COL's Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning

Over 400 educators and policy makers from over 50 countries attended COL's third Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning (PCF3) which was held in Dunedin, New Zealand from 4 to 8 July 2004. Participants, who mostly came from developing Commonwealth countries, focussed their attention on the Forum theme, "Building Learning Communities for Our Millennium: Reaching Wider Audiences through Innovative Approaches", through four working groups that examined latest developments, best practice, emerging issues and research and evaluation. Open and distance learning (ODL) applications in the fields of education, health and local government provided sub-themes for discussion.

In his closing remarks the President of the Commonwealth of Learning, Sir John Daniel, reminded participants that in the world today some one billion adults are illiterate and over a billion children either get no or very little schooling. In their deliberations, participants had insisted on finding ways of reaching a wide audience with quality learning. People are eager for education and will not accept poor or inadequate quality.

PCF3 enabled participants to visit New Zealand's South Island during the middle of its winter and for many this was the first experience to come into contact with daytime temperatures as low as 5 to 10°C. The genuine hospitality of the people in New Zealand, the level of support and the social activities were enough to provide warmth on even the coldest of days.

This third Forum followed a significantly different format since only plenary presentations were delivered. No parallel presentations were scheduled, although some participants took advantage of the "speakers' corner"/poster area to talk with smaller audiences. Each day, once the plenary sessions were concluded, participants broke out into their discussion groups and sub-groups to debate the Forum themes. Each of the discussion groups was led by a convener who reported back to the conference co-ordinator.

As a four-month lead-up to the discussions at the Forum, COL hosted a series of virtual conferences on the four discussion areas (latest developments, best practice, emerging issues and research and evaluation). About 200 people from around the world participated in each of the virtual forums.

Outcomes

Best practice: E-learning was discussed in the PCF3 sessions on best practice and highlighted as requiring "less talking and more delivery" and a more pragmatic approach to its implementation. E-learning needs to cater for people in the "real-world" as opposed to people in the real-world having to alter their existence to sometimes ill-matching technologies created in other parts of the world.

Latest Developments: The latest developments agreed with the best practice group and extended the discussions to learning content. If the principle of learner centredness is to be highlighted, educators need to ensure that e-learning content and the technologies implemented are suited to learners. Forum participants felt that placing the learner in the centre included having high-quality materials, meaningful assessments, good interaction and effective communication.

Research and evaluation: The research theme participants distinguished between researcher processes and research topics and then prioritised four research processes: research training, dissemination and communication of results, ownership of the research process and models for good quality research. Priority topics or themes were identified as the effectiveness of ODL methods, barriers to entry and how to overcome them and the question of whether ODL actually reaches the people who are targeted. In his closing remarks, COL's President, Sir John Daniel, emphasised that COL would support the promotion and dissemination of research.

Emerging issues: In the emerging issues working group, the challenge of harnessing ODL for the achievement of Millennium Development Goals (www.developmentgoals.org) was explored. Two key areas are helping smallholder farmers to gain additional skills in agriculture and helping communities improve the health of mothers and children especially by avoiding HIV/AIDS and malaria. Also, as countries begin to achieve universal primary education, large numbers of children will then seek secondary education. Since there will not be enough conventional schools to cater for them, countries will need to consider open schools as part of the solution.

The Millennium Development Goals require that people learn on a massive scale around the world to help eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, improve health (reducing child mortality, improving maternal health and combating diseases), ensure environmental sustainability and develop global partnerships. Events such as the Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning provide a unique opportunity for people from both developed and developing countries, who are working toward the MDGs in their daily lives, to come together and to debate these issues and practical applications. For more on "COL and the MDGs, please see page 10. 

The radically different format for this year's Forum will be reviewed in designing the fourth Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning. Most participants wanted the new format retained with some modifications, including the addition of positioning papers at the beginning of each of the main discussion periods. Delegates also asked to be able to change groups from time-to-time. Over 80% of more than 200 PCF3 survey respondents said that they would be better equipped for decision-making with the new knowledge gained from the Forum.

Excellence in DE Awards

A gala banquet was held during the Forum to announce and honour the 2004 recipients of COL's Excellence in Distance Education Awards (EDEA). Winners of institutional and individual awards, as well as newly named Honorary Fellows of COL, came from nearly every region of the Commonwealth, including the host country. EDEA's Learning Experience Award was a highlight. It was presented to Ms. Swati Wankhede, an assistant teacher at the Sherpada Zilla Parishad Primary School in Maharashtra State, India. Teaching in the remote tribal village of Sherpada, Ms. Wankhede uses her knowledge from several distance education courses to educate her students, their parents and the community in her village. Please go to www.col.org/edea for details on the awards and the recipients.

Sir John Daniel arrived in Vancouver at the beginning of June to take on his new role as COL's third President and Chief Executive Officer. He attended his first COL Board of Governors meeting, in Vancouver, two weeks later.

The Chair of COL's Board, Dr. Lewis Perinbam, O.C., took the opportunity while the Board was in Vancouver to host a welcoming reception for Sir John. In addition to Board members, other guests represented the local business, educational and government communities.

In his remarks at the reception, Sir John noted that the "task of leading COL brings together in a remarkable way the different strands of my career", explaining that the focus of COL's work (harnessing the power of open and distance learning for development) is the same goal that he has worked toward when with Télé-université and Athabasca University (both in Canada) and at the U.K. Open University, as well as through his most recent appointment as Assistant Director-General for Education at UNESCO (another international, intergovernmental body working in education). The theme of his career has also been aligned with the tools of COL's work - the rapidly developing array of educational and communications technologies - ever since he enrolled for a Master's degree in Educational Technology at what was then Sir George Williams University in 1970.

In his remarks that he entitled, "Learning: Our Common Wealth", Sir John also offered the these observations on COL and its work:

While there are a few other international, intergovernmental bodies located in Canada, I am very proud to lead what is, I believe, the only such body actually to have been created here. That was in 1987, when the Commonwealth Heads of Government met here in Vancouver. What an extraordinarily evocative and appropriate name they chose for the new organisation that they decided to create: The Commonwealth of Learning. Learning is indeed our common wealth. That fundamental principle is even clearer, as we move into a 21st century in which knowledge will be the key to prosperity, than it was back in 1987.

Among the Commonwealth Heads of Government who pushed for the creation of COL at that meeting 17 years ago, India's Rajiv Gandhi and his counterpart from Nigeria were particularly vocal and their two countries pledged to make contributions to COL's budget in hard currency. Thus began the focus on open and distance learning for the purpose of national and community development that is the heart of COL's work. This is what I mean by the 'common wealth' of learning. Learning confers benefits to individuals, to be sure, but we must always remember that learning is also a collective endeavour. Our name, the Commonwealth of Learning, captures that brilliantly.

Finally, it will be a great privilege to serve the Commonwealth. For the last three years I have been a proud member of the staff of the United Nations system, travelling the world on a red UN laissez passer. That enriching experience of dealing with the whole world makes me eager to serve a smaller subset of that world, the 53 countries of the Commonwealth. Those countries, which account for a significant proportion of the world's population, are hugely varied. The Commonwealth includes rich countries and poor countries. It includes countries that that are continental and sub-continental in size alongside numerous small island states with tiny populations.

But the countries of the Commonwealth are united, in this diversity, by great common bonds, which you can express as the three 'L's': law, language and learning. The countries of the Commonwealth share traditions in law, language and learning that make collaboration between them particularly natural and fruitful. I have been proud to do my bit, in the UN system, to help countries like Afghanistan and Iraq get back on their feet. However, it will be very satisfying to work with the countries of the Commonwealth, which are mostly at peace and getting on with the task of development in a steady and determined manner.

I am highly impressed by the energy and skills of my new colleagues at the Commonwealth of Learning. We are a small organisation but we are very focussed and I am sure that, with your support, we shall do much to assist the development of Commonwealth countries. The challenge is to eliminate poverty and to create nations of healthy, educated people.

Fundamentally, development is about freedom. The measure of development is the degree to which we increase the freedoms that people can enjoy. Freedom is also the means of development, for it is the free agency of free people that develops families, communities and nations. Education is the high road to freedom and thus to development. I shall do everything I can to ensure that the Commonwealth of Learning, from its base here in Vancouver, becomes one of the world's most effective agencies for development.

www.col.org/jdaniel

------------------------------------

An update from the Commonwealth of Learning

Background

The idea of creating a virtual university for the small states of the Commonwealth emerged in discussions between Ministers at the 14th Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers of Education (CCEM) held in Halifax, Canada in November 2000. At that time the 'dot-com frenzy' was at its peak and the press was full of stories about the revolutionary changes that online technologies would bring to all aspects of life - most notably to education.

Education Ministers from the small states, fearing that their countries would be left behind in the online world for want of the critical mass of human and financial resources properly to exploit the new technology, proposed collective action in the form of a virtual university for small states. Later in the CCEM meeting the Ministers asked the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) to develop the concept further.

Aided by a Technical Advisory Committee, COL then developed a proposal for a virtual university. A small group of Ministers of Education met in the Seychelles in March 2003 to review the proposals and presented them, with a supportive communiqué, to the 15th CCEM, held in Edinburgh in October 2003. The proposal described the vision of the virtual university as follows:

The vision that is proposed for a virtual university serving small states is that of a consortium of institutions, enabled by appropriate ICT applications, working together in practical ways to plan programmes, develop the required content and ensure the delivery of those programmes and support services to learners.

The proposal also noted that the virtual university:

Current situation

The changing world of e-learning

Partly because of a change of president at COL in July 2004, relatively little follow-up work on the global organisational aspects of a virtual university has been done since the 15th CCEM. COL is now returning to this task in a climate very different from that of the dot-com frenzy of 2000. Expectations of the role of online technology in education have now been tempered by experience in the use of e-learning from which a number of conclusions can be drawn.

First, there has been a steady expansion of the use of e-learning in all types of institutions. In the majority of cases it is acting as a complement to existing methods of teaching and learning, rather than replacing them.

Second, however, the title of a recent report, Thwarted Innovation: What Happened to e-learning and Why? (Zemsky and Massy, 2004) indicates that results have fallen short of expectations. "e-learning was an interesting idea that simply got hyped to the point that it created expectations that couldn't be met", says Zemsky, "e-learning is a real revolution. It will just happen more slowly, more painfully. And the challenge now is for advocates to deliver more and promise less".

Third, most attempts to create new institutions based solely on e-learning have not been successful. Some have folded or been closed, like the UK's e-Universities project and New York University's NYUOnline, others have evolved into multi-media distance teaching programmes. Two of the largest users of e-learning, each with over 100,000 students online, are the UK Open University and the US University of Phoenix. In both cases e-learning is simply one aspect of a broadly-based student experience that is organised at scale.

Fourth, the provision of the technology and courseware for e-learning does not, in and of itself, change the habits of either teachers or students. Both groups require training if they are fully to exploit the potential of e-learning.

Fifth, the most effective applications of e-learning tend to be in skills training. The UK's misnamed University for Industry, now called learndirect, has, since 2000, attracted over a million learners to improve their skills and knowledge in many areas, mostly employment related and not at tertiary level. However, with hundreds of learning centres around the UK, learndirect is not a pure e-learning model.

Sixth, there has been a steady evolution in the technology and platforms that support e-learning and virtual education. However, although systems are becoming easier to use and present fewer challenges of compatibility, Zemsky still finds that "one of the impediments to keeping online learning from moving into every facet of education is the lack of a standardised format or software tool for creating online enhancements".

Finally, there has been widespread development of content for e-learning and some progress in making this content adaptable and re-usable through the notion of learning objects. Alongside this an open courseware movement, that will facilitate the sharing of content and learning materials, is gathering support.

COL's role in technical developments

COL already helps institutions in small countries to apply electronic technologies to their needs such as, to give just one example, the expansion of technical and vocational education and training in the Pacific island states of Fiji, Samoa, Vanuatu and Kiribati. COL has also created a course to train e-learning practitioners how to create learning content online and facilitate online learning. This may be offered either in a fully online format or in a computer laboratory as COL is doing in Kenya in collaboration with the African Virtual University.

A round table on the establishment of a learning object repository (LOR) has been held in South Africa with Schoolnet Africa and another will be held in India in August by the University Grants Commission. This is expected to lead to national repositories of learning content. COL is striving to ensure that international standards are applied in the design of LORs to facilitate transferability of content between institutions and countries.

Open source programmes have been developed to support both learning management and the storage of learning content (LORs). Many countries are beginning to take advantage of the available open source programmes and COL has responded to this in three ways.

First, COL has reviewed the available open source Learning Management Systems (LMSs). COL hosts an open source LMS and runs training programmes to support countries in expanding their available skills in e-learning.

Second, COL has created a decision support tool to assist those wishing to choose between a range of LMSs. This tool is designed for decision makers needing to consider and choose between seemingly similar software products.

Third, COL has been working closely with the Canadian open source community responsible for the development of software for LORs. In this last area, Canada is sharing its substantial investments in development with other countries in order to facilitate the emergence of a global network of interoperable LORs.

These activities have provided a platform for materials development and sharing using standardised multimedia tools and training to supplement print-based instruction. Designing a common platform for educational development cuts costs, especially in small states where capacity and infrastructure are limited. Such work, which strengthens local institutions and enhances collaboration between them, must be the basis of the development of a virtual university.

A new approach

Against this background COL will now take a different and more gradual approach to the development of a virtual university of small states than the earlier documents foresaw. Although the planning process they recommended was not entirely 'top down', the early proposal did emphasise the challenge of organising and funding a consortium spanning the world.

More recent developments indicate that a bottom-up approach will be more productive and easier to fund and manage. COL will therefore start by helping selected educational and training institutions in small states to make greater use of electronic technology in their teaching activities. COL is already doing this in a number of small states and can recommend systems that facilitate networking with other states facing similar challenges. Because it is an extension of what is being done already this work can generally be carried out within COL's regular budget. It can be speeded up if donors choose to support developments in particular small states.

As the number of small-state institutions using virtual methods grows, COL will facilitate the creation of coordinating mechanisms to ensure the efficient sharing of technology and materials. However, unlike the top-down approach that would begin with these mechanisms, the bottom-up approach will simply help them to emerge as needed. The first requirement will be for effective technical cooperation rather than common governance structures, something that COL has done successfully on many occasions. Should it prove desirable to have common qualifications or assessment frameworks in some skill or topic areas, COL could advise on how to set them up without creating a new institution.

Special emphasis will be given to:

Funding

At the Edinburgh CCEM, Ministers directed COL to work with the Commonwealth Secretariat to identify sources of funding to take forward the concept of the virtual university of small states. Subsequent work has revealed that donor countries are not enthusiastic about funding the organisational aspects of the international consortium. They doubt that such an investment would advance their own development funding priorities and they are leery of committing ongoing support to a new international organisation.

However, the same donors - and the small states themselves - are interested in funding the modernisation and expansion of educational and training institutions that already exist, especially where the output of these institutions directly contributes to the country's development and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

Such initiatives at the local level in individual small states are part and parcel of COL's ongoing work and can draw in the normal way on its core funding, extra budgetary funding and appropriate contracts.

The way forward

Experience with e-learning since 2000 argues for a gradual and careful approach to the expansion of the use of this technology. The focus must be on the knowledge and skills acquired by learners and not on the introduction of technology for its own sake. The following conditions need to be met:

Conclusion

Improving education and training can contribute to development and the reduction of poverty in the small states of the Commonwealth. Appropriate technologies, including e-learning, can contribute to that improvement if properly designed and implemented.

Furthermore, by allowing them to participate in the globally networked world, the introduction of these technologies can give an important psychological boost to institutions in small states. Given the inevitable disappointments that followed the excessive expectations vested in e-learning five years ago, small states should now worry less about being left behind technologically and more about how to benefit from the lessons of the brief but chequered history of e-learning in the rest of the world.

Provided that these lessons are learned, growing a virtual university from the grassro