“Digital Images for Online Distance Education in the
Humanities”
Sue
Tickner
University of Glasgow, UK
Richard
Hooker
University of Glasgow, UK
Francis
Halsall
University of Glasgow, UK
This paper will describe the design and development of a web-based distance
education course in Art History at the University of Glasgow. In planning such
courses the interplay between new media, distance education and the existing
systems in a campus-based institution raises numerous issues which need to be
resolved before such a course is feasible. Not least of these are the obstacles
still inherent in accessing and delivering online images: in terms of locating
the desired resources, copyright and costing implications, institutional
agreements with other bodies such as the CLA and its digitising licence and
dual-mode delivery both on and off-campus. We suggest that, two years on from
Dan Greenstein's call for "new and creative ways to manage relations between
those who 'own' rights in image resources and those who have an interest in
acquiring access to them" ° no simple methodology, clear guidelines for use or
satisfactory search interface yet exists.
In common with other distance education developments in recent years, the work
has been carried out in close partnership between the academic department
concerned and GUIDE (Glasgow University Initiative in Distance Education).
Following successful small-scale, campus-based attempts to implement new
educational methods in teaching Art History, and in response to encouragement
within the department, the Level 2 class convenor approached GUIDE for advice on
potential distance options. Accordingly, in keeping with institutional policies
and national pressures to widen participation (in particular flexible, distance
and part-time provision), a 'flagship' course is to be offered at level 2 of a
undergraduate degree course from January 2001.
The course will consist of two 30 credit modules (a total of 600 notional
learning hours). One module will be on Scottish Art and the other on Art,
Culture and the Avant-Garde. On the understanding that development work is never
right first time, the initial module will be run once, closely evaluated,
analysed and amended where appropriate. If this proves to meet our goals in the
second presentation it will serve as a template, or model, for the design of the
second module. A record of the history of the production of the course is being
kept, to show how and why decisions to use particular methods of delivery and/or
technology are made. It is intended that such a record will contribute to
decision-making in the design of similar online distance education courses.
This development work constitutes a new departure, raising research issues in
several areas. One aspect of this is in the innovative nature of these plans,
and their place within the existing setting. For GUIDE, and indeed the
University as a whole, this will be one of the first ventures into part-time
distance provision at undergraduate level.
If the course proves a success in pedagogical terms and there is sufficient
demand, we envisage the development of future courses, with the long-term aim of
offering a distance education route through access to postgraduate provision.
Achieving this aim requires a long-term commitment to developing other part-time
distance courses that articulate with these modules in a cross-disciplinary
degree structure within the Humanities. Ultimately, it requires the existence of
sufficient comparable courses to enable a broad range of studies on the basis of
part-time distance learning, in any subject, and at any level across the
institution. As a flagship undergraduate distance course, it must also meet
University requirements to an exemplary degree, and specifically those Quality
Assurance guidelines being developed by GUIDE for distance education. The
template we produce must therefore be of the highest possible quality, whilst
remaining reasonably adaptable to future requirements. The development
experience must inform and enable GUIDE to better assist future projects
employing digital resources.
GUIDE has been working with a lecturer in the History of Art department to
develop the first module on which the template will be based. In the first year,
the module will run parallel to the face-to-face one, although it will cover
different themes and use very different methods. It is not simply a distance
version of the existing campus-based module. The process of designing a new
distance learning course is very different from that involved in attempts to
translate existing teaching materials into distance learning format. Existing
Level-2 provision is heavily reliant on lectures. It is partly in order to
investigate more exploratory, active learning approaches that this course has
been conceived. It will be largely, though not entirely, web-based, and make use
of group and peer-learning methods. We see the medium of online distance
learning as enabling the transformation of the relationship between student,
lecturer and the sources of learning materials - a transformation which,
according to constructivist advocates of networked learning, will be necessary
for the success of these methods.
In the development of this course, therefore, we have sought to identify the main
features of this transformation with particular reference to art history. We
have designed the course with a view to minimising the negative effects of
losing face-to-face contact and maximising the benefits of technology-assisted
distance education. We do this with the understanding that this constitutes not
merely a compromise, but a fundamental change in what it means to teach, learn
and communicate.
The fit with existing provision is only one of the issues raised. Another results
from these different aims for the distance modules. The teaching of the
discipline of art history and indeed the discipline itself - would have been
unthinkable without the photographic transparency. Although it is exponentially
more portable than a work of art, the transparency is also exponentially less
portable than its digital equivalent. The new methods and web-based delivery
will only be adding value to lecture-based provision if the technology is
harnessed to provide easy, 'on-demand' access to source materials, especially
digital resources. Ironically, the emergence of the technology for high quality
digitisation of images promises a utopia of accessibility whilst simultaneously
aggravating the problem of copyright. It has sometimes seemed as though the
complexity of copyright law has resulted in a situation where the ability to
access and use images is more restrictive now than before digitisation.
Other complex issues in the course design include the need to retain and extend
successful features of the on-campus provision in Art History without competing
too heavily for recruitment from the full-time student population (especially in
the early stages when the options for continuation by these methods will be
severely limited), and generic issues in online teaching and learning,
especially those affecting developments in the Humanities. The effects of these
considerations will be demonstrated in the design and evaluation of the course
which will, by July 2000, be preparing for delivery.
Some suggestions which might facilitate the use of visual resources in teaching,
drawn from our experience, will be offered to digital image service providers.
Specific complications we encountered will be explored and those solutions we
have found described. We hope these will help to ease the path for future users
of these exciting resources in Humanities teaching.