Summary Proposal TEAL2.O

Project Reference Number: 610186-EPP-1-2019-1-LK-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP

Coordinating Institution: University of Peradeniya Sri Lanka

Contact Persons:

1)Dr. Aruna Manipura, University of Peradeniya,
amanipura@pdn.ac.lk, amanipura@yahoo.com

2.) Dr. Gergana Cisarova-Dimitrova, European Center for Quality,
gdimitrova@ecq-bg.com, gergana.cisarova@gmail.com

The overall objective of the project is to improve access to high-quality and global-oriented students & teachers higher education in the Partner Countries, through a cloud-based, open-access collaborative teaching & learning platform, and thereby build institutional capacities for providing high-quality Open and Distance Education (ODE) in S&T areas for a wide and diverse group of learners

The proposed TEAL2.O environment is distinct from current learning managements systems (LMSs). It has features similar to LMSs like Moodle or Canvas, and online course platforms such as edX or Coursera. The proposed system will extend its capabilities beyond the features available in these systems. One of the drawbacks of those systems is the lack of modularity which prevents customizability to local settings in terms of programs as well as content development and delivery. In contrast, TEAL2.O will be devoted to customizability and collaborative development. Customizability will not be limited to the stage of developing programs or courses and content but also to the learning process. This allows learners to develop their own course with their own learning outcomes as well. This would help make learning more relevant to individual needs and capabilities and will enable effective feedback collection and assessment of learning efficiency. All of these features will be wrapped in an inbuilt evaluation and quality assurance process that will rank programmes, courses, content, teachers, and students based on peer reviews and interaction with the content.

In essence, TEAL2.O will have advanced inbuilt opportunities for collaborative teaching, learning and quality assurance workshop and will be based on networked learning and content creation. It aims at facilitating a wide learning network pooling local, regional and international learning sources. Content co-creation would make it possible to network not only faculty and students, but also graduates and other stakeholders

• Access to MOOCs and other digital learning content developed around the globe, thus contributing to internationalization of PC curricula. This will make both traditional S&T and S&T-Incentives for students and faculty to be content co-creators and to practically engage with technology-enabled tools
• Autonomous assessment and quality assurance
• A technology-enabled environment for learning offering integration of various technology options, open software and open hardware (e.g. Arduino)
• Enhanced opportunities for collaborative learning and teaching
• A software infrastructure empowering student-centered learning

Proposal at a Glance:

• To develop, validate and launch a collaborative and modular open Technology Enabled Active Learning (TEAL) platform, in the form of an open access online tool hosted in the cloud, allowing full customization to suit the needs of individual institutions, faculty, and learners in the PC contexts
• To initiate learning & teaching content development through the platform in key S&T areas,thus kick-starting and promoting the use of the platform in learning networks within the PCs
• To build human resources capacity and sustainable support structures in order to enable the active exploitation of the platform in the participating PC institutions.

Essence of the proposed solution:

TEAL2.O will depend solely on open content and open technology, and will allow modularity and collaboration. Through modularization, the platform will improve and optimize access to the best S&T learning materials already available in the public domain (open courseware, e.g. MIT, EDX NPTEL), and will offer lesson planning and content creation tools that can be used by individual institutions, faculty and students according to their teaching and learning needs. It will also allow the integration and use of existing open-source software and hardware (e.g. Arduino) with DIY ODE more globally oriented and would help boost the competitiveness of HE and the economies of the PCs

Modularity and customizability, which will make it possible for PC institutions, faculty and students to customize the available content they use while developing content, programs and courses that fit local circumstances and formal requirements style laboratory experiments. TEAL2.O can be used in a variety of ways: as a distance learning platform, as a content management platform, as a tool enhancing learning in the classroom or blended learning. Content-wise, the platform will be developed and used in a networked fashion –initially within localized networks of similarly positioned institutions and then slowly expanding as a network by branching out to experts in institutions of higher exposure and capacity. It should be especially beneficial for resource-poor institutions.

In order to ensure that the platform will be operational and widely used, the consortium will initiate content development, train staff and students that can co-create content in the initial stages and create at each consortium PC HEI a support structure that will be tasked with maintaining and promoting the platform.

What are the benefits of the solution?

Due to the modularity of the platform, PC institutions will be able to build their own programs (specifying Program Objectives and credit structure), teachers will be able to build their own modules of content (specifying Individual Learning Outcomes and credit loads) and learners will be able to build their own courses, using, mixing and re-mixing existing content and adding new content. Content will be developed and used in an open and collaborative manner, pooling available expertise across the PCs and utilizing the expertise available in individual institutions’ global networks. TEAL2.O will also address quality assurance issues associated with this open approach to content development by enabling peer review and the establishment of a system that tracks in an intelligent way the level of interaction of the learner with the content, teachers, and fellow students using algorithms similar to that of google page ranking, FB, and Research Gate.