Campus-based Education Research Articles

Increasing Public Access to University Qualifications: Evolution of The University of the West Indies Open Campus

This paper traces the evolution of The University of the West Indies’ Open Campus (UWIOC), which is expected to expand service and increase access to the underserved communities of the Eastern Caribbean. At present, UWI, which caters to the needs of the 16 far flung countries of the Commonwealth Caribbean, has not been able to fully serve these countries, the UWI-12, in a way that is commensurate with their developmental needs. Historically, the institution has been dominated by campus-based education, and its three campuses have been poles of attraction for scholars and scholarship to the significant advantage of the countries in which they are located: Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Barbados.
 
 The University’s creation of an open campus, a fourth campus, enables it to expand its scope, enhance its appeal, and improve the efficiency of its services to individuals, communities, and countries. This new campus, a merger of UWI’s Outreach sector, which comprises the School of Continuing Studies, the Tertiary Level Institute Unit, and The UWI Distance Education Centre, will have a physical presence in each contributing country and will function as a network of real and virtual modes to deliver education and training to anyone with access to Internet facilities.

E-Learning and the Digital Divide: Perpetuating Cultural and Socio-Economic Elitism in Higher Education

Education is often seen as a route to full participation in society, and widening participation in education and lifelong learning as a way of including those who are currently excluded from many of the benefits of society. The use of learning technology (e-learning) is perceived by national governments, the European Union (EU), and academic institutions as a means of widening participation in higher education by enabling participation by nontraditional students. E-learning is perceived as lowering barriers of time and place to enable nontraditional students to attend campus-based education while accessing resources at a time and place of their choosing. Yet, there is dissonance between the espoused belief of governments the EU and academic institutions, in e-learning as a means of widening participation, and the reality of e-learning implementation. The digital divide refers to the gap between those who have access to the information technology, and those who do not. This research finds that the digital divide is not adequately addressed by higher education institutions, with some students financially unable to afford technology and broadband access, others lack the skills to engage with learning technology, and some are culturally less able to benefit from technological enrichment. It also finds gender and generational differences disenfranchising some students. In order to address this situation it will be necessary to first acknowledge that the problem exists.

The Need for E‐Learning Strategies: Higher Education Institutions and Their Responses to a Changing Environment

Integrating e-Learning in their educational delivery and support processes is one way of strategy formation higher education institutions can deploy to respond to their changing environment. In this article, the focus of such a strategy formation is on three strategic choices: traditional, face-to-face, campus-based education (back-to-basics), flexible on-campus delivery of education (stretching-the-mould) or anytime, anywhere education (worldcampus). Results of a quantitative study showed that higher education institutions with a worldcampus strategy differ from higher education institutions with a back-to-basics strategy because they have a stronger focus on ‘increasing access,’ ‘offering logistic flexibility,’ and ‘use of ICT for income generation.’ By doing so, these higher education institutions aim to respond to an environment that is becoming increasingly market-oriented and competitive.

Gender, Language And Computer-mediatedCommunication

This research aimed to investigate gender and language in the context of educational computer-mediated interactions. As the use of online discussion groups in campus-based education increases, so does the need to investigate the impact of gender on language and communication styles in this context. It has been claimed that the lack of social context cues in computer-mediated communication (CMC) equalises participation, resulting in a more democratic environment than face-to-face communication. However, gender differences in power and language use have been found online. In total, 197 students (148 females, 49 males) participated in open-ended online discussion as an optional part of their introductory psychology module. Informed consent was sought from the online participants to download the electronic discourse for analysis using Atlas.ti 4.2. Participation and language use were analysed using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. A detailed coding scheme was developed during the pilot study that incorporated various linguistic, stylistic, paralinguistic and task variables. This coding scheme was used in subsequent studies and 699 messages from four studies were coded in total. Males and females were similar overall with regard to participation as shown by the total number of posts and mean number of words per post. However, gender-related patterns in language use and interaction styles were found. The results are discussed in relation to previous literature on gender and language in both face-to-face and computermediated contexts and in relation to the democratising theories of CMC. The implications of the results for the use of CMC in Higher Education will also be considered.

A virtual student: Not an ordinary Joe

Some researchers and educators contend that distance education is the new, student-centered paradigm for future learning and one of the fastest growing areas in education. Despite its continued growth and popularity, distance education suffers from a number of problems. One of the most troubling is a much higher course “dropout” rate in online courses compared to traditional campus-based education. There are a number of factors that contribute to course noncompletion in Web-based distance education: feelings of isolation, frustrations with the technology, anxiety, and confusion. This article provides a discussion on certain tools used by the author to mitigate these negative factors, such as the use of electronic office hours. Explored in depth, however, is a tool that the author has had the most success using in reducing some of the chronic problems that seem to assail students taking online courses. This same tool promotes learner interaction and collaborative learning at a distance. This “magical” tool the author has created for his online classes is a fictitious virtual student who is “not an ordinary Joe.”

Distance Education at Conventional Universities in Germany

Germany’s educational system has undergone a series of transformations during the last 40 years. In recent years, marked increases in enrolment have occurred. In response, admission requirements have been relaxed and new universities have been established.
 
 Academic distance education in the former Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) was ushered in by the educational radio broadcasts around the end of the 1960s. Aside from the formation of the FernUniversität (Open University) in West Germany in 1975, there were significant developments in distance education occurring at the major universities in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). After German reunification in 1990, the new unitary state launched programs to advance the development of distance education programs at conventional universities.
 
 Germany’s campus-based universities (Präsenzuniversitäten) created various entities, including central units and consortia of universities to design and market distance education programs. Hybridisation provides the necessary prerequisites for dual mode delivery, such as basic and continuing education programs, as well as for the combination of distance and campus-based education (Präsenzstudium). Hybridisation also has also opened the door for the creation of new programs.
 
 Following an initial phase in which distance education research is expected to centralize a trend towards decentralisation is likely to follow. The German Association for Distance Education (AG-F) offers a viable research network in distance education. Two dual mode case studies are also be surveyed: The Master of Arts degree, offered by the University of Koblenz-Landau, with Library Science as the second major, and the University of Kaiserslautern, where basic education will continue to be captured within the domain of the Präsenzstudium or campus-based education.
 
 The area in which distance education is flourishing most is within the field of academic continuing education, where external experts and authors are broadening the horizon of the campus. Multimedia networks will comprise the third generation of distance education.

The Web in Education

Summary Computers, the Internet, and the Web are popular educational tools that seem destined to assume even more prominent roles in the future. The question is not whether information technology will survive in schools, but whether or not it will have a revolutionary, or even a positive, effect on teaching and learning. Education in general is facing an array of formidable problems, including sustained and vicious attacks by politicians and business leaders. Possible causes of these attacks are discussed, including generalized anger in the population, the profit motive in the private sector, a belief in “the magic of the marketplace,” excessive faith in standardized testing, and growing availability of sophisticated technology for distance education. It remains to be seen whether or not public educators can use information technology to improve traditional, campus-based public education while resisting the pressure to water down their programs for impersonal mass delivery by distance education.

DEFINING MOMENTS: THE TENSION BETWEEN RICHNESS AND REACH

The defining moments of traditional spatially based higher education are made up of fixed and fluid experiences. These 'moments' are now creaking as funding per student falls and the romanticized ideal of an education detached from 'real' life falters under the weight of highly variable student experiences. Distance learning in all its guises has always been regarded as inferior by those embedded in the traditional system. However more and more students demand something different from costly campus-based education. It is time for a more open discussion about the tensions between richness and reach and the role that new facilities like the Internet could play in reaching more students without wallowing in the nostalgia that often accompanies such debates.

An Innovative Strategy Supports Student Teachers in Urban Secondary Schools

ost of the urban teacher education programs that existed during the past thirty-five years are now defunct. Even those considered very successful-such as the Urban Teacher Corps, the Cooperative Urban Teacher Education (CUTE) programs of the Mid-Continent Regional Education Lab, Indiana University's Urban Project, and the West Dallas Teacher Education Program at the University of North Texas-no longer exist. Because of the demise of urban teacher training programs, current teacher education programs must serve as a preparation for urban teachers. However, according to the Association of Teacher Educators, generic programs are inadequate as a preparation for urban teachers (Buttery, Haberman, and Houston 1990). Martin Haberman (1987), who has researched and written extensively on the preparation of teachers for urban schools and effective urban teaching, considers them (traditional, campus-based teacher education programs) a waste of time. According to Haberman (1987), the average career of an urban teacher is between three and five years, and in every five-year period approximately one-half of the urban teaching force leaves the profession. As a result, there is a teacher shortage in the nation's 120 largest urban school districts (Haberman 1987). The lack of specific urban teacher education programs and the inadequacy of current teacher education programs as a preparation for urban teachers have contributed to the high rate of urban teacher attrition. Because of an urban teacher shortage, many newly certified teachers, who want to teach immediately after becoming licensed, will begin their careers in large, inner-city schools. Many of those novice teachers, who lack adequate urban teacher preparation, may be overwhelmed by the problems associated with urban teaching. The problems they will face, such as students' antagonism toward school, their lack of respect for themselves and their teachers, poor student discipline, high rates of student absenteeism, stu-

Professionalization or dispersal: A case study of American teacher education

An important hallmark of American teacher education has been its integral role in 4-year or comprehensive colleges and universities for the past 100 years. In more than 1,100 colleges in the United States, teacher education is offered as one of many baccalaureate or graduate-level programs. The preparation of elementary and secondary and special and vocational teachers is offered as an integral part of comprehensive or university-based programs. Today that situation is threatened by a number of factors that are separating teacher education from its traditional place in American higher education. These factors include (a) the inability of campus-based teacher education programs to keep pace with the accelerating demands and expectations of policymakers, (b) alternative preparation programs that are proliferating and gaining credibility, (c) resource constraints that are pervasive and real, (d) teacher shortage conditions that demand a response, (e) new forms of professional development that invite separation from university Inservice Education of Teachers (INSET) courses, (f) widespread development of professional development schools (PDSs), and (g) a commitment to assess teacher candidates separate from and outside the university. Without responses to these factors, Ed Schools are likely to see this separation accelerate and could experience the relocation of teacher education off the campus and to a variety of other providers. Preserving the unique role that teacher education plays as an essential part of American higher education is a major challenge. The factors just cited are reinforced by a host of public policy and academic initiatives that are causing teacher education to be dispersed and deinstitutionalized and "reembedded in other sites and spaces" (Hargreaves, 1995, p. 7). Reinforcing this relocation are the efforts of college faculty and Ed School "reformers" who are creating 100% field-based programs or recentering teacher education in PDSs. Those new field- or school-based entities enforce the idea of embedding teacher education in entities away from and often separate from universities. A hostile fiscal and policy environment adds to the potential for relocation and poses significant consequences for Ed School faculty in the United States.