About Benchmarking e-Learning at Brookes

Benchmarking e-Learning: Communities, Environments, Efficiency

Oxford Brookes University has been successful in a bid to the Higher Education Academy to be an e-Learning Benchmarking pilot . This places us among the 12 leading e learning universities in Britain.

Benchmarking is intended to be developmental and to provide institutions with an opportunity to take stock of where they are in regard to e-learning. We hope to refine and integrate our existing tools into institutional systems and assess their usefulness. Information gathered will be used to inform the development of our Enhancing Student Learning Experience strategy as well as the HEFCE e-learning strategy and HEA and JISC activities.

Brookes will be supported by the Association of Commonwealth Universities in a sub-group with: Warwick University, Coventry University, Warwickshire College, and the University of London Institute of Education.

Our draft Student Learning Experience Strategy leads with the assertion that we will:
develop innovative approaches to learning, teaching and assessment particularly with regard to e-learning and more flexible and convenient opportunities for learning...

By 2002, we had rolled out Brookes Virtual, appointed a Head of e-Learning, and had an e-learning strategy. In 2003 we began to determine targets we wanted to measure: through the web presence and School strategies. We developed expertise in evaluating e learning. We have a shared language through the Modes of Engagement (see annex) signifying increasingly effective face-to-face, flexible and distributed learning. Our focus has always been on enhancing learning. Now we will:

• Explore the effectiveness of communities who are embedding e learning including: academic practitioners and course teams, e-L Champions, Learning Technologists
• Benchmark our learning environments, services and facilities, real and virtual
• Benchmark efficiency; has e-learning made better use of resources?

We will work with our Benchmarking Team, the HEA consultants and our institutional group to determine the categories to be considered. Our first draft identifies:

• Learning and teaching practice
• Summative assessment and examination
• School & University level strategies
• Brookes student experience of e-learning
• Research and development in e-learning
• Staffing and staff development
• Communities of learning
• QA processes
• Learning resources
• Estates and infrastructure
• Finance
• Recruitment and marketing.

For each we will consider and agree qualitative descriptors and quantitative key performance indicators in line with HEFCE’s strategic aims for the sector, whereby:

• Technical issues have been addressed to give better value for money
• Students access information, support, expertise and guidance, and communicate with each other effectively wherever they are
• Tutors have tools to enable better communication feedback and targeted support
• Subject communities share materials to produce customised high quality courses
• Institutions have integrated learning and registration functions
• Lifelong learning networks support connectivity between institutions
• Staff are supported at all stages to develop appropriate skills in e-learning.
• ICT is commonly accepted into all aspects of the student experience

Our Benchmarking team will be managed by: Rhona Sharpe and George Roberts, and comprises: John Lidgey, Alan Betteridge, Keith Cooper, Tim Bolton, Jan Haynes, Angie Phillip, Richard Francis, Greg Benfield, Simon Carr, and Irmgard Huppe.

Comments

[Irmgard]

My first comment is: Thank you for getting this up and running so quickly, George! This is great. Will the blog's character be rather formal? I currently wouldn't dare to just add 'thought in progress' rather than finished statements. Which makes me think 'do I believe that blogs are more for 'writing down thought processes'? Probably not - they are flexible!

[Gilly Salmon]

Hi there colleagues at Oxford Brooke's ! thanks for the information on your benchmarking efforts. I'm just visiting before getting some Stuff onto Leicester's and going live. gilly