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E-xposing and e-spousing

By Gilly Salmon (August 2005 Issue)
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Gilly Salmon traces the history of the university inaugural lecture, and argues the case for its validity to trainers and coaches today.

When a new professor joins a university, he or she is asked to give an ‘inaugural lecture’. The idea is to try and expose an illuminating account of their own topic and research for an audience of non-specialists, to mark the beginning of their time within a university community.

Inaugural lectures have been a feature of university life for centuries. When a pupil was admitted to the rank of Master in the Middle Ages and was received into his guild or 'universitas', he (universities were only open to men) was invested with the symbols of office and then espoused his knowledge in an inaugural lecture. He was expected to entertain the whole guild of Masters to dinner for forty days. A serious attempt at knowledge sharing and community building … just what we try and achieve today!

By the 19th century open lectures were very popular and seen as a means to educate the public about science and medicine. The Royal Institution has a long history of hosting public lectures and demonstrations given by prominent experts in their fields. The talks given by Humphry Davy (Davy lamp) were so popular that the volume of carriage traffic in Albemarle Street created the first one way street in London.  Public autopsies were also important in promoting knowledge of medicine though they sometimes verged on entertainment, and charged for admission (horrors!).

Nowadays, inaugural lectures continue to be public events and open to everyone - you do not have to be an expert in the field to attend. Universities extend the invitation to attend lectures to all members of staff, students, their guests and indeed the local community.

Soon after I started work at the University of Leicester, I was given a date for giving my inaugural lecture. Nobody said anything about how to do it to carry on the tradition. Fortunately no one asked me to entertain them for 40 days either (though we did have a bit of a celebration). In order to find an appropriate approach, I started attending those of the professors scheduled before me. What an array and how much I learnt! Genetics, emergency medicine, uncovering local history, the journey to Mars, human rights and more …

Then I started to think: should a Professor of e-learning and learning technologies really agree to give a live lecture? Amidst much speculation on the purposes of such actions, whole universities have gone online, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US. In September 2002 MIT decided that instead of trying to sell its undergraduate and post graduate teaching materials, it would make it all available, online, for free. Now there are materials representing 701 MIT courses, MIT’s five schools and all 33 of its academic disciplines. However, they point out that you cannot get access to ‘faculty’ (lecturers, professors) this way, nor can you get a degree. At the time it was considered that many other universities would follow suit. Mmm, most are still doing lectures.

Clearly, for my own inaugural lecture, there were decisions to take. Should I be entertaining, scientific, researchy, or instead conduct a public autopsy following the death of e-learning? Should I do it all in the online environment? Still, traditions are there to be continued, if adapted, and there was no doubt that a lecture was expected of me. I know that the majority of interested people see e-learning at best as solutions to problems; the rest think it's got something vaguely to do with computers. Ha ha! So I thought I’d try and dispel a myth or two and lay out a few key issues, at least.

I wanted to show anyone who took the trouble to turn up that e-learning is becoming a proper discipline with its own body of knowledge, scientific journals, experts and practitioners in the field, ways of talking about itself, methods of research and a community of scholars. Fortunately I realised in time that was frankly, just a little too boring. So, I called the talk ‘Beyond Distance’ – another acknowledgement that we draw on strong traditions but can now achieve much more with remote learning than before the days of e-with-everything. Here’s what I covered in an attempt to lay out the territory:


1. Online as a place - a stakeholder’s view of the influences and challenges on all of us working in education (The Island of E-learning)

2. Tiny bytes of theory - behaviourism, cognitivism and constructivism. Not just long ism words but a huge influence on learning technologies and worth understanding a bit about.

3. About my own research:

  • Models of prior design for online participation – E-tivities
  • Human intervention for successful learning – E-moderating
  • The 4 e-learning scenarios – usually known as the ‘Planets’
  • How very low cost learning technologies can go a long way to enhancing learning and teaching (the direct cost of my presentation was £ 21).

If you weren’t there at my inaugural and you’d like to know more, do e-mail me – and in the spirit of MIT’s aspirations, I can send you some free clips. Meanwhile, why don’t you check out your local university for public and inaugural lectures? It’s a great way to learn about new topics and get a look around inside the actual real walls.

Surf it!

MIT Open courseware initiative claims to ‘advance knowledge and education, and serve the world in the 21st century. It is true to MIT's values of excellence, innovation, and leadership’. Wow! Do take a look by visiting www.ocw.mit.edu

Visit the website of the Royal Institute of Great Britain where they are ‘diffusing science for the common purposes of life’ www.rigb.org/rimain/index.jsp

 

Dr Gilly Salmon is Professor of E-learning and Learning Technologies at the University of Leicester. Prior to this appointment, she worked at the Open University Business School for 15 years. Gilly can be contacted at gilly.salmon@le.ac.uk

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