucas,

2006) The role of the lecturer was altered to include wider administrative responsibilities, compliance with quality assurance processes, intense pres-sure to publish, competition for funding, and accommodating an ever more diverse student population (Holley & Oliver, 2000) The expansion of higher education to include larger numbers of students, changes such as modularisation and semesterisation, requirements to publish learning out-comes at the module and programme level, and the introduction of resource allocation models affected academic and administrative roles (Henkel, 2000; Taylor, 1999) Other functions were altered too: there was a significant evo-lution in the roles of administrators, technical staff, library staff and others supporting academic departments (Thorley, 1998) Academic development units had been evolving in the United States for some years but began to receive formal recognition and funding in the United Kingdom and Ireland (Fraser, Gosling, & Sorcinelli, 2010; Gosling, 2009), and HEIs in the United Kingdom were directed to provide professional development in teaching for academic staff from 1997 (NCIHE, 1997), articulated later through the Institute for Learning and Teaching (now the Higher Education Academy).Meanwhile, from 1985 to 2015 computers have been introduced in almost every aspect of academic and administrative life in tertiary education (Conole, Oliver, Cook, Ravenscroft, & Currier, 2003) The use of computers at all lev-els of education in Western cultures has been an important focus of educa-tional, political and economic discourse since desktop machines became available (and cost-effective) in the early years of the 1980s (Smith, 2005) Political, social and economic imperatives, as well as educational ones, have all been cited as drivers for the use of computers in education (Bates, 2001; Weller, 2007) The arrival of the Internet and the World Wide Web (web) catalysed this discourse in the 1990s to convert it to one of revolutionary

change Politicians began to reference the Internet and information

superhigh-way as the means by which education, commerce and civic activities would

be transformed (Blair, 1994; Clinton, 1997) Internationally, governments in the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom committed significant funding to initiatives designed to introduce and grow the use of computers in education (Bates, 2001; Smith, 2005) The web led to many visions of technology transforming education, particularly beyond

compulsory schooling (Garrett, 2004; Garrison & Vaughan, 2013) Brown (2010, p 1) refers to ‘feverish optimism’ at this time The scope for campus-based HEIs to move into distributed and flexible learning attracted renewed political and educational interest from the mid-1990s onwards (Clegg & Steel, 2002; Goodfellow, Lea, Gonzalez, & Mason, 2001; Jakupec & Garrick, 2000) National strategies were formulated to guide and promote development, and large-scale digitisation projects were funded to provide electronic materials and content for education (Conole, Smith, & White, 2007) Time, effort and resources were invested in online learning, and it continued to attract funding and attention at the government level in many Western countries as the new millennium advanced (Dillenbourg, 2008; Laurillard, 1993, 2001).

From the late 1990s to the mid-2000s, many universities in the United Kingdom and Ireland created managed learning environments (JISC, 2001; TLTG, 2001), whereby they joined administrative systems together and gradually made these available to users at the point of need, across the web Timetables, registration and fee payments went online Most HEIs adopted and implemented at least one VLE (Jenkins, Browne, Walker, & Hewitt, 2011; OECD, 2005; Weller, 2007) While institutional strategies tended to focus on the argument that new technologies would open access to educa-tion and enhance learning for all students (Gibbs, Habeshaw, & Yorke, 2000), there were also ambitions to attract international students to online national universities (Garrett, 2004; Jakupec & Garrick, 2000) Systems supporting online learning and course administration via the web were beginning to blur the boundaries around campus-based universities Many writers in the 2000s challenged the campus-based HEI to fight for its existence in a new online world postglobalisation, where students could choose to attend any university and not just those in closest proximity to them (Jones & O’Shea,

2004) In the discourse of flexible learning, students were seen as lifelong learners, with mobility and the scope to learn throughout their careers (Clegg & Steel, 2002; Coates, James, & Baldwin, 2005; Hanson-Smith, 2001; Nunan, 2000)

1.2.2 The 1980s–1990s: Stand-Alone, to Network, to Internet

While computerisation began to change the administrative infrastructure of universities, the history of online learning in higher education begins in experimental projects, and in the disciplines, as opposed to centrally led and managed initiatives Some histories align its development closely with that

of correspondence courses and distance learning, or the early use of visual materials in education (Simsek, 2005; Various, 2006–2011) Other

audio-researchers date the origins of e-learning to the work of Skinner, larly the development of teaching machines in the 1950s (Jordan, Carlile, & Stack, 2008; Various, 2006–2011): these were early educational technologies,

particu-rather than innovations in information and communications technology applied to educational settings The language laboratories of the 1960s and 1970s saw the development of audio technologies for language teaching, and the emergence of associated teaching methods But before desktop per-sonal computers were readily available, projects to examine the potential of computers in education were dependent on access to mainframe computers and on project funding Levy (1997) reports on two large-scale publicly funded projects in the United States in the 1960s which have resonance with the VLE: PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Opera-tion) and TICCIT (Time-Shared Interactive Computer Controlled Infor-mation Television) PLATO and TICCIT predated networking and the Internet, and as such were confined to specific groups in their geographical locations But PLATO nonetheless provided an early VLE: ‘interactive, self-paced instruction for large numbers of students’ (Levy, 1997, p 15) It allowed asynchronous communication between users through simple text files, and it had a basic system for synchronous discussion It also had a quiz-like feature and a student record function Early educational technologies had in common the rationale that a teacher’s time could be saved if a machine or computer could be used for repetitive tasks, such as grammar or arithmetic Skinner’s teaching machines (Jordan et al., 2008), while reflect-ing behaviourist principles, were also intended to save class time for other activities PLATO and TICCIT (Levy, 1997), too, were designed for this purpose This principle set the agenda for computers in learning: one of the imagined benefits of using computers was to save the teacher’s time and effort for activities in which his/her presence was necessary The role of the computer in relation to the teacher and the design of software in terms of educational philosophy are themes that recur up to and including the devel-opment of the VLE

Although networked computers were used in HEIs in the developed world from the 1970s (Harasim, 2006; Seale & Rius-Riu, 2001), it was the mid-1980s before desktop personal computers were readily available While computerisation was exploited at the institutional level in HEIs for admin-istrative processes, people teaching were free to experiment independently with the available hardware and software and different disciplines record their own traditions in this process (Groom & Lamb, 2015; Levy, 1997) Before the widespread availability of the Internet, development projects

undertaken by academics and researchers in HEIs focused on the creation

of software and discrete packages which could be installed on desktop

machines Recognising these efforts, the Computers in Teaching Initiative

(CTI) was launched in the United Kingdom in 1985 (Seale & Rius-Riu,

2001), creating 24 subject centres to support the development of materials and methods for using computers in higher education These centres were

succeeded by the Learning and Teaching Support Network (LTSN) and

eventu-ally by the Higher Education Academy’s subject centres in the 2000s (Smith,

2005), which retained strands of activity in e-learning development These initiatives signalled to people working in subject disciplines that their efforts could attract research and development funding from government (Allan, Blackwell, & Gibbs, 2003)

The 1990s brought significant changes to the development of tional technologies, with improvements to the power and speed of desktop computers Graphical user interfaces changed and enriched the experiences

educa-of computer users, and mouse devices became widely available to support navigation around the computer screen (Various, 2006–2011) Computers were now fast enough and had sufficient amounts of memory to be able to run multimedia materials, meaning that subject-specific material could be developed and used Computer rooms (‘labs’) were provided to students The web had the potential to change things further: it was revolutionary in providing developers with a simple way of writing materials—in HTML—which could be made available to other people without CD-ROMs or the installation of software to their computers Authors could begin to create their own websites and eventually avail of third-party web-based applica-tions to support this process (Harasim, 2006) In addition to authored mate-rials, the web meant access to authentic materials as websites were developed

by government bodies, news media corporations, research agencies, and numerous other organisations Most importantly, content was available instantaneously across national and international borders Lecturers began

to produce ‘metasites’ with lists of recommended resources for other ers to share (Davies, 2001) Discussion tools for synchronous and asynchro-nous communication began to become widely available and were used in a number of successful pilot projects (Harasim, 2006) However, although the web meant authors no longer had to focus on the creation of discrete pack-ages of materials dedicated to particular objectives, it nonetheless proved difficult to move away from the content/task delivery mode (Levy, 1997) For all but the early adopters, the focus was still on supplementing in-class activities, or releasing classroom time, rather than imagining new activities

teach-In 1992, the Teaching and Learning Technology Programme (TLTP) was

launched in the United Kingdom to begin a move towards overarching themes and programmes for online learning in higher education (Smith,

2005) Conole et al (2007) note that funding initiatives in the 1990s in the United Kingdom began to move in this direction too, to link developments

in different subject areas with strategic development overall Through petitive bids, funding could be obtained for projects to support the develop-ment and use of new technologies (Seale & Rius-Riu, 2001) European

com-schemes such as the European Academic Software Award were examples of

wider international activity Professional networks such as the Association for Learning Technology (http://www.alt.ac.uk) were founded

1.2.3 Late 1990s: Centralised Initiatives

By the second half of the 1990s, HEIs in the United Kingdom and Ireland had sophisticated IT networks, and high-speed connectivity to the Internet through HEANet in Ireland and JANET (later SuperJANET) in the United Kingdom The use of email and the web was habitual, newsgroups were widely used, and files were shared online (Seale & Rius-Riu, 2001) The Internet was supporting research activities as well as the administrative functions of the university People at management levels were newly inter-ested in how technology could be harnessed for teaching and learning online, universities were expanding, and the political discourses of the time

at the government level also highlighted the potential of the web for long learning (Bates, 2001) By the start of the new millennium, the VLE/LMS had arrived (Jenkins, Browne, & Armitage, 2001) At this point, VLEs were commercially produced systems and represented a growing trend in higher education to use commercial software: there were fewer examples

life-of early adopters learning to write programs for their own use (Seale & Rius-Riu, 2001) Textbook publishers were also beginning to sell their content to education providers in digital formats (Noble, 1998) But already critical questions were being asked about the VLE, the interests of com-mercial companies in e-learning, and whether e-learning systems were only setting up access to content, rather than learning (Noble, 1998; Simpson, 2001)

Even though most of the experience of early-adopter academics had previously been in creating content and simple tasks for delivery by com-puter, VLEs were introduced to higher education in the context of high expectations about the potential of the web for online learning (Dutton, Cheong, & Park, 2004; Shurville, Browne, & Whitaker, 2009) VLEs were

commercial products, with WebCT and Blackboard dominating the ket and no viable Open Source (free) alternative VLE yet available (Coates

mar-et al., 2005) Within institutions, e-learning was emerging as an area of potential interest to management, having previously been a case of exper-imentation by interested people in their own departments (White & Davis, 2007) This parallelled other developments in the late 1990s and early 2000s, which saw teaching becoming increasingly aligned with insti-tutional strategies (Holley & Oliver, 2000) Tensions were emerging between the activities of individual academics in terms of their teaching practice and the requirements of the institution which had to demonstrate teaching quality and enhancement to secure funding While it is impor-tant to clarify that much of this discussion pertains to the United King-dom in the first instance, most of the developments reported were subsequently enacted elsewhere, including in Ireland It is also worth not-ing that most e-learning developments and initiatives in both Ireland and the United Kingdom were based on short-term funding streams (Conole

et al., 2007), irrespective of the different levels of resource available in the different jurisdictions

In summary then, structural and organisational changes in HEIs took place at the same time as technological change and the early adoption, fol-lowed by centralised direction, of initiatives to introduce computers and the Internet for learning Some of these changes were politically driven, with funding linked to innovation in teaching and learning This is the context in which people began to use the web for learning and teaching, and into which the VLE was introduced New roles, particularly that of learning technologist, evolved in tandem with these changes

1.2.4 New Roles and Responsibilities

1997), institutions were required to produce teaching and learning gies from 1998 (Gibbs et al., 2000) with funding attached to their imple-mentation The introduction of new technologies to central institutional services, and in turn to academic departments, coincided with the publica-tion of these strategies and the availability of resources (McAvinia & Oliver,

strate-2004) New roles began to emerge: Gornall (1999) argued that within the

‘support’ category of university staff, a range of new roles relating to ing and learning was identifiable These roles were not only administrative, but could be strategic, managerial, technical, or involve tutoring or training

teach-of staff and students (Fox & Sumner, 2014) Support roles in learning and

teaching, combined with support roles in the use of new technology, led to the emergence of the ‘learning technologist’ or ‘educational technologist’ (Beetham, 2001; Fox & Sumner, 2014; Oliver, 2002) Learning technologists were identified in both research and development roles, in academic depart-ments, and in technical support units, as well as in libraries Beetham’s (2001)study found that around 4500 people in central sections of their universities

in the United Kingdom were working as learning technologists This was exclusive of the thousands of staff in academic departments who described themselves as having some areas of work related to learning technologies This broad survey gave an early indication of the potential for staff at all levels of the university to be affected by the introduction of technology to support teaching and learning

By the early 2000s, it was possible to talk about the learning gist’s work in terms of a more specific job description (Oliver, 2002, 2004) Although the role now seemed to have particular forms of collaboration with academic staff at its core, it could nonetheless include a range of other responsibilities including teaching, administrative duties, research and tech-nical services (Fox & Sumner, 2014; Oliver, 2002) Learning technologists came from diverse backgrounds and different disciplines, and the roles were somewhat fluid in nature between academic and service departments (Conole et al., 2003; Surry & Robinson, 2001) Although Oliver (2002)comments that there is little information about the emergence and devel-opment of the learning technologist role outside the United Kingdom, it later gained currency in a number of countries, including Ireland, based on the evidence from job advertisements and new or refined university struc-tures (DRHEA, 2009)

technolo-1.3 VIRTUAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

The previous sections have provided the backdrop and context for the introduction of the VLE in higher education, but the characteristics of this system have not yet been described in detail A range of definitions of the VLE exist in the literature, each emphasising different aspects of the system Britain and Liber (1999, p 3) in an early evaluative study give the following definition:

Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) are learning management software systems that synthesise the functionality of computer-mediated communications software (email, bulletin boards, newsgroups etc) and on-line methods of delivering course materials (e.g the WWW).

The UK’s Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), which has responsibilities for the development of pedagogically focused use of learn-

ing technologies, says in its online resource, Effective Use of Virtual Learning

Environments:

A simple definition is ‘A Virtual Learning Environment is a collection of integrated tools enabling the management of online learning, providing a delivery mecha- nism, student tracking, assessment and access to resources’ These integrated tools may be one product (e.g BlackBoard, WebCT) or an integrated set of individual, perhaps open-source, tools.

JISC (no date)

JISC’s definition of the VLE prioritises course management, but other definitions have different nuances Currier (2002), writing about an interop-erability project that aimed to connect VLEs with electronic resources in library systems, places more emphasis on the capability of the VLE to store and present materials McMullin (2005, p 74) describes the VLE as ‘a web-based platform supporting a more or less integrated suite of tools to support

“online learning”’, while Stiles (2007) defines the VLE in terms of a ing experience:

learn-Typically, VLEs provide facilities for managing the learning experience, cating the intended learning experience and facilitating tutors’ and learners’ involvement in that experience The ‘consensus view’ suggests a VLE should contain management components for student registration and tracking, notice boards and administrative information ( …) as well as formal assessment procedures and facili- ties for the production of statistics for administration and quality control.

communi-Stiles (2007, p 31)

This definition is interesting because it places the communication ment of the VLE ahead of its capacity to store and distribute course materi-als A similar emphasis appears in other definitions from researchers in e-learning Jennings (2005) also seeks to prioritise the communicative aspect of the VLE commenting on how the system facilitates interaction Stanley (2009) emphasises the presence of computer-mediated communi-cation tools in the VLE, including under this banner such tools as blogs and wikis, as well as forums and messaging Holmes and Gardner (2006, p 26) suggest that VLEs ‘provide shells to populate with course content and offer

ele-a vele-ariety of course delivery methods’, ele-and thele-at institutions introduce them

to make more of academics’ time available for research However, the chief documented benefits of the VLE in practice have been to provide access to materials and resources, to provide flexibility in terms of access to courses, and to open up learning opportunities for people who might not otherwise

have them (Barajas & Owen, 2000; Raaij & Schepers, 2008) While different authors may emphasise different functions of the VLE, it is possible to sum-marise features which are consistent across the leading systems in use at present VLEs:

• are usually password-protected websites which are available on or off institutional campuses;

• can facilitate online access to course materials, lecture notes, readings, recommended websites, and library resources;

• can facilitate online activities between students and teachers, or between groups of students, or between individuals and teachers These will often include one or more of the following:

• online discussions (usually conducted using threaded streams of sages in forums);

• online assignments or assessments, including electronic submission of conventional essays and also facilitating projects, presentations and collaboratively authored webpages;

• online quizzes and revision activities where marking and feedback are provided automatically by the system;

• reflective activities where a student’s responses to a course (or the activities within a course) are recorded through online journals, blogs or perhaps an e-portfolio system integrated with the VLE software;

• are often (although not always) linked with student records systems and other academic databases used in their institutions This facilitates reuse

of existing logins (such as those for a university network) and automatic creation of course spaces and class lists

VLEs can be integrated with other databases in an institution These might include student records databases, and the list of courses or modules currently taught at the institution Course spaces can be created automati-cally for each module, with an appropriate module code and title At many HEIs students registering for a particular programme of study are automati-cally associated with the corresponding module pages for that programme

in the VLE Additional spaces can be provided for teacher collaboration, for research groups, administrative teams or others to share in specific projects.From 1995 to 2015, VLEs have been very widely adopted in HEIs around the world (Browne & Jenkins, 2003; Jenkins et al., 2001; Weller,

2007) Some of the most commonly used VLEs have been WebCT (www.webct.com), Blackboard (www.blackboard.com), FirstClass (www.firstclass.com), and more recently the open source systems Moodle (www.moodle.org)

and Sakai (www.sakaiproject.org) Latterly, Canvas, (www.canvaslms.eu) Angel (www.angellearning.com), Desire2Learn (D2L, www.d2l.com) and Pearson eCollege (www.ecollege.com) have also been adopted widely (Dahlstrom, Brooks, & Bichsel, 2014) Blackboard merged with WebCT in

2005, while some of the better known early VLEs have been discontinued with a great reduction in the range of platforms available overall since 2005 (Shurville et al., 2009) The early 2000s also saw institutions developing in-house systems and even marketing these more widely, for example, in the case of the Bodington VLE (Britain & Liber, 2004) Until the mid-2000s it was common for institutions to have two or even three different VLEs, since departments might have independently selected one to use before there was

an institutional decision to mainstream any particular system (Browne & Jenkins, 2003)

By 2003, 86% of respondents to a national survey of HEIs in the United Kingdom reported that they had VLEs (Browne & Jenkins, 2003) By 2010, close to 100% of US universities had a VLE (Williams van Rooij, 2011) with Dahlstrom et al suggesting that the current figure is 99% of US universities and colleges (2014), and Brown indicating similar figures for the United Kingdom (2010) The commercial market for VLEs including schools, corporate training and higher education is worth around $2.5 billion annually, set to rise to over $7 billion by 2018 (Dahlstrom et al., 2014) Open Source VLEs have made significant inroads into this market, with Moodle (www.moodle.org) achieving wider reach than commercial plat-forms in some regions By 2006, 56% of further and HEIs in the United Kingdom were using Moodle (Dudeney, 2006), and it has since overtaken WebCT/Blackboard in the United Kingdom (Williams van Rooij, 2011) Moodle currently has over 60,000 registered sites in 223 countries with 8.7 million courses and just under 80 million users (https://moodle.net/stats/)

1.3.1 Origins and Development of the Virtual Learning

of the VLE and prevent any one corporation from patenting the system design (Various, 2006–2011) Interestingly, the authors of the Wikipedia site

align the development of the VLE with that of distance education overall, and with the use of predigital technologies in education from the 1940s onwards PLATO is noted in its timeline at 1960 and TICCIT at 1968, as well as early hypertext projects including Project Xanadu in 1960 and a course management system developed by IBM in 1965 A managed learn-ing system is recorded as being in use in London by 1970, and the UK Open University’s Cyclops (electronic whiteboard) system is noted from

1976 onwards As the timeline moves into the 1980s, it becomes more ficult to interpret which developments refer to stand-alone software pack-ages, and which relate to networked or shared systems However, what is clear from the early years of the timeline is that researchers and developers were pursuing the goal of a shared course management system for many years before VLEs as we now know them were developed It was the ready availability of the web, and a growing tendency for people to create course websites or webpages, that marked the true inception of the VLE The ori-gins of the VLE are therefore traceable to early developments in the use of computers for teaching and learning, and developments in open and dis-tance education (Harasim, 2006) However, teaching staff in campus-based institutions were also experimenting with ways of making learning resources available to students via the web once it became available to them It is also worth noting that, concurrent with the establishment of VLEs in many HEIs, digitisation projects were underway in many countries Repositories

dif-of educational resources such as Jorum (www.jorum.ac.uk), Merlot (www.merlot.org) and National Digital Learning Resources (www.ndlr.ie) were founded in the mid-2000s Library services undertook digitisation of rare texts while also establishing research repositories (for example, www.rian.ie) and national repositories of images, documents and historical arte-facts were launched (for example, www.dri.ie) Lecturers seeking high-quality content for use within the VLE had a range of new sources available

to them

1.3.2 Do Virtual Learning Environments

Have In-built Pedagogies?

Some researchers have argued that VLEs have inherent or in-built gies, and have critiqued various VLEs on this basis (Britain & Liber, 1999, 2004; Stiles, 2007) Weller (2006, p 99) suggests that VLEs ‘have no strong pedagogy’ at all, although they are broadly aligned with the delivery of courses (Weller, 2007) He suggests that VLEs are modelled on traditional course structures, with no strong emphasis on particular tools and no

pedago-distinctions made for particular subject areas Proponents of Moodle, on the other hand, claim that it has an explicitly constructivist pedagogy Moodle’s inventor, Margin Dougiamas, made an explicit statement about his peda-gogical stance and that it informed the development of the system This is

openly shared on the Moodle site, and is described as social constructionist

Moodle has frequently been pitched as having a more robust educational

philosophy than its competitors Its website contains a Philosophy page in

which four aspects of ‘social constructionist pedagogy’ are stated (Moodle,

2015) It differentiates between constructivism and constructionism:

con-structionism is learning by making something that other people can rience Constructivism is defined in terms of being able to experience the world and link experiences with each other Social constructivism is defined

expe-as ‘a social group constructing things for one another, collaboratively ing a small culture of shared artefacts with shared meanings’ (Moodle,

creat-2015) Constructionism emphasises the output or production of something

by the learner By defining these concepts, the website says it intends to guide the user of Moodle in designing it effectively for the learner Although Moodle does not foreground any particular toolkit to support its construc-tionist philosophy, its pedagogical stance was widely accepted as a given by e-learning practitioners However, research conducted to evaluate VLE uptake and use has consistently failed to find any differentiation in patterns based on the system in use at any particular institution (Cosgrave et al., 2011; Weller, 2015), suggesting that if there are pedagogies associated with particular systems they are not having any great effect on the uses of those systems by students and faculty Furthermore, recalling the examples of PLATO and TICCIT, it was seen that ‘designing in’ a pedagogy produced more effective results for students but a less satisfactory user experience (Levy, 1997)

1.4 HOW HAS THE VIRTUAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS BEEN MAINSTREAMED AND SUPPORTED?

1.4.1 The Growth of Academic Development

and e-Learning Support Services

Earlier in this chapter the emergence of new professional roles in HEIs since the 1990s was described, along with the evolution and growth of cen-tral services to support teaching enhancement (Fraser et al., 2010; Gosling,

2009) Many HEIs in Ireland, the United Kingdom, the United States, Scandinavia, Australia and New Zealand have over the past number of

decades established academic development units in various guises (Gosling,

2009) As online learning has emerged as a new area of activity for higher education, it has frequently been aligned with these new services In Ireland and the United Kingdom, e-learning support personnel are very often located with academic development staff in these services (DRHEA, 2009; Gosling, 2009) Centralised support and training for the VLE may alterna-tively be located with computer services or the central staff development service (Vogel & Oliver, 2006) In the study to be presented here, the preva-lent model in Ireland was found to be the colocation of e-learning support with academic development, and this will be reflected in the analysis that follows later in this book It is useful here to review some of the character-istics of these central support services and the principles guiding their work

1.4.2 Central Support Missions and Theories of Learning

While it is outside the scope of this book to examine fully the historical development of teaching and learning services in HEIs, it is important to look at how their missions have evolved, and also the links between these missions and educational theory These links inform many aspects of the research that follows later The scholarship of teaching and learning since the 1980s reflects postmodern thinking in educational theory, and privileges constructivist methods over previous approaches to teaching, particularly behaviourist methods (Bostock, 1998; Entwistle, 2009; Jordan et al., 2008) Research into the impact of computers in education has developed rapidly over the same period, with a range of feeder disciplines including educa-tional theory and human–computer interaction (Jones, 2004) This litera-ture, although derived from different disciplines, reflects the broader ‘social turn’ in research (Firth & Wagner, 1997; Lea & Nicoll, 2002), and the shift from behaviourist views of learning, towards cognitivist, constructivist and social constructivist perspectives (Dalgarno, 2001; Pear & Crone-Todd,

2002) Researchers developing the emergent work examining web-based and Internet-enhanced learning from the early 2000s onwards used con-structivist frameworks to evaluate technologies for teaching and learning (Beetham & Sharpe, 2007; Conole & Oliver, 2007; Laurillard, 1993)

Behaviourism was the dominant theory of learning in the second half

of the 20th century (Jordan et al., 2008) and is strongly associated with Skinner, whose work was founded on that of Pavlov (Jordan et al., 2008)

In behaviourist terms, learning is a conditioned response to a stimulus, and results in observable change Behaviourism is strongly associated with

a transmission-oriented approach to teaching and learning, with an

emphasis on testing and correction (Jordan et al., 2008) It was challenged

in the 1960s by cognitive research as well as the social turn (Lea & Nicoll,

2002) which shifted attention gradually towards social interactions as mediators of human activity (Bostock, 1998) Behaviourism, as a conse-quence, has been heavily criticised in recent years Its influence persists in educational systems in many parts of the world, and indeed a criticism of many e-learning resources (including most recently the MOOC) remains the focus on content delivery and simplistic testing (Sementelli & Garrett, 2015; Warschauer, 1996) More subtle is the ongoing influence of behav-iourism on teaching and learning, inasmuch as many people working in education were themselves learners in behaviourist classrooms This has been cited as one reason why teaching development remains such a dif-ficult challenge (Larsen-Freeman, 2000)

Within the broad field of cognitive approaches to learning, ism emerged as a theory of how learners link new information with exist-ing knowledge, and it has had a broad-ranging influence in education (Tam,

constructiv-2000) Cognitivism is concerned with ‘how information is processed’ (Jordan et al., 2008, p 55), whereas constructivism examines the ways knowl-edge is built and developed by the individual As Jordan, Carlile and Stack comment, ‘learning is an active process through which learners “construct” new meaning’ (Jordan et al., 2008, p 55) Kaufman (2004) identifies two

observable theoretical strands in constructivism: cognitive constructivism

(Piagetian), focussing on the individual’s construction of knowledge; and

social constructivism (Vygotskyan), focussing on how knowledge

con-struction is undertaken in social settings and through social activities The concept of scaffolding (Wood, Bruner & Ross, 1976) and the learner’s zone

of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978) are important related ideas in social constructivism

Academic developers have drawn on these ideas to introduce active learning methods in higher education, encouraging lecturers to engage with curriculum redesign and assessment from a constructivist stance (Bates, 2015) Social constructivism has been influential in e-learning scholar-

ship, most notably in Laurillard’s Rethinking University Teaching (Laurillard,

1993, 2001), one of the most frequently cited texts in e-learning research and practice Although theoretical approaches which foreground dialogue and interaction have been discussed for many years in e-learning research and practice (Dillenbourg, 1999), the historical precedent is that the com-puter takes the place of the (behaviourist) teacher Computers have been limited in the extent to which they could be used interactively or support

communication and feedback processes It is only since the development of computer-mediated communication and the widespread availability of the web that these options have been available to learners and teachers (Bates, 2015; Harasim, 2006) In the course of a comprehensive review of educa-tional theory, Laurillard encourages the adoption of constructivist methods

as articulated in her Conversational Framework, and the selection of ate technologies for teaching according to this The Conversational Frame-

appropri-work advocates planning for teaching through a dialogue in which the

learner is supported in encountering new material, connecting it with material already learnt, seeking clarification and receiving feedback, and ultimately being able to represent the knowledge unaided in new settings

As part of this framework, Laurillard emphasises the need for a teaching strategy which is founded on the goal of developing a dialogue with learn-ers and coconstructing knowledge with them This approach guides the selection of appropriate technologies at appropriate times Relevant authen-tic materials are important in the process of ‘apprehending structure’ (Laurillard, 1993, p 50) by the student Good instructional design principles can enhance the quality and value of these materials, but students will also need induction into the area of study and support along the way In summary, then, learning theories have informed the establishment and development

of teaching and learning service departments in higher education The ous interpretations of learning theories in educational technology literature have in turn informed e-learning support and development as a service, or

vari-as functions within the teaching and learning service

1.4.3 Challenges for Central Supporters

As will be seen later, VLE support and training were located with the central teaching and learning service at the sites included in this study Workshops were provided on technical and pedagogical aspects of using the VLE Sepa-rately, most of the sites offered accredited courses in teaching in higher education for academic staff, with shorter courses or single modules for postgraduate tutors and demonstrators These sites had what can be regarded

as typical in terms of how their central supports were structured to support the VLE On a day-to-day basis, the learning technologist’s role usually combines technical and pedagogical support for academic staff using e-learning Surry and Robinson (2001), Oliver (2002) and Beetham (2001)investigated the emergence and development of this role Oliver analysed the role of learning technologist from a Communities of Practice per-spective (Lave & Wenger, 2002): learning technologists were engaged in

‘legitimate peripheral participation’ (Lave & Wenger, 2002; Oliver, 2002,

p 251) in subject disciplines, while academics learnt about using technologies

in pedagogically effective ways by engaging with learning technologists Beetham (2001, p 3) described the role more broadly, finding that learning technologists were often involved in the entire process of learning technol-ogy development, support and use, and had a pivotal institutional role in terms of coordination, liaison and the facilitation of change

The focus groups conducted for Beetham’s (2001, p 3) study identified that the typical learning technologist was ‘an educational developer with a learning technology specialism’ Training for teaching staff wishing to use the VLE is often primarily focused on technical aspects of the system, but may also comprise pedagogical developmental activities Jennings (2005)reported that new users of the Blackboard VLE in his institution received a half-day of practical training, followed by a 2-day online workshop These inputs cover both technical and pedagogical skills, addressing also the provi-sion of multimedia materials online, and issues around copyright Donnelly and O’Rourke (2007) describe similar models for supporting staff in using the VLE for the first time, derived from their work within a centre for learn-ing and teaching The label ‘central support’ will be used hereafter to describe this kind of structure in an HEI

In institutions where the academic development function is combined with e-learning support and development, there is potential for teams to work together from a constructivist perspective, to develop teaching practices However, this does not always happen: e-learning support personnel are not always located in academic development teams (Gosling, 2009; Vogel & Oliver, 2006), and even when they are, the function of supporting e-learning systems appears to differentiate roles in teaching and learning services, despite their shared mission Gosling (2009) conducted surveys of HEIs to document their provision for academic development (whether or not this comprised e-learning services) He reported some lack of clarity around the place of e-learning within these teams All of the people responding to his

most recent survey regarded their role as supporting ‘innovation and change in

teaching and learning which was often interpreted to mean the promotion of

educational technologies’ (Gosling, 2009, p 12) However, he also quotes one respondent who calls the e-learning part of the service the ‘technical arm’ (Gosling, 2009, p 12) This is echoed in work by Oliver (2004), Browne and Beetham (2010) and Fox and Sumner (2014), who all document unclear and even contentious job descriptions for learning technologists, with the support overhead blurring their roles and career paths

Both e-learning and academic development are informed by discourses

of change in teaching and learning, specifically a change from sion-based teaching to constructivist and student-centred learning Learn-ing technologists have a potentially shared mission with academic developers in terms of the enhancement and development of teaching, and potentially its transformation towards constructivist methods But in prac-tice, organisational structures in specific institutions may or may not align e-learning support with academic development The position of technolo-gies, and the need to support mainstreamed e-learning services, may also

transmis-be a complicating factor A further complication is the small size of many central support units An audit of Irish HEIs in 2008 found that in the Dublin region, 26 people were employed in eight institutions to support some 4500 academic staff and over 76,000 students (DRHEA, 2009) This gave a ratio of approximately one e-learning supporter to every 173 lec-turers, or one to approximately 3000 students Around half of the 26 posts were contract positions, many of which were terminated following the economic downturn in 2008–2010 Fragile structures exist elsewhere too (Browne & Beetham, 2010; Shurville et al., 2009), with the additional risk that staff will leave their role altogether (bringing extensive knowledge and experience with them) in the case where they cannot see a clear career trajectory (Shurville et al., 2009) Support services for e-learning in HEIs tend to be vulnerable with an overreliance on a small number of staff who are challenged to negotiate support commitments alongside their broader roles in their institutions Well-resourced services and projects allow space for what Oliver called ‘legitimate peripheral participation’ (Lave & Wenger, 2002; Oliver, 2002, p 251) by learning technologists in the work of academic departments However, supporting mainstreamed services on a day-to-day basis erodes time for pilot work, or for other developmental projects

The implications of these structures, and the potential lack of clarity of these roles, will be examined later in the context of the findings of the study to be presented here The demands of working in central support can be difficult to balance with the need for close working with depart-ments While trying to build relationships with lecturers, and assist them

in their work, the central supporter must also advocate for the institution, promoting technologies which have been adopted on the basis of strategic decisions—particularly the VLE The role of an e-learning supporter is therefore something of a balancing act, as a number of researchers have pointed out: working with academics and university management, but

also retaining a critical function in relation to technology (Fox & Sumner, 2014; Hannon, 2008; Oliver & Dempster, 2003) The field of e-learning is unconstrained by disciplinary traditions and can allow space for play (Ingraham, 2003) But in reality, the constraints of strategy and the con-nections of strategy with funding can limit space for experimentation with new technologies.

1.5 CONCLUSION

This chapter has examined the development of e-learning in HEIs since the 1980s From early experimental and discipline-based work, the use of com-puters in teaching and learning has become a centralised, mainstream con-cern for HEIs Centralised initiatives in e-learning began in many institutions

in the 1990s, when the attention of managers and funders had been drawn

to learning technologies These interests at the institutional level converged with the work of many early adopters in their own disciplines Central sup-ports for e-learning were established in due course, and were often aligned with academic development services which had a mission to enhance (or possibly even transform) teaching Both e-learning and academic devel-opment supports and services are underpinned by constructivist approaches

to teaching However, e-learning support and development are guished from academic development by the imperative of technical support for mainstreamed e-learning systems This was described as an area of some difficulty, since support had to be maintained and other areas of work could

distin-be vulnerable as a consequence Support structures for e-learning are fragile, and working to capacity, in many HEIs

The VLE has been identified in this chapter as one of the main engines

of e-learning to have been supported and mainstreamed across most HEIs since the early 2000s VLEs do not appear to support explicitly any par-ticular pedagogical approach, although it has been argued by some com-mentators that the Moodle VLE is constructivist in its design Typically, institutions have organised central support services for e-learning and aca-demic development, the implementation of the VLE, and the growth in use of the VLE for sharing materials and course information with stu-dents The next chapter will explore the research appearing from the mid-2000s onwards which began to indicate some of the ways in which the VLE was being used by students and lecturers in higher education The subsequent disillusionment among researchers and practitioners will be explored and questioned

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