The e-Learning Support forHong Kong CyberU

The Hong Kong Polytechnic Universityhttp://www.polyu.edu.hk/

David Chiu

Associate Director

Information Technology Services Office

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Email: itdavid@inet.polyu.edu.hk

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

• Formerly known as the Hong Kong Polytechnic• It is developed from the Government Trade School (founded

in 1937) and later became the Hong Kong Technical College (established in 1947) and further developed to become Hong Kong Polytechnic in 1972

• In 1994, it becomes “The Hong Kong Polytechnic University” - PolyU

• The PolyU is located in Hung Hom, Kowloon• Campus of 93,500 square metres adjacent to the Cross

Harbour Tunnel.

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

PolyU is one of the 8 Government-funded Universities• With 30,000 FT and PT students• There are around 15,000 students in self-financed

institutions under PolyU, including:– HKCC (Hong Kong Community College) – providing

Associate Degree

– SPEED (School of Professional Education and Executive Development) – providing continuing education and executive development

– HKCyberU (Hong Kong CyberU) – providing online/flexible learning

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

• The largest government funded university in Hong Kong in terms of number of students.

• Total number of staff around 5,500• Annual expenditure about HK$ 4 billion• Offering Associate Degrees, Undergraduate Degrees,

Master Degres, Doctor Degrees• 6 Faculties and 2 Schools

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

6 Faculties and 2 Schools:• Faculty of Applied Science and Textiles• Faculty of Business• Faculty of Humanities• Faculty of Construction and Land Use• Faculty of Engineering• Faculty of Health & Social Sciences• School of Design• School of Hotel and Tourism Management

History of Hong Kong CyberU

• The first cyber university in Hong Kong, launched in August 2000, initially with three fully accredited Master Degree programmes

• It was a joint venture of Hong Kong PolyU and Pacific Century CyberWorks (PCCW) which was the largest telecommunication company in Hong Kong

• Eventually PolyU acquired all the shares and becomes the sole owner of Hong Kong CyberU

• Until today, Hong Kong CyberU is still the only cyber institution in Hong Kong

History of Hong Kong CyberU

• A self-financed institution, not sponsored by the Hong Kong Government

• As a collaboration with the industry - it was a joint venture with Pacific Century CyberWorks (PCCW) which was the largest telecommunication company in Hong Kong

• To serve our alumni who were working in mainland China and unable to attend regular lessons in campus every week

• As a test bed for new e-Learning technologies• Nurturing the e-Learning culture in PolyU community

Positive Views on e-Learning

From 1999 to 2000, there were many positive views about e-Learning

According to International Data Corporation (IDC): by 2003,

• The higher eLearning market will grow to $7 billion.

• The corporate eLearning market will grow to $11.4 billion,

• The K-12 eLearning market will grow to $6.9 billion

Positive Views on e-Learning

According to the Software & Information Industry Association, by 2003:

• The Asian market for online training and distance education is $6 billion and growing at a rate of 25% annually

• Many Asian universities collaborate with US institutions to offer e-Learning programs, e.g. Master in Engineering jointly offered by University of Singapore and MIT

Positive Views on e-Learning

“The Internet has distinctive powers to complement, reinforce, and enhance some of our most effective traditional approaches to university teaching and learning.”

Neil L.Rudenstein, President, Harvard University

Positive Views on e-Learning

“We must now use the computer and telecommunication technologies, invented in part at our research universities, to deliver excellent learning experiences at the professional's place of work.”

Charles Vest, President, MIT

OpenCourseware - MIT to spend US $100 million to place of all its course material on the web freely available to all

A call for action by the US Government

“The question is no longer if the Internet can be used to transform learning in new and powerful ways. The Commission has found that it can. …….

The nation should embrace an ‘e-Learning’ agenda as a centerpiece of our federal education policy.”

REPORT OF THE WEB-BASED EDUCATION COMMISSION TOTHE PRESIDENT AND THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES

Canada’s View

“If we do nothing, online learning will still come to post-secondary education in Canada. But it will increasingly be provided to Canadian learners by off-shore institutions and corporations... It is a question of the continued health of our post-secondary institutions. “

The Advisory Committee for Online Learning

Europe’s Plan

“In order to be effective, the introduction of information and communication technologies will have to be accompanied by a far-reaching reorganization of learning structures….... The purpose of this Action Plan, which covers the period 2001-2004, is to present ways and means of implementing the e-Learning initiative.

The e-Learning Action Plan - Designing tomorrow’s educationCommission Of The European Communities

A Prediction by CEO of CISCO

“The biggest growth in the Internet, and the area that will prove to be one of the biggest agents of change, will be online training, or e-Learning…….Online learning will make e-mail usage look like a rounding error.”

John Chambers, CEO, Cisco

A Prediction by CEO of CISCO

“All the prestige universities will go out of business within 20 years if they do not provide e-Learning services to their students.”

John Chambers, CEO, Cisco

What is a Cyber University?

• An institution that uses Internet technology to conduct teaching, facilitate learning and communication, replacing traditional courses by self-contained web-based courseware and online communication

• On the extreme, all business/administrative functions are carried out securely on the Internet

Modes of Cyber Universities

The Consortium Model :• Almost every state in the U.S. is engaged in

some kind of virtual university consortia effort

• All consortia operate a “portal” - a Web site that lists participating institutions and courses

• Primary function is a referral service for students

Modes of Cyber Universities (cont’)

The Consortium Model (cont’)

Examples:• Kentucky Commonwealth Virtual University

http://www.kcvu.org/• Illinois Virtual Campus

http://www.ivc.illinois.edu/• Michigan Virtual University

http://www.mivu.org/

Modes of Cyber Universities (cont’)

The Consortium Model (cont’) Institutions from different states or even

different countries join force to form consortia, e.g.

• Western Governors University http://www.wgu.edu/

• Universitas 21 http://www.universitas21.com/

Modes of Cyber Universities (cont’)

The “Stand Alone” Model:

An education company venturing into the cyber education business with little or no university/ education background. e.g.

• Jones International Universityhttp://www.jonesinternational.edu/

• Capella Universityhttp://www.capellauniversity.edu/

Modes of Cyber U (cont’)

The “Spin-off” Model

A cyber education division spinned off from an existing conventional university, e.g.

• New York University Onlinehttp://www.nyuonline.com/

• eCornellhttp://www.ecornell.com/

• U. of Washington Educational Outreach http://www.edoutreach.washington.edu/

Modes of Cyber Universities (cont’)

The Corporate University Model:

• According to the Corporate University Exchange, their number rose from 400 in 1988 to 2,000 in 2001.

• Most are focused on improving the competitive edge of their own companies through improved group and individual performance

Modes of Cyber Universities (cont’)

The Corporate University Model (cont’) : Examples:

• Kodak will deploy e-Learning to 80,000 employees in 150 countries

• By devoting more than 40% of the training budget to e-Learning, the company expects half of their U.S. and 35% of their international training to go online within three years

Modes of Cyber Universities (cont’)

The Corporate University Model (cont’) :

Examples :• General Motors University offered 1,300

business-related courses to its workers• GMU joined forces with Cardean University to

enroll about 400 employees in the e-MBA program

• GM plans to develop extended programs for members of its 386,000 international workforce

The Hong Kong CyberU

• All learning activities are web-based and self-paced, conducted anytime, anywhere

• Adopted WebCT as the learning platform in 2000, planning to

migrate to Blackboard 9.1

• Regular online tutorials are scheduled

• The final examination in campus or outpost centre

e-Learning Support• Since 1995, PolyU started e-Learning pilot projects

with various e-Learning systems- WebCT ， Top Class ， Learning Space ， Question Mark ， e Class ， School Team ， SMILE ， MIC ， E1 etc

• PolyU adopted WebCT as the campus e-Learning Common Platform in 1999

• When Hong Kong CyberU was launched in 2000, WebCT was also used for courses offered by CyberU

e-Learning Support• video-on-demand, video conferencing, electronic library and

other ICT technologies have been integrated with the WebCT platform to support e-Learning

• Over 1,500 academic staff trained in using WebCT to deploy e-Learning

• Every year there are over 4,000 “subject web sites” to support e-Learning and Blended Learning

• More then 80% of in-campus courses adopted Blended Learning approach whilc Hong Kong CyberU courses are totally delivered online

e-Learning Support• WebCT becomes the most popular IT system in campus• On average there are more than 30,000 login users on

each working day and over 70,000 login users during peak season

• On average daily hits around 1.5 million and over 5 millions during peak season

• Over 32% of the web traffic in campus is related to e-Learning activities on WebCT server

Core Network

Internet RouterServers in Main Computer Room

Video Conferencing

PBX

IP Phone System

Departmental VLAN

DHCP Client

FireWall

Halls of Residence

Networked PC

Networked PCwith IP Phone

ISDN

SiSi

HARNETRouter

MCU Universities

HARNET

U N I V E R S I T YU N I V E R S I T Y

U N I V E R S I T YU N I V E R S I T Y

PolyU Campus Network Diagram

Internet Firewall

HARNETRouter

Internet Router Internet Router

Administrative System•Finance Systems•Human Resource Systems•AS Student Record Systems•Research Office’s Systems•MISO Planning System•HKCC & SPEED Student Management Systems•SAO’s Systems•Management Data Warehouse

Academic Computing•General Computing•Research Computing•myStore/myWeb•Web Teaching

e-Services•Campus E-Mail•University Portal•Novell GroupWise•LDAP•DNS

Servers in Secondary Computer Room

1G 1G

Metro Ethernet

Call Manager

SiSi

Campus RouterEthernet Switch

Router

1 Gbps Ethernet

100Mbps Fast Ethernet

IP Phone

Wireless Access Point

Legend

Load Balancer

Traffic Shaper

Networked PC

SPAN (Lecture Theatres & Classrooms)

1G

10 Gbps Ethernet

Metro Ethernet(300Mbps)

Server Load Balancer

IPS

SiSi

SiSi

Voice Gateway

PSTN

SiSi

WLAN ControllerWLAN Controller

IP Multicast Server

SiSi

SiSiSiSi

1G

HKIX (2G)APAN-JPASGCNETASNETGOOGLEKREONET

Internet (1.5G)

Research & Education NetworkCERNETTEIN3

1234

ABCD

Vol 1-4

Vol A-D

Vol 1-4

Vol A-D

SAN Switch

SE6120SE6120

Gigabit

P404 L002

Solaris Solaris

10/100

e-Learning Support

FE or GE Heartbeat Link

Inter Switch Links

SE6120 SE6120

E10K F6800

P404 L002

Fiber ChannelSwitch

Data is written to both Storage using OS Mirroring Software

e-Learning Support

FileSystem

NetworkCard

Database IPAddress

APPLICATION

PhysicalDisk

PhysicalDisk

PhysicalDisk

Volumes

FileSystem

NetworkCard

Database IPAddress

PhysicalDisk

PhysicalDisk

PhysicalDisk

Volumes

PhysicalDisk

PhysicalDisk

PhysicalDisk

FileSystem

NetworkCard

Database IPAddress

Volumes

FileSystem

NetworkCard

Database IPAddress

PhysicalDisk

PhysicalDisk

PhysicalDisk

Volumes

FileSystem

NetworkCard

IPAddress

PhysicalDisk

PhysicalDisk

PhysicalDisk

Volumes

FileSystem

NetworkCard

IPAddress

PhysicalDisk

PhysicalDisk

PhysicalDisk

Volumes

IPAddress

NetworkCard

PhysicalDisk

PhysicalDisk

PhysicalDisk

Volumes

NetworkCard

PhysicalDisk

PhysicalDisk

PhysicalDisk

APPLICATION

Database IPAddress

FileSystem

Volumes

NetworkCard

PhysicalDisk

PhysicalDisk

PhysicalDisk

e-Learning Support

Process of Courseware

Development

Evaluation of Courseware

Student Evaluation of the Concrete Technology Web-Delivery System

(Content) yes no

a. Was the content clear and helpful?b. Did the videos support the content?

too easy too hardc. How difficult was the content?

yes nod. Was the content organized in a logical order?e. Were the videos clear?f. Was the sound clear?

(Navigation and Design) yes no

a. Was the computer’s response time fast enough for you?b. Did you find the screen attractive?c. Was the text easy to read?

too easy too hardd. Was the vocabulary too easy or too hard?

yes noe. Did you find the Table of Contents on the left helpful?

(Overall) valuable useless

a. How do you rate the program’s value to you? too easy too hard

b. How easy to use is the program?

c. Do you feel that this program helped you to better yes no understand the topic of Concrete Technology?

Suggestions for improvement

a. What did you like best about this program?

b. What did you like least about this program?

Thank you very much.

Learning Management System (LMS)

• After pilot of Blackboard 9 for one year, now in the process of upgrade to Blackboard 9 for the whole university including CyberU courses

• Blackboard provides many new features – ePortfolio, Scholar (social bookmarking tool), SafeAssign (anti-plagiarism tool), Wimba (voice conferencing tool), integration with Facebook etc

• Optional modules to further extend the e-Learning functions – Outcome System, Blackboard Mobile. Blackboard Collaborate

• http://www.blackboard.com

Video Services• Two internal video streaming servers, one for Windows

Media format and the other for Real format are provided

• Thousands of video clips are produced or subscribed by library for e-Learning activities

• A dedicated channel has been established on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/HongKongPolyU

• The launch of iTunes University is under planning and will be launch in this year

Second Life• PolyU is the first university in Asia to build a virtual

campus in Second Life• Work with other overseas universities to organize the

SLActions 2009, the world’s first 48-hour non-stop research conference in Second Life

• As a hybrid online and physical conference, all paper presentations and plenary sessions by guest speakers were held in the virtual world, and projected locally for participants attending physically

• SLActions 2009 Conference spans across different time zones around the globe, starting with Hong Kong, moving to California and Texas, US, south to Brazil, then across the Atlantic to Portugal and the UK, concluding in Israel

• Various themes were explored at the conference, from educational research, gender studies, media distribution, virtual branding, advertising and fundraising, to emerging technology applications

• http://coresl.edc.polyu.edu.hk/SLActions/HKChapter.html

Second Life

Synchronous e-Learning• Besides support for asynchronous e-Learning, we also

provide support for synchronous e-Learning

• Adobe Connect Pro is used to arrange online lectures and tutorials

• Adobe Connect Pro is a web conferencing system which provides multimedia communications for multiple parties, integrating voice, video, text and other presentation materials

• Some professors even use it to do hybrid teaching -teach in-campus students physically in classroom and remote CyberU students concurrently

Synchronous e-Learning

Synchronous e-Learning

Anti-plagiarism

Anti-plagiarism

• Started to use Turnitin as the tool for anti-plagiarism in 2004/05

Anti-plagiarism

• Students submit the assignment to Turnitin system for checking and lecturer review the originality report

Anti-plagiarism

• The originality report shows whether the assignment has proper citation

Anti-plagiarism

Sample Originality Report

How many % similar to other sources

URL of source

Same colour represents same source

Click the link to review original source

Quality Assurance Measures

• The “Best Practices For Electronically Offered Degree and Certificate Programs” developed by eight regional accrediting commissions in USA

• The “Quality on the Line - Benchmarks for Success in Internet-based Distance Education” from The Institute For Higher Education Policy

• The “Guidelines for Good Practice” from Higher Education Program And Policy Council Of The American Federation Of Teachers

Thank You

Q & A

Comments