Perils, promise of e-learning examined in UCI seminar

From Education Technology News – August 28, 2002

The current state of e-learning and prospects for improving it will be explored in a seminar being developed by the Distance Learning Center at the University of California, Irvine (UCI).

Funded with the help of an $87,000 grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the seminar will be titled Sorting Through and Sorting Out: The State of Learning Content Sharing in the E-Learning Industry. "We hope to uncover and define the obstacles to greater sharing of e-learning materials among universities and other organizations," said Gary Matkin, who will lead the seminar. "It's a problem we face at UCI as we attempt to capture the value of our extensive investments in online courses."

A report describing the current state of content sharing and recommended actions to increase sharing will be created based on seminar discussions. "While technical barriers to effective sharing do exist, there are political, cultural, organizational and business-related obstacles that receive less attention but are harder to define," said Jia Frydenberg, director of the Distance Learning Center.

The seminar will be held this fall at UCI.

Contact: Gary Matkin, UCI, (949) 824-5525, gmatkin@uci.edu.