Panel Presentation DAT134
Supporting Learner Progress with Design and Data
Date Thursday, Nov 28 Time – Room Schöneberg
How can the characteristics and data of (fully) online learners become a source of their support? Join to hear how institutions and educators are taking on the challenge to optimise programme design and the learning process.
Colin Loughlin
University of Surrey, UK
I am the Learning Technology Manager at the University of Surrey. I have a background in computing and moved into higher education in 2006, with a digital content development role at the Open University. There I developed an interest in instructional design and educational theory. At Surrey, I am responsible for the development of the digital platforms, tools and processes, required to produce engaging and effective online experiences. I recently coordinated a partnership agreement with FutureLearn and the preparation of the University's first two MOOCs, which will launch in January 2020. I am currently a PhD student with Lund University and my research relates to the role of ‘the lecture’ in contemporary higher education.
Links
Rhona Sharpe
University of Surrey, UK
Professor Rhona Sharpe is Head of Department of Technology Enhanced Learning at the University of Surrey, UK. Rhona has been researching learners’ experiences of technology for more than 15 years in both further and higher education. She is interested in the processes by which we design online learning spaces and the digital literacies and attributes that learners need in order to learn well in them. She was founding chair of ELESIG: a special interest group for learner experience researchers (@ELESIG). Rhona’s interests in designing for learning and learner experience are well represented in two co-edited books Rethinking pedagogy for the digital age (2020) and Rethinking learning for the digital age (2010). Her latest book, 53 Interesting Ways to Support Online Learning, uses learner experience research to underpin practical ideas for teachers to use with their students.
Links
Jan Steffensen
Associate professor, Dania Academy, Denmark
I am a professor at the Silkeborg branch of Dania Academy in Denmark (www.eadania.com), and my main areas of expertise are applied statistics, survey methodology and more specifically web survey methodology. More recently, I have taken a keen interest in digital learning as the head of your online financial manager study program. I teach business students in all three subjects. My latest research project were aimed at analyzing the dynamics of personal relations between bank counsellors and their customers, specifically aimed at the process of financing of private purchases of real estate. Previously I have worked at the Danish Librarian School and at Aalborg University. In my non-working time, I like to fly fish and have visited places like Argentina, Canada, Botswana and Greenland.
I am 58 years old and lives with my wife in Randers, Denmark.
Links
Marjo Susanna Joshi
Senior Lecturer, Turku University of Applied Sciences, Finland
Marjo Joshi specializes in online education and has worked at Turku University of Applied Sciences (TUAS) as Senior Lecturer of Business English and Intercultural Communication since 2005. As part of TUAS Future Learning Design Team, she develops online education at institutional level. Currently she coordinates the pedagogical development of online degree programmes at TUAS and is responsible for daily operations of an international fully online degree programme, International Business Online, in the Faculty of Engineering and Business. In addition, she coordinates a national working group to develop online degree education through cross-studies as part of a ministry-funded project eAMK. She trains teachers in online pedagogy and Innovation Pedagogy. She is currently doing PhD research on pedagogical development of online degree studies in higher education.
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Moderator
Paul Bacsich
Founder and Managing Director, Matic Media Ltd and University of West Indies Open Campus, UK
Paul Bacsich is the Founder and Managing Director of Matic Media Ltd, a consultancy in the UK active in online learning since 1996. He is also Professor of Practice for the University of West Indies Open Campus, which is headquartered in Barbados.
In addition he consults for the SeroHE division of Sero Consulting Ltd as a Senior Associate: he was a member of the Sero team who recently reviewed Learning Technology Support at the University of Oxford, and currently he is leading a 12-month project at Sero to develop an accredited vocational short online course to teach teachers to teach online for Wey Education (who run Interhigh Virtual School and other similar entities).
He is also Visiting Professor for University of Derby Online Learning (UDOL) in the UK.
He has a long-standing interest in Open Education via a large EU project (POERUP) and several EU/European Parliament studies: in particular he is Co-Coordinator of the Open Education Working Group and an Ambassador for the global advocacy of OER and a member of the OER Advocacy Committee of ICDE. He was a co-author for the JRC 2017 report “Policy Approaches to Open Education in 28 Member States”.
His interests in leadership in e-learning were developed during the Erasmus+ D-TRANSFORM project 2014-17, which drew on and continued his work over 20 years on management of open and distance learning.
In addition to his public work he consults for a number of international, government, commercial, venture fund and university clients on market/competitor/pricing research, policy, education funding models and retention strategies. He has recently finalised a report on credit recognition and transfer for online masters' programmes, for a university client in Canada.
In 2015-16 Paul chaired the review panel for the Vision and Strategy Appraisal of the UK Open University Library, where he interviewed over 70 staff and students and carried out substantial comparative and policy research. He also chaired the E-learning review panel for Uppsala University, with three days of intensive meetings and presentations, and spent four months chairing a task force for the National Forum for Learning and Teaching in Ireland to prepare a scoping document on infrastructure issues related to online learning.
Some of his recent thinking can be found in his UNESCO policy brief on "Alternative Models of Education Delivery" and in a paper for the "Open Education 2030" higher education workshop run by the EU. He remains very interested in "Multiversity" models and competence-based provision, based on his earlier studies on "Time and e-learning", developed from a speech given in Austria, a country with which he has increasing links.
He is a co-founder of MultEversity, a start-up in online/blended post-secondary education which aims in due course to be an accredited university and higher vocational provider. He also has had involvement in other early-stage online providers over the last six years and has done several studies of them.
In the university phase of his career he was a researcher at Oxford University, had many roles over 25 years at the UK Open University, and was for seven years Professor of Telematics at Sheffield Hallam University and then a Director at the UK e-University. He was also Visiting Professor at Middlesex University and Advisor to the Rector of the Arab Open University.
He has knowledge of and/or experience in higher education in many developed countries.
Links
http://www.sero.co.uk/people/paul/http://www.matic-media.co.ukhttp://bacsich.typepad.com/elearning/