Designing quality e-learning environments in higher education

Abstract

With the ever-increasing integration of online learning (or e-learning) into university courses, there is strong need for practical guidelines and recommendations to facilitate the development and delivery of pedagogically effective e-earning environments. An investigation by Siragusa (2005) examined factors which make for effective instructional design principles and learning strategies for higher education students studying within these learning environments. Surveys were administered to students and lecturers in Western Australian universities which revealed numerous areas of students’ e-learning experiences which they had perceived as being successful and those needing improvements. This paper presents a model containing 24 sets of recommendations that were developed from the study’s survey findings. The 24 recommendations accommodate the varying pedagogical needs of learners as well as modes of course delivery. For each recommendation, a pedagogical dimension is presented to illustrate the pedagogical needs and instructional requirements. These 24 dimensions, which are grouped within nine main sections, highlight the decisions which need to be made during the instructional analysis, design, delivery and evaluation phases of e-learning environments in higher education in order to optimise their pedagogical quality.