A personal view of e-learning at the University of British Columbia

The Irving K. Barber Learning Centre (home of OLT)

It’s now seven years since I resigned as Director of Distance Education and Technology at UBC, and my motto has always been ‘Never look back.’ However, two things came together to bring me back to UBC last week with a ‘formal’ [...]

Do serious games lead to academic learning?

Blunt, R. (2009) Do serious games work? Results from three studies eLearn Magazine, December 1

From Natasha Boskic

In a contemporary digital world that is daily flooded with numerous new video games, a frequent question among educators is the relationship between the use of video games and learning.

The article “Do Serious Games Work? [...]

Reigning in costs with online learning

Bassis, M. (2009) Reigning in college costs Businessweek, December 21

This is a useful article, from the President of Westminster College, Salt Lake City, to give to your administration to get more support for online learning. I liked particularly his description of how the college business school uses a competency-based approach and e-portfolios within [...]

Research on the the impact of an LMS on students' learning

Lopes, V. (2008) Course Management Systems and Campus-Based Learning North York ON: Seneca College

One of the rare research reports that looks at the use of a learning management system for campus-based teaching, and its impact on students’ learning.

The main finding was that faculty used the LMS mainly for providing course information, and [...]

e-portfolios and skills (competences) assessment

Krämer, J. and Seeler, G. (2009) E-portfolios as tools to assess generic competences in distance learning study courses Elearningpapers, September

This paper by faculty from a German graduate business school. It discusses the need to evaluate students’ performance in online distance education courses. It focuses on the so-called “generic” or “key” competences, which are [...]