Supporting departmental innovation in eLearning during COVID-19 through eLearning champions

While the adoption of blended or online learning has been spreading across the world, it is not always implemented in a way that transforms teaching and learning. More often than not, technology is used to support traditional ways of teaching and learning. At our institution we have adopted a blended learning definition, that rather focusing on tools and technologies, highlights the importance of pedagogical considerations. Following Gilly Salmon’s Carpe Diem design process we encourage lecturers to carefully think about learning design, emphasizing learner needs and disciplinary and institutional context. This study follows six lecturers in the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, who are known as so-called ‘eLearning champions’. eLearning champions are "individuals who emerge to take creative ideas (which they may or may not have generated) and bring them to life. They make decisive contributions to the innovation process by actively and enthusiastically promoting the innovation, building support, overcoming resistance, and ensuring that the innovation is implemented" [1]. We are interested in the role these eLearning champions played when supporting their departments before and after COVID-19 with moving teaching and learning online. At the beginning, novice lecturers saw online teaching as simply transferring their face to face teaching strategies online. How to design for interactive online content, student engagement and appropriate online assessment was an unfamiliar territory. The findings are in it’s initial stage however many themes emerged here like role of e-learning champion and their contribution towards peer learning. It also speaks about the complexity involved and support from the institution, etc. The paper will conclude with recommendations about future research.