Critical Success Factors and Effective Pedagogy for e-learning in Tertiary Education

This background paper was commissioned by ITPNZ to provide information about effective teaching and learning practices for e-learning in tertiary education, that would assist the wider ITPNZ project to enhance learning outcomes for Mäori e-learners. It complements a separate report analysing 2004 Ministry of Education data on tertiary students and their participation in courses using ICT. What we have aimed to do is to distil the main messages coming from recent thinking on effective teaching and learning, and the main messages coming from recent evidence on the use of e-learning in blended tertiary courses. These show consistencies. These messages are presented in the context of the data on e-learning in New Zealand tertiary institutions, and material related to indigenous learning in overseas countries, and Mäori e-learning. There are three useful examples of the latter; but we found very little material related to indigenous elearning overseas. We conclude with an overview of some issues and challenges related to teaching and learning in tertiary environments.

Parabéns, senhor ministro!

[...]

Neste quadro, o Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior, sempre que tenha notícia da prática de ilícitos nas praxes, dela dará imediato conhecimento ao Ministério Público, bem como lançará mão dos meios aptos a responsabilizar - civil e criminalmente, por acção ou omissão — os órgãos próprios das instituições do ensino superior, as associações de estudantes e ainda quaisquer outras entidades que, podendo e devendo fazê-lo, não tenham procedido de modo a procurar evitar os danos ocorridos.

[...]

Com os melhores cumprimentos,

O Ministro da Ciência, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior

José Mariano Gago

(Ofício enviado hoje ao CRUP)

Os perigos do excesso de especialização

Auto-plagiarismo em ciência

This month sees the launch of CrossCheck, an anti-plagiarism system for academic journals created by iParadigms to help publishers verify the originality of submitted work. It will cover 20 million journal articles from major publishers including Elsevier, Nature Publishing Group, Oxford University Press and Sage.

John Barrie, chief executive of iParadigms and the man who developed the technology behind Turnitin, the plagiarism-detection software, described self-plagiarism as a "huge" problem.

"Academics receive tenure based on their publications - it is publish or perish. That system creates this massive conflict of interest," he said.

"Anybody who has done any research knows it is very difficult to do. You just can't crank out five, ten papers a year unless (...) you have a research team of 20 people."


A pilot study by Tracey Bretag and Saadia Carapiet [ver também] from the University of South Australia found that 60 per cent of authors in a random sample of 269 papers from the Web of Science social science and humanities database had self-plagiarised at least once in the period 2003-06. Self-plagiarism was defined "quite generously" as occurring when 10 per cent or more text from any single previous publication was reused without a citation.

"The truth is that if these authors had self-cited in each case, it is unlikely that the editors would have published their work because they would have seen that it had all been published before," Dr Bretag said.

[Fiquei tão admirado, que mais não faço que copiar e colar pedaços do texto do artigo de Rebbeca Attwood, no THE. Como será a situação no campo das Ciências Exactas e Naturais?]

Valores fundamentais da honestidade académica

1. Honesty.  [An academic community of integrity] advances the quest for truth and knowledge by requiring intellectual and personal honesty in learning, teaching, research, and service.
2. Trust.  [...] fosters a climate of mutual trust, encourages the free exchange of ideas, and enables all to reach their highest potential.
3. Fairness.  [...] establishes clear standards, practices, and procedures and expects fairness in the interactions of students, faculty, and administrators.
4. Respect. [...] recognizes the participatory nature of the learning process and honors and respects a wide range of opinions and ideas.
5. Responsibility. [...] upholds personal accountability and depends upon action in the face of wrongdoing.

To develop a strong program for academic integrity, every academic institution should:

1. Have clear academic integrity statements, policies, and procedures that are consistently implemented.
   
2. Inform and educate the entire community regarding academic integrity policies and procedures.
   
3. Promulgate and rigorously practice these policies and procedures from the top down, and provide support to those who faithfully follow and uphold them.
   
4. Have a clear, accessible, and equitable system to adjudicate suspected violations of policy.
   
5. Develop programs to promote academic integrity among all segments of the campus community. These programs should go beyond repudiation of academic dishonesty and include discussions about the importance of academic integrity and its connection to broader ethical issues and concerns.
   
6. Be alert to trends in higher education and technology affecting academic integrity on its campus.
   
7. Regularly assess the effectiveness of its policies and procedures and take steps to improve and rejuvenate them.
   

The Center for Academic Integrity (1999)

 THE FUNDAMENTAL VALUES OF ACADEMIC INTEGRI T Y

Expectativas à entrada na universidade

Um artigo no THE sobre as expectativas (e os desapontamentos) dos alunos do 1º ano.

Chamou-me a atenção um dos pontos ali levantados: o da diferença entre os tipos de ensino no secundário e na universidade, incluindo um apelo ao diálogo entre os dois sistemas.

Michael Arthur, vice-chancellor of the University of Leeds, agrees that the difference in teaching styles between school and university causes problems. New students struggle to adjust to genuinely independent study, he says, and it is up to universities to address this gulf between the two levels of education.

"I have become quite concerned about the rather assessment-driven process that pupils go through in primary and secondary education," says Arthur. "I think it's got worse. I think they are being increasingly taught in the context of getting good grades in an assessment. When they come here, they expect something similar."

He continues: "We should be influencing secondary education in particular, and possibly as far back as primary. It's not just the responsibility of secondary and primary education, it's also a responsibility of higher education to change things at the front end of courses."

Não me parece que em Portugal este problema seja grave. Estarei enganado?

Short Guides for Learning and Teaching

O Centre for Bioscience acabou de editar uma série de pequenos guias sobre temas relacionados com o ensino e a aprendizagem.

Num estilo muito prático abordam-se questões importantes como o plágio ou a transição para o ensino superior.
No guia sobre prevenção do plágio, por exemplo, propõem-se 3 passos simples:

1. reduzir o risco de plágio encorajando o "fazer" em vez de "copiar", alterando o formato de entrega (poster em vez de ensaio), requerendo aos estudantes que critiquem, planeiem, defendam e justifiquem em vez de descrever ou explicar;
2. procurar evidências do trabalho feito, como rascunhos, cópias dos artigos consultados, registos de reuniões;
3. recolhendo evidências de autenticidade organizando breves provas orais, estabelecendo uma tarefa posterior de verificação de conhecimentos ou de métodos e incluindo avaliação pelos pares.
   

Desacordo ortográfico

Eu já assinei a petição. Só não tenho a t-shirt...

A geração Google e a leitura

"Does the Google generation, which has grown up with a deluge of data just clicks away, lack the independence of thought and critical rigour needed for higher study?" pergunta Matthew Reisz, do Times Higher Education.

A resposta está no relatório CIBER, cujo sumário executivo vale a pena ler:

The findings of these studies raise questions about the ability of schools and colleges to develop the search capabilities of the Google Generation to a level appropriate to the demands of higher education and research.

Tutorias, ECTS, e horas lectivas

A questão da contagem de tempo de serviço lectivo é uma das áreas de Bolonha que está pouco esclarecida. Qual é a diferença formal entre 1h teórica e 1h de tutoria?

Concretizando:

• se tenho uma turma de 20 alunos e a divido em 4 grupos de 5 para uma tutoria de uma hora, isso conta 4h de tempo de serviço- ou não?
• se a tipologia de uma disciplina estabelece que terá 10h de tutoria isso significa o quê? Que cada aluno receberá 10h de tutoria, ou que o professor fará 10h de tutoria? A segunda hipótese, aplicada ao exemplo anterior, faria com que cada aluno recebesse apenas 2,5h de tutoria, uma vez que há 4 grupos.

Admitindo que os ECTS reflectem o tempo de trabalho de um estudante individual, às horas de tutoria deve aplicar-se o mesmo raciocínio. Nesse caso, muitas vezes será difícil calcular à partida, na distribuição do serviço docente, o tempo de trabalho correspondente para o docente, pois depende do tamanho da turma e do tamanho dos grupos. Por outro lado, se uma hora de tutoria que me é atribuída se pode multiplicar tantas vezes quantos os grupos a tutorar, é preciso moralizar o sistema, ou vamos acabar com tutorias individuais em todas as disciplinas. Ao fim e ao cabo, os estudantes até reclamam mais horas de contacto e ensino em pequenos grupos...

Como estará este problema a ser resolvido por aí?