‘How about taking exams in the comfort of your own room?’ Asked BBC reporter Katherine Sellgren before going on to suggest that ‘New technology, boasting anti-cheating software, could soon make this a possibility’. (more…)
Professor David Hawkridge
In 1975 David Hawkridge said that course teams were
made up of four kinds of people. First, there are the academic subject-matter experts. These are the physicists, the historians, the sociologists and so on. Second, there are instructional designers from the Institute of Educational Technology. Their interest lies in the structuring of the subject-matter, the selection and specification of learning objectives for the students, the preparation of suitable assignments, and in evaluating the success of the courses. (more…)
‘When the UK Open University
was established its creators, in the free-wheeling and informal spirit of the 1960s, proposed that it dispense with the academic traditions of gowns and convocation ceremonies. The first students, however, quickly disabused the OU of that idea, arguing that since they had studied long and hard they wanted to be recognised as graduates with “the Full Monty” of gowns and regalia. The only concession to modernity – for which I was grateful when I officiated at over a hundred degree ceremonies as vice-chancellor – was that they would not wear hats.’ This from here