Transforming Higher Education through Technology-Enhanced Learning

Abstract

This book represents an important snapshot of higher educations current thinking about the impact of technology on its own teaching and learning. Although this volume was first conceived as dissemination for the Benchmarking and Pathfinder Programme, the final edited collection is somewhat broader in scope, and more reflective in tone, than a straightforward account of the outcomes. The aim of the Benchmarking and Pathfinder Programme, in which 77 institutions participated between 2005 and 2008, was to help them assess their progress and then develop their priorities for the development of technology-enhanced learning. Some policy- makers have placed great store by the potential of technology to transform the trade-off between cost and quality in higher education, an issue that resonates only too strongly in the face of an inevitable financial constraint on development. The programme was initiated by the Higher Education Funding Council for England in the immediate aftermath of a rather traumatic event for UK e-learning the demise of the UK e-University and the programme represented a welcome opportunity to return the key responsibility for development back into the hands of policy-makers and practitioners in the institutions themselves. At the same time as Pathfinder, the Scottish sector enjoyed a similar opportunity with its e-Learning Transformation Programme. Latterly, Wales has initiated its own enhancement programme, with institutions again leading the development activity. Institutions across the whole UK HE sector have therefore had a recent opportunity to think hard about the opportunities offered by technology. The contents of this edited volume of articles offer both some results of their current analysis, and a reflection on the direction for future policy.