The Walled Garden in Higher Education

This study explores the online higher education experience of students who are enrolled on a traditional face-to-face undergraduate degree program. The core focus of the research was to investigate the Virtual learning Environment experience of students who study in Higher Education. Data was collected from 117 students who were enrolled on undergraduate degrees in the United Kingdom. The research is based on individual student questionnaires. Early findings indicate that student’s want an experience that is consistent with their classroom-based teaching. In many cases students perceived that the offline experience was disconnected from the online experience and came across as having been designed in a ad-hoc manner with little or no thought put in to the development process. This negative online experience was contaminating the experience of the course as a whole and indicated that students were viewing the online and offline experience as one holistic entity. To better understand the student perception in how Virtual Learning Environments are used and developed learner perceptions and academic course design will be discussed and the use of social media as a bridge between the offline and online environments will be explored.