Final Report - Draft Part III

The final section of the draft report to be posted is the more free-form project evaluation. This is not the full evaluation which will appear in a paper later, and is intended to encapsulate the key findings of the project. As ever, comments and feedback are welcomed.

Project evaluation (max. 500 words)

Please use this space to provide information on the methods that you used for carrying out an evaluation of the project, and the key findings and results from the evaluation.

BACKGROUND

ILOOC was deconstructed into different elements, and there were inserted at different stages and in different ways into a final year law module. The module involved was LAW30231 Terrorism, which has around 50 students enrolled:

·         One task was mandatory, and formed part of seminar work. It was closed, and was only available to the students on the modules, and not the wider public. It involved the creation and posting of a video relating to the UN onto the YouTube platform.

·         One task was voluntary, and involved the volunteer students accessing the MOOC content live, along with the other MOOC participants.

·         The final task was voluntary and closed.

The students in the mandatory task were given the opportunity to create their own teams, and those who did not engage with that part of the process were put into a default group.

The volunteer students were a self-selecting group from a module sub-set of students, comprising those who had engaged with unrelated e-tivities earlier in the module, and had achieved “good” (A/B) grades in the first assignment.

All students were given the opportunity to feed back on the project, in answering the following questions anonymously:

1.       Did the task meet your expectations?

2.       How did you find the level of the task?

3.       Would this type of delivery be a useful addition or replacement to traditional face-to-face delivery?

4.       What other comments would you like to make about the tasks?

STUDENT FEEDBACK

Mandatory / Closed Task

The students engaged in predictable fashion – those who had chosen a group completed it (to a greater or lesser extent), and those who were placed in a group failed to engage at all. Feedback received was limited to those who took part.

Voluntary Tasks

The students generally liked the idea of this type of activity and felt that in order for this to be successfully integrated into “ordinary” delivery, clear signposting was required. They felt that this was more the case with the closed sessions than the open sessions.

They also felt a level of comfort in the closed sessions, as they knew the rest of the group who were participating. There was a level of nervousness expressed at dealing with unknown participants, “strangers from the outside” as one student put it.

Although they generally enjoyed the online aspects of the tasks, the overwhelming feedback from the students was that this sort of activity should be regarded as an enhancement of classroom activity, and not a replacement. Unprompted, they said that this was not the same as “contact” with the tutors and fellow students, even if some of that contact was impersonal (i.e. in a lecture setting)

The students also felt, and this may turn out to be linked to the previous point, that in a classroom setting, there was more of a sense of belonging, and being part of a group.  Not only did they find the online sessions lonely (although several of the students completed the online tasks together, so they were “alone in company”) but they also noted that it was easier to tell who was participating in the activity. The analogy was made by one student that “in a classroom setting, a room full of 25 people may contain 5 participants, but the rest of the group feel, and are felt to be, “present”, whereas in an online environment, even with the same proportion of participation, it feels as though only 5 people are there.”

Final Report - Draft Part 2

Following on from my post earlier in the week, this is the second part of the draft report, and again, I welcome any comments and suggestions

Project outputs and deliverables (max. 200 words)

Please use the table below to provide information on your project’s outputs and deliverables (the ones stated in your project proposal) and the outputs and deliverables that have actually been achieved.

Intended outputs and deliverables	Achieved in full?	Comments
A guide to incorporating MOOC-style elements into face-to-face modules	Not yet	The guide will be developed before the end of the project and posted on the ILOOC blog, Law @ Northampton blog and the Learntech blog. The key aspects of the guide are 1) Create (or find) a suitable MOOC for your course. Do you want a MOOC, or are other e-learning solutions more appropriate? 2) Look at the content, and see how it aligns with the way you are planning to deliver your module 3) Is alignment possible? If no, can you rearrange your delivery to fit the MOOC, or redesign the MOOC to fit your module?
Social Media presence	Yes	Dedicated blog, plus entries on Law blog and links from Twitter
Conference Papers – ALT 2015, L&T 2015	Yes	The Association of Law Teachers did not accept the abstract for the paper, so it was not delivered as planned at the 50th Annual Conference. However, alternative conferences were identified, which will reach a similar (if not wider) audience) Paper delivered at: ·         Socio-Legal Studies Association Conference 2015 (April 2015); ·         University of Northampton L&T Conference 2015 (May 2015) Paper Accepted at ·         Society of Legal Scholars Conference 2015 (Sept 2015)
Refereed Articles: Law Teacher, ELEHE	Part	Once completed papers (focusing on different aspects of the project, and aimed at different audiences) will be submitted.

Final Report - Draft Part I

As part of the project, I have to complete a final report in a number of sections. The report is due in July, and I thought I would post up the different sections, and ask for comments or suggestions.

Project aims and objectives (max. 200 words)

Please use the table below to provide information on the intended aims and objectives of your project (the ones stated in your project proposal) and the aims and objectives that have been achieved.

Intended aims and objectives (These were set out in the project bid)	Achieved in full?	Comments
Widen pool of expertise among academic staff	Yes	Before starting on this project, only two of the law division staff had experience of designing and delivering online content. As a result of the project, more staff have had experience of online delivery, albeit at arm’s length, rather than hands on.
Assess suitability of MOOC elements for “traditionally-delivered” modules	Yes	The different elements of ILOOC were investigated by the project team and the students to assess viability within the context of a standard module. The majority of the elements were suitable – many resemble the tope of e-tivity developed elsewhere, and it is the “Online” part of MOOC that is the relevant factor, and others lend themselves to the “Open” aspect of MOOCs.
Improve student experience	Yes	Prior to this project, none of the students on the module had had any experience of online delivery and online learning. As a result of the project, all the students have had the opportunity to engage with and design online learning and about half of them took up the opportunity. Their experience is thus wider than it was, and this can only be an improvement.

This uses 190 words of my 200-word allocation, so there is little opportunity to say a great deal more.

If you are reading this and also saw my paper (either at the SLSA Conference in Warwick or the ILT Conference at Northampton), then I would welcome additional feedback.