Abstract
This article looks at the design, development and delivery of the IR Model. The IR Model brings together best-practice in learning design and appreciation of e-learning in producing a distance learning programme in International Relations delivered 100 per cent online via a Virtual Learning Environment (Blackboard). The results of the IR Model are notable increases in student attainment over campus-based counterparts and an enhanced student experience, as well as being stimulating for academic teachers.
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Notes
For reasons of clarity it may be helpful to provide an understanding of Distance Learning: it may be usefully conceived of as the design and provision of learning undertaken physically remote from an institution and/or ‘teacher’. As such, it is distinct from ‘correspondence learning’ and ‘e-learning’ which both exist in their own right. The former is typically conceived of as the dispatch of course materials/readings which students should read before submitting a piece for summative assessment; and the latter Engelbrecht writes ‘can be defined as instruction delivered via all electronic media including the Internet, intranets, extranets, satellite broadcasts, audio/videotape, interactive TV and CD-Rom’. Engelbrecht continues, ‘E-learning for the purposes of [their] article refers to teaching and learning that is web-enabled’ (Engelbrecht, 2003).
The programmes themselves are named Masters Degrees in ‘International Relations and World Order’, ‘International Security’, ‘Diplomatic Studies’ and ‘American Foreign Policy’. The course structure is 180 credits made up from four 30-credit modules (1 Core module and 3 Option modules) and a 60-credit dissertation module to be completed over two years (equivalent to a part-time MA degree). Total student numbers currently stand at eighty-three.
What I have termed the 3-Ds of Design, Development and Delivery have operated as an interrelated trinity and throughout we have adopted a reflective approach that acknowledges the links between them. This, in turn, supports a series of overlapping feedback loops to incorporate further enhancements to our programmes in the years ahead. The substantial design period was February-May 2008; development from June to September and subsequently delivery, though these were not conceived of, or operated as exclusive delineations.
The Daily Telegraph, 2 December 2005, John Clare Esq. Education Editor.
Chadwick (2004) argues that there are ‘human universals’ that mean humans are hardwired to address the world they inhabit in the same fashion.
There is a wealth of literature on constructivism from a number of fields. A recognised text is Vygotsky (1978) and a later assessment of Vvgotsky's work (Wertsch 1985).
Nicol (1997). The full text of Nicol's paper explores the key changes in understanding on learning and teaching in the past thirty years. This has repercussions for Nicol in three areas: the cognitive experience in learning, student motivation and the social context to the learning experience. Further work on the importance of the student in learning is seen in Felder and Brent (1996).
Work-based learners are forming an increasingly important part of the HE sector as University's offer multiple access points to their wares. A useful assessment of work-based learning is provided by HEA (2006). Further, consideration of experience of the student to their learning is explored by Kolb (1984).
Salmon (2004: 29).
E-moderation is a necessary element of any forum discussion if it is to achieve particular learning objectives. It can be achieved on a self-policing basis among experienced users, although a quasi-independent e-moderator is employed as an Associate Tutor to guide and support learning in our forums. A range of individuals have been employed as Associate Tutors ranging from Ph.D. candidates, full-time academics to retired diplomats. We provide bespoke training for Associate Tutors based on Salmon's E-moderating programme: Barefoot E-Moderator. This is a training programme which puts the Associate Tutor in the position of the online learner and asks them to learn as a cohort how to tackle various e-tivities. A rubric of the skills for an e-moderator are outlined in Salmon (2004: 54–55).
According to Salmon and Wheeler ‘Second Life is an online, 3-D Virtual World, sometimes referred to as a Multi-User Virtual Environment (MUVE), imagined and created entirely by its residents’. http://www2.le.ac.uk/projects/oer/oers/beyond-distance-research-alliance/oers/second-life-guide-for-participants.pdf, accessed 20 February 2010.
Discussion of the role of Virtual Learning Environments is a ‘hot topic’ in higher education and education and training more broadly. This is not least because of continual developments in the field with the developments in Web 2.0 technologies, etc. For an interesting account of recent developments, see Downes (2010).
Assessment in the online learning: e-assessment is a contentious field, not least because of the difficulties of assessing learning objectives. See Shephard (2009) for a recent analysis in this field.
Each module has approximately 12–15 students on the Campus-Based and Distance Learning versions of the modules. Only students who completed the modules are included.
A number of factors may also be at work in explaining the disparity between cohorts; such as greater levels of motivation, professional experience and higher levels of confidence and maturity from DL students over their CB counterparts. Further analysis of student profiles over a greater time frame would be required to provide more conclusive results here.
A selection of comments drawn from the feedback received in January and May 2009: • ‘I have been extremely happy with my first semester; the classes are well organized, challenging and very up to date.’ • ‘Excellent degree of support. I always feel that someone is there to answer any question’. • ‘Thought that the 400 word mini-assignments were excellent at getting back into the habit of committing thoughts to paper and made the more extensive pieces of work later easier to approach’. • ‘I must say the marking system is set up very well in the sense that out work is marked by different professors depending on their areas of expertise’. • ‘Good use of journal articles in the reading lists and the library and databases were easy to access and navigate through’. • ‘The support and assistance of the team was great and I like to say that you did a very good job’.
Wordle is visual representations of text resulting in ‘word clouds’ which given prominence to words that occur most often. Images created by the Wordle.net web application are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License and the attribution is http://www.wordle.net/.
These remarks signal by way of reference to the character of Dorothy to her pet dog ‘Toto’ in the 1939 Metro Goldwyn Mayer film ‘The Wizard of Oz’, that the environment in which we are operating has undergone fundamental change. The effect of which may be as great in its own way as that of a tornado.
Ronald Reagan, 40th US President, Speech at the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin, 12 June 1987, in The Guardian, 14 June 1989.
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Acknowledgements
I am indebted to the kind attention of Dr Gabriela Pleschcova for her patience and her organisation of the panel at the ECPR Convention August 2009 in Potsdam where an earlier version of this paper was prepared under the working title ‘Contrast of provision: Integrating Information Technologies into Politics & International Relations Courses’ Mr Matthew Wheeler and Dr J. Simon Rofe, University of Leicester. A version of the paper was also presented at the International Studies Association Convention February 2010 in New Orleans, LO. My additional thanks go to Mr Richard Askwith, Dr Alison Holmes, Mr Simon Kear and the two anonymous reviewers of European Political Science for their insightful and considered comments on this paper. The views expressed, and any errors that remain are the author's own. My gratitude also goes to our DL students for providing such a stimulating and engaging – virtual – environment in which to work. Finally, my thanks to Miss Liz Milner, with whom the successes of IR DL at Leicester must be shared.
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Rofe, J. The ‘IR Model’: A Schema for Pedagogic Design and Development in International Relations Distance Learning Programmes. Eur Polit Sci 10, 103–117 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1057/eps.2010.25
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/eps.2010.25