Identification of critical time-consuming student support activities in e-learning

Figures & data

Table 1. Critical situations as identified by selected staff members of the OUNL

ID	Support activities OUNL brainstorm	Score	Category (explained in the text)
7	Coaching of novice teachers: clarifying problems, generating alternatives	0	*
11	Facilitate putting together groups with specific characteristics and demands	0	PROC
24	Monitor complex group processes	0	PROC
27	Monitor study behaviour and visibility of students in online learning environment	0	PROC
35	Score assignments and papers	0	PROC
36	Support for writing of papers	3	PROD
6	Coach group activities so everyone will participate	4	*
21	Involve context of the student in feedback or answer (full-time student, part-time student, preliminary education, profile in portfolio)	4	CONT
31	Organise discussions in threads	4	PROC
37	Train students on the fly how to work with a VLE	4	*
2	An avatar which will act in a group on behalf of a student	6	PROC
28	Monitor study progress, make interventions	7	PROC
10	Explanation of problems with re-usability (faq)	8	PROC
25	Monitor progress, prevent drop-out	8	PROC
17	Give feedback on the results of assignments	9	CONT
23	Management and archiving of discussion threads in groups	10	*
34	Representation of student and tutor in community	10	PROC
15	Generate tests on the basis of learning objectives	12	PROC
26	Monitor study behaviour and compare with norms and past- performance (study pace and pressure)	12	PROC
29	Monitor study progress, personalise feedback	12	PROC
1	Tutor develops additional learning materials for individual students with specific needs and is supported in designing and editing these materials	15	CONT
9	Detect plagiarism by comparing papers sent in by students	15	PROD
30	Ordering of interactions	15	PROC
3	Automatic individualisation of learning materials and support services on the basis of student characteristics (progress)	16	*
33	Present tutor commitment (via presence tools)	16	PROC
22	Just-in-time information for novice teachers, good examples, tips and tricks	18	CONT
5	Check texts on formal characteristics (length, style, references) and core concepts	19	PROD
19	Help find similar fellow-students	19	CONT
32	Present just-in-time information	19	PROC
4	Categorise questions and problems	20	PROD
8	Design a faq., on the basis of which questions are generated	21	PROD
18	Give insight in group activities (quantity, quality, frequency) by graphical. means	25	CONT
20	Intelligent, personalised frequently asked questions list	25	CONT
13	Filter out questions sent in by email and automatically answer these	27	PROC
14	Fraud in papers	31	PROC
16	Give feedback on the progress of students’ work	32	PROC
12	Filter out ‘repeated’ questions	49	PROC
	Total number of votes	495

Table 2. Critical situations as identified by selected staff members of the Fontys Teacher Training School, Sittard

ID	Support activities Fontys brainstorm	Score	Category (explained in the text)
43	How to help students who are in the final phase of their study organise their own support activities	1	PROC
50	The administrative systems need to support the existing diversity of different training programmes	7	PROC
42	Give support in laboratories while students are working and walking around	9	**
48	Individual problems can be clustered in order to provide support in a group session. These should be traceable both individually or for a whole group	13	PROC
40	Staff should limit the number of visits to their placement students by using efficient technical solutions like video observation and feedback via a VLE	18	PROD
46	Students can communicate using IT about their own questions and problems, without intervention of staff	18	PROC
38	Individual students might be helped in their preparation of lessons (being teacher-trainees) with a database of video materials, with explanation and well-designed assignments	24	CONT
39	Support systems should be organised so that requests for support from students can be met adequately	24	PROC
49	The demand for support is rising due to the individual learning arrangements; therefore, staff time needs to be organised more efficiently	27	PROC
47	Individual student’s products can be shared by a group, fellow-students can comment (electronically)	28	PROC
45	Just-in-time support on the basis of questions from students is growing; staff availability needs to be organised cleverly	32	*
44	As students are expected to study independently, staff often receive no questions at all or too late; so staff cannot keep track of the study progress	33	PROC
41	Portfolios of students should be easily accessible and well structured, so that staff can easily find what they are looking for and do not lose much time	41	PROD
	Total number of votes	275

Table 3. Critical situations categorised: absolute frequencies of items for the categories content, process and product

Category	OUNL staff	Fontys staff	Total
CONT	7	1	8
PROC	20	8	28
PROD	5	2	7