e-Learning session

moderator: Rolf Brugger; protocol: Renato Furter

Projects presented:

  1. Safe Exam Browser (Daniel Schneider & Thomas Piendl, ETHZ)
  2. Moodle Text Clouds (Andrea Baldassari, SUPSI)
  3. E-xcellence.ch (Willi Bernhard, FFHS)
  4. Mobile Uni-App (Thomas Sammer (Andrea Back) UNISG)

Discussion:

Safe Exam Browser:
- Cindy Eggs: Do students have to come to the university to take the test?
Answer: Theoretically it is possible to do it at home. But it's not possible to control the computer & environment at home.
Possible solution for students abroad: students go to a local location to take the test (in a controlled environment).
- Willi Bernhard: Why not using web-cams to control home environment?
Answer: One web-cam at home wouldn't be enough to be sure to prevent cheating. And having more cams is not practicable.
- Olaf Schulte: Is there any data from University of Cologne, if exam results have changed since they use SEB?
Answer: Thomas Piendl didn't asked them - so no.

Moodle Text Clouds:
- Question: Is it one Cloud per course?
Answer: Yes
- Question: Could you do an individual cloud of one document?
Answer: No, its on the course not on the resource. But theoretically you could put just one resource in a course. But for the students it's not that relevant.
- Petra Kauer: What happens to protected or invisible resources?
Answer: They are not indexed.
- Patrick Roth: If you select a document in German and in french. In which language will it be indexed?
Answer: Moodle Text Cloud supports 12 language (uses mac OS index, which is a license issue as text cloud is free). New languages could be added easily.
- Rolf Brugger: How do you achieve sustainability?
Answer: Andrea promises that he will adapt it for every major Moodle release ;) .

E-xcellence.ch:
- Rolf Brugger: Is there a possibility to have external assessments and get a certificate?
It is possible but it's still in discussion if there should be a label/certificate for it.
- Question: What is the difference between EADTU and E-xcellence+?
Answer: E-xcellence.ch has more to offer as results can be exported and tailored to Swiss needs.
- Rolf Brugger: How do you achieve sustainability?
Answer: The community should carry it. If the community uses and is interested in it then it will succeed.

Rolf suggested a quality level that should be enforced by the institutions.

Mobile Uni-App:
- Pierre-Yves Burgi: How can you develop on all mobile platforms?
Answers: There are some basics ideas. MIT has some solutions.
- Laurent Opprecht: Why don't you use web-services?
Answer: We are looking at the different techniques at the moment.
- Thomas Piendl: There are already some apps for LMS (Moodle, Ilias) or web-services that can be used. How do they come along?
Answer: Not every University should have their own solution.
- Benno Volk: UZH can export CMS stuff easy in XML.
Answer: We want to be middle-ware between the University CMS and the mobile devices.

Rolf Brugger mentions that 'app or no app?' is a very basic question and answered many times on the web (but needs to be reevaluated for every project).

Andrea Back: The original idea was: What should an app be able to do?
Findings: The students want just simple services and not fancy collaboration stuff.

Question: benefit can be in back-end systems

- Patrick Roth did an evaluation: People with mobile phones don't want to use it for e-learning... or just with the tools they already have.
Thomas Sammer: There was no demand for e-learning but for campus map and room booking. The solution could be a single entry-point in form of an app with room-booking, campus-map etc.

Survey:

How many of you
- have sustainability solved: 6
- are not sure but it's an issue and they have addressed it: 6
- don't have a solution how to maintain sustainability: 0
- (projects) are looking for partners: 8
- have new project ideas: 5