Sir David Melville Launching the CLEX Report

Sir David Melville speaking at the CLEX Report launch. from Brian Kelly on Vimeo.
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The Edgeless University, Peter Bradwell

British universities have world-class reputations and they are vital to our social and economic future. But they are in a tight spot. The huge public investment that sustained much of the sector is in jeopardy and the current way of working is not sustainable. Some are predicting the end of the university as we have known it.

The Edgeless University argues that this can be a moment of rebirth for universities. Technology is changing universities as they become just one source among many for ideas, knowledge and innovation. But online tools and open access also offer the means for their survival. Their expertise and value is needed more than ever to validate and support learning and research. Through their institutional capital, universities can use technology to offer more flexible provision and open more equal routes to higher education and learning.

We need the learning and research that higher education provides. But this will take strategic leadership from within, new connections with a growing world of informal learning and a commitment to openness and collaboration. By exploiting this role, universities can harness technology as a solution and an indispensable tool for shaping their vital role in the future.

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Communities of Practice and virtual learning communities: benefits, barriers and success factors (Pat Gannon-Leary & Elsa Fontainha)

"A virtual Community of Practice (CoP) is a network of individuals who share a domain of interest about which they communicate online. The practitioners share resources (for example experiences, problems and solutions, tools, methodologies). Such communication results in the improvement of the knowledge of each participant in the community and contributes to the development of the knowledge within the domain. A virtual learning community may involve the conduct of original research but it is more likely that its main purpose is to increase the knowledge of participants, via formal education or professional development. Virtual learning communities could have learning as their main goal or the elearning could be generated as a side effect.

Virtual communities of practice (CoPs) and virtual learning communities are becoming widespread within higher education institutions (HEIs) thanks to technological developments which enable increased communication, interactivity among participants and incorporation of collaborative pedagogical models, specifically through information communications technologies (ICTs) They afford the potential for the combination of synchronous and asynchronous communication, access to -and from- geographically isolated communities and international information sharing.

Clearly there are benefits to be derived from sharing and learning within and outwith HEIs. There is a sense of connectedness, of shared passion and a deepening of knowledge to be derived from ongoing interaction. Knowledge development can be continuous, cyclical and fluid. However, barriers exist in virtual CoPs and these are defined by the authors and illustrated with quotes from academic staff who have been involved in CoPs.

Critical success factors (CSFs) for a virtual CoP are discussed. These include usability of technology; trust in, and acceptance of, ICTs in communication; a sense of belonging among members; paying attention to cross-national and cross-cultural dimensions of the CoP; shared understandings; a common sense of purpose; use of netiquette and user-friendly language and longevity.

The authors recognise the enormous potential for the development of CoPs through e-mail discussion lists and discussion boards but have themselves experienced the difficulties inherent in initiating such a community. These are corroborated and illustrated with text from interviews with academic staff. Much of the literature on CoPs emanates from outside Europe, despite the fact that e-learning articles have a large diffusion around Europe. The authors suggest further exploration of this topic by identifying and studying CoPs and virtual
learning communities across EU countries."

Read the full paper from September 2007

CAMEL Project (2006)

The CAMEL project was a pilot to explore the development of a Community of Practice amongst e-learning, systems, and learning technology practitioners working on aspects of promoting Lifelong Learning across institutions. The project was led by JISC infoNet in partnership with JISC, the Association for Learning Technology (ALT) and the Higher Education Academy.

CAMEL is short for Collaborative Approaches to the Management of e-Learning. CAMEL was a project funded by the HEFCE Leadership, Governance and Management programme. It set out to explore how
institutions who were making effective use of e-learning and who were collaborating in regional lifelong learning partnerships might be able to learn from each other in a Community of Practice based around study
visits to each of the partner institutions.

This short publication highlights some of the things CAMEL participants found out about e-learning and about each other. One of the most interesting aspects of the project was, however, the model itself. We believe the CAMEL model could have widespread application for many types of people wanting to share experience and learn from one another.

The model is discussed briefly on the site and you can order a free accompanying CD-ROM that provides a Do-It-Yourself guide to setting up a CAMEL network from the publications page at www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/publications.

Although CAMEL started out as an acronym we found the name summed up certain things about what we were doing. Camels are versatile animals and can operate in the harshest of conditions, surviving on the poorest vegetation and through extremes of temperature. They produce milk for nutrition and dung for fuel as well as providing transport. There are a lot of parallels with the versatility of e-learning in making learning happen in places where it wouldn’t otherwise be possible and we saw some examples of this in the project. There is also a resonance with the nomadic element of the project as our groups travelled to a location to
share a meal together, network and show their wares.

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The Networked Learning in Higher Education Project

The project was designed to create a coherent picture of students' experiences of networked learning in UK higher education, and to provide an analysis of relationships between:

• Students’ approaches to networked learning
• Salient features of networked learning
• Learning outcomes

Networked learning is defined as that in which Computing & IT is used to promote connections: between one learner and other learners, between learners and tutors; between a learning community and its learning resources.

Visit the site here.