There is a growing interest in higher education institutions in the use of e-Iearning environments to support learning ubiquitously. E-Iearning environments such as Blackboard are designed to aid learners during the knowledge construction process (learning) through numerous functions. The tracking (monitoring) function can be used to support learners in their individual learning experience. The statistics generated from the tracking function can be processed and used in offering feecib~ck to stakeholders (learner, tutor and instructional designer). The potential future' use of e-Iearning environments leads to an investigation into how these can be improved to . . ~ support stakeholders (h~arner, tutor and instructional designer) in real-time. Thus in this thesis a Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDDM) process is used to show the significance of tracked information in studying learner behaviours within an elearning environment. A tracking method that uses KDDM techniques and personalisation is designed to support stakeholders in real-time as an improvement to the current tracking methods used in e-Iearning environments. Current e-Iearning environments are not designed to offer personalised real-time feedback to stakeholders. The information that is tracked is related to how the modules are accessed (module-oriented) but not how the users interact with the personalised learning activities (leamer-oriented). The KDDM process used to extract hidden knowledge about learner behaviours illustrated the usefulness of tracked information in feedback generation. This extracted knowledge suggests to 'stakeholders how to improve content delivery and quality but does not indicate the '' attainment of learning objectives. Feedback generated from the KDDM process can not facilitate personalised knowledge construction for the learners. This challenging issue highlights the difficulty faced by current tracking methods within e-Iearning environments. In order to allow personalised support in real-time, KDDM techniques and personalisation are adopted within tracking methods. The personalised support in real-time requires extraction of feedback for improvements from the leamer's knowledge p'!th (learning history). Current tracking methods within e-Iearning environments are unable to offer such feedback. Lack of real-time feedback prevents stakeholders from making decisions for improving knowledge construction. This research work adopts Constructivism as the fundamental theory in supporting stakeholders during personalised knowledge construction. The learner and educational requirement are considered during the creation of a learning profile. The learning profile manages the personalised learning activities during knowledge construction. Interactions with the personalised learning activities generate information that can be used to improve knowledge construction. A designed Method for Personalised Tracking in Knowledge Construction (MPTKC) is presented and used to track the interactions with learning activities. This method that contains KDDM techniques monitors personalised learning activities, analyses the ,,- learning activity information and generate~ real-time feedback for the stakeholders. The MPTKC contains Components that are: External (User Profile, Learning Activities, and Stakeholders) and Internal (Monitoring Learning Activities, Analysing Learning Activity Information, and Generating Feedback). These Components interact to generate the real-time feedback. The stakeholders can use this real-time feedback to make appropriate decisions on how to improve knowledge construction.

This study is an account and analysis of the activities and fortunes of the London Institution from its foundation in 1805 to its final closure in 1933. The Institution, modelled on the Royal Institution, began in 1805 with over £80,000 and a proprietary mainly engaged in trade or commerce. Premises were leased in Old Jewry and later, in 1811, premises were purchased in King's Arms Yard but were found to be unsuitable. Eventually, the managers decided to have a mansion specially built in Finsbury Circus. This was designed by William Brooks, erected by Thomas Cubitt and opened in 1819. Before 1819 no lectures were given nor laboratory work carried out as no suitable accommodation was available. However, a large collection of books was acquired which formed the basis of the Institution's library. Much later, a popular circulating library was added. In 1819, the theatre was opened and lectures commenced. At first, there were courses of lectures intended to give instruction in various subjects but later they were replaced by single lectures as entertainment. It was not until 1841 that W. R. Grove was appointed to work in the laboratory. Scientific work had a patchy career at the Institution before being discontinued in 1884 after H. E. Armstrong resigned. By the 1890s, large sums of money had been spent on repairing the building and the Institution was heavily mortgaged. The managers sought solutions to the problem but after the Royal Commission on University Education in London reported in 1912, the premises were taken over for the School of Oriental Studies. Some proprietors and subscribers remained as continuing members but the Institution closed in 1933 when the School moved to Bloomsbury.

This thesis seeks to make sense of how academics and policy-makers think and act in relation to teaching in higher education. It pursues this inquiry using the concept of assumptive worlds in three contexts - the University of Oxford's History Faculty, the University of Oxford, and the national policy environment - and explores the relationship between them. The concept of assumptive worlds (Young, 1979) Is situated within a new theoretical framework predicated on Giddens' structuration theory. This framework is utilised to analyse assumptive worlds in terms of individuals' knowledgeability which is· expressed in discursive and other kinds of social practice. Assumptive worlds also encompass the meso and macro structures that shape individuals' knowledgeability, and are shaped by it in day-to-day practice at a micro level. An ethnographically-informed case study was conducted over two years in the History Faculty. Its selection is based upon its uniqueness and its potential for illuminating our understanding of the relationship between higher education policy and an extreme end of the spectrum of higher education institutions In England. The i University of Oxford and the national higher education policy environment are investigated as contexts within which the Faculty operates. Interviews with university officers and policy-makers In a range of national agencies, and documentary evidence proVide the data for this investigation. Findings from all three arenas (faculty, university and national) culminate In an analysis of the interplay between their assumptive worlds. The thesis argues that an analysis of the characteristics and formation of assumptive worlds in academia and policy-making throws new light on taken-forgranted practices in teaching and poli~y related to teaching in HE. The concept extends our understanding of each arena within its own terms, and when each is viewed in relation to the others. Engagement, in relation to teaching in higher education, between policymakers, and university officers and academics is rare. An understanding of the assumptive worlds within the three contexts helps to explain why this lack of engagement is recursively produced.

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This thesis contextualizes the English higher education restructuring in its analytic connection with the national and the global political economy. The analysis of the key drivers involved in the reshaping of the higher education sector from the 1980s onwards shape the contours of a complex framework where multiple actors and forces coexist and collide. Massification, marketization and competition constitute the underlying themes of the study: their synergy explains the internal reorganization of the Western mature education sectors. Within the latter, the English higher education has been and is currently being ideologically reformed along neoliberal, marketoriented lines. Its expanded sector is considered both as a dynamic site of convergence of exogenous and endogenous forces of change and as the provisional outcome of a series of policy interventions resulting from an historically contingent political rationality. The research question will explore whether the marketization of higher education will enhance the polarization of the English universities by marking a steeper reputational and financial divide between research-intensive, internationally competitive institutions and teaching-intensive, nationally and locally oriented institutions; or, alternatively, whether a more decisive opening to market forces will generate counter tendencies that point to convergence (reduced diversity) within the sector.

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