Design and Development of the E-Learning Services ...

Design and Development of the E-Learning Services in the Open Education System in Turkey Assistant Prof. Dr. M. Emin Mutlu Anadolu University [email protected] Inst. Özlem Özöğüt Erorta Anadolu University [email protected] Inst. Ruşen Yılmaz Anadolu University [email protected]

Abstract The design and development of the traditional instructional materials used in the open education system of Anadolu University is achieved by the units specialized in their own subject area using the organization and infrastructure of the university. E-learning systems are designed and developed with the collaboration of the units developing the traditional instructional materials of the university and the Computer Based Education Unit. Among the e-learning services, the e-book, e-television, e-practice and e-exam services are developed as a result of the digitization of the instructional materials designed and developed in the Book Design Unit, Television Production Center, Computer Based Education Unit and Test Research Unit respectively by using the multimedia technologies. In this paper, experience related to the management, organization and technology of the design and development processes of the e-learning services in the open education system in Turkey is mentioned. Key Words: open and distance education, e-learning, management of e-Learning

1. Introduction Open and distance education system is a modern educational practice providing higher education using the distance education model and “allowing learners to learn using the communication technologies”. Distance education is used in many developed or developing countries and it allows learners from any age, income or professional groups from different locations to continue their education according to their personal capacity and speed, using communication technologies and without decreasing their productivity. The number of the open universities that were established following the Open University of United Kingdom has been increased since 1980s. Since 1990s, computer and the Internet based instructional technologies have been used in these open universities where learning means such as book, television, and academic facilitator services exist. Therefore, a need for the establishment of units developing instructional content for computer and the Internet environment arose in these universities that previously established TV studios to develop TV programs. In institutions focusing on the design and development of the distance education materials, adaptations should be made in the production processes and organizations in order to digitize and broadcast in the virtual environment the products of the units that develop instructional materials for various environments. Anadolu University, the institution responsible for the distance education in Turkey, has recently made changes in its organizational structure for the transformation of the traditional distance education materials into e-learning content.

2. Anadolu University Open Education System Anadolu University Open Education Faculty, possessing the Economics and Business Administration programs, was established in 1982 to perform distance education in Turkey. The demand for the open education faculty where 29,000 students were registered in the first year has gradually increased and it has become a gigantic institution having around 1,000,000 enrolled students and where more than 200,000 students are registered every year. In 1993, distance education expanded and separated into three faculties as Faculty of Business Administration, Faculty of Economics, and Open Education Faculty, and it was named as Anadolu University Open Education System. The Open Education West Europe Programs were developed in1997 in order to provide distance education services to the Turkish citizens in the West European countries and its head office was established in Cologne. Anadolu University is a dual-mode university. The university has 9 faculties, 6 graduate schools and 11 vocational schools providing face-to-face instruction other than the Open Education Faculty. Teaching staff working in the units providing face-to-face instruction at Anadolu University give great support to the development of the content and the provision of the instructional services for the Open Education system (Ozkul, A. 2001). The basic instructional services at Anadolu University Open Education System can be stated in three groups as the student office services provided by the head office and its affiliates, the academic facilitator services organized by the academic facilitation coordinatorship, and the face-to-face examination services organized by the computer research and application center. Not only the face-to-face departments of Anadolu University but all public universities in Turkey and the Ministry of National Education also supports the provision of the academic facilitation and exam services in the Open Education system. Units designing, developing and producing the distance education materials are composed of the book design unit where the printed materials are designed and developed, radio-television production center where the TV programs are designed and developed, test research unit where the exam questions are prepared, the computer based education unit which is responsible for the design, development and broadcast of the instructional software. In addition, there are units in the Open Education Faculty such as dean’s offices, communication center, internship evaluation unit, public relations unit, copyright office, academic coordinatorships of the programs in the Open Education Faculty, units responsible for the coordination of the education abroad, book stores, and administrative issues such as purchasing and finance.

3. Distance Learning Services in the Open Education System Anadolu University is in Eskişehir which is located in the central part of Turkey. Its more than one million students are living in various cities of Turkey having 81 cities. Students enrolled in the Open Education system can use the office services, academic facilitator services and exam services in their home without leaving from there. A service infrastructure for the whole country was organized in order to provide those services.

3.1. Office Services Offices responsible for the student affaires have been established in the Anadolu University Open Education system in order to allow students enrolled in Business Administration, Economics and Open Education Faculties to perform their affairs without going to the center. In 1982 where Anadolu University Open Education Faculty was founded, a head office was established in Eskişehir and Open Education Faculty Student Offices were established in six cities where the student population is very high. The head office is responsible for the coordination of the

information flow between the university and the offices. Since the number of students increased each year, there was a need for opening new offices in different cities. As of 2005, 88 offices in 80 cities and in Nicosia (Lefkoşa) and Cologne serve to the Open Education Faculty students. Since Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir are crowded and big cities, there are five, three and two open education offices in these cities respectively. The Open Education Faculty offices provide the students enrolled in the system with services such as delivering the books, giving a student identity card, operations for suspending the military service, giving a transcript, rearrangement of the student identity cards, canceling registration, conferring a diploma, giving honor and high honor records, and making changes in the student information. Since computer usage was not as widespread as today in the period between 1982 and 1993, offices used to prepare the documents that they would give to the students on the basis of the information sent to them by the head office. In 1994, all the offices were computerized and providing the students with these services became faster. All offices connected to the online system in 2005 and this allowed the students to get services from offices other than the offices they are affiliated to. More than 400 people work in the head office and the offices in the cities.

3.2. Face-to-face Academic Facilitator Services Academic facilitator service is one of the most important elements of the Open Education System. It helps students to comprehend the subjects they do not understand by discussing them with their tutors online and reinforce what they have learned by interacting with the other students. The basic aim of this service which is supported by many universities in Turkey is to get the instructors specialized in their subject areas and students together and promote interaction to encourage better learning (Murphy, Karen L. 1996). Academic facilitator services are given in evenings or at week ends by more than 600 instructors in the university campuses in 67 centers where university rectorships exist. Academic facilitator services are organized by the Open Education Academic Facilitator Coordinatorship. The Academic Facilitator Coordinatorship assigns the academic facilitators with the help of the City Coordinators in the cities and supervises them.

3.3. Examination Services Open education faculty exams are held on the same dates and in the same hours in the whole country. Anadolu University Computer Research and Application Center (CRAC) is responsible for the execution of the examinations without any problem. The organization of the examinations starts with the registration and re-registration operations. After the registration and the re-registration operations, information such as the program in which a student is enrolled, the exam center where the student will take the exam, the courses that s/he will be responsible for the exam, whether s/he will graduate when the academic period ends will be clearly stated. In every examination period, CRAC places the students in the rooms where they will take the exams using the information about the building and rooms that are coming from the exam coordinators in the cities. The Test Research Unit is informed of the courses which need to be covered in the question book and the sequence of the questions in the book. Using this information, the Test Research Unit prepares the exam question booklets including the questions it prepared for every course. The exam booklets are pressed in the Anadolu University Printing House, and then, they are packed with other exam papers and sent to the cities. Moreover, student examination entrance cards are prepared and sent to the students. The exam coordinators in the cities organize the buildings and rooms selected for this purpose after getting the necessary information from CRAC. Representatives from the Anadolu University are sent

to the cities in every exam period in order to control the exam process. After the examination, the exam papers are sent back to the Anadolu University safely. The CRAC evaluates the exam papers using computers and informs the students of the exam results. The examinations are conducted three times a year using more than 5,000 buildings and more than 50,000 rooms each time. More than 250,000 people are charged in every examination period as the city coordinator, university representative, question and money courier, security personnel, building head, room head and supervisor.

4. Development of the Distance Learning Materials in the Open Education System The coursebooks, TV programs, exam questions and the instructional software that will be delivered to the students enrolled in the Anadolu University Open Education are developed in the units of the university specialized for these purposes.

4.1. Development of the Course Books The design, writing, print and distribution of the course books for distance education takes long time and it requires knowledge, skill, experience, a solid infrastructure and a team of experts. The most important process in the coursebook preparation is to know the students and determine their learner styles after determining the content. A course book, which is an efficient and effective self-learning material, is a teaching material transferring the thoughts, concepts and facts in an exact, correct and clear manner using the inductive approach and possessing many characteristics in terms of the layout (color, shape, size, graphics or photographs). The course books are prepared in the way to allow self-study, and they are pressed using the most up-to-date instructional technology methods and providing the basis for the Internet and TV programs, and then distributed to the students. The number of books which were redesigned and pressed in the Anadolu University Distance Education system has exceeded 500. Around 5 million books are delivered to the students every year. More than 1,000 subject area professors write and edit the books. The course books used in the Anadolu University Open Education System are designed and written by the experienced academicians, editors, instructional technologists, TV editors, art consultants, language experts, and evaluation and assessment experts who work under the organization of Book Design Unit. When the design of the books is completed by the Book Design Unit, they are arranged by the Open Education Faculty Index Service and became ready for the press in PDF format. Book Coordination Unit is a unit that allows the payment of copyrights to the writers and editors for the books written and edited, and determines the number of books to be pressed, the sequence of the press on the basis of the departments and grades, makes their publication and distribution to the offices possible. For this purpose, firstly, the books are arranged according to the programs and grades, then they are stocked according to the cities, sent to the offices via the transportation services that are purchased, and they are delivered to the students.

4.2. Production of the TV Programs All the radio and TV programs are developed in the Open Education Faculty Radio and Television Production Center and they are broadcast in the national TRT channels (only the exam preparation programs are live broadcast). The production center which has professional production and broadcasting systems consists of two studios, analog and digital edition systems, two electronic graphic units that can produce two and three dimensional animations, live broadcasting car, camera for actual exterior shot, light and voice equipments, band multiplication unit, setting and make-up units. Nearly 200 experienced, specialized and trained personnel work in the production center.

The subjects which can be presented in the radio or television are chosen from the printed materials with the collaboration of the program coordinators, editors, scenario writers and the director. The following steps are the creating the scenario, production of the programs and broadcasting the programs (Demiray, E. 2000). Nearly 5,000 TV programs have been developed for the undergraduate students, vocational students and students moving to a four-year program from a two-year program since the establishment of the Open Education Faculty. The number university professors taught in the TV programs broadcast in the TRT Channel 4 is 508. The TV programs are broadcast 24 weeks per year, 37 hours per weak, and 888 hours per year. The programs are broadcast at least twice in a year. The TV programs are sent to the students enrolled in the West Europe Programs in DVD format because they cannot watch the TRT broadcasts. The radio programs are broadcast in TRT Radio 1. The number of the broadcast radio programs is 400.

4.3. Development of the Exam Questions The unit which is responsible for the preparation of the questions for all the courses broadcast in the Open Education programs is the Test Research Unit. Every year, for each course, the subject specialists are asked to prepare questions. Those questions are scientifically checked by another subject area specialist after being technically controlled. When the scientific editing of the questions is complete, they are edited by the subject writer and they get approval for printing. All the questions to be asked in the exam are assessed and evaluated scientifically. It is through this process that more than 20,000 questions are asked to students in the examinations without any error. The Test Research Unit is equipped with the question bank software and the most up-to-date computers. Each question is assessed and the parameters such as the difficulty level and differential value are recorded in the question bank (Tokbudak, A. 2002).

4.4. Production of the Instructional Software The Computer Based Education Unit (CBEU) was found in 1989 in the Anadolu University Open Education Faculty to investigate and apply the educational opportunities that stem from the developments in the computer technology and widely use of the computers. So far, various computer based educational applications were designed and put into practice in the Computer Based Education Unit. The most important ones of these applications are the Computer Based Academic Facilitation Centers, Multimedia Practice Software, Internet Based Trial Examinations, the Internet Based Information Management Program, Internet Based Practice Software, electronic course books and television programs broadcast via the Internet, the 3rd and 4th year courses of the Distance English Language Teacher Program and the Open Education E-Learning Portal. In addition, the introduction and distribution of the licensed WebCT, Moodle and Breeze programs to the teaching staff of the Anadolu University to be used in the face-to-face courses is achieved by the CBEU. The design and broadcast of the all practices and the maintenance of the broadcast courses and the services provided are achieved by the CBEU. Twenty-five specialists work full time in the CBEU as instructional designers, graphic artists and animation specialists. Moreover, 25 students from different majors at the Anadolu University work half time in the CBEU to perform jobs in relation to voicing, graphics, animations and scenario development. More than 250 teaching personnel working in different departments at the Anadolu University provides support in the instructional software design and development process as subject area specialists, editor, instructional designer, vocalization and animation specialists.

Two sound studios, a video studio, a test laboratory and an online facilitator service room are used in the production process.

5. Transformation of the Traditional Open Education Services and Materials into the ELearning Services Students enrolled in the Anadolu University Open Education system constitute a less homogenous group than students enrolled in other higher education institutions. Therefore, they show different behavior and attitude in terms of the ways they use the services provided them. The learning efforts of the every student getting instruction via the open education method in our country should be supported by technology as much as possible without leaving them on their own for studying. For this reason, the traditional products and services of the Open Education Faculty are designed and developed parallel to the developments in the Internet technology so as to be delivered in the Internet. Students can use these instruction environments depending on their own means. Therefore, the students are mainly responsible for the content given in the books, and the other instructional media has a supportive function. A period where the instructional content is gradually digitized has started in the Open Education system since 1999. The course books, television programs, academic facilitator services, exam questions, office services, computer aided instructional software are transformed into products and services in the virtual environment such as e-book, e-television, e-facilitator service, e-exam, officeweb, and e-practice respectively (Mutlu, M. E., 2004).

5.1. e-Book The electronic book service was put into practice in the 2003-2004 academic year so that students have the chance to read them in the Internet environment when they have not got the books yet. The electronic books were delivered in PDF format in the mentioned academic year but they were transformed into Flash Paper technology in the 2004-2005 academic year so that students not having the PDF reader could access them. Similar to the PDF format of Adobe, Adobe Flash Paper technology is a vectoral and scalable file format, and it does not allow changes on the file. Flash Paper uses SWF which is a Flash animation format. Only Flush plugin is needed to see these types of files. Downloading the Flash Plugin is extremely simple compared to Adobe Acrobat Reader. Students cannot copy or download any part of the book into their computer using the Flash Paper technology. The name of the electronic book application has become e-book when all the e-learning services have been combined in the e-Learning Portal. The units in the PDF format coming from the Index Service, which is a sub-unit of the Book Design Unit, are transferred into Flash Paper and added into the ebook section of the course in the e-Learning portal. 2,178 units for 173 courses are delivered via the Internet environment.

5.2. e-Television In the Open Education Faculty, all the radio and television programs are produced in the Radio and Television Production Center and broadcast in TRT channels. E- Television is a service that gives the students the opportunity to record the TV programs of the open education system courses in their computers and watch them more than once. Television programs must be digitized so that they can be delivered in the Internet environment. In this process, the final copies of the television programs that are produced parallel to the coursebooks for each course are obtained by the CBEU from the Radio and Television Production Center in DVD format. They are transformed into the wmv format in the way that the magnitude of 1 minute equals to 1Mb and added into the e- television section of the related course in the e-learning portal.

The delivery of the television programs in the Internet was started in the 2003-2004 academic year. This practice made much more sense when developments in the fast Internet access occurred in Turkey in 2004. More then 600 programs belonging to 70 courses are broadcast in the e-television which is in the Open Education e-Learning portal. Each program lasts around 20 minutes. Students can access this service from their houses, offices, internet cafes just by using their Turkish Republic Identity Numbers without paying any fee.

5.3. e-Practice Service The main instructional material in the Open Education programs is the coursebook. The students are responsible for the information in the books for the examinations. Students need software that can reinforce what they have learned from the books, increase their problem solving skills and prepare them for the exams more effectively. The development of this software has started in 1993 when the Computer Based Academic Facilitation Centers were established. Multimedia CD-ROMs were prepared and distributed to the students in 2000 and the distribution of the practice software in the Internet environment started in 2002. In May, 2005, the learning services that were designed and put into practice in many years were combined and delivered under the name ‘Open Education e-Learning Portal’. Practice software has taken its place in the Open Education e-Learning Portal as e-practice. The preparation of the Internet based practice software involves two processes as design and production. Half of the total project period is used for design and the other half is used for production. The contribution of many experts is needed in every step of the design and production services. The practice software of a course is composed of units that are parallel to the books and television programs. Before the production, the common characteristics of all the units must be identified and they must be designed so as to emphasize the identity of the course software. This design including the elements of the course software and its presentation format is used as a template in the production phase when the units are being developed. After the development of a unit in the production phase taking the template as a basis, an additional design depending on the instructional aims of the unit will arise. This additional design for the units is developed by the course production team. That students have different perception levels is taken into consideration during the design process. Branches that allow students to follow the lessons in different sequences, sensitive words with explanations and buttons that allow the students to see the meaning of the words are designed. Animations that promote student participation in the learning process are also used. Any wrong answer clicked by the students in interactive questions includes the cues that guide the students in finding the correct answer. The practice software is developed as a result of a team work. There is a chief in this team who manages the project and develops the design of the instructional processes. The project manager keeps in touch with the other members of the team such as subject specialists, developers, visual design specialists and programmers, and manages the design and development process. Subject specialists are chosen from the instructors having an academic career. Their job is to prepare the scenarios for the unit. They are involved in an orientation program for multimedia instructional software and course design. The subject specialists forward the scenarios they prepared to the project manager. The project manager organizes the scenario as instructional development scenario and gives it to the developers. The developers transmit the materials (text, visuals, voice, graphics, and animations) to the computer taking the templates as a base. The graphics designers prepare the graphics, pictures and shapes and they are responsible for the organization of the screen. The programmers create the codes necessary for the general template design. They also produce the animations and codes necessary for the interactions special to the subject. When the edition of the unit by the editor is complete, the course content is vocalized. The project manager follows this process

and is responsible for the packing of the program after the course development is complete (Ozkul, 2001). In the 2005-2006 academic year, 758 unit practice software for 50 courses are presented to the students in the Open Education e-Learning Portal.

5.4. e-Exam In the Open Education System, internet-based trial exams exist so that students can prepare themselves for the exams and see their real performance before the real exams. This practice started in 1999 and was named as ‘e-exam’ in the open education e-learning portal. For the e-exam practice, the CBEU cooperates with the Test Research Unit. The questions of a course are prepared by the editor and sent to the Test Research Unit for the trial exams. When the redaction of the questions is complete, the Test Research Unit sends the questions to the CBEU and informs the course editor of this event. The questions of any course are added to the system via the e-exam question entrance module of the elearning portal. The parts requiring the insertion of a formula, graphics, table, etc. are placed as picture file. In the e-exam practice, more than 11,000 questions for 123 courses are placed in the question bank and they are updated every year. The practice receiving the highest demand in the e-learning portal is the e-exam. After choosing a course for the exam, students indicate whether they will take a midterm, final exam, or a make-up exam. The examinations involve questions randomly selected from the question bank, and the time period for the exam also appears on the screen which is exactly the same time period given in the real exams. Students can pass to the evaluation section when they finish the exam in the given period. The correct answers of the questions do not appear in the evaluation part, but the number of questions answered by the students, the number of correctly answered questions and the students’ performance for the units are listed.

5.5. e- Facilitator Service The e-practice software that is broadcast in the Open Education e-Learning Portal has an asynchronous academic facilitator service. The facilitator service was started a as a pilot Project for 24 courses that have practice software in May of 2005. Each course has an academic facilitator and a moderator. Students send their questions by accessing the lists of the units in the e-facilitator link and then they send their question after choosing the related unit from the unit list. If their question involves a formula, they send their question after placing them in a file. The questions sent to the facilitators are checked by the moderator; the unrelated ones are directed to the correct place, and the related and academic ones are forwarded to the facilitator. A student can access to the questions asked by the other students and the answers given by the facilitators. The academic facilitator service is performed by the course editors. This practice which was started for 24 courses will continue for 50 courses in the 2005-2006 academic year. The number of the academic facilitators will be increased if the open education students will use this service more often. If there will be facilitators coming from other universities, this organization will be combined with the organization of the Academic Facilitator Coordinatiorship.

5.6. Office-Web Service The services used by the open education students via the open education offices started to be accessed by them via the Internet. Using the Office-Web service provided by the Computer Research and Application Center, students can learn their exam results, see their transcripts, learn the books they need to buy from the offices, and make changes in their examination center and identity information.

6. Broadcast of the e-Learning Services The e-book, e-television, e-exam and e-practice are broadcast in the Open Education e-Learning Portal after the transfer operations in the CBEU (http://eogrenme.aof.edu.tr). The Open Education e-learning portal is broadcast from the CBEU server center that provides service only regarding the broadcast of instructional content in the Internet environment as different from the CRAC. Every year, information about the enrolled open education students is loaded to the open education e-learning portal database and students are given the chance to access the e-learning services just after the registration. The contents and services in the Open Education e-learning portal are delivered via three servers having 32 operators. TTNET, which is a national Internet network, is used in order to broadcast via the Internet lines having bands of 34 mbps. The lines of ULAKNET, which is the National Academic Internet Network of the university, having 70 Mbps are also used for this purpose. A technical support team is on duty in order to make the Open Education e-Learning Portal available for 24 hours, to maintain it and back it up, and respond to students’ technical support demands that come from them via e-mail or telephone. Records showing how many times students use these services in a year is important because the analysis of these data allows to obtain scientific results about the students’ profile for using these services and their study habits. Today, 15% of the students enrolled in the open education use the elearning services regularly, and this ratio increases every year. The studies conducted so far indicates that the final grades of the students who used the e-learning services are 19% higher than the ones who did not use them (Mutlu, M. E. et al, 2004). The table below indicates the units in the Anadolu University Open Education Faculty and their products and services.

Table. Units in the Anadolu University Open Education Faculty and their products and services. Unit

Traditional Instructional Product and Service Student Affaires and Grade Affairs

Explanation

Online Instructional Product and Service

Explanation

Accomplished by 400 personnel in 88 offices in 82 cities

Office-Web Service

Academic Facilitation Coordinatorship

Face-to-face Academic Facilitator Service

Given by more than 600 instructors in 67 centers

e-Facilitator Service

Book Coordination and Design Unit

Pressed Coursebooks

e-Book Service

Radio-Television Production Center

TV programs that are broadcast in the national channel

Test Research Unit and Computer Research and Application Center

Face-to-face (formal) Exams

Computer Based Education Unit

Laboratories and instructional software prepared for CDROM

More than 500 books were designed, and more than 1,000 writers and editors were involved. More than 5 million books are pressed and distributed to the students. 5,000 programs were developed. More than 500 instructors worked. 24 weeks in a year and totally 888 hours broadcasting in a year. More than 40,000 questions are prepared in a year. More than 50,000 rooms are used for the examinations. More than 250,000 people work. Instructional software was designed for more than 100 courses. More than 250 instructors were involved.

Exam results and grades can be learned via the Internet. Personal information changes can be made. It started with 24 courses and 24 academic facilitators. It will be provided for 50 courses in the 2005-2006 academic year. It started in 2003. 2,178 units for 173 courses are broadcast using the Macromedia Flash Paper technology.

Head Office and the Open Education Offices

e-Television Service

It started in 2004. More than 600 programs for 70 courses are broadcast in Microsoft WMV format.

e-Exam Service

The question bank having more than 11,000 questions for 123 courses is available online.

e-Practice Software

758 interactive and voiced units for 50 courses have been prepared using Macromedia Flash and are delivered to the students via the Internet.

7. Conclusion Rapid changes in the Internet technologies has promoted the creation of new opportunities in the field of distance education, and has allowed the professors to give instruction taking students’ individual differences in their learning styles and capabilities into consideration. These types of new opportunities creates indispensable opportunities for a distance education institution like the Open Education Faculty that aims at giving students of different ages, income and professional groups residing at different locations an education suitable for their individual speed and capacity. Redesigning the traditional elements of the Open Education System in the Internet environment and the practice software that allow the students to reinforce what they have learned enhance the quality and efficiency of the learning environment presented to the students. The structure of the Open Education e-Learning Portal where all the e-learning services are presented altogether is extremely flexible. Students can study efficiently respecting the distance education regulation. They can follow

the books, television programs and practice software, ask questions to the academic facilitators and get reply from them, and take trial exams to evaluate all their efforts. In order to provide the students with these services, an organizational structure was created that allow the cooperation of the Computer Based Education Unit and the other units to digitize and broadcast the products and services of the units producing instructional content in traditional environments.

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