E‐Education Applications: Human Factors and Innovative Approaches

Citation

Limb, P. (2005), "E‐Education Applications: Human Factors and Innovative Approaches", Online Information Review, Vol. 29 No. 4, pp. 424-425. https://doi.org/10.1108/14684520510617893

Those of us who either teach or provide information services know that the use of computers in education is a rapidly growing and strategic trend. We also are aware of the limitations and weaknesses of e‐education, both from the point of view of assessment and the technical capacity of various models on the market. Certainly things have improved; it is now, for example, much easier to quickly construct e‐courses, and it is possible in some products to track students' use of links or documents, although even this development raises issues of student confidentiality and privacy. There are many important emerging issues, especially in areas related to human aspects of online education. Hence I looked forward to this new book.

The book (actually an edited collection, although this is not clear from the cover or title page) consists of 20 chapters divided into two broad sections: “Models, systems and courses” (mainly case studies) and “More on intuitive, social, and international issues”. The rather clumsy latter title is indicative of a roughly hewn collection. Contributors, from Europe, USA, Mexico, Australia and Japan, are chiefly either academics in such fields as computer education, computer systems, engineering and instructional technology, or practical researchers and teachers. There are numerous diagrams, including screen shots, which are clear enough, and a rather odd and skimpy index that seems to work only on the basis of first mentioned occurrence of a keyword.

Human‐computer interaction is a major theme of the collection. Of considerable interest to many readers of Online Information Review is “Ensuring usability in international web‐based e‐learning systems” by Andy Smith, who examines the cultural contexts of globalised e‐education. In a web‐world the effectiveness of e‐learning systems will depend to a considerable degree on cultural comfort, and Smith deploys the work of Hofstede, but also adds his own innovative ideas, noting for instance that cultural differences can change over time. Two other particularly probing papers cover the importance of informal interaction (teacher‐student and student‐student) in online classes (recent casual communication patterns among youth such as text‐messaging would seem to strengthen this claim) and the need for expert evaluation of human factors in open and distance learning programming. Lynne Hunt discusses an interesting model to aid students making the transition to higher education by emphasising purposeful problem solving.

Several practical papers address special groups. “Development and evaluation of a new HTML browser‐method of presenting reading material for students with low vision” deals with visually impaired learners and how technical improvements to browsers can vastly improve their online education. “A sign language teaching system using sign language recognition and generation methods” discusses the need for more information about, and better feedback on, learners' gestures (in this case developing a system to teach Japanese sign language). The papers are, however, very uneven.

“Precursors to web‐based methodologies: lessons we can learn from teaching machines, automatic tutoring devices and learning hierarchies” seeks inspiration from Skinner's rather dated behaviourism to help assess different types of instruction. The authors admit their evidence is essentially anecdotal rather than empirical but hope that their emphasis on learning objectives will be more useful than technology‐driven approaches in comparing systems. Other papers discuss such topics as concrete problems of e‐learning (such as orientation/disorientation of learners), artificial intelligence, predictive models, and “distributed constructionism” (applied to e‐learning of the Greek language), while a number of other papers promote/assess different online products, some in a rather pedestrian manner.

All information professionals need to learn more about e‐education, and this book might stimulate discussion among some readers and provide various models and ideas for others to consider; but it is essentially a series of research reports, a casual forum presenting some interesting new models and ideas but without tight editing or consistency. The work is also available as an e‐book; and perhaps it might better have been presented purely in this format, or else pruned to present the best papers. It is recommended chiefly for planners of e‐education seeking ideas, for libraries collecting widely, and deeply, in this field, or for researchers interested in the more specialised areas.