Electronic information resources are increasingly in use for courses at all levels of Higher Education. They may be employed as reference material when researching particular topics for assignments, as part of a conventionally structured course, or alternatively their use may be a central part of resource based course philosophy. Whilst the use of these resources may offer many advantages in terms of developing more independent learners, there are also information handling skills which students must acquire. This paper discusses the relevance of these skills and the factors influencing their acquisition for students on two networked resource based courses at the UK Open University.
Electronic information resources and information literacyThe use of electronic information resources, underpinned by information and communications technologies, has led to an explosion of interest in networked environments, which offer the potential for greater independence and more open ended study. In some cases this open approach to study is restricted to particular parts of the course, where researching information from electronic resources may be associated with project work. Other courses, described here as resource based in a networked environment, use a combination of access to a wide variety of resources in electronic form, with the construction and negotiation of meaning through online collaborative interaction as a central part of constructivist course philosophy.The use of electronic information resources presents new opportunities, in terms of the extent and choice of resource available, and also in the possibilities for tailoring searches, and accessing or combining information to meet particular requirements.However, the scale and diversity of the information available, coupled with a general lack of bibliographic control, and concerns with a lack of authenticity and reliability
Database Management has an important role to play in the management of data assets which are at the heart of every organization. In a fast moving technological era, where data is rapidly expanding, understanding the current best practices and procedures is important for continuous improvement. This paper investigates how
This paper reports on research to investigate design features of asynchronous discussion systems for higher education. The research aims to identify features that increase the benefits of discussion systems and reduce the problems. The paper focuses on a major theme that emerged from interviews with learners and teachers: information overload. Interview findings, together with literature and system reviews, were used to identify four areas of possible system enhancement aimed at alleviating overload: branched message threading; user recommendations of messages; message filtering; and a personal 'clippings' area for useful messages. The paper discusses these enhancements and their evaluation in a prototype discussion system used on a UK Open University course. Data from the student evaluation indicated that students preferred branched threading to linear threading; they thought filtering and clippings were helpful in principle, although they did not use them very much; and they felt uncomfortable with the idea of recommending each others' messages. Students felt less overloaded in the second part of the course, which was when the system enhancements were made available.
A learning event is any planned and managed experience that helps those involved learn new knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviour. Counselling or coaching sessions, an experiential training course, a workshop and a team "away day" are all learning events. This article describes some principles and practices that can help these events go well. It includes two worked examples.
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