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Franklin Consulting
Web 2.0 related reports
A review of current and developing international practice in the use of social networking (Web 2.0) in higher education
This report was commissioned by the Committee of Inquiry into the Changing Learner Experience to review the current and developing use of Web 2.0 technologies in higher education from an international perspective. The report is based on five specially commissioned reports from Australia, the Netherlands, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. These were chosen to provide some of the leading countries in the use of Web 2.0 technologies in education together with one country where English is not the first language and one where infrastructure provision remains a critical issue.
The report covers the following four areas:
- The areas in which Web 2.0 is being used, including academic and administrative support. Web 2.0 is being used in nearly all areas of higher education, including academic, administrative and support areas. These tend to be in "hot spots" where "early adopters" are trying out new things rather than widespread. Take up across the different countries appears to be in some measure dependant on the technical infrastructure being available to enable students to access to Web 2.0 functions. Questions of equity therefore impact on take up in use.
- The drivers to use of Web 2.0 in these areas. The UK and Netherlands lead the way in enabling use, through supporting national infrastructure developments, and some USA States have policies and strategies in place which encourage use of technologies in support of student learning. Institutions were not found to have specific drivers and, as organisations, are slow in their response to Web 2.0 technologies.
- The issues encountered and the responses made. HEIs and their students find themselves in uncharted territories with respect to their use of Web 2.0 technologies. The historically more certain boundaries where information and communications were controlled by universities is being lost, and institutions are struggling to make sense of how to operate in this changed and permeable space. Students have yet to discover the full consequences of their public representations. Issues are discussed around Social and professional lives, privacy and safety, identity, issues for institutions, a lack of new pedagogic models, time constraints, culture shift for academics and issues for students.
- The perceived advantages and disadvantages of Web 2.0 use. There are seen to be three key advantages of Web 2.0. It offers a set of affordances that are not found in other, students are already using these technologies and are therefore engaged with them and many of them are free to use and come without the restrictions found in many institutional systems.
- Prospective developments in Web 2.0 use. New curriculum opportunities, new assessment opportunities, to provide support before students arrive at their university, a blurring of the boundaries of institutions as they become more, the development of new virtual learning environments (including personal learning environments) which are based on Web 2.0 technologies, a reduction in the ability of institutions to control the technology that students use in their learning, a reduction in the ability of institutions to control access to information that students use in their study and Web 2.0 applications increasingly replacing desktop applications.
This can be downloaded in Word or PDF format.
Web 2.0 for Content for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education
This study has focused on the content sharing aspects of Web 2.0, including textual,
sound, and video data. The study is also cognisant of the fact that content sharing
via Web 2.0 mechanisms can be the enabler of social software -
The report provides a discussion of Web 2.0 together with a compilation of some of the more commonly used systems for education. It then examines progress at four universities which have taken a strategic approach and implemented Web 2.0 services in different ways at the institutional level. This is followed by a discussion of Web 2.0 content and its creation and use, together with an identification of issues affecting content creation and use. The report goes on to consider the ways in which Web 2.0 is being used in learning, teaching and assessment, and important issues associated with pedagogy and assessment. Finally it turns to institutional policy and strategy and consider ways in which Web 2.0 impacts them.
The report is available in Word and PDF , together with JISC's response in PDF and our comments on the response.
This work included a set of webinars supported by the following briefing papers:
- A short introduction to Web 2.0 word or PDF
- Institutional practice word or PDF
- Content creation word or PDF
- Teaching and learning word or PDF
- Strategy and policy word or PDF