A few recent posts have been first draft excerpts from my Information Systems Design Theory (ISDT) from emergent university e-learning systems. Being academics and hence somewhat pedantic about these things there are meant to be a number of specific components of an ISDT. One of these is the expository instantiation that is meant to act as both an explanatory device and a platform for testing (Gregor and Jones, 2007) i.e. it's meant to help explain the theory and also examples of testing the theory....more...
The following is a first version of the justificatory knowledge section of my ISDT for emergent university e-learning systems. Still fairly uncertain just how information is meant to go in here and also just how far I should go with the reference to other theories (there are lots) and how much time should be spent looking at the interactions between them....more...
The aim of my thesis is to formulate an information systems design theory for e-learning. Even though I have a publication or two that have described early versions of the ISDT, I've never been really happy with them. However, I'm getting close to the end of this process, at least for the purposes of getting the thesis submitted....more...
Am working on the final ISDT for the thesis. An Information Systems Design Theory (ISDT) is a theory for design and action. It is meant to aim to provide general principles that help practitioners design information systems. Design theory provides guidance about how to build an artifact (process) and what the artifact should look like when built (product/design principles) (Walls, Widmeyer et al. 1992; Gregor 2002). Walls et al (1992) see an ISDT as an integrated set of prescriptions consisting of a particular class of user requirements (meta-requirements), a type of system solution with distinctive features (meta-design) and a set of effective development practices (meta-design). Each of these components of an ISDT can be informed by kernel theories, either academic or practitioner theory-in-use (Sarker and Lee 2002), that enable the formulation of empirically testable predictions relating the design theory to outcomes (Markus, Majchrzak et al. 2002)....more...
A couple of days ago I floated the idea of scaffolding, context-sensitive conglomerations as one idea/model/suggestion for how e-learning systems (currently mostly LMS, but hopefully other models will arise)....more...
For various reasons, mostly PhD related (and somewhat related to procrastination), I'm taking the time to read a bit more about situated cognition. Not sure how far it will go. The following are some ad hoc reflections and essentially a diary of what I'm reading. Not aiming for this post to fulfil any purpose beyond being a place to dump observations....more...
For the last week or so I've been attempting to bring together the principles that underpin the design theory for e-learning that will be the main contribution of my thesis. This post summarises one of the principles of form and function that is emerging from the last week or so. I using this blog post to escape the confines of PhD-ese and see if writing about it can generate some further refinement....more...
Am currently reading Faegri et al (2010) as part of developing the justificatory knowledge for the final ISDT for e-learning that is meant to be the contribution of the thesis. The principle from the ISDT that this paper connects with is the idea of a "Multi-skilled, integrated development and support team" (the name is a work in progress). The following is simply a placeholder for a quote from the paper and a brief connection with the ISDT and what I think it means for curriculum design and academic development....more...
I'm in the midst of the horrible task of trying to abstract what I think I know about implementing e-learning information systems within universities into the formal "language" required of an information systems design theory and a PhD thesis. This post is a welcome break from that, but is still connected in that it builds on what is perhaps fundamentally different between what most universities are currently doing, and what I think is a more effective approach. In particular, it highlights some more recent developments which are arguably a step towards what I'm thinking....more...
The following arises from a combination of factors including:...more...
The following is an early draft of the "lessons learned" section of chapter 5 of the thesis, the third last section that needs to be completed (to first draft stage). It still needs some work and completing the last two sections will probably lead to some changes, but it's a start....more...
Over on the Remote Learner blog, Jason Cole has posted some information about a keynote by Dr Richard Clark at one of the US MoodleMoots. I want to focus on one key quote from that talk and its implications for Australian higher education and current trends to "improve" learning and teaching and adopt open source LMS (like Moodle)....more...
The following is a "formalisation" of a previous post. This is the version that forms the first draft of a section in the thesis....more...
Have spent the last day or so doing some more data munging of access logs trying to determine the level of usage of Wf applications within Webfuse. Wf was the framework for developing dynamic web applications within Webfuse - the topic/outcome of my PhD. The following is an initial summary of that munging with some initial reflection. This will get further polished and re-worked for inclusion in chapter 5 of the thesis....more...
As part of the PhD I have to summarise aspects of Webfuse usage, the following is a quick attempt to summarise usage of the Webfuse course sites from 1997 through 2009. The main aim is to show what I've got so far, think about what needs to be added, generate a to do list, and make an initial stab at explaining some of the movements. The hope is that writing this is essentially a rough draft/scribble of material that will end up in the thesis....more...
Time to get back into the thesis. The following is the next completed section from the evaluation part of chapter 5 of my thesis. A result of much data munging and some writing, still needs a bit more reflection and thought, but getting close....more...
I'm currently trying to formalise the information systems design theory for e-learning that is meant to be the contribution of my thesis. i.e. what is the model, set of principles etc that I think is important....more...
The following presents details of feature adoption by courses using the Webfuse system from 1997 through 2009. It presents the data generated by the work described in the last post....more...
I'm in the throws of finalising the second last bit of data analysis for the thesis. For this I'm trying to examine the level of feature adoption within courses supported by the Webfuse system (the main product for the the thesis). The following describes an attempt to formalise the process for this evaluation....more...
The following is the next part of the evaluation section of chapter 5 of my thesis. It seeks to evaluate how well the Webfuse system fulfilled the guideline of "an integrated online learning environment" for the period 2000-2004. This is only the first section which talks about the provision of course sites. Subsequent sections will talk about feature adoption, staff and student usage of course sites, and staff and student usage of Wf applications....more...
This is the second version of an earlier post. As I wrote more of the chapter I felt the need to revisit and expand the idea (though the following is still at a rough draft stage). The following describes the rationale and implementation behind the implementation of the default course sites approach within Webfuse. This approach was used at CQU from 2001 through 2009. It has similarities with what Mark Smithers calls a minimium online presence policy (MOPP), though (I think) my take on the value of MOPP differs a little from Mark's. Not surprising given the following....more...
This is the second post containing a part of the evaluation section of chapter 5 of my PhD thesis. It looks at how much/well Webfuse acted as a web publishing tool during 2000-2004. There's not much here, as this is not the focus....more...
This is one part of the Evaluation section of Chapter 5 of my PhD thesis. It's actually the fourth section, but it's the first to have reached a rough first draft stage. The basic aim is to show how the Webfuse interventions from 2000 through 2004 (and beyond) increased the flexibility and diversity of the system....more...
In the last post I outlined some early rough usage figures for Webfuse from 2000-2009. The following goes into a bit more detail with the usage of the wf applications....more...
In terms of the thesis, my current focus is on chapter 5. This chapter seeks to describe what we did from 2000 through 2004 and beyond. I'm currently working on the evaluation section, a major component of the evaluation is looking at the usage statistics of Webfuse during this period. It's slow going and there is still a fair bit of analysis to go, but some initial figures are available....more...
Last week I was thinking that academics shouldn't manually create course sites. That arose out of the process of writing up the why/what behind what we did with Webfuse from 1999 through 2004. Today, I've been continuing that and looking at the usage statistics from that period....more...
The following is a first draft of the next section of chapter 5 of my thesis. The aim here is to try and illustrate how the combination of the agile and adopted-focused development process of Webfuse, when combined with the design of Webfuse enabled the rapid development of "workarounds" that enabled the system to adapt to changes in the environment and requirements of the systems users....more...
Stephen Downes makes a valid point about my recent question about whether or not academics should manually create websites. I agree with his underlying point that academics should not be forced to use the institutional approach. Given any option I would not suggest such an approach....more...
There is now a version 2.0 of this section....more...
Over the last couple of days I've enjoyed a small discussion that has arisen out of some comments Kevin has made on my blog. This post is an attempt to partially engage with the most recent comment. I echo Kevin's conclusion, I'd love to hear anyone else's take on this....more...
Yet another section from Chapter 5 of the thesis describing the various changes made to Webfuse in the period from 2000 onwards. This one (very briefly) describes the Webfuse framework for dynamic web applications....more...
The following is the third in a sequence of sections from chapter 5 of my thesis. These sections are describing the changes made in the development and support of Webfuse from 2000 through 2004 (and a bit beyond). This post very briefly describes the adoption a design patterns influenced, OO design....more...
The following is the second of the sections from my thesis that describe the various changes made to Webfuse and how it was implemented during the years 2000-2004 (and a bit beyond). It's a rough first draft. The first section describes how the Webfuse development process came to be very focused on the potential adopters of Webfuse. This section describes why and how the Webfuse development process became more emergent/agile....more...
The following is a first draft of the next section in Chapter 5 of the thesis. It's the first section which starts describing the various different changes that were made to Webfuse and how it was supported from 2000 and on. IMHO, this particular change is something that continues to be missing from almost all university attempts to support e-learning. If not missing, they simply haven't recognised the need for greater levels of skills. It is particularly sad that my current institution, the institution at which these changes/lesson were first implemented and written about 10+years ago, still hasn't learnt the lesson - or perhaps the lesson just isn't important enough....more...
This carries on "bits" from chapter 5 of the thesis. It's a rough draft of a description of the institutional context within CQU from 2000 onwards. It's brief and targeted mainly at the factors which impact on Webfuse development....more...
Back working on the thesis. The following is a rough draft of the introduction and part of the first section from Chapter 5 of the thesis. This chapter is starting to tell the story of Webfuse from 2000 to 2004 and beyond....more...
I think that the quality of most university learning and teaching is somewhat less than it could be. There are some really good examples and really engaged teaching academics. However, they are in the minority. This problem is made worse when the context of a particular university is extremely complex. For example, a number of Australian public universities, in response to reductions in government funding, have developed a collection of partnerships with commercial and overseas organisations to offer their courses in various modes. Some of these universities also have traditional on-campus students as well as distance education student spread throughout the globe....more...
I've been back working at the PhD thesis, hopefully down to months before submission. At this stage, I need to work on the 2 chapters that are reflecting on the usage of Webfuse during two periods: 1996 through 1999 and 1999 through 2004 (and a bit later). In doing some, the main tasks I need to achieve are:...more...
I recently posted about the need to develop an approach that allows for the simple and consistent comparison of usage and feature adoption between different Learning Management Systems (aka LMS, Virtual Learning Environments - VLEs - see What is an LMS?). That last post on the need didn't really establish the need. The aim of this post is to explain the need and make some first steps in identifying how you might go about enabling this sort of comparison....more...
As part of the thesis I've been engaging with some of the literature around LMS feature usage to evaluate usage of Webfuse. A good first stab of this was reported in an earlier post. There were a number of limitations of that work, it's time to expand a bit on it. To some extent for the PhD and to some extent because of a paper....more...
In a recent post I messily wrote about the start of the process of evaluating the use of Webfuse for my thesis. This post takes the ideas/process from that post and applies it to the course websites produced by Webfuse from 2006 through 2007. The data in here is in a similar time frame to the work being done by Col and Ken on their indicators project....more...
The Blog Aggregation Management (BAM) project is an attempt to be a bit more Web 2.0/SaaS in the implementation of e-learning within a University. BAM works by students creating and using their own blog on one of a number of freely available external blogging services and registering it with BAM. BAM provides some management infrastructure that integrates these external services with university information and also offers support for staff to mark and track student posts. The staff interface is primarily via a web interface....more...
In a post yesterday I talked about how most applications of e-learning within universities seems to actively prevent students and staff leveraging the protean nature of information technology. That is the nature of computer software to be flexible, malleable and customisable....more...