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The paper traces the evolution of the Centre for Learning Enhancement And Research (CLEAR) at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) from early 2002 to the end of 2021. The University needed a centre to support both institutional and local (department and faculty) needs and aspirations for enhancing teaching and learning. Five key strategies adopted by CLEAR are: embedding the practice of existing teachers into policy development, localizing quality-assurance processes, relating professional-development activities to career development, involving students, and producing research evidence from within the Hong Kong context. The evidence base that supports these strategies, and the cultural and community factors involved, will be woven into an evidence-based narrative that spans 20 years.

During work-integrated learning (WIL), student teachers usually practice what they have learned in theory under the apprenticeship of mentor lecturers and teachers. This experience might not adequately prepare them for the complexities of full-time teaching. To address this concern, 252 student teachers worked in small groups to identify challenges and to suggest effective ways of mediating cooperative learning during WIL in schools. The student teachers implemented what they had suggested and reflected on their learning experiences. Student teachers' field notes and discussions regarding their anxieties, uncertainties, beliefs, practices, orientations, and their reflection on the mediation of cooperative learning were analyzed. Findings show that the use of group discussion and reflection developed student teachers' teaching autonomy, which resulted in improved teaching. We argue that the combination of group-work and reflection is an effective way of developing student teacher autonomy and for preparing them for real-life classroom teaching.

This paper is a narrative across 28 years in academic development. Four phases are described, showing how initially naïve conceptions about academic development have been addressed, enabling a growth towards a more holistic understanding of how diversity, quality assurance, and community networks can productively interface. This narrative will, hopefully, assist reflection by other academic developers.

Case-based activities are widely proclaimed to enable better learning through allowing students to practice application of concepts in real-life situations. This paper reports an investigation into the learning benefits derived from engaging students in the development of Pharmacy eCases. This is a small scale pilot study. Two student-developers were actively involved in a year-long project where they converted authentic patient cases encountered from a hospital-based clinical clerkship into pedagogically sound eCases. The purpose of this phase of study is to gather experience to inform an expanded phase of eCase development. Several benefits were found. First, the student-developers noted learning benefits for both their knowledge and skills. Second, the peer students perceived learning benefits on knowledge improvement and agreed that the cases developed are relevant for pharmacy practice. Finally, the teacher gained constructive inputs from students on how to enhance the development of eCases in the expanded phase.

The tension between criterion-referenced and norm-referenced assessment is examined in the context of curriculum planning and assessment in outcomes-based approaches to higher education. This paper argues the importance of a criterion-referenced assessment approach once an outcomes-based approach has been adopted. It further discusses the implementation of criterion-referenced assessment, considering to what extent the criteria and standards adopted are implicitly norm referenced. It introduces a compatible interpretation of criterion-referenced and norm-referenced assessments in higher education, and illustrates how their combined use can avoid grade inflation and also provide useful information to educators, employers and learners. Instead of seeing criterion referencing and norm referencing as a dichotomy, assessment in higher education benefits from their synthesis through a feedback loop that emphasises alignment between learning and assessment; such feedback and alignment are essential features of quality assurance and enhancement.

This article reports a study of eLearning in 21 courses in Hong Kong universities that had a blended design of face-to-face classes combined with online learning. The main focus of the study was to examine possible relationships between features of online learning designs and student learning outcomes. Data-collection strategies included expert reviews of the learning designs, student surveys of perceptions of the web environment and their own learning outcomes, and a SOLO (structure of observed learning outcomes) analysis of assessment evidence of student learning outcomes. The findings of this correlational study indicate mild relationships between features of learning design and student perceptions of their learning outcomes. Both the provision of learning resources and the engagement of students in online communication relate to aspects of learning (acquisition of knowledge and skills, and enhancement of learning motivation). Also, the relationship was stronger when eLearning strategies were more extensively used. However, no relationship was found between learning design and the student performance in assessment tasks, possibly because of the limited assessment data that was examined.

Humanities includes a diverse range of disciplines in which little literature has explored in any depth the desired learning outcomes. This study was designed to articulate and illustrate learning outcomes in the humanities from students' voices and work. Undergraduate students in their final year, postgraduate students and recent alumni from the Faculty of Arts at a Hong Kong university were interviewed individually or in groups of three to four. They discussed their desired and actual learning outcomes in three areas: the overall university experience, studying in the humanities and their studies in their specific majors. The students' comments were grouped into 16 categories of description. Seventy-three pieces of student work were collected and matched to the 16 categories to illustrate students' perceptions. A common set of qualities was found in all the humanities programmes. The findings have been helpful in bringing the student voice into internal discussions about outcomes-based approaches to teaching and learning and how these approaches relate to internal quality-assurance and curriculum-change processes. (Contains 4 figures and 3 tables.)

This paper discusses early-career academics' development at a university in Hong Kong. Reflecting the impact of local context, the paper explores cultural and structural influences that can impinge on teaching and learning strategies for new academics. Barriers such as student learning behaviour and publication pressure may discourage new academics from taking an active interest in ongoing professional development beyond the mandatory component. However, the effect of Chinese culture, which places a strong emphasis on "face" and harmonious human relationships, and the existence of hidden ("ghost") rules can collectively add pitfalls that inhibit new academics' full engagement in their teaching roles. Local contextual capabilities are identified and implications for the design of professional development programmes for early-career academics are discussed. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)

The aim of this study was to investigate whether, in the Hong Kong context, self- and peer-assessment promote students' self-reflection and enable students to understand their own strengths and weaknesses better. A three-stage assessment strategy was employed in three Science courses at The Chinese University of Hong Kong: (1) students developing assessment criteria, (2) self-assessment, and (3) peer-assessment. These assessment strategies are not common at the University. Education in Hong Kong is often portrayed as having less experience of, and being somewhat resistant to, educational innovation. So, in addition to studying the learning potential of these strategies, the study also focused on the practicality of implementing the new strategies. The results confirm that there are challenges in the present context but also indicate that these innovations to assessment are well perceived by students if they are appropriately framed and implemented. (Contains 5 tables.)

Conventional teaching of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is highly teacher-centered, in line with traditional views of the teacher as "master". This article focuses on how modern teaching concepts and technologies can enhance the teaching of TCM in Hong Kong, a city noted for a culture where "East meets West." The project described in this article concerns the development and use of a media-rich collection of electronic cases (eCases) for TCM students at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Initially, the applicability of interactive teaching and learning strategies in TCM were explored in order to refine the design of the eCases. Detailed evaluations (student surveys and expert reviews) confirmed expected learning benefits and provided ideas for further enhancement. The findings are positive, suggesting that teachers and students welcome this innovation. "New" concepts and "old" subjects are not necessarily incompatible. (Contains 2 tables.)

This paper explores the concept of pragmatic meta-analytic studies in eLearning. Much educational technology literature focuses on developers and teachers describing and reflecting on their experiences. Few connections are made between these experiential "stories". The data set is fragmented and offers few generalisable lessons. The field needs guidelines about what can be learnt from such single-case reports. The pragmatic meta-analytic studies described in this paper have two common aspects: (1) the cases are related in some way, and (2) the data are authentic, that is, the evaluations have followed a naturalistic approach. We suggest that examining a number of such cases is best done by a mixed-methods approach with an emphasis on qualitative strategies. In the paper, we overview 63 eLearning cases. Three main meta-analytic strategies were used: (1) meta-analysis of the perception of usefulness across all cases, (2) meta-analysis of recorded benefits and challenges across all cases, and (3) meta-analysis of smaller groups of cases where the learning design and/or use of technology are similar. This study indicated that in Hong Kong the basic and non-interactive eLearning strategies are often valued by students, while their perceptions of interactive strategies that are potentially more beneficial fluctuate. One possible explanation relates to the level of risk that teachers and students are willing to take in venturing into more innovative teaching and learning strategies. (Contains 6 tables and 1 figure.)

Evaluation is often depicted as being in a cyclic relationship, together with the planning, development, and implementation aspects of e-learning in higher education. This article supports this view and elaborates the multiple roles evaluation can have. We present a three-layered cyclic model developed during an e-learning support project: e3Learning (e3L). Formative evaluation can refine e-learning planning and development before implementation; however, the emphasis of this article is on the contributions of summative evaluation. Experiences during the e3L project reveal two key roles of evaluation from summative data: (a) Evaluation assists teachers in improving their e-learning strategies in further rounds of planning and development; and (b) evaluation can also provide evidence through meta-analyses across projects, which can feed into overall e-learning planning, development and evaluation strategies. (Contains 2 figures and 5 tables.)

It is important to demonstrate to those taking courses for new teachers that approaches to learning have a relational nature--that they are influenced by the teaching and learning context. This article describes a workshop activity, based on the Revised Study Process Questionnaire. Workshop participants recorded their approaches to learning in two contexts: how they currently studied as postgraduate students, and how they studied in their most disliked undergraduate course. Analysis of the results from this activity indicates that approaches to learning are markedly influenced by the teaching and learning environment. This provides a graphic demonstration to workshop participants of the importance of their teaching, as it will have a strong influence on the quality of learning of their students. The data from the activity give quantitative evidence of the relational nature of approaches to learning. Further, there appears to be a discipline effect operating with the nature of the typical teaching and learning environment in the arts, humanities and social sciences being more conducive to students cultivating a deep approach to learning. (Contains 3 figures and 2 tables.)

This article describes the evaluation of purpose-built course websites for university-level teaching and learning developed by a funded project (e3Learning, e3L) in Hong Kong, which was designed to support teachers in three universities to supplement classroom teaching with eLearning. Previous articles on the e3L project have described the customized, flexible nature of the large number of evaluations conducted in the period 2003-2005. This article concentrates on the procedural mechanisms and management strategies that have considerably facilitated the process and guaranteed the continued quality of the evaluations. The mechanisms and strategies incorporated have ensured externally good communication between the evaluation team and the teachers, and internally a smooth-running workflow in which the responsibility of each member in the evaluation team is well defined. Evidence is presented of the benefits of this model of, and strategies for, evaluation. (Contains 2 tables and 5 figures.)

With the current state of web technology, multimedia materials are readily accessible by students. This paper reports on the design and evaluation of three online courses from a university in Hong Kong which incorporate media-enhanced learning materials. These cases are at different positions with respect to the types of knowledge and levels of cognitive reasoning outlined in the revised Bloom's taxonomy. Evaluation data give qualified support for media-enhanced aspects of the courses being beneficial to student learning. The study has also highlighted factors that influence the success of the learning experience: attention to the quality and design of the media, considering student motivation and focusing on feedback on learning during the course. Media and learning design, thus, are inextricably intertwined in a complex relationship. (Contains 12 figures and 1 table.)

The paper presents a strategy for the systematic evaluation of course websites built under the project e3Learning that operates across three universities in Hong Kong. Tailor-made evaluation plans were produced for each website; the evaluation was conducted by an evaluation officer, and a report was provided to each teacher, thus supporting continuous development. To date, 58 cases of evaluation data have been collected. In this paper, a meta-analysis across these cases is presented in order to see which are the most useful web-assisted functions currently in use in Hong Kong universities. This study indicates the following four functions as being most useful: learning tools such as glossaries, notes and PowerPoints, assessment tasks associated with grades, and creation and exhibition of multimedia projects. The reasons for these rankings are postulated.

The paper reports a study for determining a suitable process for converting traditional surface science courses into case-based learning ones in two universities in Hong Kong. In this preparative study, a set of baseline data was collected on the current level of students' conceptual understanding and also students' perceptions about the traditional courses. The student data (from 38 students) came from examination results, the Study Process Questionnaire, a course-end survey and a focus group meeting; teachers also kept reflective journals. This set of baseline data revealed factors that both support and inhibit case-based learning. On the one hand, students demonstrate a motivation to be able to solve practical problems in this field; on the other hand, they show an unwillingness to take up a personal responsibility for learning. This finding strengthens our resolve to take into account students' expectations and beliefs in the implementation of case-based teaching and learning.

This paper is a narrative about the use of narrative as a means to understand how the use of technology assisted the educational community of Hong Kong during the SARS crisis of 2003. It is not a carefully planned conventional research study. It is based on seven narratives written by staff at The Chinese University of Hong Kong about their experiences during SARS. The experience of an online conference run by the author has also been considered. Overall, in our context, technology was able to come naturally and appropriately to the fore in our time of crisis. For me, it is a message that technology is now a mainstream tool that can be rapidly mobilized and that is very satisfying indeed.

Describes a program at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia to draw on the skills and enthusiasm of early technology adopters by appointing them as Learning Technology Mentors to work with colleagues in their departments. (EV)

Discusses the need for staff development and training in higher education due to communication and information technologies and describes a program at RMIT University (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia) that addressed the adoption of computer-facilitated learning, including a distributed learning system and a learning technology mentor program. (LRW)

Reports research on ways in which university academics design and incorporate computer-facilitated learning (CFL) environments into their courses. The study was based on archive material for 36 externally-funded technology-based projects. Projects were sorted into categories based on educational assumptions and practices, and use of educational technology in higher education was interpreted. (AEF)

A survey of 33 Australian higher education institutions investigated the use of and attitudes toward awards given to faculty for teaching excellence. Patterns of award giving, benefits and problems associated with their use, and ideas for improving the design and value of award schemes are reported. (MSE)

Describes a university-wide quality assurance system governing aspects of educational design for online courses that was developed at RMIT University (Australia). Highlights include policy that incorporates educational design, peer review, and formal evaluation of courses; course models; and achieving quality outcomes. (LRW)

The tension between criterion-referenced and norm-referenced assessment is examined in the context of curriculum planning and assessment in outcomes-based approaches to higher education. This paper argues the importance of a criterion-referenced assessment approach once an outcomes-based approach has been adopted. It further discusses the implementation of criterion-referenced assessment, considering to what extent the criteria and standards adopted are implicitly norm referenced. It introduces a compatible interpretation of criterion-referenced and norm-referenced assessments in higher education, and illustrates how their combined use can avoid grade inflation and also provide useful information to educators, employers and learners. Instead of seeing criterion referencing and norm referencing as a dichotomy, assessment in higher education benefits from their synthesis through a feedback loop that emphasises alignment between learning and assessment; such feedback and alignment are essential features of quality assurance and enhancement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is important to demonstrate to those taking courses for new teachers that approaches to learning have a relational nature — that they are influenced by the teaching and learning context. This article describes a workshop activity, based on the Revised Study Process Questionnaire. Workshop participants recorded their approaches to learning in two contexts: how they currently studied as postgraduate students, and how they studied in their most disliked undergraduate course. Analysis of the results from this activity indicates that approaches to learning are markedly influenced by the teaching and learning environment. This provides a graphic demonstration to work- shop participants of the importance of their teaching, as it will have a strong influence on the quality of learning of their students. The data from the activity give quantitative evidence of the relational nature of approaches to learning. Further, there appears to be a discipline effect operating with the nature of the typical teaching and learning environment in the arts, humanities and social sciences being more conducive to students cultivating a deep approach to learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is centred on the design phase of four e-learning projects in Hong Kong. Our challenge is to use e-learning in ways that enhance student learning. Our desired learning outcomes include not only discipline knowledge but a whole raft of capabilities, including independent learning, critical thinking and creative design. The Hong Kong education system is remarkably highly structured and emphasizes discipline content above these more generic capabilities. Our work, therefore, sought ways to include students in the design phase of a number of e-learning projects in order to understand students' learning needs in a broad sense so as to ensure optimal learning designs, and also provide students with an authentic design experience as part of their educational development. Students' contributions to the design and development of four cases of educational websites in Hong Kong universities are discussed. Students provided information in the following areas: their views on the role of the web in learning, areas of difficulties in the discipline domain, and actual design ideas for the specific projects. In all four cases the information obtained was valuable. We suggest that student input to e-learning design can improve the effectiveness of e-learning and also contribute to students' own educational development. The design process itself thus becomes an authentic learning experience for students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the scope of the challenge needed to support university teaching staff to become effective global e-teachers. This challenge involves teachers in broadening their understanding of cultural diversity, as well as acquiring new skills in educational design and online teaching and learning. Three ways of supporting teachers are described: growth of individual teachers’ skills and confidence, a focus on curriculum and educational design, and development of appropriate university policy. In reality, support is needed in all three areas. Finally, some general principles for staff development of the global e-teacher are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents views on the application of polarity management in implementing internal policy development. Consideration for the culture of the university; Commitment of universities to large scale social engineering; Ways on how universities can chart its progress.

The research reported here is part of a study of the ways in which university academics design and incorporate computer-facilitated learning (CFL) environments into their courses. This study was based on archive material only (the initial application and final report) for 36 externally-funded technology-based projects from a number of disciplines. Projects were sorted into categories based on educational assumptions and practices. Categories were then compared and refined so as to reveal their major sources of similarity and difference. The resulting framework is one in which the use of educational technology in higher education can be interpreted in terms of several key qualitative dimensions which reflect academics' beliefs about the origin of knowledge, the learning framework, control of the direction of learning, and the nature of the knowledge and of the learning process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]