A curated online educational portal for staff and students at a University of Technology by Abdool Haq Mahomed Bhorat July 2014 A curated online educational portal for staff and students at a University of Technology by Abdool Haq Mahomed Bhorat Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctorate of Technology: Language Practice in the Faculty of Arts and Design, Durban University of Technology I declare that this thesis is my own work and has not been submitted for any other degree or examination at any other institution. Signed: _____________ Date: ______________1 Approved for final submission: Promoter: Professor D.D. Pratt Signed: _____________ Date: ______________ ABSTRACT The innovative application of an online educational portal in everyday teaching and learning is proposed to meet the needs of the new generation of students entering Universities of Technology (UoTs). The setting is against a background of educationally under-prepared but multimedia-literate students, and the university vision of integrating eLearning into the curriculum. The emergence of the Academic Commons Attribution has facilitated the channelling of free-to-use/open source educational information through the dedicated artefact. The investigation combined the challenges of artefact design with the necessity of authenticating subject content so that it was geared to the needs of the students in the Photography Programme. This study highlights the importance of managing knowledge so that it can be passed down to current and future generations in ways which keep pace with their exponential development of digital expertise. This research was carried out within Bhaskar’s critical realist philosophy, which argues that there is a real world which exists independently of one’s perception of it. It must be stressed that the artefact contained in the multimedia portal did not follow a linear, logical development but was a process of transformational iterative change, very similar to the developmental consistency described by Bhaskar. Bhaskar’s philosophical overview was complemented by Archer’s morphogenetic approach. The latter showed that the application of technology in teaching and learning is not just about use of “better tools” but signals a shift in social structure. The main technical challenge was for the researcher to standardise the multimedia resources so that they could be used on most personal computers, with the option of downloading short tutorials on mobile phones for later use. The resulting multimedia portal provides strong support in guiding inexperienced students and novice academics to choose resources appropriate to both the Photography curriculum and rapidly changing Industry requirements. The portal can also reduce the number of time consuming searches on various themes or topics, as it directs users to specific hyperlinked online resources in any given syllabus item. i The curated educational portal is, therefore, currently being introduced as an enhancement to the traditional teaching and learning methods hitherto used in the Photography Programme. While the traditional methods have the strong humanist leanings essential for personal development, they are not geared to tackle the cutting edge technological advances required by industry. Moreover, in promoting the Durban University of Technology (DUT) as a centre using cutting-edge multimedia tuition, the portal might better establish influences with Industry (one of the core functions of a UoT) as well as attract international academics and students. The end result is to offer a blended learning model of tertiary programme delivery which is supported by the literature as currently being one of the most effective options. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In preparing this dissertation, I obtained assistance from a number of different people. My heartfelt thanks go to Professor D.D. Pratt, my supervisor and mentor, for invaluable help in guiding me with the writing of the thesis. In addition, thanks to both staff and students who were considerate enough to respond to my personal enquiries, communications and surveys. Your participation helped to shape the outcome of this investigation. Special thanks go to Dr Gharbarran for editing and proof-reading the thesis. The financial assistance of the Durban University of Technology Research Committee towards this study is hereby acknowledged. iii PREFACE The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted for a degree or diploma at any other higher education institution. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference is made. The following conventions have been applied in this thesis: ([ ]) has been used to indicate approximate page numbers on publications from Internet sites, following Hofstee (2006: 252). e.g. (Meeker 2010: [13]) Shaw (2003: [1]) Where each chapter in an e-book runs from page 1, the page number has been cited as “chapter number.page number”, following the convention used throughout by Oblinger and Oblinger (2005a). e.g. Dede 2005: 15.16 (Barone 2005: 14.5) When “Photography” refers to the research field or subject discipline it starts with a capital letter, but “photography” (lower case) is used for the activity of taking photographs. EndNote 6 referencing software has been used, with the DUT Harvard 2013 Referencing Style. While the web addresses of individual websites mentioned in the text as exemplars are given, the websites are not listed in the References. Personal communications (telephone conversation, interviews and e- mail) are noted in the in-text reference but are not included in the References. To maintain anonymity, pseudonyms have been used to replace the names of all university staff and students mentioned in the thesis, except in the case of theses, articles, papers and/or reports published or disseminated for open access. iv GLOSSARY The following terms are used in the thesis in the general sense indicated below. They are defined and discussed in more detail in the relevant thesis chapters. blended (or mixed mode) learning: a mixture of online learning with traditional face-to-face classroom (or lecturing) delivery (although a case can be made for blends of other modes or media). curation: managing and promoting the use of data to ensure its fitness for purpose and availability for discovery and re-use. Curation may involve constant updating and creation of links with other materials, as well as archiving and preservation of data. digital curation: this term was used to apply existing approaches to the curation of hard copies of documents and analogue artefacts to digital collections. e-learning: learning through the medium of the Internet (again, a case can be made for inclusion of other modes/media). horizontal portal design: while the online resources are available from one access point, no attempt is made to order or make sense of the information except in the most general sense (e.g. alphabetizing a content index). information and communication technology (ICT) and information systems (IS): technologies for the processing, storage, and transmission of digital materials, comprising hardware and software systems for physical storage and logical representation of sets of data. These terms are used synonymously in the thesis. Internet portal: an online gateway or access point to a website containing a specialist grouping of curated online resources, usually freely available, for the purposes of information sharing, research, aesthetics or education, amongst others. v learning object: any device which can be re-used to facilitate learning in various contexts (its use is not necessarily restricted to computer applications). massive open online courses (MOOCs): freely available online courses which are the results of corporate attempts (often with university collaboration) to provide student-facing online courses. MOOCs make provision for mainly built-in feedback and assessment. The term “open” may not necessarily mean free or without cost, particularly if registration and certification at a university is sought. open courseware (OCW): freely available online tuition ranging from individual notes to sets of educational applications and/or complete online courses. OCW can comprise part or whole of OERs. open educational resources (OERs): notes, lectures, videos or other learning resources made freely available online by educators or academics without necessarily being curated or organised into courses. vertical portal design: the online content is curated and structured so as to make sense of both the subject matter and the order of viewing or instruction. vi EDITING AND PROOF-READING AFFIDAVIT vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………………….. i Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………………………….. Iii Preface…………………………………………………………………………………………………... iv Glossary…………………………………………………………………………………………………. v Editing and proof-reading affidavit………………………………………………………………….… vii Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………….. 1 1.2 The context of the research ……………………………..………………………………… 1 1.2.1 General aim …………………………………………………………………………………. 3 1.3 Aims and objectives………………………………………………………………………… 3 1.3.1 General aim of the research……………………………………………………………….. 3 1.3.2 Specific research objectives …………………………………………………………...…. 4 1.4 Overview of the project ……..……………………………………………………………… 4 1.5 Key terms or concepts ……………..……………………………………………………….