The January issue of Tojde, the Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education, is a typical one.    As a journal with international aspirations, it garners pieces from a range of countries:   Greece, Norway, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Lesotho, Canada, USA and the UK as well as Turkey.

Unfortunately, not all these pieces are able to transcend the parochial.    The problems of dl in Nigeria, the empowerment of women in Africa, a renewable energy awareness scale for pre-service chemistry teachers in Turkey, attitudes to democracy amongst Nigerian school leavers, or the growth of e-learning in Bangladesh may be vital to them, but not to me.    And that left three.   

Automated Essay Scoring covers what it says:   a review of four types of software systems which can automatically mark essays.   

It is, as the authoress says, a developing technology.    Clearly, she feels it has developed enough to be worth talking about.    Having read her piece, I’m not so sure.    But, still, it’s there if you want to know more.

Evaluation and eLearning is mostly about evaluating training in a business setting, and is geared to Kirkpatrick’s four levels of evaluation for training programmes.    Since I’m unfamiliar with the latter, and with the whole ROI literature in general, the whole piece rather passed me by.    But the failing may be mine.

Theories of Learning and Their Implications for On-Line Assessment is, potentially, an important topic.    Making assessment more robust is becoming increasingly important, as the palaver over plagiarism illustrates.    Online assessment remains high on the priority lists of awarding bodies, not to mention the QCA, because of the obvious benefits it will bring if it can be made to work.    And theories of learning, if approached as illustrative explorations rather than definitive sources, can be a good source of new thinking.

The article itself is illustrative rather than definitive.    If you want a way in to the topic, you could do worse.    On the other hand, if you miss it, the sky will stay safely suspended above your head.

Source:   TOJDE January 2006