BENEFITS AND LIMITS

FROM STUDENTS’ PERSPECTIVE

INTED 2011

E-LEARNING PROGRAMS IN HIGHER EDUCATION:

Neuza Pedro; Susana Lemos; Luana Wunsch

INSTITUTO DE EDUCAÇÃO DA UNIVERSIDADE DE LISBOA

University of Lisbon

Created in 1911

Tradicional face-to-face colleges

22.245 students

11 Faculties/Institutes:

• Sciences• Law• Social Sciences• Psychology• Education• Geography

• Arts• Letters• Pharmacy• Medicine• Dental Medicine

The E-learning Program of UL

AIMING TO:

(i) Promote the use of e-learning management systems;

(ii) Empower the faculties in the use of virtual learning environments and development of online educational content;

(iii) Foster and give support to the development of curricular units /e-learning courses;

(iv) Monitor the e-/b-learning practices in the University.

The E-learning Program of UL

PRELIMINARY YEAR :

• Data analysis of the each faculty baseline regarding the use of LMS and other e-learning solutions

• Analysis of the level of maturity, stability and robustness of technological infra-structure

• Meetings with the direction boards

• Interviews with Students’ Unions of each faculty/institute.

Representation of analytical perspective of the collected data

RESULTSa) Value and relevance of an e-learning

program for the university

Establish a unify and congregated movement;

Creating a shared vision of e-learning;

Amplify the number of students;

Makes possible for the university to go beyond its traditional audience;

Promote closer relationships with other higher education institutions;

Innovation and quality in the teaching domain.

RESULTSb) Identified potential of the e-learning

program for each faculty

High potential in the UL e-learning program for their specific faculty;

Development of multi-disciplinary projects and new inter-institutional courses;

Dissemination of faculties’ prestige;

Efficiency and regularity in the communication process;

To improve the thesis orientation process and the internships supervision;

RESULTSb) Identified potential of the e-learning

program for each faculty (cont.)

The possibility of implementation others web-based tools, Improving teaching quality ;

The opportunity for updating graduate programs

Rethink teaching methodologies;

A non-expensive way to ‘bring to the UL campus’ highly-recognized professors

RESULTSc) Positive and inhibit factors of the programs’implementation process

• To search for alternative and innovative sources of funding;

• To promote connections between the previous experience that freshmen-students bring form the secondary schools.

INHIBIT FACTORS:

• Faculty attitudes and professional competences (lack of basic ICT skills, professor seniority, professors’ constant lack of time, professors’ absence of interest in technology, teaching methodologies).

POSITIVE FACTORS

RESULTSd) Benefits and limits of the initiative for the

students

• teaching-learning process quality improvement;

• Centralized access to all the information;

• Higher regularity and closeness in the communication between faculties and student;

• Establishing online contact with other students doing outside campus-research;

• Schedules flexibility = time for course-organized field trips and/or to get more deeply involvement in research projects;

• Possibility of developing new (multimedia) resources to support students learning

BENEFITS

RESULTSd) Benefits and limits of the initiative for the

students (cont.)

• The danger of a centrally measure;

• Contribute to separate students from the university;

• The risk of excessive centralization in content-transference;

• Lost of interpersonal dimension of learning.

LIMITS

In a classical campus-based institution, that in presently celebrating its 100th anniversary, a pioneering and innovative project, as the e-learning program of the University of Lisbon,

needs to be developed with profound respect to established practices and institutional conceptions, which must be used as supports to construct new

visions for the todays’ future.

Neuza Pedro(nspedro@ie.ul.pt)

THANK YOU!

Instituto de Educação da Universidade de Lisboa

Susana Lemos(silemos@ie.ul.pt)

Luana Wunsch(lpriscila@campus.ul.pt)

INTED 2011