Evaluating three years’ use of a virtual university
| Pages | 48-53 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/09684880010313153 |
| Published date | 01 March 2000 |
| Date | 01 March 2000 |
| Author | David Whittington |
| Subject Matter | Education |
Evaluating three years'
use of a virtual
university
David Whittington
Introduction
The term virtual university means many
things to many people (Whittington, 1998).
Put simply, a virtual university is anything
that delivers higher education to students via
the World Wide Web. This encompasses new
but fully-fledged degree-awarding institutions
to distance education initiatives within
existing traditional institutions. Clyde Virtual
University is a project set up and run between
five higher education institutions in the West
of Scotland.
Clyde Virtual University (CVU) was
established in late 1995 and was one of
Europe's first virtual universities. It was
initially set up to assess the viability of
delivering quality higher education via the
Web. The project went on to create course
material specifically designed to exploit
features of the Web and provide a showcase
for what was possible when academics and
developers work together on the production
of innovative courseware.
The initial proof of concept phase was
funded by the Scottish Higher Education
Funding Council (SHEFC) and began at the
end of 1995. It provided money for a Web
server (£20k), staff (£30k) and other costs
(£10k). A second round of funding was
awarded to the project and provided more
substantial funding for the development of
new Web course material. This second phase
lasted from spring 1997 to autumn 1998, and
provided funding for two full-time developers
(£60k), co-ordination costs (£20k) and other
costs (£20k).
In autumn 1998, a substantial summative
evaluation of the project began. A
questionnaire was completed by nearly 200
users of CVU, including students, academic
staff and visitors. The questionnaire was
followed up, in spring 1999, with a series of
focus groups and interviews.
Aims and objectives
Phase one of CVU aimed to demonstrate how
interactive courseware could be made
available over the Web. In particular, the first
nine months of work intended:
.to provide a friendly, interactive virtual
environment, through the medium of the
Web, which students and staff can use as
a resource for a variety of subject areas;
The author
David Whittington works at the Robert Clark Centre for
Technological Education at the University of Glasgow, UK.
E-Mail: d.whittington@elec.gla.ac.uk
Keywords
Evaluation, Teaching, Learning, Internet, Interaction,
Universities
Abstract
Clyde Virtual University (CVU) was one of Europe's first
virtual universities. It was founded in 1995 and has
received two rounds of funding from the Scottish Higher
Education Funding Council. The CVU project has created
some innovative course material and has been cited by
the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) as an
example of best practice. This paper describes a
summative evaluation of CVU which took place after
three years operation and looks critically at the strengths
and shortcomings of using the Web to deliver higher
education in the West of Scotland.
Electronic access
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is
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48
Quality Assurance in Education
Volume 8 .Number 1 .2000 .pp. 48±52
#MCB University Press .ISSN 0968-4883
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