1. CROSS CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING IN HIGHER
EDUCATION: STRATEGY AND ELEARNING DESIGN IN
ONLINE UNIVERSITIES: A RESEARCH AGENDA
TECHNOEDUCA 2011
Enric Serradell-López
(eserradell@uoc.edu)
Pablo Lara-Navarra

2. PURPOSE
• Evaluate the influence of the student’s cultural
background in the context of a e-learning
system
• Literature review in depth
• Develop a methodology
• Find colleages interested in collaborating

3. • Culture: meaning and classification
• Culture in an elearning context

4. CULTURE
Culture is defined as the patterns
of thinking, feeling and acting
that people display as mental
programs
(Hofstede, 1997)

5. CULTURAL DIMENSIONS AND
CLASSIFICATIONS
• Iceberg model
• Hofstede’s cultural dimensions
• The Globe Project

7. HOFSTEDE’S MODEL

8. HOFSTEDE’S CULTURAL
DIMENSIONS
• Power Distance (PDI)
• Individualism / Collectivism (IDV).
• Masculinity / Femininity (MAS).
• Uncertainty Avoidance (UAI).
• Long-term / Short-term Time Orientation
(LTO).

9. THE GLOBE PROJECT
• Performance Orientation:
• Collectivism I: (Institutional).
• Gender Egalitarianism:.
• Uncertainty Avoidance:
• Collectivism II: (In-Group):.
• Future Orientation:
• Humane Orientation:
• Assertiveness:.
• Power Distance:

10. CULTURAL DIVERSITY
• Gender
• Age
• Nationality
• Religion
• Economic status

11. Questions?
• New society  New culture?
• Cultural background and elearning
• Mission and values of universities

12. NEW CULTURE
• Classical models for the study of culture used
primarily territorial criteria
• Hybrid cosmopolitan culture, overriding
traditional cultural differences (De Troyer et
al., 2006).
• Newer studies as GLOBE Project (2004). This
study seems more likely explanation of such
differences (Cyr, 2008).

13. Internet, online universities and
culture
• Geography is not important
• Should we use different elearning tools
depending the student ?

14. • As a global industry in its infancy, elearning
can learn from global media companies.
• Kale and Kreider (2007): Cultural Adaption on
the Web
• E-CRM, business and emotions, sequential
and syncronous task orientation

15. CULTURAL ASPECTS AND INTERNET
BEHAVIOR

16. CULTURAL ASPECTS AND
ELEARNING

17. CULTURAL ASPECTS AND
ELEARNING
Swierczek and Bechter, 2008

18. VARIABLES
• Usability and Interface design: Testing
colours understanding, icons, pictures,
symbols, .. Xinyuan ( 2005),
• Expectations: Student’s expectations of
education and universities,

19. VARIABLES
• E-learning behaviours: email uses, discussion
board, peer assessment or peer support,
• International students perception in general:
Including Time-zone differences,
communication tool use and plagiarism .

20. UNIVERSITIES
• Increasing globalization may lead to
a uniformity of content and design of
the universities, beginning with its
home page.

21. UNIVERSITIES
• Corporate identity: Universities
need to develop a competitive
advantage based on a set of
unique characteristics.

22. UNIVERSITIES
• Internationalization: The orientation and
strength of the university culture and the
functioning structure can be inhibiting of
facilitating of the strategies employed to
advance internationalization

23. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE
RESEARCH
• Cultural aspects are complex: need to be
defined and incorporated in our internet-
based courses.
• Inventory of cultural dimensions related to
elearning tools.
• Collaborative research with universities
around the world

24. Efjaristó
Thank you
Gràcies
Gracias

25. CROSS CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING IN HIGHER
EDUCATION: STRATEGY AND ELEARNING DESIGN IN
ONLINE UNIVERSITIES: A RESEARCH AGENDA
TECHNOEDUCA 2011
Enric Serradell-López
(eserradell@uoc.edu)
Pablo Lara-Navarra
QUESTIONS ?
SOMEBODY INTERESTED ?