2.  @julianar71
 jraffaghelli@gmail.com
 Facebook, linkedin, academia etc etc :P
 Venice, Trento, Genoa

3. Defining Quality
in Higher
Education
Quality NWL
Our Research
• A transformational
perspective
• Our approach: The
mediated quality to achieve
quality literacy
• How it could be defined
• How quality NWL integrates
a vision of quality in higher
education
• Learning Design
• Focus
• Theoretical Framework
• Methodological Approach
• Main Findings
Conclusions & Discussion

4. Defining Quality
in Higher
Education
Quality NWL
Our Research
• A transformational
perspective
• Our approach: The
mediated quality to achieve
quality literacy
• How it could be defined
• How quality NWL integrates
a vision of quality in higher
education
• Learning Design
• Focus
• Theoretical Framework
• Methodological Approach
• Main Findings

5. 5
Q UNESCO Quality for all
EFQUEL –UE-
SLOAN-C MODEL –USA-
ISO/IEC 19796
Sistematic
Approaches
Access?
Excellence?
Innovation
Inclusiveness?

6.  Diverse Cultures of Quality are
underpinned by diverse values:
› Exceptional/Original
› Distinctiveness
› Excellence
› Fitness for Purpose
› Inclusive
6

7.  Quality is not an intrinsic,
universal value
 It is very much about the methodology
of evaluation,
 And the substantial
epistemological principles
and values underlying the process of
evaluation

8. 8
Elements Dimensions
Multiperspective The teacher – the student – the institution,
the evaluators
Diverse Methods of
Analysis
Benchmarking – guidelines – standards –
quantitative or qualitative approaches
Diverse Time In itinere – ex ante – ex post
Diverse Meanings Pedagogical – Organizational –
Technological – Economical
Diverse Levels of
Analysis
Individual – Group – Institutional – Socio-
cultural
Ghislandi et al, 2008

9.  The transformational perspective is the kernel
of a quality learning culture:
› a human group that take part of a learning
experience as a deep, reflective experience,
connected to the own professional/ personal
identity
 For which purposes do I/we teach/learn? What can
I/we do with this teaching/learning?
› not just for accomplishing activities, recalling
information, and obtaining credentials (course
diploma).
Teachers and students should become
insiders of the culture of quality (Elhers,
2004; 2011; Ghislandi & Raffaghelli, 2012)

10. Mediating Artifacts: Signs/ Tools
to undertand/implement quality
SUBJECT
Active stakeholders
of quality
OBJECT
Quality Culture in Higher
Education
Mediated
Quality:
A process
to develop
Quality
awareness
The zone of
Proximal
Development
The mediated quality approach (based on Vygotskij concept
of mediation)

11. Defining Quality
in Higher
Education
Quality NWL
Our Research
• A transformational
perspective
• Our approach: The
mediated quality to achieve
quality literacy
• How it could be defined
• How quality NWL integrates
a vision of quality in higher
education
• Learning Design
• Focus
• Theoretical Framework
• Methodological Approach
• Main Findings

12.  eQuality for Networked e-Learning (NLC 2002)
 Significant contents and technologies to
interact/connect with (Goodyear et al, 2004)
 (Collaborative) Designing for (networked) learning
(Laurillard&McAndrew, 2002; Goodyear et al, 2004)
 A dialogic, critical and reflective perspective of learning
(Jones, 2008, Zenios & Goodyear, 2008)
 The institutional perspective, relating the classroom
practice with the curriculum and the learners' profile
after concluded the course (Dircking-Homfeld, Jones,
Lindstrom, 2009)

13. "the time is right to simply use the term NWL and drop the
‘e’ in networked e-learning. This is because we think it is
more important to foreground connectivity as a specific
and important pedagogical feature of NWL. We claim that
an updated definition of NWL should not only refer to
being a pedagogy based on connectivity and the co-
production of knowledge but also one that aspires to
support e-quality of opportunity and include reference to
the importance of relational dialogue and critical reflexivity
in all of this" (Beaty,Cousin & Hogdson, 2010, p.585).

14. 14
Conole, 2004; Blin&Munro,
2008; Kennedy et al., 2011;
Ghislandi & Raffaghelli,
2012
A medieval University Classroom,
http://people.clemson.edu/~elizab/medievalgallery.htm
Lectures at IITB - http://www.plancessiit.com/jee-
mag/lectures-iitb/

15. Defining Quality
in Higher
Education
Quality NWL
Our Research
• A transformational
perspective
• Our approach: The
mediated quality to achieve
quality literacy
• How it could be defined
• How quality NWL integrates
a vision of quality in higher
education
• Learning Design
• Focus
• Theoretical Framework
• Methodological Approach
• Main Findings

16.  Focus
› exploring one perspective of quality: teaching
 Research question
› Can collaborative learning design mediate
the process of achieving awareness on NWL
quality dimensions?

17. Collaborative Design and re-design
SUBJECT
Academics as active
stakeholders
of quality
OBJECT
Quality
NWL
The zone of
Proximal
Development
The mediated quality approach (based on Vygotskij concept
of mediation) applied to Quality NWL

18. Collaborative Design and re-design
SUBJECT
Academics as active
stakeholders
of quality
OBJECT
Quality NWL
Quality
Culture
The zone of
Proximal
Development
Collaborative Learning Design
Outsider of
Quality NWL Insider of
Quality NWL
Is it possible
to move from
here…
…To here?

19.  Teachers-led Inquiry (TLI)
› A new approach for NWL
› Qualitative, transformative, ecological
 Elements of the TLI
› Problem: Achieving quality NWL for HE
› Context of Intervention: 2° Run of an
undergraduate course at an Italian University.
› Participants: Two professors, Two eTutors and an
instructional designer, as team leading the course.
› Teachers’ led inquiry process: activities of
discussion for collaborative re-design , negotiating
the own discourse about quality NWL

20. Quality
Teaching
Values &
Beliefs
P2 -
Pedagogical
Expert
P1 - Content
Expert
eT1 -
Communication
– Content
eT2 – Web 2.0
tools use
Instructional
Designer
Collaborative Desgining for Learning – 4 month process

21.  The body of data collected was composed
by several types of data:
› 4 audiotaped and 1 videotaped working
session. The sessions were aimed at discussing
and advancing in the process of learning design.
› 201 email exchanges within the working team.
› 5 MEMO written by the instructional designer
accompanying the process of learning design,
after every session.

22.  Transcription in Italian
 Discourse analysis
 Codification of Discourse organizing it in 4
categories connected with Quality NWL
dimensions
 Member checking on codification
 Excerpts of discourse translated into English
for the article/presentation.
 Informed consensus was requested to participants. All data is protected against the identification of
participants. For this reason, details on the topic of the course, as well as professional fields of research
are not mentioned.

23. Quality
Dimensions
Quality NWL aspects negotiated Discourse
Improving
knowledge/
understanding
The
negotiation of
approaches for
educational
quality
- discuss about the use of
technologies
- improve the contents,
- supporting collaboration
between students
- giving sense to the
course in the context of
the career and
institutional culture.
DIALOGIC PERSPECTIVE
“I’m concerned about the number of unsuccessful
students the last year… (Session 1/P1: COD3
ASSESSMENT, PERFORMANCE)
“I believe there are issues to improve since the course is
still an hybrid between your and my type of teaching
approaches” (Session 1/P1: COD4 CONTENT; SHARED
TEACHING)
“I think there are topics that require a glossary, clear
definitions of concepts and terms for the students. I know I
could be schematic…” (Session 1/P2: COD7 PEDAGOGY;
NSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT)
“…the other epistemological approach prevails and I can
see many students have prejudices about this field of
research” (Session 1/P2:COD9, INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT
- PREJUDICES)
“this module on networked learning can be confusing,
for there are other completely different laboratorial activities
relating to the specific content, this is on the process, not the
content…but I agree that students wouldn’t understand
the value of collaborating without it” (Session
1/P2:COD23 COLLABORATION)

24. Quality
Dimensions
Quality NWL aspects negotiated Discourse
Experiencing
quality
principles:
The tools for
achieving
quality NWL
Some of the tools that
were adopted by the
team to support the
learning design process.
SIGNIFICANT
RESOURCES
“I can prepare the course schedule and the syllabus,
so we can understand where do you intervene. I need
you to focus some topics that are in tight connection with
your discipline, while there are other that I think is better
I take over…” (Session1/P2:COD41, SHARED
TEACHING, ORGANIZATION, TOOLS)
“So the syllabus, that you have to prepare for the
students, crystallizes all your process of negotiation of
contents and pedagogical approach” (Session
1/ID:COD46 SHARED TEACHING, TOOLS)
“I prepared a simplified presentation for the adoption
of collaborative forum…Guess this is the minimum for
the proposed collaborative approach” (Mail123/eT2,
COLLABORATIVE PEDAGOGICAL APPROACH,
TOOLS)
“I prepared a table with the division of roles for the
evaluation, since we are three people working together,
apart eT2 that was with us initially” (Mail137/P2)
(SHARED TEACHING, TOOLS)

25. Quality
Dimensions
Quality NWL aspects negotiated Discourse
Reflecting
on the
quality
achieved
How the initial problems
for the design are
adjusted
DESIGN FOR NWL
“here is the tank of instruments we are
about to use. Guess it reflects our
conversations and last changes to the
current design” (Mail3/P2)
“In this new plan we solved the problem
of a balance between the networked
learning approach and the contents;
however the raising numbers of students
is a variable we cannot adjust and the
laboratorial and collaborative approach
depend highly on this”
(Session3/P2:COD16)

26. Quality
Dimensions
Quality NWL aspects negotiated Discourse
Concrete
innovations to
the own
learning
design
practices: the
impact of
quality
Innovations emerging
from the new learning
design
CONTEXT
“I can see the groups are quickly entering in the
collaborative process for the first module. I guess how it will
be for the Module 7, where we have a lot of practice…”
(Mail107/Et1, ACHIEVEMENTS, COLL)
“I don’t think this group is properly collaborating. Very
few interventions and this is reflected on their joint
assignments..” (Mail114/Et1, FOCUS, COLL)
“In the end I think the assessment system we considered is
fair with specific knowledge the students must have, but also
with the idea of the collaborative learning” (Session5:P1,
COD3, ASSESSMENT, COLL)
“This course could be the beginning of something bigger. I
think we can package it and prepare a post-lauream course
like a Master Degree, for the contents we are re-elaborating
and the approach would be innovative in our (national)
context” (Session5/P2:COD7, TRANSFORMATIVE
PRACTICE)
“I’m in front of two minds and two souls, in their generative
and dialogic space. I don’t think they could do this
alone…their result is about negotiation, and the final
representation of the design in the syllabus is the product of
two views of the pedagogical practices…” (MEMO4/ID, TP)

27.  The collaborative process leads to a
combination of perspectives on the quality
(MEMO4/ID),
 Which in time determines the innovation for an
expanded vision on quality (Mail107/eT1;
Mail114/eT1; Session5/P2:COD7)
 There is an intersemantic process that can be
seen clearly in the expression of eT1 and P1
(Mail114/eT1; Session5:P2, COD3)
 The ID Memo quoted shows also this
impression on the process of negotiation and
meaning making.

28.  Both P1 (supported by eT1) and P2
(supported by eT2) participated in the TLI on
the basis of issues that were attempting
against what everyone of them considered
“the quality”:
› Contents of the course
› Lab activities and eLearning
› Institutional context
› Examinations

29. Quality Issues as perceived by the team Underlying Networked Learning
principles for quality
Contents of the course: the problems expressed by the
students regarding a "too fluid" "vast" "contradictory"
content, and not easy to match with the own professional
profile
Significant contents to
interact/connect with
The translation of lab activities from a highly face-to-face
approach to a blended system
Significant technologies to
interact/connect with
Yielding collaboration as part of the re-
design of the course
A dialogic, critical and reflective
perspective of learning
Examinations: A concern on the way grades are attributed
that fairly reflects the knowledge/skills the students must
display after having attended the course.
The institutional perspective, relating
the classroom practice with the
curriculum and the learners' profile
after concluded the course.
Interdisciplinary collaboration between P1 and P2, within a
team were eT1 and eT2 played crucial roles in defining and
supporting operationally the decisions taken by P1 and P2;
while ID supported P2 in the analysis of the whole process
of teacher-led inquiry
(Collaborative) Designing for
(networked) learning

30. Defining Quality
in Higher
Education
Quality Teaching
in Higher
Education
Our Research
• A transformational
perspective
• Our approach: The
mediated quality to achieve
quality literacy
• How it could be defined
• How quality NWL integrates
a vision of quality in higher
education
• Learning Design
• Focus
• Theoretical Framework
• Methodological Approach
• Main Findings
Conclusions & Discussion

31.  Designing is a process of negotiation of initially
different points of view;
› One centered on the excellence of the content;
› The other focused on the learner and the
pedagogical processes, as well as the adoption of
educational technologies;
 This perspective of quality is deeply rooted on
the participants’ personal point of view and
history of teaching and making research.
 The process of improving quality implies tight
collaboration and negotiation of the participants’
agency.

32.  Collaborative Designing for Learning
mediates quality for it allows to expand the
own idea of quality teaching.
› Expanding the own perspective
› Achieving awareness on a new way of
interpreting quality (to know, to use, to
evaluate, to innovate through a NWL approach)
› Becoming an insider of a shared and
transformative quality perspective.

33.  How the approach of mediation for quality NWL
could be further operationalized:
› Co-Design
› Co-production of contents
› Co-teaching
› Evaluation
› Opening up courses
 Which are the contextual/institutional/political
constrains and supports for collaboration
between teachers?
 Which is the impact on the teacher’s
professional identity?

34. The highest reward for man's toil is
not what he gets for it, but what he
becomes by it.
John Ruskin
Thank you for your attention!
Author contacts: patrizia.ghislandi@unitn.it / jraffaghelli@gmail.com