North Europe

E-learning Distance Education

in Ireland

E-learning Leading Providers:

Dublin City University

•Dublin City University was the first major university in the

world to adopt the Open Source Learning Management System

(LMS)/Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), Moodle.

•The Irish National Distance Education Centre (Oscail) is run as

a faculty of Dublin City University.

•All 3,400 of DCU’s academic modules are set up online on the

Moodle system. 800 of these are actively used for e-learning.

There are also 70 active courses used for credit purposes

(courses to support students at the programme level, courses

used as staff communications areas.)

Social. The National Distance Education Centre

Described above see under Dublin City University.

Trinity College, Dublin, Dublin University

• E-learning at Trinity College started in 1998. Trinity College had

400 modules or courses online. It has 9,000 students enrolled on its

WebCT system. This represents 60% of Dublin University’s 15,000

FTES (full time equivalent students).

• Trinity College uses a blended approach to e-learning.

• The Trinity e-learning philosophy has been to use a blended learning

approach and to reduce contact hours ad to put resources on the web.

Their aim is to keep the virtual and the traditional together and they

would not support a structure in which the student does not come in

to the University at all.

National University of Ireland, Galway

• E-learning at NUI is led by the university’s Centre for

Excellence in Learning and Teaching.

• The university uses the Blackboard Virtual Learning

Environment (VLE). Blackboard is used for everything.

• Almost every department in the university uses e -learning

in all their courses. There has been a steep growth rate of

e-learning in recent years. It is difficult to calculate the

number of modules in use as there is great variety of use

including professional development for staff and

discussion groups for students.

• There are many variants of e-learning use: blended

courses/intensive courses, courses with a small amount of

e-learning/courses offered fully online.

University College Cork

• At UCC each department runs its own e-learning offering. The university’s Learning Technologies Unit has an advisory role for the whole university, runs the Virtual Learning Environment, and assists the departments in materials development and other activities.

University College Dublin

• The development of E-learning at University College Dublin has been an evolutionary process. It started at what is now the Teaching and Learning Centre using the Learning Management System TopClass.

• Then the Business School of UCD commenced e-learning using the Learning Management System Blackboard which was run from the Computer Laboratory.

• A third aspect of e-learning at UCD is the Audio Visual Media Centre which develops elearning content for the departments.

Kilroy’s College

• Kilroy’s College is the commercial Irish distance education institution. It has 10 e-learning courses. These courses have 400 students.

E-learning Distance Education

in the United Kingdom

Leading E-learning HE Institutions in the UK

The University of Leicester

Manchester Metropolitan

University

Staffordshire University

University of Ulster

The Open University

The University of Leicester

The university has 1,000 modules on its Blackboard Virtual

Learning Environment (VLE) and it also has started research on

mobile learning. All 19,000 students at the university have

access to the VLE with 7,000 of them counting as e-learning

enrolments.

Manchester Metropolitan University

The university has 1,000 e-learning modules which are

available to over 30,000 students at the university.

Staffordshire University

The university has 350 e-learning courses. It has 5,000-6,000

students and they are enrolled in 12,000 e-learning courses.

University of Ulster

The University of Ulster runs 222 e-learning courses, and has

1,300 fulltime online students each enrolled in many courses.

The Open University of the United Kingdom (www.open.ac.uk)

All students are distance education students. It is estimated that

online versions have been produced for 375 OU courses with 11,000 e-

learning enrolments.

E-learning Distance Education

in Sweden

The University of Lund

The University of Lund

www.lu.se was identified as a

large provider of online

courses in both the CISAER

and the Web-edu projects.

The University has now

6000 Luvit-users and 250

online courses.

Swedish HE Institutions - EDEN Members

CFL - Swedish Agency for Flexible Learning www.cfl.se

Lulea University of Technology www.ltu.se

Lund University www.ltu.se

Malmö University - Teacher Education www.lut.mah.se

Örebro University www.oru.se

The Regional Association of HE in SW Jonköping University

SADE - Swedish Assocation for Distance Education

www.sverd.org

Swedish Agency for Networks and Cooperation in Higher

Education www.nshu.se

University of Gavle www.hig.se

E-learning Distance Education

in Denmark

Danish education is firmly rooted

in a long-standing tradition for

learning through ‘the living word’ as

opposed to the printed word (Nipper,

2003:219). It emphasizes online

education that includes face-to- face

seminars and collaborative learning..

In the middle of the 1990s the

Danish government established The

Centre for Technology Supported

Education (CTU). CTU was meant to

be a national knowledge centre for

pedagogical use of ICT, providing

funding to pedagogical ICT projects

at Danish universities, colleges and

schools.

In 2000 the project funding was

discontinued and CTU was closed

down. In its place the Danish

government established Learning Lab

Denmark (LLD) as a unit at the

Danish Pedagogical University to do

research in learning, including ICT

and learning. LLD still exists as a

research unit.

In education the Danish

government around the turn of the

century tried to establish Danish

Virtual University (DVU) as a

coordinating agency and a common

portal for e-learning in Danish

higher education. After some period

of heated discussions the

responsibility for the DVU

development was handed over to the

universities and nothing much has

happened since then. There is quite a

number of interesting research and

development done in the field of ICT

and learning.

Distance education and e-

learning, however, remain small

scale activities.

Two institutions were identifiedas large providers of online coursesby both the CISAER and the Web-edu projects:

Center of Distance Learning

www.cfu.dk had 500 online

students and 41 online courses

according to the CISAER

Project.

Danmarks Netskole

www.netskole.dk had 7,000 course

enrolments and 40 online courses

according to the Web-edu project .

The following institution in Denmark is a member of EADL (European

Association of Distance Learning):

Akademisk Brevskole A/S www.akademisk-brevskole.dk

The following institutions in Denmark are members of EDEN (European

Distance and E-learning Network):

Copenhagen Business School http://cbs.dk

HK/Privat www.hkprivat.dk/default.asp

The Danish Association for Flexible Learning www.fluid.dk

Tietgen Business College www.tietgen.dk

The Danish member of EADTU is the Danish Association of Open

Universities (DAOU) http://mit.au.dk/daou.

E-learning Distance Education

in Finland

Two major sources about

e- learning published in

Finland are:

eLearning in Finland -

Enhancing Knowledge-based

Society Development

(Markkula 2004)

Utbilda via Internet–

Handbok i IT-pedagogik.

LearnIT (Nyberg and

Strandvall, 2000).

The University of Tampere

The Open University system in

Finland is based on the Open

University in Great Britain and

started in 1970 at the University of

Tampere. Before that, Open

University education had been

available in summer universities.

More than 80,000 students

participate in Open University

education every year. Open

University education is available at

200 localities throughout

Finland.(www.avoinyliopisto.fi/en-

GB/open/intro.html).

The Finnish Virtual University

The Finnish Virtual University

(www.virtuaaliyliopisto.fi) is a

partnership of all 21 Finnish

universities. As described in the

article Nordic Virtual Universities

(Paulsen 2003), it is based on

collaboration, division of labour,

shared knowledge and the expertise

of these member universities. It

promotes online learning and

teaching and develops compatible

information infrastructures. It is not

a university in itself and does not

provide university education.

Markkinointi Instituutti (EADL)

Markkinointi Instituutti

(www.markinst.fi) is an independent

educational establishment providing

vocational and continuing training for

adults. According to the institute’s web

pages in English, it specializes in

further training and re-training. It has

over 50 standard examinations and

training programmes. Completing one

examination or diploma lasts from 3

months to 2 years. The Institute of

Marketing uses an integrated teaching

system, which combines innovatively

various distance-teaching and face-to-

face teaching forms supported by

modern educational technology and

media.

Institute for Distance Studies Distis

The Institute for Distance Studies

Distis (www.svefol.net/distis) was

founded in 1928 under the name the

Swedish Correspondence Institut in

Finland. The aim of the institute is to

provide increased opportunities for

education through distance courses for

the Swedishspeaking minority in Finland.

Distis is one of two distance study

institutes in Finland, the other catering for

the needs of the Finnish-speakers.

Through current education legislation,

both are attached to a folk high school.

The Finnish member of EADTU

is the Finnish Association for

Distance Education (FADE)

www.fade.fi.

E-learning Distance Education in

Norway

NKI Distance Education

NKI DE (www.nki.no) is a part

of the NKI group and offers courses

within higher education, secondary

level education and vocational

training. More than half of the

students follow their courses online

and a majority of the courses are

given online.

NKS Distance Education

NKS DE (www.

nks.no) offers courses

within higher education,

secondary level education

and vocational training. In

2005, NKS DE offered 104

online courses and thus

qualifies as a megaprovider.

BI Distance Education

BI Distance Education (BI DE)

(www.bi.no) is a part of BI

(Norwegian School of Management),

an on campus based institution. BI

DE provides courses within higher

education and vocational training. BI

DE had about 8500 course

enrolments in 54 online courses in

2005 and thus qualifies as a

megaprovider.

Sør-Trøndelag University College

Sør-Trøndelag University

College offers courses at higher

education level. In 2005, the

institutions had about 2500

enrolments in 148 online courses,

and thus qualifies as a

megaprovider.

The Norwegian Networked University

The Norwegian Networked

University (www.nvu.no) is a consortium

presently consisting of 1 university and 5

university colleges.

These are: Agder University

College, Bergen University College,

Nord-Trøndelag University College,

Stord/Haugesund University College,

Sør-Trøndelag University College and

University of Stavanger. Today the

consortium has several activities aimed at

building knowledge and competence

within e-learning provision and has

important dissemination activities.