eLearning Africa 2016 (VII). Back up for Online Tutors and Mentors

Notes from eLearning Africa 2016, organized by ICWE GmbH and held in El Cairo, Egypt, on 24-26 May 2016. More notes on this event: ela2016.

Back up for Online Tutors and Mentors

Chairperson: Robert Kisalama, Belgian Technical Cooperation, Uganda

Ismael Peña-López, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Spain
eSupervision: A Four-tier Applied Model

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Peña-López, I. (2016). e-Supervision: a four-tier applied model. Communication at eLearning Africa 2016, 26 May 2016, El Cairo. El Cairo: eLearning Africa.

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Peña-López, I. (2016). e-Supervision: a four-tier applied model. Communication at eLearning Africa 2016, 26 May 2016, El Cairo. El Cairo: eLearning Africa.

Discussion

Robert Kisalama: What about patenting? Knowledge recognition? A: this model applies especially to social sciences, where patenting is not as sensitive as in other disciplines and, on the contrary, research benefits much from open debate. On the other hand, if we are talking about knowledge theft — different from patenting — the truth is that the sooner something is “published” online the easier it is to track its legitimate authors. Indeed, the same community of practice/learning will denounce bad practices and identify and shame knnowledge thieves.

Robert Kisalama: Who should initiate the conversation? A: in the best scenario, the conversation will already exist in one or many established communities. It is a matter to help the students find them and participate in them. On the other hand, personal initiative normally naturally leads to being part of a community, first tacitly then explicitly.

Q: how many numbers? How far? A: it is difficult to say how many people can one e-supervise. It is true that the educational system is not prepare and measures quite poorly the time one devotes to e-supervision. One of the keys is to identify where the supervisor is adding more value and shift the rest of tasks towards the student — or the network. Which are these tasks? Mainly two: identifying the context that will make emerge the core things that have to be worked, and then fostering the conversation so that knowledge exchange happens.

Robert Kisalama: how do you assess the quality of the communities A: normally you do not. On the one side, you should already be part of the relevant networks, so it is a matter of time that the students will join you in these. On the other hand, “good work” usually leads to the “right place”. That is, working collaboratively, in the open, sharing and exchanging insights with others quite naturally will lead to “the” community, as it many times is the network that attracts you and invites you to be a part of it, not the other way round.

Q: how do you assess the performance? A: In my opinion it is better to assess the process and the belonging to the different networks. If the process is good, the outcome and performance is usually good. On the other hand, this is part of the things that can be distributed to the rest of the network. If the dialogue and knowledge exchange is fluid, if the exchange happens in the open, the network rewards good contributions and thus enables a process of self-assessment.

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eLearning Africa (2016)

If you need to cite this article in a formal way (i.e. for bibliographical purposes) I dare suggest:

Peña-López, I. (2016) “eLearning Africa 2016 (VII). Back up for Online Tutors and Mentors” In ICTlogy, #152, May 2016. Barcelona: ICTlogy.
Retrieved month dd, yyyy from https://ictlogy.net/review/?p=4445

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