Asia eBIT @ UCSC: Implementing the paradigm shift ...

Asia eBIT @ UCSC: Implementing the paradigm shift from Teaching to Learning through e-learning framework G.N. Wikramanayake, K.P. Hewagamage, G.I. Gamage, A.R. Weerasinghe University of Colombo School of Computing {gnw, kph, gig, arw}@ucsc.cmb.ac.lk ABSTRACT To address the shortage of opportunities to take computing as a career, University of Colombo introduced the BIT External Degree programme in 2000. However due to the high dropout rates at the initial stage of the programme, only small number of students has been successful in completing their studies. Therefore, it was a strong requirement to improve the quality and relevance of the delivery mechanism of BIT as the university was not involved in face to face teaching. Asia eBIT is a project to address these issues and to expand BIT into an International degree in Asia. Through the paradigm shift from teaching to learning, the relevance of the programme as an external degree has been achieved. Beside changes to the curriculum is gradually addressing the dropout issue as well as has provided the students an opportunity to first acquire end-user IT skills and then move on into development skills in ICT. Asia eBIT e-learning framework is built on top of a Learning Management System and provides a wide rage of learning resources. It is a virtual learning environment that promotes constructivism in collaborative learning. It includes interactive learning material, student manuals, learning activities and assessments. This paper introduces the Asia eBIT e-learning framework, curriculum changes that have take placed and the various learning resources that had helped the student to learn and test their skills. Paper also shows how the student performance of participated students had increased due to this learning environment.

1.0

INTRODUCTION

1.1

University of Colombo

The history of higher education in Sri Lanka is closely linked to that of the University of

Colombo. Established in the year 1870, as the Ceylon Medical College, the University of Colombo could claim to have been associated with higher education for over 100 years. Students should feel very privileged to belong to the University of Colombo with its long tradition of excellence in teaching, learning, research and contribution to the community. The University of Colombo started its computing activities in 1967 and today it is the most advanced higher educational institution, in the forefront of human resource development in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in Sri Lanka. In September 2002, University of Colombo School of Computing (UCSC) was established by merging The Institute of Computer Technology and The Department of Computer Science both of the University of Colombo, as the first centre of higher learning of computing in Sri Lanka.

1.2

Career Opportunities in ICT

According to the recent work force survey [11] the current demand for computer graduates is 5,755. Such an increasing demand was predicted at Colombo way back in late 1990s. Undergraduate education in Sri Lanka is provided free of charge for a limited number. Providing educational resources along with opportunities for scholarships / bursaries and hostel facilities cannot be sustained for large number of students without a steady income. Apparently the government of Sri Lanka is spending over 1,000,000 per student per year to provide undergraduate education. Thus state university setup does not allow expansion at the required scale. A typical increase in the intake for a state section university programme is around 50 students. In late 1990s the largest undergraduate output in ICT from a

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state university was 50. Thus increasing by numbers in 50s will not assist in meeting the local and global needs.

1.3

BIT @ UCSC

Taking into consideration the expansion limitations of the state sector universities and the job opportunities that exist for ICT graduates in Sri Lanka & overseas, the UCSC (formerly Institute of Computer Technology) took the initiative to launch the External Degree (BIT) programme leading to the award of Degree of Bachelor of Information Technology (External) – BIT way back in 2000 [1]. It is the first-ever External Degree in IT in Sri Lanka and the University of Colombo awards the degree. University system provides higher education opportunities to less than 15% of the successful students at the GCE A/L examination. BIT is open for all students who are successful at GCE A/L and also for others who have obtained alternate educational qualifications irrespective of them being registered for any other educational programme. Thus BIT is designed to produce qualified ICT professionals in addition to the traditional University output. More importantly BIT has enabled those who could not enter the university to read for a degree in ICT due to severe competition to enrol for state university degrees. Finally BIT gives an opportunity to those non-graduates already working in ICT to obtain a formal qualification in ICT. BIT is a three year academic programme that awards a Diploma in IT on successful completion of course examinations of the first year; a Higher Diploma in IT on successful completion of course examinations of the second year and finally the degree. This process has allowed students to commence employment after completion of one year academic work. Such students would proceed with their studies while at the industry or move on to other disciplines. As BIT is an external degree the students will not attend the institution for the learning process. Thus, UCSC provides a well-defined detailed syllabus that would help to lay a solid foundation on which, a student can build his career in ICT. Due to rapid advances in ICT all UCSC syllabi

are constantly updated to meet the industry requirements. Major syllabi revision takes place every 3 years. In addition to the syllabi, model question papers, a list of recommended textbooks are provided to the students. Main source of interaction with the students is through the Web. All announcements and most correspondence are done through this medium. Students meet university authorities only at registration, examination and awards ceremony. Thus the learning takes place remotely similar to Open University Distance Education model. UCSC also gives further support to BIT students by the regular TV programme telecast over TVLanka which is broadcasted in the Middle East as well. Recommended text books (most Low cost Indian editions) have been made available in many public libraries throughout the country in response to student requests. Rest of the paper is organised as follows. Section 2 presents the changes that had taken placed in the learning and delivery mechanisms along with an identification of existing Learning Management Systems (LMS). Section 3 introduces the initiatives taken by UCSC to introduce the paradigm shift through the BIT degree programme. Section 4 introduces the Asia eBIT project and elaborates on the e-learning framework used to achieve the paradigm shift. Section 5 briefly highlights some of the society changes and barriers in Sri Lankan context in succeeding in the paradigm shift. Finally, the conclusion emphasises on the impact is taking place in education as a result of the paradigm shift from Teaching to Learning.

2.0

CHANGES TAKEN PLACE

Availability of vast amount of information on the web has provided access to all types of learning material. The teacher’s lecture notes are no longer the primary focus of a learning process, and the teacher’s role and the student’s learning process is changing [14].

2.1 Paradigm Shift Paradigm shifts in today’s world have identified the Machine / Industrial era being replaced by Technology / Information era. Similarly

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production process has moved from Products to Knowledge, Workplace has moved from Physical to Virtual and its focus has changed from Worker to Customer [10]. In terms of education we should create Knowledge that is accessible virtually with the focus on the student. Virtual access is achieved through Internet / Intranets. Techniques such as email, web notices, discussion forums and video conferencing allow a student to access information without visiting the physical location of delivery. A typical interactive e-learning system will have these characteristics and thus facilitating the paradigm shift.

2.2 Classroom Level Use of technology at classroom level was not possible until the teachers delivery mechanisms were aided with technology. Some universities, institutes and even schools now have installed computers and multi-media projectors in some or all of their class rooms so that teachers could deliver the content with the aid of technology. For instance lecturers of University of Colombo School of Computing can to carry their USB drive to deliver their lecture as multi-media facility is available in each classroom or login to the elearning system. However an education centre with restricted facilities would have to be satisfied with a specific location like a meeting room to use their multi-media material. It is similar to how laboratory classes are conducted. Thus in such centres not all teachers and students will be able to benefit from technology. However this is the first step towards using technology for teaching.

2.3 Teacher’s Role In the modern global learning environment teacher’s role shifts from "dispenser of information" to "facilitator of learning" as he has only to guide the active students who are involved in using the e-learning material. Some of the early changes that were taking place in teaching and learning were discussed in [14].

2.4 Student’s Role Some classrooms are equipped with computer access to all students. In such cases students interactively participate in the learning process. The student can focus totally on the learning

process than on copying note as in a traditional class. Teachers should ensure that knowledge and skills are presented to students in a way that they could learn through participation. Teachers need to consider how these learning experiences could be encouraging to students who are performing such mental exercises. Thus students, who used to learn facts and skills by absorbing the content presented by teachers and media resources, could move towards creating personal knowledge by acting on content provided by teachers, media resources, and personal experiences. The focus should be on acquiring higher order skills like problem solving and critical thinking.

2.5 Curriculum Characteristics In order to change the teacher’s and student’s role the curriculum also needs to be revised. Traditional curriculum would focus on fragmented knowledge and disciplinary separation. However now we should focus on multidisciplinary themes as future generation will need the ability to move through several different jobs. Thus establishment of basic literacy and focusing heavily on job specific skills is pointless, as one has to change jobs or manage many jobs by themselves. Therefore it is important to emphasise on thinking skills, knowledge integration and application. Depth of understanding will be required than breath of knowledge [4].

2.6 Assessments With changes to the learning process the assessment methods should also change. Instead of measuring a student on factual knowledge and discrete skills, assessments should focus on application of knowledge. This will allow testing of problem solving skills of a student. Students should also be given tasks to demonstrate understanding and creativity. Current LMS are focusing on automated assessment methodologies. Thus most assessments are Multiple Choice Questions (MCQ) or key word filling. Thus most assessments are knowledge assessments than problem solving. However some courses like Mathematics finds it easy to incorporate problem solving in their assessments.

2.7 E-LEARNING

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Hosting of a website to provide easy access to course related information over the Internet can be seen as the origin of the current e-learning systems. It evolved through content that was provided on the web in the form of lecture notes and other learning material such as lab exercises. This reduced the need for long classroom sessions to deliver knowledge and also offered the students the flexibility to learn at their own pace. Now we could see several learning methods being used as part of online teaching over the Internet [9]. In e-learning systems students are able to communicate with their teachers through email and discussion groups. In this situation students do not get immediate response from their teachers and some times may also not get what they want within the required time. However some systems offer online discussions among students, teachers and other participants via chats, videoconferencing and groupware. Here students are able to get immediate response to their questions despite not being physically present. Online assessment is a key component of an elearning system and it is used to evaluate student’s learning progress. Quizzes in the form of MCQ are part of this and it has the capability not only to give feed back for the student responses but also to monitor student’s learning progress and achievement levels. Various information in the form of course overview, contents, objectives, notes, slides, exercises, workbooks, references, worked examples, model and past papers with solutions, links to external resources, student prepared material and their solutions are provided to the learners through these websites. Special interactive sessions with multimedia are also part of these systems. Commercial systems such as WebCT [13] and Blackboard [2] dominated the early days of elearning. However with the emergence of several open source solutions e-learning user community have increased rapidly. Moodle [7], OLAT [8], dotLRN [6], claroline [3] are among the popular open source LMS.

3.0

BIT APPROACH

When the University of Colombo commenced the external degree in IT, the technology enabled UCSC to reach their external students and external institutes teaching them. The UCSC provided not only the syllabi and guidelines but

also the learning content. This content was in electronic format (PowerPoint and Word) where others were able to directly use them through the web site http://www.bit.lk. Thus teachers of external institutes were able to deliver the content to the expected levels of UCSC. Also students who were motivated to learn on their own were able to do so by following this material. Surprisingly the success rate of students following both approaches was the same. However, high drop of rates of the external degree programme was a major concern for UCSC as we would see later in this section.

3.1 e-Learning @ UCSC In the year 2003, e-learning was introduced to the Year one BIT students through a Learning Management System (LMS) called “Theducation”. This was possible through assistance given by Sida (Swedish International Development Agency). LMS assists the students in learning through self-evaluating quizzes, collaborative learning using group assignments etc. UCSC did not stop at this point. We went towards improving the syllabi by identifying overall objective(s) and detail objectives and then relating them to brief and detailed topics along with the expected time to be spent. For self learners as well as for those teachers who delivered the courses the recommended text books with page numbers for each topic was provided. Even the books were classified as main and supplementary so that the students could decide on what to refer. As a learning tool for each subject students are provided with past papers and model answers. In addition to that, the students are given the opportunity assess their learning skills by answering MCQ questions and short answers, which are automatically marked by the LMS. Students are also given an opportunity to answer take home assignments and submit their solutions electronically. Once they submit their assignment the students are grouped and their solutions are shared allowing them to learner from their colleagues. This approach although is a good for learning approach has not been used effectively by the students as a learning tool. Majority of students are not ready to take these quizzes and assignments until the time of the semester examination. Thus they are not ready to tryout the

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learning opportunities provided through the LMS. Thus the LMS had not been used as a learning tool. UCSC has made the use of LMS as a mandatory component of the course. As use of the LMS is possible even after the examination most students who have done the exam well makes an attempt to fulfil the LMS requirement.

•

No link with continuous assessment and final semester examination. Students are not motivated when they do not find a good value from activities in the LMS.

•

Negative impression: Not enough support for student’s learning process.

Submission of assignments and doing the quizzes are possible without any supervision. Hence a quite a number of students take a short cut of getting their quizzes and assignments answered by others. Thus they are not using the LMS as a learning tool. From student point of view although LMS is useful for learning is not yet practical due to access limitations, access cost and time to be spent in front of a computer. Most students are not yet used to learning by sitting in front of a computer as such facilities are not available for them in general.

•

No alignment with respect to syllabus, learning resources and assessment: this is a kind of serious issue which was not considered when e-Learning System was first introduced.

3.1.1 Evaluation of Theducation

The following could be seen as positive observations from the introduction of the original e-learning framework. Positive Observations •

Acceptable Framework to promote an external degree program (where there is no face to face contact)

•

Student satisfaction about details in the syllabus of course modules

•

Promote the students participation with assignment modules

•

Introduction of collaborative learning model

•

From a Web Site to LMS where students found lot of learning resources

Negative Observation •

Collaborative model was not successful. Students were supposed to discuss their individual submissions of assignment with their assigned group and identify the best answer for the given assignment. However students rarely discuss and collaboration didn’t happen.

•

Poor learning content. Learning content are power points slides of teachers. Students can hardly learn these things. There was a module for mathematics learning but it was not inline with relevant mathematics for computing course syllabus.

3.2 BIT Intake & Output BIT is open to all students who fulfil the entry criteria without any intake limitations. Figure 1 illustrates the degree path and the milestones that can be achieved by BIT degree program. Thus during the six completed years, 15,924 students have enrolled for this programme. Among them 9,892 (62%) have sat all semester 1 examination papers and 6,208 (39%) have sat all year 1 examinations. Since the 4th batch to be successful in year 1 all BIT students have to be successful in their LMS assessments as well. Including those who were successful prior to the introduction of LMS in total only 3,538 (22%) from among those who sat all the year 1 examination papers has also attempted the LMS assessments. Thus 78% of 1st year students have dropout of the programme without making an attempt to take all the relevant examination components. However from among those who sat all examinations, 2,237 (63%) have been successful at the BIT year 1 programme. 3.2.1

BIT Year 2

Not all BIT first year students could proceed to year 2. They have to pass at least 6 out of the 8 courses offered during the 1st year. Out of the 15,924 registered for year 1, only 2,927 (18%) were able to proceed to year 2. Among them 1,752 (60%) have sat all year 2 examinations. Year 2 also has LMS assessments and only 1,266 (43%) sat the exams and the LMS. However from among those who sat all examinations, 889 (70%) have been successful after fulfilling the requirements for both year 1 and 2. 3.2.2

BIT Year 3

Again only those who pass at least 6 out of 8 courses offered during the 1st year could proceed to year 3. From the 2,927 second years students

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1,299 (44%) have been eligible to proceed to year 3. Final year project has been the main barrier for the 3rd years. Only 546 (42%) have so far submitted the final project report and 485 (37%) have sat exams as well. However from among those who sat all examinations, 394 (81%) have obtained the degree after fulfilling the requirements of all three years. It is interesting to note that 38% of those graduates are females as opposed to 23% in the internal degree programme. The internal degree programme taking direct intake from year 1 have a success rate of 84% while the previous internal specialised degree programme commencing who’s intake commence in year 3 after filtering students based on first two years performance had a success rate of 97%.

4.0

ASIA eBIT PROJECT

e-BIT is a project to enhance the delivery of BIT degree program using e-Learning and e-Testing framework. It has been carried out as an international collaboration between Stockholm University, Sweden and Delf University in the Netherland. The Swedish International organization is the main sponsor of this project. In this section, we will discuss how we have improved the BIT program using e-BIT project. Based on the experience of e-Learning facilities for BIT during the period 2003-2006, we understood that it is very important to do a curriculum revision of BIT program in order to make it suitable to deliver using online mode. This curriculum revision is required to revise both the learning content and assessment methodology. Hence, overall structure of the program was revised considering main output of the BIT program as well as syllabuses of all courses to be delivered/Tested using online e-Leanring framework. To address a weakness of the original framework, it was required to develop the curriculum by structuring whole study programme level by level as well as the structure of each course in the programme. A syllabus template was used for each course to list learning activities based on the learning outcome and content map in the course. The most interesting observation we came cross in this project is that e-learning course development influences the recursive enhancement in the course syllabuses as it helps to identify teacher’s (Subject Matter Experts) errors and

misunderstandings while achieving constructive alignment in the curriculum of BIT programme.

4.1 E-Learning Framework To retain the large enrolled group of students with the BIT programme the need to improve the quality and relevance of the BIT degree popped up. Since BIT is an external degree with the university not offering face to face teaching and direct monitoring of the participation of the learning process a different approach to that used for the internal students were required. The need for a local controlled e-Learning framework and a project to fund this initiative came up as a result. Asia eBIT is a direct result of this initiative and while addressing these issues it is also helping to expand BIT into an International degree in Asia. In reality, e-learning framework implements the teaching to learning collaborative learning model. It consists of several components and services. Student enrolment, authentication, portal, curriculum, interactive multimedia content, course validation, activity management, messaging, email, forum, chat, assessments, marking, grading, reporting, tracking, quality assurance, user preferences, archiving, etc. are among them [15]. Our e-learning framework is a virtual learning environment to promote constructivism in collaborative learning. It includes interactive learning material, student manuals, learning activities and assessments. In the VLE (http://lms.bit.lk) .each course consists of elearning lessons which provide interactive learning content, online and offline activities, online quizzes for self evaluation and assignments, and discussion forums. Figure 2 shows the starting interface for the virtual learning environment of BIT. Marks for the assignments are automatically calculated by the system and considered for the final results. Discussion forums improve the collaboration among the students, as forums allow students to engage in general discussions as well as the discussions on online/offline learning activities Figure 3 shows the interface of online/offline discussions based activity forum. Curriculum development and provision of course page etc should happen first to support a virtual collaborative learning environment.

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4.2 Curriculum Development Curriculum development is the starting point and is an important component for the success of an elearning system. Although the original BIT programme already had a well defined syllabi with exit points at end of year 1 and 2, as shown in the Figure 1, significant student populations dropped out of the programme at the early stage. By analyzing various observations, we identified the curriculum development had not been properly addressed when the e-Learning framework was introduced. We made following two conclusions on the effectiveness and they are main cases for eBIT Project. •

Foundation (Curriculum Development) was not strong and there was a failure in constructive alignment.

•

Development of Virtual Learning Environment to implement collaborative learning model through constructivism and learning activities.

It was necessary to go beyond a conventional syllabuses in a distance learning program. It was necessary to provide different learning resources in a structure similar to syllabus of the course. This was achieved by developing a course website within the LMS. The course webpage for “Information Systems and Technology” course is shown in the Figure 4. Students were able to download several offline reading materials like “Student Manuals” for different sections in the syllabus as well as online interactive e-Learning lessons. In collaborative learning constructivism is achieved through open overall discussions; discussions on subject matter with respect to sections within the course syllabus and publicising individual artefacts for discussions and ratings. Figure 5 describes such a real discussion occurred through student interaction in the BIT website. In collaborative learning, learning activities allow to provide online interactive feedback to motivate students and offline change of attitude in the learning process. Every three years UCSC review their curricula to ensure that their courses meet the current needs. Hence the recent syllabi gave us the opportunity address the above issues and incorporate interactive material and learning activities. Although mathematics is important to learn computing forcing the students to learn it at the

initial stage was one of the mistakes corrected in this revision. Prior to producing people who could produce and deliver ICT solutions, it was required to produce people who could use and apply ICT. For that a career path focusing towards the Computer Driving Licence was required as a starting point for the BIT programme. To achieve a strong foundation courses offered for Semester 1 was redesigned. Beside an incremental three year curriculum review process was put into place. We are planning to give a special certificates for students who complete all Semester 1 courses. Aligning the syllabus, learning resources and assessments was a critical requirement. Application of constructive alignment was adopted to address this requirement. Course content too was introduced in stages and assessments too focussed on sections than the course. Emphasis was made to increase the similarity and relationship between formative and summative assessments. Thus take home assignments of the previous system was replaced with learning activities. Figure 7 shows a sample online quiz which are given as assignments to students.

4.3 Interactive Content During the 2003 revision interactive material was developed for some courses using java applets. However, due to heavy use of internet bandwidth by this content this attempt was not successful. Thus the 2006 revision developed the interactive material using flash objects and found it to be more effective. Beside interactive content learning activities were introduced for each course (figure 7). Students could access their knowledge not only through practice quizzes but also through interesting learning activities as shown in Figure 8.

4.4 Learning Material Uniformity of material was achieved through use of templates. Initial learning material was in the form of PowerPoint slides. These slides were useful for some, but most found that they couldn’t learn using them as information was in point form (figure 4). During the 2006 revision the slides were expanded and student manuals were created. This helped the learner to focus on learning based on the manual thus less dependency on the text books. Writing student manuals is very time

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consuming. Thus recording lecturer’s voice and streaming is used as an alternative.

4.5 Collaborative Learning Virtual Learning Environment to promote constructivism in collaborative learning is another area of focus. Discussions, virtual facilitation, guidance, student feedback and progress are some of the features of this virtual learning environment. The effectiveness of the implementation of the paradigm shift could be seen from the current Semester 1 LMS results (figure 5). In 2005/06, out of the 2,833 students 1,928 (68%) sat for all semester 1 LMS assessments and only 623 (32%) of them completed it successfully. However in the current 2006/07 batch, out of the 1,840 students 1,059 (58%) sat for all Semester 1 LMS assessments and 998 (94%) had been successful. This improvement in the success rate is due to the implementation of the paradigm shift.

5.0

SOCIETY CHANGES

5.1 Society Using computers for public services is gradually wide spreading. Although these benefits are currently enjoyed by a small fraction of the population the availability will encourage others to join and enjoy the benefits of technology. For example, some banks have moved towards providing most of their services through the web. This includes managing their accounts, placing standing orders and settlement of bills. This allows the customer to make a virtual visit to his bank at anytime he wish and obtain the required service. Other services such as withdrawing cash, depositing cheques etc. can be done through the teller machines which are also accessible at anytime. Wireless local area networks allow users to access shared information without looking for a place to plug in their laptops. This technology is being made available in some public places and organisations as well as not spreading beyond the major cities. Educational centres such as Universities and Libraries should have such facilities, as future generation will be carrying mobile equipment to access facilities. Information users now carry their laptops, PDA, smart phones, CDs, thumb drives with them for fast and precise access to their day to day material.

A public library is a knowledge centre [12]. To provide services through technology it should not only allow members to view available books, but should also allow viewing of content pages and abstracts. In the case of research papers the facility to download papers, journals and thesis is provided. User must also have a facility to interact with the librarian, suggest procurements, interact with publishers, receive alters on outstanding books, late fees and collection of books reserved.

5.2 Infrastructure Facilities Educators confront with the issue of equity when they consider introducing technology to learn. To develop a country and provide everybody equal facilities is impossible with the existing free education system and the policy implementation processors. Trying to solve the equity problem and introduce technology at classroom level will result in the country going backward compared to others as well as encourage brain drain as people are always looking for better learning opportunities and living standards. Every student must have computer access to successfully implement above ideas. Thus student to computer ration must increase. It is recommended that all education institutions must have computers with a minimum ratio of 1:5 with those teaching computing with a minimum ratio of 1:3. All teachers must be provided with unlimited computer access so that they could prepare their educational material. Learning computing has now been introduced at schools as well. Having originated targeting at advanced level students it has now reached the ordinary level students as well. However our school IT curriculum should move towards matching those used in the western countries to encourage more to take up IT as a career path. Fortunately through School Net Internet access has reached schools. Also through Nanasala’s it is reaching the villages as well. Not only that the service providers too offering Internet facilities to most cities.

5.3 Language Barrier Most Sri Lankan learner’s first language is not English. Hence some find it difficult grasp the concepts through reading. Hence there is a need for supplementary material in native languages. This could be supported through Unicode.

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5.4 Bridging the Gap The education system has been producing graduates without any exposure to computers. When these graduates take teaching assignments they are not equipped to use technology for education. Technology and educational reforms has to be done taking these into consideration. Few good moves we have seen include staff training and promotion of end-user ICT skills. International Computer Driving Licence (ICDL) [5] is a competency standard for end-user ICT skills. ICDL attempts to raise the general level of competency in IT. This will in turn improve productivity at work and reduce IT support cost, enabling employers to invest more efficiently in IT. It also ensures that best practice and quality issues are understood and implemented, and establishes a tangible benchmark for computer user skills. Increasing popularity of obtaining ICDL qualification is a move towards helping the citizens of Sri Lanka. The recent BIT degree curriculum revision took appropriate actions to bridge the gap that exists between the new intake and year 1. Thus Semester 1 is design to match an advanced version of ICDL.

6.0

CONCLUSIONS

In the modern society paradigm shift in learning and knowledge management is quite apparent. Through the Asia eBIT project the UCSC has taken timely measures to adopt these changes at UCSC. An e-learning framework is essential to implement the paradigm shift. Like learning is a life long process this paradigm shift and the experiences gathered through the shift is itself a learning process. We believe that wide variety of educational services will emerge due to these changes.

7.0

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We acknowledge the support given by the members of the BIT academic panel and the staff of the e-learning centre of UCSC. Contributions made by the Asia eBIT counterparts in Sweden and Netherlands are acknowledged.

1) BIT (2000), “Student Handbook”. www.bit.lk/information/handbook/handbook2000.pdf 2) Blackboard. www.blackboard.com 3) Classroom online (claroline): www.claroline.net 4) Grabe, Mark and Grabe, Cindy (2004), “Integrating Technology for Meaningful Learning”, (4th Ed.), Houghton Mifflin Company. 5) International Computer Driving Licence www.icdlap.com 6) .LRN: Learn, Research, Network. dotlrn.org 7) Moodle: moodle.org 8) Online Learning And Training (OLAT): www.olat.org 9) Salter G. and Hansen S. (1999), “Modelling New Skills for Online Teaching”, Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education Conference, Brisbane. www.ascilite.org.au 10) Schwandt, David & Marquardt, Michael (2000), “Organisational Learning: From World-Class Theories to Global Best Practices”. London: St. Luis Press. 11) Sri Lanka ICT Association -SLICTA (2007), “Rising Demand: The increasing demand for IT workers spells a challenging opportunity for the IT industry”. National IT Workforce Survey 2007. www.icta.lk/Insidepages/downloadDocs/ICT WorkforcSurvey2007.pdf 12) Waydande H.S. (2004), “User’s Perspective Towards Digital Libraries: A practical approach of Central Library”, IIT Bombay, Intl. Conf. on Digital Libraries, Vol. 2, pp. 1081-84. 13) WebCT: www.webct.com 14) Wikramanayake G.N. (2003), “e-Learning: Changes in Teaching and Learning Styles”, Proc. CSSL. Proceedings of 22nd Nat. IT Conf., Computer Society of Sri Lanka, pp. 118-124. 15) Wilson, Scott, Kerry Blinco, and Daniel Rehak (2004), “An e-Learning framework: a summary: DEST (Australia), JISC-CETIS (UK), and Industry Canada”. www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/Altilab0 4-ELF.pdf

Appendix A 8.0

REFERENCES BIT – Course Structure th

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Degree Path MSc, MPhil, PhD @ UCSC

BIT GPA >= 2.0

Y E A R

Semester 6 Examinations and Assignments

3

2 Compulsory (GPV >= 1.25) & 2 Optional Courses (GPV >= 1)

& Pass Individual Project

2 Compulsory (GPV >= 1.25) & 2 Optional Courses (GPV >= 1)

Semester 5 Examinations and Assignments

GPA >= 1.5

Y E A R

Semester 4 Examinations and Assignments

2

2 Compulsory (GPV >= 1.25) & 2 Optional Courses (GPV >= 1)

2 Compulsory (GPV >= 1.25) & 2 Optional Courses (GPV >= 1)

GPA >= 2.0 & DIT

Semester 3 Examinations and Assignments Pass Assignments

Higher Diploma in Information Technology (HDIT)

GPA >= 1.5 Y E A R

1

Semester 2 Examinations and Assignments 4 Compulsory Courses (Min GPV 1.25)

GPA >= 2.0

Semester 1 Examinations and Assignments 4 Compulsory Courses (Min GPV 1.25)

Pass Assignments Commence Studies

Diploma in Information Technology (DIT)

BIT Registration Successful Selection Test GCE A/L Three Passes + O/L Maths - C

Submit Application Qualification for Entrance

Equivalent Qualifications (e.g. 6-12 months course on IT or any other discipline)

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Figure 2: The Starting Page of the Virtual Learning Environment

Figure 3: Different Discussions in LMS

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Figure 4: This is what students see when they enter the course

Figure 5: Collaborative student activity in the LMS Proceedings of the 25th National IT Conference, Colombo, Sri Lanka

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Figure 6: Online Quiz given in the LMS for each sections in the syllabus

Figure 7: Interactive Online Learning Lesson Proceedings of the 25th National IT Conference, Colombo, Sri Lanka

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Figure 8: Interactive online learning Activity given within e-Learning lessons

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