JISC

In 1995, The Queen's University of Belfast set up the Outreach Initiative, which aimed to encourage academic staff at Queen's to offer their taught courses to students across Northern Ireland.  The first stage of this initiative was to create a remote campus in Armagh.

Overview

  As part of this initiative, the Centre for Computer Based Learning (CBL) was asked to deliver its MSc in Computer Based Learning (MSc), initially to one site and then to a number of remote sites.  The purpose of this was to:

• explore the potential of using Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to teach at a distance
• identify the issues that must be dealt with in order to deliver effective and efficient virtual courses.
  

This report describes the developments associated with delivering the MSc at a distance and will:

• explore the issues involved in building and supporting effective Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), in particular looking at the role of central support agencies, such as computing service departments
• explore the key pedagogic and technical elements, which make the VLE experience successful for staff and students
• highlight how these elements may be applied to courses at other institutions

Although some of the technologies and approaches described in the early years may seem a little dated, they do help to bring out the evolution of the basic issues and innovations associated with supporting virtual learning.  We believe that anyone moving from a traditional single-site course to multi-site teaching will find that they will work through similar issues.

Read the final report below