Communicating with potential and registered learners
Enquiries about NEC courses used to be communicated overwhelmingly by telephone; in 2004, 30% are by email and/or through their web pages.
About 30% of queries from students to both NEC administrators and tutors are now by email. This is expected to grow to 50% or more by 2006.
Assignment submission, which was almost 100% by post as recently as 2002, is now 20% by email attachment. However, this trend towards electronic communication is expected to slow because many assignments include diagrams and formulae that are not easily word-processed.
NEC sees e-learning both as a new form of product and as a communications tool. A student community has developed and although NEC has too little activity for any in-depth and valid analysis, they feel it is driven by a need to find answers to problems. 'This is a self-help community in which if someone can?t find an answer, they seek out others (peers) that might be able to' says Tim Burton, Head of Product Development. He describes NEC as providing 'light touch monitoring' rather than moderation in these groups.
Examples of particularly active communities are 'early years groups': for example, nursery nurses or playgroup supervisors working towards level 2 and 3 qualifications, who are strongly driven by the need to acquire qualifications and seek support in problem solving. In their non-accredited and leisure programmes, they now include a creative writing course that has greater embeddedness of communications activities in a broader process and contributions are expected as part of their course.
...continue to lessons learned (p4)
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