Measuring Impact of Using E-learning Portals on Educational Systems

Abstract

Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL), Open Educational Resources (OER), innovative learning paradigms, educational scenarios and the associated digital technologies, environments, applications and content are continuously changing and rapidly evolving nowadays, thus affecting not only the effectiveness, the impact and the cognitive outcomes of teaching, but also the quality of the learning process as a whole. The impact of TEL environments and portals using OER can be evaluated in terms of usability, effectiveness and pedagogical use. Impact evaluation has always carried great potential for improving learning outcomes and tailoring learning toward the users’ needs, motivation, satisfaction and expectations. However, assessment of the impact of the use of teaching and learning resources, environments and portals in a systematic manner has proven to be difficult. The research work described in this paper attempts to assess the impact of using Open Learning Resources in a shared and distributed way, on an innovative portal, namely the “Open Discovery Space” (ODS) portal. In this European example case, there are different dimensions of impact to consider, including impact on teachers, students, stakeholders, schools and the educational system at large. The focus of the impact evaluation in this research is to understand how best such TEL environments are to be accommodated, adopted and used within the educational processes, and how well they can fit within the current national/regional curricula and e systems.