UCISA Survey: Technology Enhanced Learning For Higher Education in the UK

UCISA have recently published results from the 2008 survey on Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL).

The survey is the fourth in a series of surveys which have, over time, looked at the adoption of what have variously been described as VLEs, e-learning, MLEs and now ‘technologically enhanced learning’ tools.

The survey records increased use in technology enhanced learning the primary drivers being improving quality and meeting student expectations. The most important influencing factors in encouraging this are identified as committed local champions and the availability of internal funding. ‘Lack of time’ is still seen as the biggest barrier to uptake.

In terms of institutional provision of a centralised VLE Blackboard is still the most dominant platform (47%), followed by WebCT (23%) and Moodle (11%). When respondents were asked to list all the VLEs used within the institution Moodle was the most commonly used platform (55%) followed by Blackboard (50%) and WebCT (31%). The authors of the report suggest that this disparity reflects "a trend towards the adoption of Moodle across the sector … at departmental/school level and has not extended to institutional systems to date".

[At the end of the day I suppose it doesn’t matter what VLE you have but how you use it that counts. Its also interesting to note different disciplinary approaches to TEL. This was picked up by David Muir who is blogging from ECER 2008 – VLE Use in Higher Education]

The full UCISA report is available here

chevron_left
chevron_right
css.php