Frederik Questier

Open source eportfolio: development and implementation of an institution‐wide electronic portfolio platform for students

This article provides a general overview of how portfolio is used in education and then goes on to discuss the development of a generic, institution‐wide portfolio for students. We further provide a succinct summary and critical analysis of the educational principles underlying the use of portfolio in higher education. This is followed by an overview of the growing number of portfolio initiatives currently underway at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. As the use of portfolio is a natural complement to competence‐oriented educational innovations, the Educational Innovation and Educational Service Centre (OSC) of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel is developing a generic electronic portfolio system. The functional and technical requirements for implementation of eportfolio have been established on the basis of the lessons learned from practical experience. The choice of an open source development environment made it possible to get a prototype up and running relatively rapidly, thanks to the availability of built‐in tools such as user management, security management, content management and plug‐ins. The open character of the system offers the best guarantees for its future development, flexibility and the possibility of linking it to other projects and databanks. The article concludes with a description of the portfolio system at its present stage of development together with an exploration of the future possibilities of eportfolio. Le e‐portfolio en accès libre: le développement et la mise en place à l’échelle d’une université d’une plateforme de portfolio électronique pour les étudiants. Après un aperçu général de l’emploi éducatif du portfolio, cet article expose le développement d’un portfolio générique multi‐institutionnel pour étudiants. Quelques principes didactiques président à l’emploi du portfolio dans l’enseignement supérieur. Nous les résumons de façon succincte et en faisons un examen critique. Ensuite nous dressons un tableau du nombre croissant d’initiatives portfolio à la Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Etant donné que l’emploi du portfolio est lié aux innovations d’enseignement axées sur les compétences, le OSC (Onderwijsvernieuwing & OnderwijsServiceCentrum) de la Vrije Universiteit Brussel développe un système portfolio électronique générique. Sur base des expériences pratiques, les exigences fonctionnelles et techniques requises pour l’implémentation de l’eportfolio ont été fixées. Le fait d’avoir opté pour un environnement de développement open source, aboutissait à la création rapide d’un prototype grâce à la disponibilité d’outils incorporés tels que gestion d’emploi, gestion de sécurité, gestion du contenu et plug‐ins. Le caractère ouvert du système offre les meilleures garanties pour le développement futur, la flexibilité et les possibilités de raccordement à d’autres projets et banques de données. Une description est donnée du système portfolio tel qu’il est actuellement en développement, ainsi que des perspectives d’avenir de l’eportfolio. Die offene Informationsquelle ‘E‐Portfolio’: Entwicklung und Umsetzung einer institutionsbreiten elektronischen Plattform für Studenten Nach einem allgemeinen Abriss des pädagogischen Portfoliogebrauchs, wird in diesem Artikel die Entwicklung eines generellen, multi‐institutionellen Studentenportfolios besprochen. Dem Portfoliogebrauch in der Hochschule liegen mehrere schulpädagogische Ansätze zugrunde. Wir fassen Sie bündig zusammen und untersuchen Sie kritisch. Anschliessend geben wir eine Übersicht der zunehmenden Portfolio‐Initiativen an der Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Weil der Portfoliogebrauch bei den kompetenzgerichteten Unterrichtsinnovationen anschliesst, entwickelt das OSC (Zentrum der Unterrichtsreform und Unterrichtsservice) der Vrije Universiteit Brussel ein generelles, elektronisches Portfoliosystem. Auf der Grundlage der praktischen Erfahrungen, werden die funktionelle und technische Voraussetzungen um das E‐Portfolio zu implementieren, aufgezeichnet. Die Wahl für eine open source‐Entwicklungsumgebung resultierte in einen schnellen Prototyp dank der Verfügbarkeit eingebauter Tools wie Gebrauchs‐, Sicherheits‐ und Volumenverwaltung und Plug‐Ins. Die Offenheit des Systems bietet die beste Garantie für die weitere Entwicklung, Flexibilität und die Möglichkeiten an andere Projekte und Datenbanken gekoppelt zu werden. Das Artikel beschliesst met einer Beschreibung des Portfoliosystems wie es sich jetzt entwickelt, wie auch die Zukunftperspektive des E‐Portfolios.

Faculty adoption and usage behaviour of open access scholarly communication in health science universities

Purpose – The study seeks to investigate factors that affect the adoption and use of open access in Tanzanian health sciences universities. Design/methodology/approach – Based on a cross-sectional questionnaire survey, 415 faculty members were selected through a stratified random sampling from a population of 679 in all eight health sciences universities in Tanzania. The response rate was 71.1 per cent. Findings – Based on the social exchange theory (SET), and the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), the study developed a model suitable for assessing open access adoption and usage in academic institutions. The study found that facilitating conditions, extrinsic benefits (professional recognition), behavioural intention and individual characteristics (professional rank, technical skills and number of publications) predicted actual usage of open access. Other factors related to contextual factors (attitude, and open access culture), and extrinsic benefits (academic reward, accessibili...

Open access behaviours and perceptions of health sciences faculty and roles of information professionals.

OBJECTIVEnThis study sought to investigate the facultys awareness, attitudes and use of open access, and the role of information professionals in supporting open access (OA) scholarly communication in Tanzanian health sciences universities.nnnMETHODSnA cross-sectional survey was conducted. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 librarians, while questionnaires were physically distributed to 415 faculty members in all eight Tanzanian health sciences universities, with a response rate of 71.1%.nnnRESULTSnThe study found that most faculty members were aware about OA issues. However, the high level of OA awareness among faculty members did not translate into actual dissemination of facultys research outputs through OA web avenues. A small proportion of facultys research materials was made available as OA. Faculty were more engaged with OA journal publishing than with self-archiving practices. Senior faculty with proficient technical skills were more likely to use open access than junior faculty. Major barriers to OA usage were related to ICT infrastructure, awareness, skills, author-pay model, and copyright and plagiarism concerns. Interviews with librarians revealed that there was a strong support for promoting OA issues on campus; however, this positive support with various open access-related tasks did not translate into actual action. It is thus important for librarians and OA administrators to consider all these factors for effective implementation of OA projects in research and academic institutions.nnnCONCLUSIONnThis is the first comprehensive and detailed study focusing on the health sciences facultys and librarians behaviours and perceptions of open access initiatives in Tanzania and reveals findings that are useful for planning and implementing open access initiatives in other institutions with similar conditions.

Acceptance and usage of mobile assisted language learning by higher education students

Research on mobile learning indicates that students perceive mobile devices mainly as communication and entertainment tools. Therefore, a key factor in successful mobile learning implementation is the initial measurement of students’ acceptance of those devices into their learning. Countless language applications available suggest that mobile devices can be ideal tools for language learning. Surprisingly, there are few studies reporting students’ acceptance of mobile assisted language learning (MALL), let alone MALL acceptance in developing countries. By adapting and extending the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology model, the study assesses the dimensions affecting behavioral intentions and actual use of MALL. Data were collected and analyzed using structural equation modeling. Results show that performance expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions influence students’ attitudes towards using MALL. Accordingly, attitude is the factor that affects behavioral intention the most. The model also shows that behavioral intention has an effect on MALL use. The study concludes that students enrolled in higher education in developing countries such as Colombia have a positive attitude towards MALL. However, an improvement of facilitating conditions, along with a more influential role of the educational community is needed for a successful MALL integration in education.

La producción del conocimiento experiencial de los estudiantes en la educación superior

El presente articulo hace referencia a un proyecto de investigacion desarrollado en colaboracion entre la Universidad Central “Marta Abreu” de Las Villas (UCLV), en Cuba y la Universidad Libre de Bruselas (VUB), en Belgica durante los anos 2010 al 2014, con el auspicio de Consejo Interuniversitario Flamenco (VLIR) que tuvo como culminacion la defensa de una tesis doctoral en Ciencias de la Educacion por partedel primer autor. El proyecto de investigacion asociado a esta tesis doctoral fue financiado por VLIR-UOS (programa de colaboracion interuniversitaria con la Universidad Central “Marta Abreu” de Las Villas) En este articulo de reflexion se expone una sintesis de la metodologia utilizada para el desarrollo del proyecto de investigacion y sus conclusiones. El documento original de la tesis esta redactado en ingles.

Linking E-learning Tools with Experiential Knowledge Production in Higher Education Teaching-learning Processes: The Case of Open Source LMS

uf020 Abstract—Despite requirements for constant innovation in Higher Education, the application of knowledge management constitutes a recent research field in this sector while a wide range of e-learning tools - like open source learning management systems (LMS) - constitute a basic part of universities infrastructures at present. As knowledge derived from direct experiences is one of the most important sources for innovations, this paper presents two approaches for experiential knowledge production in the Higher Education teaching-learning processes: (1) the managerial production approach and (2) the open production approach. In accordance with these approaches, the paper also describes how Moodle and Sakai - two of the most widely used open source LMS - support experiential knowledge production and concludes that: (1) these LMS dont have first class constructs to manage experiential knowledge production related concepts; (2) experiential knowledge related constructs can be represented through existing artifacts included in these LMS but this approach presents many limitations to support explicit connections between these constructs and; (3) LMS can extend current capabilities of tags or similar artifacts to represent high level meaning structures that link content from different LMS tools.