Paul Bacsich

Matic Media Ltd

Teaching Teachers to Teach Online (TTTOL), in short, Teaching Online, is an OFQUAL-accredited online course “doing what it says on the tin”, namely teach teachers to teach online – and taught completely online. It was developed by a team of staff and consultants working for Sero Consulting Ltd under contract to Wey Education plc and is now delivere...

Online education is established, growing, and here to stay. It is creating new opportunities for students and also for faculty, regulators of education, and the educational institutions themselves. Much of what is being learned by the practitioners will flow into the large numbers of blended courses that will be developed and delivered on most camp...

AGILERING After some pilot interviews and reflecting on recent literature and our own experience of Agile/Scrum development we have proposed the following hypotheses to be confirmed, refuted or modified: 1. Development works more effectively if members of each Scrum team are physically co-located 2. Development works more effectively if members...

This study provides the first-ever EU-wide overview of the state of play with policies on open education involving all the 28 Member States. For each Member State, a full account of their understanding of open education and strategic policy approach is given.

This report was written in June-July 2017 after the implementation of two D-TRANSFORM leadership schools: the first in Barcelona in November 2016 and the second in Nancy (France) in May 2017. It also takes account of the D-TRANSFORM MOOC, an open online course for digital leaders, whose 1st edition was delivered on the POK platform of Politecnico d...

In this Annex, see Appendix 1 for the Programme of Leadership School 1, Appendix 2 for the Programme of Leadership School 2 and Appendix 3 for the Programme of the MOOC; Appendix 4 contains summaries of the project outputs of most relevance to leaders. Despite the first edition of the D-TRANSFORM MOOC being still under way, there is a data snapshot...

Arising from work on a Vision and Strategy Appraisal of the UKOU Library Services, and with facilitation from EADTU, a comparative study was done of four distance teaching university library services functions in terms of support to students and teaching staff: FernUniversität; Open Universiteit Nederland (library services supplied by Maastricht Un...

This D-TRANSFORM report is designed to provide guidance for senior managers in higher education institutions, mainly in four Member States of the EU – France, Italy, Spain and UK – when they come to consider whether to deploy MOOCs and related approaches, and how to justify such decisions in terms of business models and strategic relevance. There i...

“Adult Education and Open Educational Resources” is a 140-page “Study”, written by Sero, released by the European Parliament research office on 15 October. It reviews the current use of Open Educational Resources in Adult Education in Europe (with a focus on Member States of the European Union – including the UK as one of the case study countries)...

This report describes the process and outcomes of generating a Rubric (Data structure) for the Systematic Review of Technical Infrastructure in Irish Higher Education with a view to Building Digital Capacity that is taking place in the 2015/16 academic year. The Rubric is based loosely on the MIT90s benchmarking scheme (a useful container for such...

This report was originally Appendices A, C and R to Deliverable 2.2 within Workpackage 2 of the SEQUENT project. The aim of WP2 was to gather examples of good implementation of QA in educational institutions. It begins with an overview of quality agencies in Europe with particular reference to e-learning and OER aspects. (There seems no other publ...

The aim of this study was to make an inventory of the existing cases in formal education (school sector, vocational education and higher education) where a curriculum or syllabus is shared across borders (e.g. state, national, linguistic and cultural). Based on the analysis of the desk research and a case study, further considerations was given to...

The handbook is designed to provide guidance and information on the impact of e-learning and other aspects of application of ICT in higher education on the design and its integration within insitutional and national of quality assurance processes. It distills information and experience of the operation of the e-learning quality assurance labels des...

This research is conducted as part of the European Union-funded project SEQUENT – Supporting Quality in E-learning European Networks. This project, supported by the European Commission, DG EAC, under the Lifelong Learning Programme, is funded from 1 October 2013 to 31 March 2015 (18 months). The SEQUENT project aims to promote excellence in the use...

The aim of this study was to make an inventory of the existing cases in formal education (school sector, vocational education and higher education) where a curriculum or syllabus is shared across borders (e.g. state, national, linguistic and cultural). Based on the analysis of the desk research and a case study, further considerations was given to...

1. POERUP’s overall aim was to develop policies to promote the uptake of OER (Open Educational Resources) in the educational sector, to further the range of purposes for which institutions deploy OER: opening up education, widening access (including internationally and in particular from developing countries), higher quality or lower cost of teachi...

POERUP is an EU-funded project whose funded period ran from November 2011 to June 2014 inclusive. Its purpose was to develop OER-friendly policy recommendations, based on analysis of existing OER initiatives, countries, policies and case studies. For POERUP Work Package 2, Sero has created a curated map/database of 501 open education initiatives, b...

This report (Deliverable 2.2 Introduction) is developed as part of Work Package 2 of POERUP as an introduction to the main wiki-based deliverable. It summarises the list of countries selected for detailed study and describes the template developed and revised for the OER country reports. The report references the mapping process developed to prov...

This report (POERUP Deliverable 4.1) reviews current (April 2014) policies around Europe and in other parts of the world which are directly or indirectly related to the fostering of OER uptake. The research is drawn from POERUP country reports, International Advisory Committee workshops and expert external sources. In reviewing policies, distincti...

This report (POERUP Deliverable 3.3) is a case study of BCcampus from the point of view of OER use and production. This information was primarily compiled from information available on the BCcampus Website: http://www.bccampus.ca and a short case-study template exercise conducted by Prof. McGreal. BCcampus is a publicly funded organization that...

This report (POERUP Deliverable 4.2U) reviews EU policy developments in higher education (ISCED levels 5-8 inclusive) and developments in OER analysed by POERUP and other current OER-related projects. It takes account of information from the Open Education Experts Group and the Open Education 2030 series of workshops at IPTS. Version 1 was complete...

This report (POERUP Deliverable D4.2S) restates a number of Findings about OER in the schools sector across the EU and then makes 25 Recommendations. Findings 1. There are relatively few national OER policies explicitly targeting the schools sector 2. OERs have been an important component of two of the Commission’s most significant policy initia...

This report (POERUP Deliverable 3.4IE) makes the following recommendations for OER uptake in the Republic of Ireland. Higher Education POERUP regards the approach of the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching & Learning in Higher Education as well-researched and in line with good practice in Opening Up Education towards Open Access, OER,...

This report (POERUP Deliverable 3.4UKE) makes the following recommendations: Higher Education 1. The UK government, working with the Devolved Administrations and key foundations, should set up a competitive innovation fund to develop one new undergraduate or Foundation degree programme each year with a focus on low-cost online education UK-wide a...

This report (POERUP Deliverable 4.3UKS) makes the following recommendations for OER Uptake in Scotland. Higher Education 1. SFC should set up an innovation fund to support one new online initiative each year within an overall commitment to opening up education. 2. QAA Scotland should continue to develop its understanding of new modes of learning...

This report (POERUP Deliverable 3.4UKW) makes the following recommendations and suggestions to promote OER uptake in Wales. Higher Education POERUP commends the policy recommendations already made by Higher Education Wales that are now being put into practice in collaboration with HEFCW. In addition it recommends the following policies: 1. HEFCW...

This report (POERUP Deliverable 3.2) makes many recommendations grouped under three headings: 1. Organisational models of (Inter)national open educational practices 2. Support 3. Quality and time Only the first set of recommendations are listed in this abstract. R.1. Open Educational Practices need (OEP) different social configurations to serve d...

This report (POERUP) Deliverable 4.2C) reviews EU policy developments in vocational education and training (VEDT, TVET) and developments in OER analysed by POERUP and other current projects. It takes account of information from the Open Education Experts Group, the Open Education 2030 series of workshops at IPTS, the launching of Opening Up Educati...

The Open Educational Resources movement is conventionally dated from the time in 2001 when the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) announced that it would put its complete programme catalogue online – thus it has been under way for around 12 years. However until recently the focus across the world has been on provision of resources: even in...

This report synthesizes key findings by examining similarities and differences in 120 "notable" OER initiatives worldwide against a number of key areas concerning OER development. The report demonstrates that OER-based learning, as an extension of online education, offers the potential of wider access to high quality education at relatively low cos...

This report (POERUP Deliverable 2.3) synthesizes key findings from POERUP by examining similarities and differences in 120 notable OER initiatives worldwide against a number of key areas concerning OER development. The report demonstrates that OER-based learning, as an extension of online education, offers the potential of wider access to high qu...

Progress Report

This is the final report of the project VISCED (Virtual School and College Education for Teenagers and Young Adults) for its EU-funded phase 2011-12. 1. A virtual school is a school where pupils learn mainly at a distance over the internet and any activity in a classroom takes no more than around 15% of study time (1 day per week in a full-time sc...

This deliverable represents the combined output of VISCED Publications and covers both publications in conference proceedings and publications in journals , magazines, etc.

The purpose of this report is to report on the 15 conferences or events where a presentation about VISCED was delivered. At the start of the project a total of 12 of these events were targeted and so the final results are above expectation. The list given here includes only events where a formal presentation based either wholly or considerably on t...

This is a description of the process and outcomes of creation of over110 country reports specially contracted by VISCED

This report gives summary details of the virtual schools and colleges identified by the project, with particular attention to Europe. It provides overviews and brief analysis of the findings with some notable examples to illustrate these. 1. The target for this Deliverable is to have entries on 200 exemplars. They are described in narrative format...

This is Volume 1 of the Handbook detailing the final intellectual outputs of the VISCED project (Virtual Schools and Colleges for Teenagers and Young Adults) part-funded by the European Commission Lifelong Learning Programme

This document reviews the policy opportunities and challenges raised by virtual education for the 14-21 age range and presents policy recommendations to policymakers, leaders and industry in England. This should be considered in the context of the overall Europe Policy Recommendations Report D3.9. With regards to the findings of the VISCED Resear...

This document reviews the policy opportunities and challenges raised by virtual education for the 14-21 age range and presents eight policy recommendations to the Commission. Separate supplementary reports provide policy recommendations for England, Estonia, Finland and Portugal. This document makes eight recommendations to the Commission: Recomm...

Virtual schools and colleges are an increasingly important alternative for these students and are becoming more and more prevalent all over the world – including Europe. But little is known in Europe about how they operate or what makes them successful. Many people are suspicious of these new structures particularly when they are offered as a repla...

This deliverable describes 12 case studies of virtual schools and colleges from both Europe and the rest of the world investigating the institutional, pedagogical, organizational and socio-cultural aspects of relevant experiences identified through both desk research and consultation. Specifically this document includes 8 in depth case studies fr...

Teacher training has a continuum that includes initial teacher education, induction and continuing professional development; it is closely connected to quality assurance and learning outcomes. This report covers all of these phases with detailed description of a range of offerings in different regions of the world. There are also variations due t...

This final report, updated nearly one year after its predecessor (D3.4) was submitted, provides analysis and recommendations for innovative good practice for piloting virtual programmes in schools. It draws on an updated literature review on the topic of innovative good practice for teachers. Worldwide, schools have been turning to virtual learnin...

Virtual schools and colleges are an increasingly important alternative for these students and are becoming more and more prevalent all over the world – including Europe. But little is known in Europe about how they operate or what makes them successful. Many people are suspicious of these new structures particularly when they are offered as a repla...

The "report" is essentially a cover page for the wiki page http://poerup.referata.com/wiki/Canada and the associated file http://poerup.referata.com/w/images/OER_Canada_Policies-pdf.pdf

Trevor Kerry draws together contributions from leading academics in the field based in Europe, Canada and Australia to examine key themes in higher education, including: • academic freedom • leadership and management • the nature of learning and teaching • ethical behaviour • curriculum innovation • attitudes to globalization and internationalizati...

ADistance Learning Benchmarking Club of seven institutions (initially seven) was set up across the world in 2009-2011. Four out of the seven successfully completed the full benchmarking process, using a slightly modified version of Pick&Mix. This short report describes the history and outcomes of the Club, within the wider context of developments...

This is an overview of Pick&Mix version 2.6, focusing on the criteria not the additional descriptors.

This report is a study of the prices of online degree and MBA online courses carried out in early 2003. It covered online courses being offered in Republic of China, South Korea, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong. For those who are coming new to online learning in 2022, it may come as a shock that such a piece of wo...

This paper was originally written by myself in October 2005 to be presented at ODLAA's 17th biennial conference, "Breaking down barriers – The international experience in open, distance and flexible education", held 9-11 November 2005 in Adelaide, South Australia. ODLAA is the Open and Distance Learning Association of Australia. The version used fo...

Throughout the last decade (2009), numerous initiatives have been set up to experiment with the establishment of ICT-enhanced activities, under various frameworks and to varying degrees of success. The higher education area is a very complex world with a diverse list of providers; these include traditional universities, distance education providers...

Summary The paper presents the research approach and activities of the Re.ViCa project which aims to make an inventory and to carry out a systematic review of institution-wide and cross- institutional Virtual Campus initiatives of the past decade within higher education at European, national and regional levels. To facilitate cooperation between pa...

The paper describes the concepts of Virtual Campus and Virtual Mobility and refers to several past and present projects and initiatives in the field. Through these previous experiences, a shift of concepts is noticed: from the fully online Virtual Campus to Virtual Mobility, whereby the more traditional universities open their borders and “blended...

Using participant-observer evaluation with documentary review, the author traces the history of the Pick&Mix benchmarking methodology in the UK programme on benchmarking e-learning up to the current day. The paper aims to show how other countries can use a similar methodology, and discusses the ranges of applicability. The paper focusses on: benefi...

Online education is established, growing, and here to stay. It is creating new opportunities for students and also for faculty, regulators of education, and the educational institutions themselves. Much of what is being learned by the practitioners will flow into the large numbers of blended courses that will be developed and delivered on most camp...

The chapter first describes the concepts of virtual campus and virtual mobility and refers to several past and present projects and initiatives in the field. Through these previous experiences, a shift of concepts is noticed: from the fully online virtual campus to virtual mobility, whereby the more traditional universities open their borders and "...

This version of the bibliography has been compiled as part of the work to create an overarching analysis of the methodologies used and considered in the Higher Education Academy/JISC Benchmarking of e-Learning Programme and related activities. It is hoped that future versions will more fully cover activities in other countries and sectors.

During academic year 2007-08, JLT commissioned a small project to explore the Tangible Benefits of e-Learning at an institutional level. The outcome of this work was presented back to JLT during their June 2008 meeting. As a result the JLT charged the JISC Executive with an action to explore the area further and present an ideas paper for discussio...

During academic year 2007-08, JLT commissioned a small project to explore the Tangible Benefits of e-Learning at an institutional level. The outcome of this work was presented back to JLT during their June 2008 meeting. As a result the JLT charged the JISC Executive with an action to explore the area further and present an ideas paper for discussio...

Executive Summary The MIT90s strategic framework has been central to a number of JISC and related studies (including from DfES) on adoption and maturity. It was proposed in 2005 as a basis for benchmarking e-learning by the University of Strathclyde. However, that university took an institutionally-specific approach to benchmarking during the Pilot...

This is the first edition of the Pick&Mix workbook. It has been developed as an output from Benchmarking Phase 1 and is to be used as an input to Benchmarking Phase 2. The methodology called Pick & Mix was developed in early 2005 and first used in a competitor benchmarking exercise for Manchester Business School. Since then it has been further dev...

The paper summarises the state of the art of the Pick&Mix system six months after its invention in March 2005

There is increasing interest from UK HE institutions and sector agencies - HEFCE, the Higher Education Academy and JISC - in the use of benchmark self-assessment toolkits by an institution and groups of partner institutions for analysing and comparing their level of good practice with e learning. This overview document reports on work by the autho...

This Chapter (Chapter 01 of "The UKeU Reports") is designed to give a factual overview of UKeU, based as far as possible on authoritative sources of information. The facts not under dispute include numbers and types of courses offered, student numbers on courses, published salaries, etc. It was produced soon after UKeU was closed. Such a Report wa...

This paper focusses on one main aspect of the economic and organisational impact of e-learning. It takes as a starting point the situation of universities in Europe, but in the context of the global market for higher education and the increasingly close relationship (not one-way but two-way) with the corporate sector and with other sectors of learn...

This review, written in April 2005, is an update to the earlier brief study to establish the state of knowledge of benchmarking e-learning activity, with particular focus on UK HE institutions. It poses the problem, describes the methodology used and comments on the main documents found and agencies involved. Finally it draws some conclusions suffi...

This paper, dated March 2005, is the very first public document in the evolution of the Pick&Mix system for benchmarking e-learning. It describes the process and outcomes of a rapid exercise to establish the state of knowledge of benchmarking e-learning activity, with particular emphasis on UK HE institutions and e-learning. It poses the problem, d...

The UK's attempt to develop a global e-university ended in public failure in 2004. The main focus of this paper is to exploit the failure as a case study to update the literature on 'critical success factors' for virtual universities and so provide lessons for e-universities worldwide. However, since much of the public comment was superficial or il...

A UK study by the authors on the Hidden Costs of Networked Learning in universities has produced a new planning framework for courses (traditional or using networked learning). This paper details the top-level findings of the study, focussing on impact on staff stakeholders and the relevance to other countries.

Many people doubt whether costing should appear on the educational agenda, and we expect that many readers of this book will skip this chapter in favour of the more academic, pedagogic ones. Unfortunately for these readers, costing is playing an increasingly important role in education, at all levels. In higher education, the need to meet the incre...

Analysing the costs of new learning technologies within the educational sector is currently a neglected area, yet the issue of how to spend money effectively in this context is a question that must be answered. This question is made especially pertinent with the current expansion of information technology into higher and further education. To know...

This paper reports the development of a course development lifecycle model which is intended to inform the identification of ‘hidden’ costs associated with network‐based learning. The development of this model formed part of a six‐month research study funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee of the UK Funding Councils. The study aimed to p...

This paper provides an overview of work taking place in five different working groups/committees, each concerned with developing standards for the description and sharing of educational resources in an online environment. Specifically, we look at the work of the Aviation Industry CBT Committee (AICC), the European CEN/ISSS Learning Technologies gro...

This paper analyses the experiences and experiments of the U.K. Open University in the use of computer conferencing over 10 years. It provides a framework for considering educational uses of the medium, as well as describing several innovative applications. Highlights of the main issues involved in implementing this technology are given. The paper...

Foreword by Luis Rodríguez Roselló, Head of the Division, Education and Training Secto, Telematics Applications Programme, DG XIII C3. European Commission. May 1995 As Europe enters the emerging global information society, new opportunities for transforming lifelong learning and continuing training are beginning to emerge. The convergence of infor...

JANUS (Joint Academic Network Using Satellites) is an 3-year EC-funded project under the DELTA Programme of DG XIII. Its aim is to build, using a mix of VSAT and terrestrial networking technology, a pilot trans-European operational equivalent of the terrestrial academic Internet networks. The original aim of JANUS was to build a new generation of m...

ISDN presents a new challenge for educators and trainers. This book provides an introduction to the technology for educators interested firstly in whether to use it and secondly in how to use it. The first three chapters discuss practical, educational and strategic issues related to these two questions. The following ten chapters provide case studi...

This chapter aims to place the discussion in the last two chapters about Basic Rate ISDN and educational applications in an overall context of educational networks. A subsidiary aim is to give general information about applications of ISDN in the education and training market that have not been included as specific case studies in the book, either...

The author discusses the following issues in relation to ISDN education applications: ISDN equipment available from vendors; requirements of users in education/training; applications for schools; and applications for colleges and universities

We describe a program which converts Microsoft Rich Text Format files (as produced by Word, Excel, and other packages) into standard LaTeX. This program converts character glyphs, character attributes, style information, fonts, lists and tables to their "equivalents" (if any) in LaTeX. Conversion of character, font and attribute information is har...

From a review: "My only disappointment in reading this book (not really warranted in terms of its aims) related to its lack of concern with other techniques and technologies for distance education. It does not pretend to have this kind of breadth, though Paul Bacsich's contribution 'Computer Conferencing and Electronic Publishing: Cooperation or Co...

Computer conferencing has been a feature of several American time-sharing computer systems for some years now, and recently several educational applications have arisen. In the United Kingdom, computer conferencing facilities are only available on some computers. In this paper I shall first explain such systems, with some of their educational appli...

This paper surveys the various teleconferencing trials in the Open University, and attempts to analyze why they have been relatively unsuccessful compared to other new media initiatives such as audio cassettes and computer assisted learning. The situation is placed in the context of British and European educational use of telecommunications in educ...

Noting that the educational sector in Britain has been a small but influential user of videotex systems since the launch of the public Prestel service in 1979, this paper surveys the main trial uses in education. The studies reviewed begin with a 1-year trial of Prestel in 1980-81, which identified two applications as having further potential: as a...

Describes the viewdata systems in the UK and in use at the Open University circa 1984 and makes some predictions.

The development and evaluation of a potential viewdata-style delivery system for computer assisted learning (CAL) at the Open University are described. First examined are Open University problems with CAL and television delivery systems, which resulted in the consideration of a viewdata approach involving allocation of a small central processor to...

We classify a family of 216 interpolation principles for formulas in equational theories and show that those in a natural subfamily which are not theorems are equivalents of four standard diagrammatic properties, including the Amalgamation Property.

A model A of a theory T is called a strong amalgamation base if any two extensions of A in T overlapping only in A have a common extension in T. We shall investigate the uses of this notion in Model Theory and prove the following Main Theorem which reduces this concept to known ones: If T is any theory and A is a model of T, then A is a strong amal...

Given a first-order theory T, we let M(T) be the category of models of T and homomorphisms between them. We shall show that a morphism A→B of M(T) is an epimorphism if and only if every element of B is definable from elements of A in a certain precise manner (see Theorem 1), and from this derive the best possible Co-well-power Theorem for M(T). We...

We prove that certain syntactic conditions similar to separation principles on a theory are equivalent to semantic properties such as amalgamation and strong amalgamation, by showing that appropriate classes of structures are definable by L ω1ω -sentences. Then we characterise the elements of core models and thus give a natural proof of Rabin's cha...

We find a family of finite algebras somewhat like primal algebras whose equational theories admit ω-categorical model-completions, with a pleasant structure theorem for the algebraically and existentially closed algebras. Out of this comes a new, model-theoretic proof of Grätzer's result that a primal variety is equivalent to the variety of boolean...