3. Issue July 2007

Summary

Issue 3 presents two articles on e-learning in the US: Firstly, Schulmeister critically reflects on the suitability of e-learning in the US as a global standard or benchmark. Secondly, Ellis presents a framework for adapting a large, residential course to the Web. In addition, Bensberg, Grob, and vom Brocke present the Total Cost of Ownership-method (TCO-method) to cast light on the cost-effects of e-learning platforms.

Zusammenfassung

Ausgabe 3 präsentiert zwei Beiträge zu e-Learning in den USA: (1) Schulmeister reflektiert kritisch die Eignung des e-Learning in den USA als globaler Standard oder Benchmark. (2) stellt Ellis ein Framework für die Übertragung eines großen on-Campus-Kurses auf das Web vor. Daneben präsentieren Bensberg, Grob, und vom Brocke die Total Cost of Ownership-Methode um Kostenfaktoren von e-Learning-Plattformen zu beleuchten.

Editorial

Well, it has been a long time since the last issue. We are way beyond of having a regularly issue at least twice a year. We even got emails like “does eleed still exists?”—Yes, we are still alive! And we are happy to present an interesting third issue to our beloved readers. As you are now aware, we now make accepted articles visible in the “preview” area of the journal prior to "binding" the next issue. Moreover, we tried to reduce the amount of time that passes between when an author submits an article until the final decision. However, the bottleneck towards improved time-to-market is still our review process. As highly qualified experts, our reviewers are overly busy and just need enough time to prepare a well founded review. And yes, they are doing a great job and it is time to say a big THANK YOU to our large group of reviewers. They are the insurance for the high quality we want to achieve. If the acceptance rate is an indicator for quality, then we achieved this goal: From 60 submissions to the refereed section, we have only accepted 12 for publications—that is a 20% acceptance rate.

As you may have noticed, we had published a questionnaire for our readers last year. Meanwhile, we have evaluated the answers and we do no longer want to withhold the results from our readers. The evaluation of the feedback confirms that we achieved our goal concerning the concept, the design, and the content of our open access journal. This is important in instable times where new open access journals emerge every month, while other open access journals in our area cease to exist, for example IMEJ, the Interactive Multimedia Electronic Journal of Computer-Enhanced Learning is no longer published.

In the scientific section, we have three interesting contributions in this issue: In “eLearning in the USA: The Standard? The Benchmark?“, Rolf Schulmeister presents some critical remarks on e-learning in the US as a contribution to the current discussion in Europe. In particular, he wants to initiate a discussion about the question whether the European study system is in danger to imitate the shortcomings and consequences of the American educational system. Although our publishing platform currently does not support discussions or blogs related to articles, we are very much interested in your comments if you feel inspired by Rolf Schulmeister’s thoughts. Please send any feedback to eleed@campussource.de — of course, we are interested in any feedback, not only to this particular article.

Complementing Rolf Schulmeister’s article, we have an article from Maureen Ellis presenting some practical experiences on e-learning in the US: In “Changing the Face of Traditional Education: A Framework for Adapting a Large, Residential Course to the Web”, she identifies and discusses instructional design theory for making a large, lecture-based course ready for Web-based learning.

For the German speaking readership, Bensberg, Grob, and vom Brocke present the Total Cost of Ownership-method (TCO-method) to cast light on the cost-effects of e-learning platforms. Their article will probably make it possible to measure if the use of e-learning at universities can really reduce the costs of educating increasing numbers of students.

In the project report section, we have four contributions: Andreas Bethmann and Marco Bohnsack present results of a project called “Efficient Management of Wastewater, its Treatment and Reuse in the Mediterranean Countries (EMWater)” within the article “Stud.IP and ILIAS in an EU-Funded Project for the Middle East”. Web Based Training (WBT) is used with the aim for refreshing the knowledge of wastewater experts in the Mediterranean Countries and promoting cross border knowledge transfer. In “E-Learning 2.0 in hydraulic engineering education”, Stefan Walder and Wolfgang Hagleiter report about the results of an online collaboration with the usage of Wikis.

In the German speaking section, Frank Bensberg complements his article about the Total Costs of Ownership (TCO) with a report on the Total Cost of Services (TCS) of Learning Management Systems. He refers to the ITIL Reference Model to point out methods determining cost factors of the usage of e-learning platforms. Olaf A. Schulte reports of his experiences with distance education in Australia: His report “2000 kilometers each day” (“2000 Kilometer am Tag”) focuses on video conferencing and describes how e-learning reaches the far-flung regions of the country.

This time, we have five reviews of interesting books in our book review. Their content can be divided into three subjects: First, we have two books about security for e-learning, online-courses, and online platforms. The first book on this subject is “Security in E-Learning”, written by Edgar Weippl, and addresses researchers as well as IT professionals. The second one, “Impacts and Risk Assessment of Technology for Internet Security Enabled Information Small-Medium Enterprises (TEISMES)” written by Charles A. Shoniregun, is not only interesting for researchers and practitioners in the area of e-learning, but also more generally for online platforms and online shops.

The second subject addresses people in education and how to build successful courses in a didactic way. “Lessons in learning, e-learning, and training – perspectives and guidance for the enlightened trainer” by Roger C. Schank shows this in a very personally way. “Efficiency in learning – evidence-based guidelines to manage cognitive load” by Ruth Colvin Clark, Frank Nguyen, and John Sweller contains some theoretical aspects in education and teaching.

The last subject shows the implementation of e-learning in a very special field. “E-Learning in Process and Chemical Engineering – A Practical Overview” by Günter Wozny complements the subjects above in a practical implementation.

We hope that you find this issue of eleed as interesting as we do. Have fun reading it and don't hesitate to give us your feedback!

Jens Krinke
Bernd Krämer
Manfred Postel
Martin Roos