Before commencing the development of a new Technology Enabled Learning Environment in Engineering and Technology studies, the TEAL2.o consortium engaged the platform’s future users in consultation over the desirable and expected features of the new solution. Considering the impossibility to reach stakeholders in person in the months between March 2000 and October 2000, the consultation took the form of an online survey.
The survey design reflected earlier needs assessment and some already planned preliminary elements of the solution. The TEAL2.O platform is expected to depend on open content and open technology, and to allow for modularity and collaboration. Modularization was planned with a view to allowing the platform to improve and optimize access to the best Science and Technology learning materials already available in the public domain, and to offer lesson planning and content creation tools that can be used by individual institutions, faculty and students according to their teaching and learning needs. Further, the early assessment indicated that the new solution should also allow for the integration and use of existing open-source software and hardware (e.g. Arduino) with DIY style laboratory experiments, more specifically through the creation of Virtual Laboratories.
The platform is planned to be used in a variety of ways: as a distance learning platform, as a content management platform, as a tool enhancing learning in the classroom or blended learning. Content-wise, the platform will be developed and used in a networked fashion – initially within localized networks of similarly positioned institutions and then slowly expanding as a network. It should be especially beneficial for resource-poor institutions. All of these preliminary design specificities and requirements were put to further test with this survey. In addition, future users were given plenty of opportunity to share their alternative views and to propose creative solutions.
The survey was carried out in the period March-October 2020, with most of the responses received during the summer of 2020. Six types of stakeholders were reached: students, distance education learners, faculty members, university administration, public officials and representatives of organizations providing non-formal education, civil society groups or local community groups. A total of 2527 responses were received, the great majority of which from students, distance education learners and faculty.
>> Download the Report on stakeholders‘ needs and requirements.