30 November – 4 December 2015

For one of our last events for the year we turning our attention to quality assurance aspects of e-learning and Open Educational Resources. This seminar is led by Ephraim Mhlanga from the South African Institute for Distance Education (SAIDE).

Thank you to those of you who took part in our live online session on Wednesday 2 December. Recording is available here

From our presenter we have received the following abstract:

The advent of educationally technologies has profoundly changed the way people learn and how education is generally delivered. In higher education in particular teaching and learning is now heavily supported by education technologies which make it more cost-effective to support learners in a virtual space. Educational technologies free education from the constraints of time and space that go with face-to-face teaching, and that offers great flexibility in terms of when, where and how to learn. Whilst this is a positive development that many higher education institutions are investing in, there are major challenges that are associated with the quality of such delivery. Particularly in the Third World, the comparative quality of online programmes is still a moot point.

This presentation gives hints on quality aspects that should be considered in using technology in teaching and learning. It draws from previous work done with African universities and from Gilly Salmon’s work on how learners learn online, and builds some quality benchmarks worth considering in the design and delivery of online courses.

This event has ended, however resources will remain available on the seminar landing page

Ephraim Mhlanga is a Programme Specialist: Quality Assurance at the South African Institute for Distance Education