Andrew Charlett

Using RBL to support learning on part-time courses with minimal attendance:

Department of Building and Environmental Health, Nottingham Trent University
Originator Andrew Charlett
Reproduced with permission from Course Design for Resource Based Learning - Built Environment (1994), Sally Brown and Graham Gibbs (Eds)

Background

The department has a broad portfolio of HND, undergraduate, postgraduate and CPD courses, all of which use RBL to some extent. But it also offers qualifications through time study heavily reliant on RBL. This mode of study is valuable because:

• many students are self-financing and cannot get substantial release time from employers for block- or day- release;
• it provides an opportunity for HNC students to top up their qualifications to de level;
• it opens up a diversity of routes into higher education;
• it provides substantial and effective support for the students, many of whom are returning to learning after a gap in their studies.

Context

All degree courses at Nottingham Trent are now modular. The mixed-mode delivery, part-time route runs for around 20 students, who attend for one afternoon and eve fortnight for the first year, one afternoon and evening every three weeks in the second and third years, and one afternoon and evening a month for the final year. This enables students who cannot obtain release in working hours to take the course in their own by using flexi-time and holidays. Many students also pay their own fees. The personal commitment of time and money make this a highly motivated student group.

Aims

The aims of the programme are:

• to provide a flexible study route to a degree over four years with students studying independently most of the time, but with effective support by telephone and by regular but minimal attendance;
• to provide most of the content delivery by RBL, so that the contact time can be used for interactive study, groupwork and the development of IT skills, which are difficult to provide off site;
• to shift the focus of learning from content delivery to student-centered activity in the limited contact time available.

Implementation

Over the past six years, the Head of Department allocated units of the course to each member of the course team to write. Many of the units are also adapted for use on other courses in the university, as well as for extended CPD work.

In most cases staff worked from their own original lecture material, which they converted RBL, relying heavily on their own experiences as distance learners, especially on Open University courses.

The course has been successfully franchised to five FE colleges nationally: University College Salford, Suffolk College, Southampton Institute, Somerset College of Art and Technology and North Lincolnshire College (though at the time of writing it has still to at North Lincolnshire). Staff in the franchised colleges are treated as members of an enlarged course team and encouraged to comment on the course materials and to help to improve them. The colleges are responsible for delivery of the programme, but responsibility for course design, validation of assessment and quality assurance remain with the staff at The Nottingham Trent University.

Student induction

At the beginning of the course, students are very strongly encouraged to attend an intensive induction week, which covers study skills and an introduction to independent study as well as information about the department They are also given the opportunity to start work straight away on the study material, as they are often keen to get going. A detailed 'departmental manual' is supplied, which outlines policy on assessment and coursework submission, contains maps of the department and information about staff, and provides introduction to the library. Before they enrol on the course students are well briefed about its heavy reliance on independent study. An additional handbook is provided on the purposes and functions of the independent learning portfolio (ILP).

Resources

The department has taken a considered decision to produce resources to relatively inexpensive production values. The booklets are photocopied in the department as needed, and spine-bound so that they can be opened flat; ring binders are supplied so students can store their study packs in an orderly way. An administrator in charge of resources set the booklets on a desktop publishing system, using disks or text provided staff; she also arranges clearance for any copyright material. The materials can be rapidly and easily updated and amended, as the master disks are held by the administrator. She is also able to adapt the texts as necessary for other uses, such as CPD courses. They are seen as having a relatively limited shelf-life before adaptation is necessary.

Each booklet pertains to a single unit and consists of 15-20 pages of text, self-assessment questions, details on coursework and deadlines for its submission, required readings and other relevant information. The text may provide a commentary on a section of a recommended textbook, or stand alone and refer to articles contained in a separate reader.

About four booklets are provided per unit (that is, one per CATS point); this amounts to about 60 booklets per year, not including integrated projects and dissertations, which do not require learning texts. The total number of booklets available for the whole course is about 200. All resources are refereed, with comments received and incorporated from academics of other institutions as well as employers and other industrialists.

Where a relevant textbook is available, loan copies are provided by the department. Students also undertake activities that contribute to their independent learning portfolio, as note-taking exercises and self-assessment questions.

Operation

Attendance on the course is significantly lower than on a conventional part-time study course. Student are advised that they will be expected to study for 495 hours per annum, with only 99 hours of attendance per year at the beginning of the course, dropping to 50 hours in the final year. They are advised to devote a minimum of 15 hours a week over a 33-week study year to their work, but considerable flexibility is possible as to when this is done within the year, so as to fit in with employment and other commitments.

The time in the university is mostly devoted to active learning, with minimal lecturing and a high level of interactivity and groupwork. Each student is allocated a personal tutor, and academic staff, up to and including the Dean, take their turn to answer individual queries and to cope with study problems by telephone in the evenings.

Attendance time provides opportunities for students' progress to be monitored and their problems sorted out; it also allows members of the group to meet and get to know one another. The work done during attendance time consists of activities that are difficult to teach through workbooks, such as hands-on information technology. This is quite different from how the attendance element of part-time courses was used formerly, when students devoted a lot of time to note-taking and less to interactive learning.

Assessment

Students on the course are assessed primarily by coursework; assignment instructions contained and explained in the study booklets. The course also uses examinations of which are traditional in format while others, for example, are open-book examinations based on a project studied throughout the year.

Staff regularly review the ILPs and provide feedback on them, but, following discussion with external examiners, it was decided not to assess and mark them; instead they provide an individual learning record for the student, with much useful material for revision.

Costs

Members of staff who teach on the course are allocated time to cover individual support and class delivery, equivalent to two hours per week for the full semester, not just for the weeks when students are in attendance. This still represents a saving of staff time overall, as formerly they were expected to have whole-class contact for longer periods each week; staff time is more flexibly used under this system

In the first instance, tutors were required to design and develop materials without payment. As full-cost delivery modes generated income, staff who had worked on the units outside contractual time were paid post hoc for the units they had written, at the rate of about £250 per study booklet. The booklets cost 50p to £1 per unit to produce. Savings are made by providing loan copies of the booklets, which can be reused on return. Most students do return the booklets, although some are lost in the process. Textbooks are also lent, but students are charged if they fail to return these at the end of the course.

Evaluation

Student feedback, obtained both by systematic course evaluation and anecdotally confirms that students for the most part enjoy the mode of course delivery. These students are studying effectively in their own time and often at their own cost, and therefore tend to be very committed. Although some get by with minimal effort, most put lots of effort into the work, and equally want plenty of reward in terms of feedback and comment from staff.

Students informally compare the mode of delivery favourably to what they have experienced on other part-time courses they have undertaken. They like being in charge of their own study programmes, even though this approach is very time consuming.

'It is important that applicants for the course are interviewed to assess their self-discipline and self-motivation abilities before they are offered a place on the course. This policy has considerably reduced the number of failures caused by an inability to meet the demands of the course'

Generally the level of achievement is high, with all students out of an annual cohort of around 15-20 students producing an ILP, which aids satisfactory progression. The external examiner is very supportive of the methodology, and the colleges to which the course is franchised, after a fairly difficult first year of running, are now comfortable with the system

Developments

The course team see the materials as being in a state of continuous development, with recommendations from students, franchised course staff, home staff and others considered and implemented where appropriate. The university is currently looking to expand the number of franchises for the course in England, and may look beyond to the international market.

Evidence of the success of RBL in the department is provided by the fact that the British Council is supporting a development of the work in Hungary, and there are also plans afoot to develop Collaborative RBL projects with other universities nationally.

Conclusions

RBL is here providing a vehicle to cater for a specialised group of students, for whom attendance is difficult but who do not wish to undertake a course taught entirely by distance learning. Staff see the elements of attendance in the university as essential in helping the students to learn productively, providing encouragement and support on an individual level, and creating opportunities for them to enjoy the benefits of being part of a learning community.

As elsewhere, the course team have found that the strategic planning and rigour necessary to produce RBL materials for specific purposes has had a powerful effect on the course design and delivery for full-time courses within the university. Having produced excellent materials, they are able to use them extensively in other contexts.