The innovation cafés (2 x 30 min.) will provide a platform for the members of the Swiss e-Learning Community to present and share their own innovative ideas and projects and to discuss them with their peers from other institutions.

 

Easy production educational videos (EPE)

Guillaume Schiltz, ETHZ

EPE videos can be defined as pedagogical video clips produced by the use of "low effort" video equipment (Kolas et al. 2014).

Based on a pilot project carried out in 2013, the department of physics at ETH Zurich now has provided equipment and space, where lecturers can produce tutorial videos in high quality at their own pace. Following a short introduction to the technical setup and some basic concepts on multimedia teaching, lecturers can record their videos without assistance. A WolfVision desktop visualiser in combination with the camtasia software package is the major component of the setting.

The production is limited to the "writing hand" format, which we consider being most efficient for our learning objectives. While the recording time is reduced to a bare minimum, lecturers can focus on content and on pedagogical design. This approach turns out to be attractive, as more lecturers are using the equipment and consequently gaining expertise in video design. Moreover, the resulting videos are highly appreciated by students, who confirm that this new tool supports their learning performance.

• Easy production videos (PDF)

 

How can lecturers with limited resources (time & money) use an existing MOOC to re-conceptualise a syllabus and delivery to meet the needs of learners?

Christina Neylan, HSLU

Coursera, edX, NovoEd and Udacity have appeared over the last few years on the online education scene with the promise to democratise higher education across the globe. While some people are wondering if MOOCs are a fad, others are benefiting from the innovative learning opportunities to work with top universities and experts from around the world.

Faced with a disconnect between content and methodology in my syllabus and the less traditional design thinking approach been taught to the students, I was inspired to use interactive digital resources available to me and my students in a meaningful way. I integrated an off the shelf MOOC into my syllabus, the human centered design course run by NovoEd, was a collaboration between various universities and the design corporation IDEO. The easy to follow format explored HCD concepts through readings, case studies, short videos and the IDEO toolkit. Students could engage in non-traditional formats and gain fresh perspectives by working with international students in-group work assignments. Completion of these assignments meant the opportunity to get a certificate or badge of participation from a course taught by the world-class design-thinking experts IDEO. The online course provided increased accessibility and engagement from current and former students as well as expanded lifelong learning opportunities.

 

Smart working

Nicole Bittel, FFHS

If you could change three things of your working space, what would you change in order to call it smart office?

In this innovation café we want to discover together with participants possibilities and conditions of smart working. To that end

• We give a brief introduction into the SmartUffi project, a collaborative research project by SUPSI and FFHS.
• Participants take part in a small survey where they learn about their individual needs.
• We work on smart solution ideas concerning working time, location, content, organisation and tools.

 

High-quality exams in the digital age

Markus Dahinden & Sebastian Hunkeler & Patrick Jucker-Kupper & Lukas Rieder, UNIBE

When does an exam meet the needs of everyone involved? At the Institute of Medical Education (University of Bern), finding answers to this question has been at the heart of our work for many years. We believe that with the accelerating shift to electronic assessment, it is more important than ever to keep this goal in mind. Solutions should have a sound methodological basis supported by scientific facts, and a focus on content and user experience. Modern technology certainly offers the potential to develop and deliver better exams for candidates, examiners, institutions, and society.

In this session, we will show you which principles guide our ongoing development of exam software, which currently covers web-based question authoring and exam management as well as the delivery of multiple-choice exams and checklist-based assessments of practical skills on tablets. We will debate how "the digital age" impacts the quality and efficiency of the examination process. You will also have a chance to try our tools yourself and approach us with your questions.

 

Hands on – Enhanced e-book production

Bruno Wenk, HTW Chur

Enhanced e-books (containing audio, video, animations, and interactions) constitute a new and promising type of media. But the production of enhanced e-books poses a threefold challenge:

• Only a few free tools support the production of enhanced e-books in the standard format EPUB 3. Most of them provide a very limited number of functions. As a consequence, authors have to have a sound understanding of the building blocks of enhanced e-books (HTML5, CSS, SVG, MathML, JavaScript, etc.).
• Rather than writing elaborate texts, authoring an enhanced e-book means writing a screen-play. How can audio and video content be integrated effectively? What kind of processes could be better explained by means of animations? Could interactive visualisations deliver deeper insight than static ones?
• A considerable number of e-book readers support enhanced e-books in the standard format EPUB 3. But not all of them support all the features of EPUB 3. As in the early days of the Web, enhanced e-books have to be tested on different readers in order to reach a keen audience owning a variety of mobile devices and e-book readers.

With this innovation café we demonstrate a feasible production process and discuss open issues with the community members.

 

New screens for new students?

Anne-Dominique Salamin, HES-SO

Students attending university level education massively arise from a new generation of learners. Very often referred to as "digital natives", "generation Y" or even "students 2.0", born between 1982 and 1995, they grew up with technology, have always known the internet and make a permanent and easy use of smartphones, video games, computers or graphic tablets.

Such students present learning characteristics which need to be taken into account for training efficient future professionals. The current educational system was designed for more passive, less collaborative students and delivers knowledge by means of books, tables and the word of the professor.

Meanwhile, various innovative technologies are becoming available, such as wearable devices (smart watches, immersion helmets, augmented reality glasses), intelligent tools (movement sensors, robots for learning etc.), which may contribute to improving the learning capacity of this new type of student, by providing unprecedented means for interaction with the knowledge to be mastered.

The Enslab (enhanced student laboratory) deals with these entangled issues by conducting several phenomenological or clinical studies in view of providing recommendations for the scientific community.

In connection with this project, we propose to lead a round table discussion about this issue, during the eduhub days 2015.

 

Inform the user – Transparency versus comprehensibility

Kauer-Ott, SWITCH

Within the Swiss edu-ID project we will create a new identity management solution for Swiss higher education institutions. Compared to AAI it should become more user-centric, especially for people using services after they have left the university. The broken link to the former institution must be compensated by building up a new relationship through account creation process, acceptance of terms of use and the usage of user-content for data transmission.

To access a new online tool you have usually to register first and to accept the terms of use – often felt 30 pages of incomprehensible legal parlance. Sometimes you will only hardly know what your rights and duties are while using the tool, and even forget your login if the tool is not a frequently used one. We would like to avoid such a disappointing situation for the Swiss edu-ID users and support a long-living relationship at the best.

How must a parallel login interface for AAI and Swiss edu-ID look like? What good implementations of user-consent exist, providing a maximum of transparency without overwhelming the user? Which channels should be used to inform the user and motivate to keep identity data up-to-date?

Tell us what best practice examples could convince you and help to design Swiss edu-ID user interfaces.

• Presentation (PDF)

 

PELE: Personal electronic learning environment

Lukas Fässler & Markus Dahinden & David Sichau, ETHZ

On all levels of education, including the introductory courses at the ETH, there is considerable impetus towards skill based competence. This leads to project oriented assignments independently performed and submitted by the students. Problem and project oriented programmes lead to an enormous administrative effort (receiving and correcting assignments, giving feedback, grading, etc.), especially in large scale courses.

One possible solution is to decentralise the exercise classes by using additional teaching staff (at the ETH mostly assistants). However, this also increases the administrative effort (e.g. recruiting of assistants, organisation of exercise groups, additional room allocation). With our newly developed personal electronic learning environment (PELE), this rigid structure of exercise groups should be replaced by individualised groups. Leading towards self organising efficient exercise classes. This should reduce the administrative effort required for large scale project oriented programs significantly. With the help of the system, students should be able to inform themselves about their personal skill level and compare it to the required skill level for the final exam.

In this Innovation Café, we will present our current mock-up and our first results. We want to discuss additional possibilities to organise individualised learning in large scale courses.

 

Hands on – Instant secure exam environment using Safe Exam Browser 2.0

Daniel Schneider, ETHZ

When conducting large-scale e-assessments, there are various factors to be considered. Which online exam system offers all the question types required? How can it be integrated in your course and student administration infrastructure? How can you conduct secure online assessments without having to buy expensive exam-specific hardware?

Safe Exam Browser (SEB) is the solution that makes securing Windows and Mac computers easy and flexible. The browser can be used on existing computers in a lab or on student’s own notebooks. When conducting e-assessments using SEB, you are free to use any web-based exam or learning management system and even third party software like Matlab, R, a PDF-Reader and more as SEB is highly modular and configurable to the exam solution of your choice.

In this innovation café we will demonstrate how easy it is to setup and secure any Windows or Mac computer for an online exam. Download and install Safe Exam Browser 2.0, open an exam portal page in your regular browser, click a special link and you’re conducting a secured exam with SEB!