You are leader of the Adelie Team at the University of Leicester. What is Adelie?

Prof. Alejandro Armellini: ADELIE (Advanced Design for eLearning: Institutional Embedding) is a pathfinder project funded by the Higher Education Academy that runs at the University of Leicester. It aims to:

• embed good practice in re-design for eLearning
• build capacity within the institution
• enhance the learner experience
• make tutors' jobs more effective and rewarding
• stimulate institutional change

What is the strategy at the University of Leicester to build institutional capacity and foster change in eLearning?

Prof. Alejandro Armellini: Leicester has an eLearning strategy in place. The Media Zoo offers a representation of our strategy and shows how the different projects at the Beyond Distance Research Alliance fit into it. ADELIE operates within the stable, normalised technologies quadrant ("Pets' corner"). We have opted for incremental change in course re-design by means of timed interventions with discipline-specific course teams. These interventions are called Carpe Diem and consist primarily of a two-day re-design workshop.

What have your experiences with the Carpe Diem Workshops been so far?

Prof. Alejandro Armellini: Over the past twelve months, we have run nineteen Carpe Diems in twelve disciplines involving 93 staff. The experience has been overwhelmingly positive and has fostered significant change in terms of designing for participative learning, teaching practice, and departmental attitudes to eLearning. We will be publishing on these experiences shortly. The outcomes are listed and illustrated on the ADELIE website.

What impact has Adelie had have on the University of Leicester?

Prof. Alejandro Armellini: ADELIE has helped colleagues design for effective learning; harness the affordances of a range of learning technologies; improve alignment between learning outcomes, teaching practice, and assessment; and assess the suitability of technologies for each component of their courses. As a result it has enhanced the learner experience. This is true of on-campus and distance learners.

While we need to reach many more colleagues across the campus, the progress we have made thus far is most auspicious and certainly encouraging:

• There has been an increase in the use of the Media Zoo by a factor of thirty percent as a direct result of ADELIE.
• ADELIE was presented to the University Council (May 07) at a special meeting about learning technologies. It received considerable support and interest. Outcomes are being taken forward. Strategic decisions are now informing university policy, including the drafting of a new eLearning strategy, during the next academic year.
• Prof. Gilly Salmon, the ADELIE Project Director, has given more than twenty keynote addresses at various conferences in the UK that have mentioned ADELIE. These have generated considerable interest and numerous enquiries.
• The results of the second round of eLearning Benchmarking in 2007 show an increase in the scores the University received under the two key criteria under which it had scored lower than other British schools in the previous round ("Pedagogy" and "Learning Materials").