Investigating VAT (value‐adding technologies) and e‐ffectiveness in a French department.

In 1998, when University College Northampton (UCN) selected WebBoard as its campus-wide virtual learning environment (VLE) and encouraged its adoption, e-learning became a central feature of the French Department's learning and teaching strategy. By September 2003, all the campus-focused modules in French had become VLE-resourced. In April 2004, we conducted a paper-based survey to measure our students' views on (1) ‘e-novation’ in general; and (2) computer-assisted language testing (CALT) in particular, with a view to (1) evaluating the French Department's e-ffectiveness; and (2) making student-informed decisions for 2004–2005. This paper concerns itself, initially, with the origins of e-learning in our French Department, the latter's evolving range of web-based learning offerings as well as the educational principles underpinning our e-learning strategy. It then presents selected results of our investigation and offers some tentative conclusions with regard to ‘e-ffectiveness’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]