The Auricle

One of the understandable, periodic, concerns of senior administrators and managers in higher education is the potential contribution of information technologies and, more specifically, e-learning, towards making teaching and learning 'more efficient'. Note the word is 'efficient' not just 'effective'. Efficiency is about being productive with minimum expenditure of effort; the effort so saved can […]

The e-learning world moves rapidly, and whilst vendors of e-learning solutions need to have an awareness of technologies and practices as they develop, a recent software demonstration that I attended highlighted what I see as a worrying trend. E-learning solutions are, necessarily, developed over time. Often these developments are as a result of technological advancements, […]

The European Institute for E-Learning (EIfEL) is practising what they preach. In a recent press release they state: “Commencing in May 2004, EIfEL (European Institute for E-Learning) is going to provide all of its Members with an ePortfolio, the most innovative and fastest growing technology in the field of education, training and human resource development. […]

HEFCE has published the responses (Circular 09/2004) to its e-learning strategy consultation of July 2003. The analysis of responses was grounded in the context of a UK eUniversities Worldwide. The rapid demise of UKeU, however, made the experience of reading this document a little surrealistic. The context now is one of Teaching Quality Enhancement and […]

Back in January I published a short article Auricle has Soundblox which introduced Laszlo's SoundBlox as an example of an audio blogging tool and distributed internet service. Today, over on the Robin Good site, the article Voice Publishing Is Here To Stay describes Audioblog, another example of the genre. The quality of the sound for […]

In my previous article Scholarly searching gets Googled, Spaced, and CrossRef'd I highlighted some of the alliances Google is apparently building and some of the concerns being raised by some 'information professionals' about whether Google should be considered a legitimate part of a scholar's toolkit. Today, I give a brief account of an interesting test […]

Helen Barrett's e-portfolio site is a useful destination in its own right (pity she doesn't appear to have a weblog) but those particularly interested in e-portfolio research might get a few ideas from, or add some ideas to, the Directions for ePortfolio Research section. Download article as PDF

In a follow up to my previous article Open Access Publishing: allergic reaction sets in, we find Google seeing, and perhaps seizing, the opportunity. Information Today (10 May) describes yet another pilot initiative. In the article CrossRef Search Uses Google to Provide Full-Text Access we find Google collaborating with nine leading commercial publishers to allow […]

At a recent quality assurance conference references were made to the 'student as customer'. Whilst this is not a new description of a student I do sense that its use is on the increase. Whilst this paradigm shift in the way we view students has many ramifications, I, as a Learning Technologist, feel a potential […]

Lots of interesting comment about open access or 'author-pays' publishing in the UK press this week. Vivienne Parry (she of BBC Tomorrow's World fame) in her article A toenail in the door in Thursday's Guardian 'Life' section (6 May) suggests that open access, far from threatening the big publishers will make it increasingly difficult for […]