Happy New Year!

ELearning @ CU would like to wish all teachers a very fruitful 2008. We would like to take this opportunity at the very beginning of the year to solicit ideas from our fellow teachers about the eLearning activities they would like to see in the coming year in order to effectively support our teachers in using the technology in teaching. In 2007, we had a number of seminars and workshops on eLearning technology and pedagogy. In October, we also held an eLearning Expo in which CUHK teachers' use of technology was showcased. What are your expectations for 2008? Please send us your ideas and suggestions at elearning@cuhk.edu.hk

A student-oriented function (http://cupide.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/student) has been added to the Chinese University Plagiarism IDentification Engine (CUPIDE) System.  The system allows students to submit assignments to teachers and have them checked for plagiarism in a single location.

The student-oriented CUPIDE interface

CUPIDE is an effective plagiarism detection tool designed for promoting and upholding academic honesty in educational institutions.  It was developed in 2006 by the research team of Prof. Jimmy Lee and Prof. Irwin King in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering.  The system supports English, traditional and simplified Chinese.  Moreover, CUPIDE provides a user-friendly web interface for class assignment management and submissions.  It can handle documents in different formats including MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint, PDF, HTML and plain text.  Submitted documents are compared against each other, with other documents in the central database, and also materials from the Internet. Output from the system is an originality report highlighting suspected plagiarized contents with detailed statistical data.

Originality reports generated from CUPIDE

For more details, please contact Prof. Jimmy Lee (jlee@cse.cuhk.edu.hk) or Prof. Irwin King (king@cse.cuhk.edu.hk).

Prof. Kumta Shekhar Madhukar, Associate Professor in the Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology (O & T), has collaborated with the Office of Educational Services to develop the "Formative Assessment Case Studies" (FACS), a self-help case-based eLearning system for enhancing students' knowledge in subject areas, including ENT, O&T and General Surgery. Through the use of different types of case scenarios/ studies, the eCases on the system serve to assist a) students in developing their clinical decision-making ability, and b) teachers in assessing their students' learning performance.

FACS Cases	Prof. Kumta Shekhar Madhukar

These eCases are interactive online media-enriched medical resources. There are at present over 120 case studies used by teachers to complement their clinical teaching and are widely accessed by students in their final year of medical studies. For more details, please contact Alex Yung (alexyung@cuhk.edu.hk) or Prof. Kumta (Kumta@cuhk.edu.hk).

We would like to introduce 2020 to you. This simple tool is FREE and available from http://www.sofotex.com/20/20-download_L230.html 2020 effectively alleviates the repetitive work when you prepare graphics for your courseware. The software can captures a variety of static content from a computer screen. The software can also be used to annotate the captured image with text or shapes, save the file in a variety of formats (e.g., JPEG or GIF) or even batch-convert one image-file-type to another.

Preferences screen

When 2020 is first installed onto a computer and opened, by default it uses the 'Print Screen' key of a standard keyboard. While this can be changed in the preferences box, it is not recommended.

Normally, if just a section of information on a display is required (a menu, part of an Excel spreadsheet, part of a graphic, etc., the captured image may be copied and pasted directly into another application from 2020 (e.g., Word). However, in order to use the annotation features of 2020, the annotated image must first be saved. The images on this page were saved as .gifs to reduce file size. You can clearly see shapes, arrows and text that were added to highlight important features.

A graphic annotated by 2020 (showing procedural knowledge in using menus)

There is a great potential in promoting learning through changing assessment methods in a course. Peer-assessment, in particular, promotes reflective learning. Peer-assessment activities enable students to compare and contrast their work with their peers. In the process, they not only learn to judge the quality of other people's work, but they also learn how their own work is judged by their classmates. These activities enable students to understand their own strengths and weaknesses. Students also learn a number of essential skills, such as communicative and appraisal skills.

A peer-assessment activity can be effectively facilitated online. For example, forums (such as those provided in WebCT or Moodle) provide a place for students to view each other's work and share their comments. The asynchronous nature of the discussions allows students adequate time to construct quality feedback. Many students also find the Web a less intimidating place to express their opinions than direct speech in a face-to-face situation.

The eLearning EXPO exhibition was organized by both ITSC and CLEAR in October 2007 to provide an opportunity for teachers from different higher education institutes of Hong Kong to share and discuss innovative eLearning strategies. The following awards were presented during the EXPO exhibition. They represent our teachers' accomplishment in using technology to assist teaching and learning in the University:

Poster awards

Poster commendations

More details of the event are archived in the Expo website at http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/eLearning/expo/

"The Tower and the Cloud: Higher Education and Information Technology in a Web 2.0 Era"
Speaker: Richard N. Katz, Vice-president of EDUCAUSE
Date and time: Monday 11 February 2008, 11.30 am - 1 pm
Venue: ITSC Seminar Room, Room 120-121, Pi Chiu Building
More information and online registration: http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/clear/new/new60.htm

"Interactive eLearning strategies that engage students"
Seminar by Prof. Paul Lam (CLEAR)
Date and time: Thursday 10 April 2008, 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
Venue: Room 401, William M.W. Mong Engineering Building
Online registration: http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/clear/events/events.htm

EDMEDIA 2008
http://www.aace.org/CONF/EDMEDIA/
Date: 30 June - 4 July 2008
Place: Vienna, Austria

MLEARN 2008
http://www.mlearn2008.org/
Date: 7-10 October 2008
Place: Shropshire, UK

ASCILITE 2008
http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/melbourne08/
Date: 30 November - 3 December 2008
Place: Melbourne, Australia

Dr. Clayton Wright has written a comprehensive list of educational technology conferences for 2008. We would like to express our gratitude to Clayton for his kindness in allowing us to redistribute the list to interested teachers. Please download the document by following the link HERE.

eLearning clinic: We provide free face-to-face assistance to teachers on eLearning matters. Contact us to arrange for appointments at: elearning@cuhk.edu.hk

Course outline revision service: We assist teachers in reviewing course outlines of their courses (based on CUHK's teaching and learning 'Integrated Framework'). The version of a course outline put on the course website should provide students with rich information about the course. See http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/eLearning/resources/course_plan.htm. Please contact us for more details: alex.wong@cuhk.edu.hk