As e-learning grows in popularity, the quality of online courses and the "learner experience" is declining. Quality in the classroom is well understood, but is less well defined for e-learning. I will describe some characteristics of high quality - and poor quality - online courses and will discuss the importance of context, in particular, the learner, the topic, and the setting, in design and evaluation. I will describe some experiences applying techniques from human-computer interaction, online communities, storytelling, and knowledge management in a variety of settings to create successful online learner experiences.
Slides from the talk are now available at http://www.aace.org/conf/elearn/ [1].
Lisa Neal is Editor-in-Chief of ACM eLearn Magazine, www.eLearnMag.org [2], and an e-learning consultant working with museums and corporate, academic, and government clients. She is Adjunct Professor in The Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at Tufts Medical School. Lisa was awarded the 2003 U.S. Distance Learning Association (USDLA) Award for Most Outstanding Achievement by an Individual in Corporate/Business. She holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Harvard University.
