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E-learning in Teaching of Microeconomics

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 6th WSEAS International Conference on E-ACTIVITIES, Tenerife, Spain, December 14-16, 2007 227

E-learning in Teaching of Microeconomics

FRAN GALETIC, TOMISLAV HERCEG, BOZIDAR JAKOVIC
Faculty of Economics and Business
University of Zagreb
J. F. Kennedy Sq. 6
CROATIA
[email protected] http://www.efzg.hr/fgaletic
[email protected] http://www.efzg.hr/therceg
[email protected] http://www.efzg.hr/bjakovic

Abstract: - Distance learning is a very powerful and a cheap mean, but poorly used. Microeconomics, with its graphical
representations and a strong need for the use of the advanced software is a fertile field for its implementation, in a
several ways. Several authors offer a variety of the ways to use and implement the eLearning systems. We analyzed
several cases in which distance learning offers even greater possibilities than the traditional ones, through the use of the
illustrative graphical representations, thoroughly explained steps in modelling deductions and connecting the theory
and practice through the use of the statistical and econometrical programmes and methods. There are many fields in
which the lectures could be improved, while decreasing the teaching costs, and increasing the comprehension of the
students.

Key-Words: - Microeconomics, 3d graphs, e-learning, education, distant learning, multimedia materials, interactive
teaching

1 Introduction With the help of information technology, the

In the contemporary way of life, which is determined communication between the lecturer and the student can
by a large number of dynamic technological changes, be virtual. The lecturer can teach, and at the same time
education is taking one of the most important positions in the student can learn, but they do not necessarily have to
everyone's life. Human intellectual capital is becoming see each other. This saves money – everyone is doing his
the dominant factor for any job. This is why there is an job from his computer, and there is no need to invest in a
intention to invest more and more time and money in learning room. The time is saved as well– there is a
education. The main goal of that is to increase the welfare possibility to choose what to do and when to do this.
of every individual, but also of the society in general.[3] In this paper we seek way how to use e-learning for
The process of globalization emphasizes the need of successful teaching of the microeconomics. We will try
setting common goals of the economic and social to show how e-learning leads a student to the
development in the world. Education assimilates new understanding of the terms which seemed difficult when
dimensions. The logical question ''Is education quality presented in the classroom, but become quite
enough to follow the progress of technological straightforward when taught using advanced technology.
development?'' can not be solved with a simple answer. Even though it might be expensive to conduct a
Education today is not any more a process in which teaching via Internet, the students of the economics and
only young people are involved. It is not something that business in Croatia have at least a basic information
has its clear beginning and the end. The contemporary skills after passing the informatics exams, and possess
problem of education must be seen from the view of the some sort of the personal computer, if not directly, then
so called life-long education, or life-long learning in the nearby library or at a friends house. At the same
process. The needs for a permanent education are not time, they use their space, which does have to be
arguable. They are explained by matching the human provided by the higher education institution.
capabilities acquired through education and the demands Furthermore, the investment in the computer
on the labour market. equipment and computer knowledge would increase
One of the most important conditions in every students’ computer skills, which could then be used in
business is to minimize the costs. Education as a the other fields, and finally increase the chances of the
traditional process is very expensive. On the other hand, fresh graduate to find a desired job.
it is not achievable to everyone. Because of these two E-learning decreases the living costs of the students
reasons, last few years completely new concept of too, since they can remain at their home, not paying the
education is becoming extremely popular: e-learning. rent [1]. It also helps them to continue their education
E-learning is a completely different way of education. after the graduation, after they get a job and do not have
 6th WSEAS International Conference on E-ACTIVITIES, Tenerife, Spain, December 14-16, 2007 228

spare time to attend the lectures. Therefore E-learning is learning involves the software tools used to create the
not only crossing the space limits, but it crosses the time content. Selecting the right piece of software will go a
spaces as well. long way to ensuring a successful rapid e-learning
program. [8]
Timely access to learning helps the organization to
2 Literature Overview achieve its business goals and maintain competitiveness.
Sadler-Smith in his holistic research described The company could also benefiting from significant cost
learning methods. He said that learning methods can be savings. For example, the use of e-learning in one
grouped into at least three categories: (1) autonomous: company is helping to achieve a 67 percent cost
guided reading; programmed instruction (distance reduction per training intervention in comparison to
learning, computer based learning), (2) collaborative: traditional instructor-led training due to reduced travel,
games/simulations; projects; case studies; experiential; accommodation, room and tutor costs. [9]
role playing and (3) dependent: lecture; seminar. [4] Roffe explores the practical and theoretical issues
Fry tried to demonstrate how digital technologies are involved in the evaluation, quality assurance and
affecting the organisational learning process, drawing on engagement of operating an e-learning programme as a
material presented to an industry forum held by the distance learning service on an international basis for
University of Technology in Sydney (UTS) with the people in employment. He suggests that the prefix ‘’e’’
specific aim of bringing together users and providers of in learning applications needs to shift from electronic to
e-learning to explore a range of issues around e-learning the more supportive descriptions of engagement,
markets and provision. [5] enhancement and execution of the student learning
Crucial issues in shaping organisational e-learning programme.[10]
future will be the quality of technological delivery and Bose described one of the e-learning pilot projects
developing effective learning pedagogies for a variety of that resulted in a flexi-time, student-centred, e-learning
educational and strategic objectives. [5] package that retained the learning qualities of traditional
Organisations now seek metrics for evaluating e-learning teaching and personal guidance and mentoring and
and quality benchmarks are recommended. [5] enabled enhancement of research skills and certain
Organisations aim is to be a ''Learning Organisation'', computing skills in students. [11]
where every employee constantly engages in learning in But still, content is a king. All rapid e-learning
order to continually adapt to the company’s changing implementations promise reduced content creation time,
environment. [6] there still needs to be content produced. It is critical to
Littig identifies the main focus of eLearning projects ensure that an enterprise rapid e-learning project has a
supported by the European Leonardo da Vinci committed team to ensure its completion will be driven
programme and gives recommendations for the future. forward, not dragged along. [8]
The need for innovation in e-learning is not in the area of E-learning requires planning, a planning which is
technological innovation, rather pedagogical innovation especially important for courses that are dependent on a
and increased value, for the learners need to play a more particular technology. [11]
important role in e-learning projects. What is needed, Panian says that eLearning is a system which consists
however, is a stronger focus on the learners and their of many technological means. It offers a possibility to
needs. [7] watch an entire lecture, to receive all the necessary
The success of e-learning implementation depends to materials, to discuss about the matter with the co-
a great extent, according to human resources students and teachers [1], to solve online-puzzles, tests,
professionals and potential learners, primarily on the multiple-choice questions and problems, to use
attitude of the learner himself towards the learning interactive 3D graphical representations of the models,
situation. All other considerations are secondary: which are frequent in microeconomics. These options
learning processes in which the learner himself does not render the learning process easier and much more
constitute the primary focus are doomed to failure from interesting than it used to be in the traditional tutoring.
the beginning. The value of media-supported learning The administrative purposes can be easily substituted by
scenarios does not depend so much on the technical distance tools, such as the application for the exams,
perfection with which such scenarios are implemented, overview of the personal student record and other. The
but rather are dependent upon the essential relationships office hours are not even to be discussed here, since e-
that are established between learner and learning mail and telephone has already been used widely [1].
facilitator. [7] It also makes it possible to listen to the best lecturers,
Unneberg discuss the key issues of deployment for which would be impossible in the traditional way of
large enterprises keen to adopt new web-based learning education, because of the size of the lecture rooms, and
techniques. The final aspect of traditional rapid e- the distance. It would enable the faculty, for example, to
 6th WSEAS International Conference on E-ACTIVITIES, Tenerife, Spain, December 14-16, 2007 229

hire a lecturer from some other faculty and not make

10
him/her to leave their domestic institution [1].
7.5
An increase access to computers and Internet
5
necessary get the total advantage of e-learning courses.
[11] 2.5
0
10
3 E-approach to Microeconomics
In the everyday lecturing of microeconomics, a 7.5
lecturer or a tutor faces two main difficulties: a lack of
the mathematical knowledge, or a lack of the interest for
a basic theoretical subject such as microeconomics, nor 5
being able to see how it could be used in business. The
first one can be solved by either a change in the 2.5
economics curriculum, or in the approach of the tutor.
The second one is up to the lecturer, who is supposed to 0
investigate and give applicable examples. 0
E-learning can easily substitute for the first one, 2.5
through the wise application of the contemporary 5
mathematical software, such as Mathematica, and by 7.5
well written step-by-step presentations with narrative 10
boxes, explaining every advancement of the profoundly Figure 1- Layer curves and Utility function
built models. The second one can be crossed using the
real data, regressing them and putting them into relation Since these pictures are interactive (there is a
with the theoretical background. possibility of the change of the view, as well as the step-
Several software could be used here, E-views being by-step drawing), a student manages to understand
the most frequent one, or the Stata being the simplest to something that was fully comprehended by only a small
use, and hence used by several famous economics portion of students.
schools, such as LSE. 3. The final example will show how can a lecturer justify
Now we can analyze the possibilities of the each one the theory brought in the lecture room, using a real set of
of them, given the examples: data. It is necessary because of the numerous
1. How to explain a Cournot model [12]to the distant presumptions when deducting e.g. the demand function.
student, using a plain Power point presentation? The teacher takes the set of data, puts it in the
The presentation should be blank, without any useless programme (it was a plain Excell in this case) and
pictures and details. The letters should be big and displays a scatter diagram and a fitted curve:
monochrome. Every line of the deduction should appear
separately, with discursive box appearing and 25
disappearing after the new line is displayed. Each line
should be enumerated to make it easier for the student to 20
refer to the teacher in the case of a necessary
clarification. Afterwards, a graph should be drawn, line 15
by line, to lead a student through the messy and complex
drawings. 10
2. How to make it easier for a student to understand a 3d
model, like deduction of the indifference curve maps 5
from the utility function? [13]
Mathematica is a powerful tool for a graphical 0
representation, but poorly used among the students of the 0 5 10 15 20 25 30

economics in Croatia. Learning the basics of the

programme, a lecturer can now draw 2 dimensional
graphs, without spending lots of time to draw it nicely, Figure 2- A Data set and a Fitted curve
with lesser impact. The light and shadow options, as well
as the vector graphic shows a student perfectly clear how
indifference curves are actually a layer curves, and they
cannot intercept. Look at the following figure:
 6th WSEAS International Conference on E-ACTIVITIES, Tenerife, Spain, December 14-16, 2007 230

It is now obvious to a student that a company is able 3D graphs and their explanations – possibility of
to deduct their own demand function only if they do a drawing 3D graphs for microeconomic functions that
proper market research, and thus simplifying the require space dimension (3 variables included).
decision process.
Video lectures of professors – the base of all lectures
4 Recommendations for microeconomics which have been recorded or transferred through
videoconference.
e-learning system
Here are some concrete suggestions how to
Scientific papers and publications – all publications
implement e-learning system in microeconomics:
and scientific papers written by the professors from the
field of microeconomics. On that way a completely new
Knowledge base – the most important part of the whole
base of scientific work would be created. Also a good
system, the place for information which could be used
idea is to establish some links with others bases of
in education of members like electronic books, tutorials,
scientific papers in the field of microeconomics, and to
materials from conferences, professors' presentations
enlarge the sources of information, which would
etc. Knowledge base would consist of several sources
stimulate scientific work.
of information:
Search engine - with the progress of the knowledge
Professors' presentations – on one place could be
base, the new need would emerge – the need for a
found all materials from the lectures of one professor,
search engine. Searching would perform by the key
all materials connected to some subject (.ppt
words, terms, text, date, type of content (lectures of
presentations, .pdf documents, synopsis, abstracts,
professor, student papers, news, discussions, links etc.),
papers...). With updating the materials from the
author etc. The results of the searching process would
lectures, also the other materials would be updated. As
be grouped by the type of content, but also by the
the substance is changing every day, so would change
importance (lecture of the professor is more important
the materials. Because of that, all the materials from the
from some discussions or links). It is also important to
lectures should be updated. On this way all the students
implement the detection of Croatian letters and that the
who attended the lectures in the past (although they
searching algorithm recognize the word root – for
were contemporary at that time, today could be a bit
example if the user writes ''Mreža'' (''Net''), the results
old) could learn all the news from the field of
should consist the words ''Mreža'', ''Mreže'' (''Nets''),
microeconomics.
''Mreži'' (''to the net''), ''Mrežni'' (''from the Net'') etc.
Students' papers – during the time of study, students
Exams – possibility of testing the knowledge like on
write, as a part of their exam, different papers,
the real exam.
presentations, seminar works, different analysis etc.
Their work is known only to their professors and
Statistics of the student progress – all students’ results
students who have listened the presentation. There are
would be saved in the base, so that there would exist the
lots of quality papers which should be accessible to
possibility to compare students over time and with
other professors and students. It would also be
others. Online evaluation provides a facility to collect
interesting to see how papers differ form one generation
evaluation data that not only reduced costs but also
to another. Some papers definitely could help students
provides real time data on the progress of a scheme. [10]
in the process of learning, as well as give them some
new ideas and incentives to write some other paper.
News – lecturers would inform their students about
different things like new teaching materials or the time
Microeconomics' terms – dictionary of the terms from
when it would be possible to chat with professor. All
microeconomics.
published news could be commented, what would
enlarge the information and give different vision.
Formulas – the possibility of calculating variables of
Important news would be archived and would make a
the microeconomic models using given formulas and
part of the knowledge base.
entering data.
Forum – for different discussions between the students.
Exercises from microeconomics – solving
Discussions between the members would be led about
microeconomic exercises using formulas and theoretical
different topics from the microeconomics, but also
methods.
about the problems which could appear during
studying.
 6th WSEAS International Conference on E-ACTIVITIES, Tenerife, Spain, December 14-16, 2007 231

Events calendar – publication of different events like These are some suggestions for implementing e-
schedules of the lectures from microeconomics, learning system in microeconomics. With the
conferences, and chat with professor. Calendar should development of the whole system, new methods could
be connected with the news. be introduced.

Books – promotions, presentations and selling of the

professors’ books – the possibility of creating a Web- 5 Conclusions
shop.
The teaching of the microeconomics can be
Chat – if several students are connected in the same modernized, and made very interesting, while decreasing
time, the synchronised communication in the real time costs and making the curriculum much simpler and much
should be provided. The lecturers could also participate more interesting.
in this chat. We suggest the use of interactive on-line conferences
and chats with professors and among the students, as well
Chat with the professor – once a month (or maybe as the blogs which could make teachers even closers to
more often) a chat with some professor would be their students.
organized. On the chat would appear professors who are Graphical representations could be very illustrative,
experts for different fields of microeconomics. Students interactive appealing and for a student who is not able to
could choose and suggest which professors they would grasp complex spaces and graphs.
like to chat with. Also, chat with the foreign professors Step by step presentations, explaining all the lines,
could be provided. could give a student an impression of the “virtual
teacher”, having all the answers before a question is
Newsletter – the possibility of getting newsletter and asked.
the archive of all sent newsletters. When necessary, Many other features could ease and speed up the
students would get information about microeconomics. communication, like newsletters for the necessary
notices, useful links, and many others.
Useful links – all links of useful Web pages from Finally, all would profit: sellers of computers,
microeconomics on one place, divided into different students, teachers and universities.
categories because of easier orientation.

On-line videoconferences – lectures of the professors

on the faculty. By the videoconference, all the students
who are not physically on the faculty could attend the
lectures. All lectures would be archived in the
knowledge base.

Survey – Surveys would analyse the student’s opinion

about different topics and about microeconomics. The
answers would be seen right after filling up, and all the
surveys would be archived. The survey would contain
one question with multiple answers possibilities.
Students would also have the possibility to give their
comments on the survey.

Blogs – each lecturer could have his own blog, through

which he could come closer to the students.

Banners – because of very important target group of

students, many companies would be interested in
advertising their goods or services in such a system. On
that way some financial assets could be collected.
 6th WSEAS International Conference on E-ACTIVITIES, Tenerife, Spain, December 14-16, 2007 232

References:

[1] Panian, Z. Sponzorirana virtualna učilišta i

cjeloživotno učenje, Edupoint, Zagreb, 2002. Br. 7.
ISSN 1333-5987.
[2] Siber Makar, K., Metode i sustavi upravljanja
znanjem u gospodarstvu i konkurentska prednost.,
2006, Master’s Thesis
[3] Barić, V., Temeljne odrednice investiranja u
obrazovanje odraslih, Pomorski zbornik, 2003, No.
41
[4] Sadler-Smith, E., Learning styles: a holistic
approach. Journal of European Industrial Training,
Volume: 20 Issue: 7; 1996, Research paper.
[5] Fry, K., E-learning markets and providers: some
issues and prospects. Education + Training; Volume:
43 Issue: 4/5; 2001, Research paper.
[6] Mathieson, M., Improving organisational
performance through developing our people.
Industrial and Commercial Training, Volume: 38
Issue: 2; 2006, Case study.
[7] Littig, P., New media-supported learning today and
tomorrow: recommendations for the next generation
of education and training concepts supported by new
learning media. Industrial and Commercial Training,
Volume: 38 Issue: 2; 2006, General review.
[8] Unneberg, L., Grand designs for e-learning – can e-
learning make the grade for our biggest corporates?
Industrial and Commercial Training, Volume: 39
Issue: 4; 2007, Viewpoint.
[9] Fallon, J., BAE Systems Virtual University: e-
learning in action. Development and Learning in
Organizations, Volume: 19 Issue: 4; 2005, Case
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[10] Roffe, I., E-learning: engagement, enhancement
and execution. Quality Assurance in Education,
Volume: 10 Issue: 1; 2002, Research Paper.
[11] Bose, K., An e-learning experience – a written
analysis based on my experience in an e-learning
pilot project. Campus-Wide Information Systems,
Volume: 20 Issue: 5; 2003, Research paper.
[12] Gravelle, H.&Rees, R.:”Microeconomics”, 3rd
Edition, Prentice Hall, Essex 2004., Chapter 16
[13] Chiang, A.C.:”Osnovne metode matematičke
ekonomije”, 3rd edition, MATE, Zagreb 1994.,
pp.176-178.
[14] Dougherty, C., Introduction to econometrics.
Oxford University Press, Chapter 1, 2006, Oxford
[15] Kmenta, J., Počela ekonometrije, MATE, Zagreb,
1997, pp. 172-187.

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