Learning Technologies Roadmap 2014-2019 Summary of the Learning Technologies Roadmap endorsed by Learning Technologies Steering Committee

Executive summary The purpose of the Learning Technologies Roadmap is to outline a vision for the deployment of learning technologies at the University of Adelaide, in support of the priorities of the University’s Strategic Plan (the Beacon of Enlightenment) and associated operational plan as it relates to learning and teaching. The Roadmap identifies areas for development of learning technologies in the short, medium and long term. The short term priorities identified in the roadmap to be progressed within 12 months are: 1.1. Pre-recording of course content such as online lectures (audio, video) 1.2. Flipped Classrooms (digital content creation) 1.3. Enhanced online collaboration for supporting Small Group Discovery 1.4. Supporting interaction in lectures 1.5. ePortfolios 1.6. eAssessment 1.7. MOOCs 1.8. Learning anytime, anywhere (BYOD and Apps) 1.9. MyUni 2014 priorities Medium term priorities to commence within the next one to two years are: 2.1 Learning Management System Review 2.2. Social Media in learning 2.3 Insight into student learning (learning analytics) 2.4 Content Management Strategy Long term priorities identified in the roadmap 3.1 Cloud technologies 3.2 Augmented reality / wearable technology 3.3 Gamification 3.4 Openness. Progress towards the short term priorities has already begun, and the Learning Innovations Studio, Level 3 of the Hub, offers additional opportunities to engage with the broader University community to elicit feedback, shape and progress the roadmap.

Background The Beacon of Enlightenment describes ‘the unending digital transformation of educational delivery’, the importance that technology plays in student’s lives, and students’ expectations of the way in which universities should deal with them. The University is an on-campus, research intensive university focussed on supporting blended learning and best practice. It must meet student and staff expectations in providing technology-enhanced learning. The development of the roadmap is underpinned by the following key principles: 1. The roadmap will enable the University to achieve the strategic plan objective of becoming a beacon for learning and teaching “offering a compelling, irresistible educational proposition’. University of Adelaide (2013) Strategic Plan, p. 12. 2. The roadmap will facilitate the delivery of students’ on-campus experience and e-Experience. Learning technologies will play an important role in supporting of the following targets identified in the Operational Plan 2013 – 2015:   

Online learning is available in 100% of undergraduate programs MyUni is actively used in 80% of all courses in all faculties All lectures are recorded and available for download.

The Student e-Experience Strategyi identifies five themes that underpin a connected online learning community. These are: 1. Engagement through collaboration, connection and communication with peers and the University; 2. A simple, user-friendly and consistent online environment; 3. Flexibility (anywhere, anytime, on any device); 4. A personalised online experience; 5. A supportive environment with appropriate tools and training.

MyUni MyUni is the University’s key platform for learning technologies. It is the University-wide Learning Management System and is based upon Blackboard Learn and a number of related technologies. MyUni is the primary technology enabler for supporting the achievement of the key targets for online learning in the Operational Plan and as such, plays a fundamental role in the Learning Technologies Roadmap.

Context The ubiquitous nature of cloud computing and mobile devices has transformed the way we communicate and access information. Social computing has penetrated personal, professional and educational environments and boundaries between such environments are increasingly blurred. More information is available to students and about students than ever before. In its Technology Outlook for Australian Tertiary Education 2013 – 2018 Horizon Report, New Media Consortium identifies a number of trends that may or are already influencing technology decisions by the University: 1. Working, learning, and studying can take place anytime, anywhere. 2. Educational paradigms are shifting to include online, blended, and collaborative models such as flipped classrooms. 3. MOOCs are being widely employed as alternatives or supplements to traditional university courses.

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4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Increasingly students want to use their own technology for learning. There is a growing interest in learning analytics Technologies we use are becoming more and more cloud-based. Social media is gaining increasing traction in education. The workforce is demanding skills from graduates that are often acquired through informal learning such as through games/gamification.

Global Industry analyst for information technology Gartner Inc. publishes periodical updates for its Industry Hype Cyclesii, examining which technologies are on the rise, have fallen short of expectations, and are becoming mature products within that industry. The 2013 Education Hype Cycleiii lists a number of learning technologies of interest to the University that are listed in the table below. These are presented according to the stage they are in their lifecycle. Technology Life Cycle stage

Technology

Early proof of concepts, trials

Education tablets Campus App Store SIS data interoperability standards Student retention CRM

High expectations

Big data Gamification MOOCs Social software standards

Expectations starting to wane

BYOD strategy Social learning platform for education Mobile-learning smartphones E-textbook Virtual environments/virtual worlds

Technology maturing

Hosted virtual desktops Lecture capture and retrieval tools Tablets Game consoles as media hubs

Stable, well established

E-book readers Self publishing

Current Technical Environment In addition to MyUni, other learning technologies used at the University include a number of supported and related tools including:   

Blackboard Collaborate: a suite of synchronous collaborative tools such as web-conferencing, realtime polling, chat, desktop sharing etc. Blackboard Mobile: a tablet/phone app that provides access to MyUni via mobile devices. Turnitin: an online assignment submissions tool used for grading and originality checking.

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    

 

Equella: a content management system primarily used for copyright content by the library. Articulate Storyline: a ‘light-touch’, rich media content authoring tool that enables teachers to create content for their class to review including the embedding of audio, screen-capture, inclusion of quizzes etc. LAMS (Learning Activity Management System): a learning sequencing tool for educators. MyUni Admin (RT-Admin): allows staff to perform self-service course administration for tasks such as granting audit students and guests immediate access to a course, copying a course from an existing course, and resetting a course to the standard template. MyMedia: Enables the recording (capture), management and online distribution of lectures. It is comprised of two integrated applications. The capture system, available in Common Teaching Areas such as lecture theatres and tutorial rooms provides a desktop application to configure the audio visual display and initialise a recording. The MyMedia web application is used for managing recorded sessions and uploading other media files for online publishing, such as to MyUni courses. ICC Printed Assignments: The ICC Printed Assignments facility currently supports the bulk printing of word-processed student essays of reasonable length and reasonably-sized illustrations. It is likely that as the use of emarking increases ICC printing of assignments will be reduced. The LMS is integrated with the University’s Student Information System (SIS), PeopleSoft.

The Roadmap The roadmap outlines an approach for learning technologies taking into consideration the University’s strategic objectives along with challenges facing the University and Higher Education more broadly, and emerging technologies that may address these challenges. It provides direction and a responsive framework. The roadmap mostly focuses on functionality i.e. how staff and students want to use technologies rather than focusing on specific tools or technologies. It uses the following timeframes:   

Short-term: the next twelve months Medium-term: one to two years Long-term: three to five years

Short-term Priorities Short-term priorities are those that should be implemented within twelve months.

1.1. Pre-recording (audio, video) of course content such as online lectures The 2013 – 2015 Operational Plan for the Beacon states that “all lectures are recorded and available for download”. The majority of lecture theatres across the University have the infrastructure required to record lectures. New approaches to teaching such as ‘flipped classrooms’ (where material is provided to students before the lecture and lectures become more interactive) are creating a demand for recording audio and video that will be disseminated prior to ‘lectures’. There are a small number of recording studios across the University however teaching staff (like students) need to be able to work anytime, anywhere, thereby raising the need for supported tools that can be used to create recordings from labs, desks, out in the field etc.

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MyMedia MyMedia is an in-house development that enables teachers to record lectures. In its current state it provides limited functionality and needs investment to place it on par with other offerings. In addition to MyMedia for the lecture theatre, a desktop version has been developed but has not yet been made available to staff. The new desktop version of MyMedia may provide an interim solution for staff wishing to pre-record lectures from their office environment. A review of functionality available in MyMedia and an evaluation of other tools need to be performed to ascertain whether the University has the optimum environment in place to effectively reach this target.

Flexibility in recording is essential when engaging in transformational pedagogies such as ‘flipped classrooms. To be effective, recordings need to be easily discoverable and playable. Communication tools also need to be integrated with these lectures to encourage discussion and collaboration.

The playing of recordings needs to be consistent with the desires of students (for example, the ability to search within them, play parts of them, or to play them at ‘double speed’). Enhancement of recording tools needs to be accompanied with the availability of developmental resources. For example, a fifty-minute pre-recorded video of a lecture is not likely to be an effective, engaging learning experience for many students. Consideration should be given into the design of lectures that may include pre-recorded materials.

1.2. Flipped Classrooms (digital content creation) In addition to pre-recording lectures, staff need to create a range of digital content to support blended learning and approaches such as ‘flipped classrooms’. The University has implemented Articulate Storyline as a light touch, mixed media presentation tool. It supports interactivity, assessment, screen-recording and publishing. The University has 170 licences as at Sept 2014. Future authoring tools should be platform independent. Articulate Storyline is a Windows-based tool and while content produced from it can be platform independent, the content authoring is limited to Windows devices only.

1.3. Enhanced online collaboration for supporting the Small Group Discovery Experience The Small Group Discovery Experience is a key feature of the Beacon of Enlightenment. Collaborative technologies can enhance and facilitate this aspect of learning at the University, allowing students to extend their face-to-face communication and collaboration into the online environment. Enhancement of the collaborative tools available to staff and students is consistent with both the strategic plan, the expectations of students and trends in general for Higher Education. In addition to the native Blackboard collaboration tools, staff are exploring the use of other collaborative tools such as DropBox and Google Apps. There is a Google building block available for Blackboard (along with other collaborative tools). Integration into MyUni of collaborative tools such as those offered by Google should be a priority.

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1.4. Supporting interaction in lectures Audience Response Systems (Student/Classroom response Systems) facilitate increased engagement in lectures. Such systems allow real time feedback and polling from the audience. Earlier versions of this functionality required specific hardware (often referred to as ‘Clickers’) that had limited functionality. Newer approaches rely on BYOD technology (mobiles, tablets, laptops etc) and support many different question types, including text responses. Feedback can be immediately shown in the lecture in graphical form and can be integrated into other presentation tools such as PowerPoint. Results can be saved for later analysis. The University has trialled or had demonstrations of a number of Audience Response Systems including tools such as TopHat Monocle, mQlicker and Pearson Learning Catalytics. Demand should be assessed for a larger scale rollout for this type of functionality for inclusion into the standard suite of lecture tools.

1.5. ePortfolios ePortfolios provide the ability to assist in the collection of evidence demonstrating achievement of competencies that are required in many professions. ePortfolios can be the focus of student-centred active learning, by providing a place for them to not only gather evidence into one place, but also to give space for developing their metacognitive skills, developing reflective practice and increasing their engagement with their own learning. There is sound pedagogical reason for using ePortfolios – students can track their own learning and professional development longitudinally. ePortfolios provide a platform for students to demonstrate their career readiness and, in terms of ongoing development, allows them to meet registration standards. Career readiness is a University requirement. In a related area, a number of courses are exploring the ability for students to showcase their work in the form of portfolios. Areas where digital artefacts are produced (e.g. Media Studies) are keen for students to create ePortfolios that demonstrate their expertise to potential employers. Storing digital artefacts on behalf of students over long periods of time (after the student has left the University) raises a number of policy and logistical challenges. ‘Lifelong’ access for students to digital content they have produced while studying should be addressed as a separate issue (which doesn’t imply the same solution may ultimately meet both sets of requirements).

1.6. eAssessment The University provides a number of ways for staff to engage with e-assessment through tools such as Turnitin and Blackboard’s own e-assessment functionality. Tools such as these and others can enhance and support assessment in a number of ways including:    

Improving student engagement, for example through interactive assessments with feedback Efficient submission, marking, moderation and data storage Choice in the timing and location of assessments Consistent, accurate results with opportunities to combine human and computer markingi.

In addition to efficiency gains, improved feedback and student engagement, electronic submission of assignments is also consistent with environmental priorities and the drive to reduce the amount of printing the University does. Assessment tools also offer the ability to improve retention through engagement and early detection of under-performance.

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The University will continue to provide and enhance technologies that support better assessment practices. This includes better support for online assessment practices within MyUni, improved efficiencies with emarking, and the increased ability to mark anywhere, anytime.

1.7. MOOCs MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courses) present both challenges and opportunities for higher education institutions. The University has joined edX, one of the leading MOOC platforms. A number of courses will be offered via this platform over the coming year. It is expected that the growth of other university MOOCs will lend themselves to becoming learning resources to be used in courses at the University of Adelaide.

1.8. Learning anytime, anywhere (BYOD and Apps) The University is actively enhancing the ability to support learning anytime, anywhere with initiatives that increase the choice of devices (whether University supplied or personal) and apps/software. Through initiatives such as ADAPT (Any Device Any Place and Time), students can access their learning and teaching applications on personal devices (desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones) from anywhere. The range of apps available to students will continue to expand as needs change. A similar initiative will support staff, providing them with the apps that they need for learning and teaching, including support for areas such as eassessment.

1.9. MyUni 2014 priorities MyUni has its own separate but aligned roadmap. The roadmap aligns with the objectives and priorities set out in this broader Learning Technologies Roadmap and in broad terms encompasses the following: Approach It is recommended that enhancements to MyUni are delivered separately to the annual upgrade of Blackboard and are delivered incrementally in a manner that fits in with the University Calendar. This will reduce the impact that large upgrades such as the EMU 2013 have on potential interruption to the University. Business as usual MyUni will continue to see incremental enhancements and improvements to its functionality and reliability as part of its ‘business as usual’ support activities. These play an important role in increasing the level of confidence and adoption of MyUni. Examples of incremental improvements to functionality may include the implementation of new Blackboard Building Blocks, which add new features to Blackboard at minimal or no risk to the stability and reliability of the platform. Processes need to be developed and agreed upon through which academic and support staff can request enhancements to the MyUni environment that is outside of the scope of enhancement and upgrade projects (for example, to respond to an emergent, high priority change in the operating environment). The following two examples are illustrative of functionality requested by Users of MyUni that fall outside approved, larger, enhancement projects:

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Pearson Direct Integration The Pearson Direct Integration building block allows MyUni users who are registered to use Pearson’s MyWritingLab service to access that service directly from within MyUni without having to login. Simplified access to the Pearson online content is a significant benefit for both instructors and students. The Direct Integration building block provides a significant reduction in administration to staff, particularly those staff with large classes. Implementation of the Pearson Direct Integration Blackboard building block has been a high priority for Faculties. eSELTs Integration The implementation of the eSELTs building block allows students to see which SELTs evaluations they need to complete from within MyUni. Enhancement Projects In addition to emergent issues that need timely evaluation and response, the Learning Management System, as with other critical technology infrastructure, needs to undergo scheduled, planned enhancements if it is to meet developing and future demands. While the LMS is principally an ‘off the shelf’ product from a commercial software vendor, it is highly customisable and also integrates with other important software applications. Significant changes to the system need to be planned well in advance and often coordinated as part of changes to other systems (e.g. PeopleSoft). In the short term, the following areas have been identified as priorities:    

improvements to educator efficiency (e.g. better management of groups of students such as tutorial class membership) supporting greater student engagement and retention content management. Upgrade to Blackboard Learn V9.1 Service Pack 17.

Improvements to educator efficiency Consultation in 2013 revealed a strong demand for more efficient administrative processes in particular. This is a critical area for improvement for academic and support staff of large courses. Supporting student engagement and retention Functionality is needed that facilitates engagement of students and assists in the identification of early warning signals of disengagement. Content management The University uses the Equella Content Management System (CMS) and has flagged an update of it in 2014 as part of the Enhancing MyUni project. The scope of this work is not defined and further analysis is required however the need for better, integrated content management has been identified. Teaching and learning content needs to be more discoverable and accessible to students and this may be possible using the CMS. The University also needs to consider separating the management of content from the delivery of it (via the LMS) as a strategy to provide it with more flexibility in the selection and adoption of teaching and learning tools. Upgrade to Blackboard Learn V9.1 Service Pack 17 The annual upgrade of the learning platform (to maintain currency with the appropriate version of Blackboard) needs to be separated from the delivery of University-specific enhancements.

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Medium-term Priorities Medium term priorities are those that should commence within the next one to two years.

2.1 LMS Review The ICT Strategic Plan calls for a review of the LMS to increase stability and consider the strategic alignment of the University’s LMS with its goals and direction. MyUni is a critical component of the University’s elearning infrastructure and it is important that the University maintains its understanding of LMS trends and offerings, and how they compare to the current environment and future requirements of the University. It is desirable that the University is not locked into a single vendor and has the ability to replace and or expand key components of its infrastructure as required. A review will evaluate the marketplace and investigate how best to position the University so it is well placed to expand or replace components as needed.

2.2 Social media in learning A general trend in Higher Education is the increasing adoption of social media. The use of social media is becoming pervasive across many industry sectors including education. The challenges for universities are how to establish good, effective practice and to implement policies that support that practice. Students use social media to collaborate and share content very effectively and increasingly academic staff are adopting and incorporating elements of social media into their courses. As platforms for supporting learning and teaching, Learning Management Systems and major social network services are offering integrations between the LMS and the social networks. For example, Blackboard and Google have a building block that integrates Google Apps with Blackboard, thus enabling enhanced collaboration. Integration between the MyUni and social networks offers the opportunity to provide an enhanced collaborative environment that is consistent with the Student e-Experience Strategy.

2.3 Insight into student learning/analytics Learning analytics is the collection and analysis of data about students in educational contexts in order to enhance their educational outcomes. The data may be used in areas such as supporting personalised learning, assisting with engagement and retention etc. In 2014 a learning analytics strategy will be developed. The results of the project will inform future development of the Learning Technologies Roadmap. For example, the LMS Review may have as a consideration, the ability of the LMS to support strategies involving the collection and analysis of data about learning. The Learning and Teaching Strategy identifies enhancements to MyUni to support learning analytics. Blackboard offers a range of features supporting learning analytics and there are also a number of third party building blocks available that utilise the data available within the LMS.

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2.4 Content Management Strategy The University’s Content Management System provides a great deal of functionality and is arguably underutilised. As part of the Equella upgrade (see Short Term Priorities above) the roadmap suggests undertaking a trial looking at how the CMS may be used to better support the management and use of digital resources within a course/school. Pending the outcomes of the trial it may be worth considering a more strategic/holistic approach to the management of content more broadly within the University. The amount, diversity and application of content for learning and teaching will continue to grow in increasing rates making a strategic approach, good practice, and effective tools important to a technology enhanced learning experience.

Long-term Priorities Forecasting technology requirements (learning technology requirements in particular) is a challenging task as technologies and the application of them are undergoing increasingly rapid change. This section thus moves from focusing on as yet undetermined functionalities to the longer term technologies themselves. Industry expert reports such as the Gartner Hype-Cycle reports provide compelling evidence of the number of technologies that arrive with much hype and promise yet fail to deliver or see any real rate of adoption. That aside, it is possible to examine the application of technologies in teaching and learning settings where early adopters and innovators are starting to see benefits or affordances that might have wide-scale applicability. An appreciation of that interest, coupled with an understanding of the University environment and its strategic objectives, allows us to make some relatively informed statements on the functionality and types of learning technologies the University is likely to be interested in over the next three to five years.

3.1 Cloud Many industries, education included, are increasingly outsourcing much of their IT infrastructure to cloud service providers. Cloud service providers offer a range of services ranging from infrastructure (hardware) through to applications such as Learning Management Systems. For learning technologies, we are generally interested in the latter as our attention is focussed on the benefits to the end users (educators and students). Cloud computing offers a number of benefits for both vendors and customers. Vendors of LMSs that offer cloud solutions can reduce the number of platforms (operating systems, databases etc.) that they need to develop for. The cost and time savings can be significant. These savings can (theoretically) be passed on to the customer or re-invested into the development and enhancement of functionality. For customers, there can be significant savings such as the reduction in computing infrastructure and the ability to rapidly scale up and down to meet changes in demand on that infrastructure, while only paying for what you use. In a university’s educational context, there are highly predictable and significant fluctuations in the demand for computing resources to support teaching and learning (e.g. Summer/Winter schools/semesters/trimesters etc., assessment periods, 24 hour/weekend cycles). Cloud service providers are able to offer the benefits of only paying for what resource is consumed. In-house infrastructure on the other hand, must be able to cater for peak demand, which is not only expensive and risk-prone, but incurs significant periods of under-utilisation of expensive resources. There are a number of barriers to the adoption of cloud computing including but not limited to:   

Security concerns Privacy concerns Location of data

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 Network availability/performance  Legal jurisdictions As a generalisation, most cloud service providers can offer security and privacy well beyond that which their customers have and what was once seen as a risk, is increasingly being recognised as an advantage. The location of data (interstate/overseas) can create certain policy/legal challenges for some customers but these issues can come into conflict with significant cost benefits of cloud solutions that provide compelling drivers that help overcome such issues. Network availability for most organisations and their customers is almost ubiquitous and is no longer seen as an impediment to the adoption of a cloud service. The different legal jurisdictions that cloud service providers may operate in or data travelling across different jurisdictions can present problems however many of these are being addressed, particularly with providers setting up operations in Australia. Many cloud services are already utilised across different parts of the University in standalone modes but some services are and will be progressively integrated into the learning and teaching infrastructure (e.g. Integration of publisher content (such as Pearson’s) into MyUni. Other existing trials/usage include services such as Google Apps for Education, Microsoft One Note, Wikispaces, blogging platforms etc. Some staff are already using social networks such as Facebook and Twitter in the delivery and support of their courses. Potentially what is currently lacking are guidelines for good practice and policy in these areas. The University also uses Blackboard Collaborate as a collaborative platform. Blackboard Collaborate is a cloud service offered by Blackboard. Increased usage of cloud services is likely to become very widely accepted across Higher Education and is an area to monitor.

3.2 Augmented reality / wearable technology Augmented Reality (AR) provides an information-laden layer on top of a person’s current real-world environment. Information may be audio, video, text etc. and is driven by context to the person’s current experience of the real world. For example, GPS positioning can be used as a basis for providing information. Other types of ‘markers’ are also used which AR software recognises and then provides information based on the presence of and attention to those markers. Many AR offerings run on mobile technologies (smartphones, tablets) but wearable devices are also used (for example, smart glasses such as Google Glass). Wearable devices such as Google Glass offer a unique first-person perspective that for example, teachers can use with students. Technologies such as Google Glass (like many technologies that students carry on campus) offer the functionality to record as well as deliver information however the potentially very unobtrusive nature of the devices do raise some privacy concerns (knowing or not knowing when you are being recorded).

3.3 Gamification Gamification in learning is used to motivate students by incorporating elements of game design, and often including aspects of social psychology. Students may be presented with challenges that could be solved individually or collaboratively. Rewards are offered (perhaps in the form of levelling up, badges etc.), and reputation and recognition are often used. The NMC Horizon Report, 2014 Higher Education Edition lists a number of examples where gamification in learning is being trialled or used to good effect. Although not widely adopted there is significant interest in the approach and it is being used both with and without the direct support of technology.

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3.4 Openness Openness has many applications in areas related to learning technologies including but not limited to:  The use of open source software  Using Open Education Resources (OERs)  Adapting, modifying Open Education Resources  Creating and contributing open education resources  Open education resources licensing models  Open courses Educational organisations may apply some of these approaches to support their strategic goals (e.g. in support of particular business models, reputation building) or simply to address operational challenges. Open Education Resources and open approaches are having an impact on the way education is designed, delivered and consumed. The University is already engaging with the ‘Open Agenda’ on a number of levels and is likely to increasingly do so into the future.

i

University of Adelaide (2013) 2013 – 2017 Student e-Experience Strategy. Available from http://www.adelaide.edu.au/learning/strategy/e-experience-strategy.pdf ii

Gartner Inc. (2014) Research Methodologies: Hype Cycles. Available from http://www.gartner.com/technology/research/methodologies/hype-cycle.jsp iii

Gartner Inc. (2013), Hype Cycle for Education. 2013. Available at https://www.gartner.com/doc/2559615

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