JISC Inform 9
This issue includes an interview with Roger McClure, a four-page special on Shibboleth, and how information can transform our working lives.
Impact and integration: Supporting education and research in the use of technology
Contents
Striking the right balance An interview with Roger McClure
Physical connections A new agreement with the Institute of Physics
Partners in progress European partnership brings real benefits
Discovering Digimap FE gets map service free for a year
Connecting people to resources A four-page special on Shibboleth
Early adopters programme: a case study
i-Skills for all How information can transform our working lives
Building a framework New programme to deliver interoperability
Impacting across continents Award winners reflect on their work
Have you got the digital picture? Providing an overview of digital image issues
Staying on the right side of the law The rise of e-lawstudent.com
A pattern for progress RSCs travel the e-learning road
Striking the right balance
An interview with Roger McClure
Roger McClure is the joint Chief Executive of the Scottish Funding Councils for Scottish further and higher education, which are planned to be merged in the near future. He is also delivering the keynote speech at this year's JISC Conference. In an exclusive interview with JISC Inform, Roger McClure talks about Scottish education and the importance of ICT to colleges and universities north of the border.
JI: Scotland has its own distinctive education system, its own educational history, qualifications and so on. What can ICT bring to Scotland and to Scottish education?
RM: In one sense, of course, the answer to that question will be the same as it would be in England. The enormous advantages of Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), e-learning in general, online assessment, administration, library access, access to research databases, journals, etc. are the same across the UK.
But I would also say without hesitation that ICT is particularly important to Scotland. ICT can ensure that the remotest populations of the Highland and Islands, which represent a substantial fraction of the land mass of the UK, are able to get access to education. Look at the map: you can see the dispersed areas, the Western Isles, Shetland and the Orkneys, the Borders, Dumfrieshire and South West Scotland, all with their very sparse populations.
Let me give you two examples. The Highlands and Islands are served by the UHI Millennium Institute, a partnership of about a dozen institutions, spread all over the area. They often rely on web-based interaction and video-conferencing in order to ensure a group of students perhaps three students here, four there and a tutor somewhere else add up to a viable group of students where that wouldn't have been possible otherwise.
The same is true of the Crichton Campus which is a joint campus, again for a partnership of institutions the University of Glasgow, the University of Paisley, Bell College and Dumfries and Galloway College, this time in South West Scotland. They are co-located on one campus and are providing degree-level courses along with the use of videoconferencing with dedicated lines beaming lectures from the main campuses. Scotland is one place where ICT is really needed.
JI: Like JISC, the Joint Scottish Funding Council has a remit both to further and higher education. What are the advantages of having an overarching body responsible for the funding of both sectors?
RM: A quarter of all HE provision in Scotland is provided by FE colleges, a far greater percentage than in England. Nearly all sub-degree or Higher National qualifications are taught in FE. Universities focus exclusively on undergraduate degrees, postgraduate degrees and research. So HE is substantially divided between two sectors. We therefore need to ensure that there is joining up, that there is good articulation between colleges and universities.
The main benefit of bringing together the two councils is therefore the increased coherence that it brings. What the learner wants after all is an easily understandable and coherent system so that whatever starting point they come from, whatever qualifications, wherever they live, and however they need to progress, they can reach whatever level they aspire to.
ICT can support this coherence. For example, one project we're funding is a project where an HE institution and nearby colleges create a shared pedagogy and a shared VLE. Those students entering university whose confidence is perhaps low, or who come from areas or backgrounds where participation is low, are going to be helped and supported by the fact that the systems used by the university are in fact the ones they are already familiar with using from their college days. This can be an important support mechanism for them.
JI: What other contribution can technology make to the promotion of lifelong learning for all our students?
RM: We've recently approved funding for a series of collaborative projects all proposing different ways in which technology can support lifelong learning. We're very hopeful that these projects will in time bring real benefits in this area.
But we have to overcome the unrealistic expectations around ICT. In general, in the past it's as if we have felt that we were somehow failing because we were not transforming the landscape, that we'd not managed to bring about the ICT learning revolution, which everyone assumed to be just around the corner. We were so dazzled by the possibilities of ICT that we were expecting a massive transformation that would turn our world upside down. That clearly isn't going to happen. My feeling is that we need to focus primarily on learning but all the time making the most of the fantastic contribution that digital technologies can bring.
There are two areas where ICT is making this fantastic contribution. Firstly, enhanced access to materials means we are getting closer and closer to that point when any individual anywhere will be able to access the appropriate materials for their studies. Secondly, the interactivity of ICT. You can e-mail your tutor any time of the day, be part of a discussion group, and these can be part of the conversation you have about your learning. You don't have to rely on a phone line or a face-to-face conversation. Online assessment means you are taken through a process devised by experts whereby you can assess yourself and receive feedback. There is huge added value in these things. It is important though to keep them in perspective so that you don't scrap everything that went before. The emphasis now is on cost-effective blended learning, on getting that balance right.
JI: What would you say are the key challenges facing FE and HE in Scotland?
RM: It's important to remember that devolution is a fact and that Scotland is now a separate country, with its own parliament, its own economy. We need a growing GDP to support a growing national infrastructure and public services. But our population is ageing and declining. So how are we going to grow our GDP? The knowledge element is therefore crucial and this places FE and HE centre stage to support economic growth, provide appropriately skilled graduates, conducting the research that attracts industry, the excellent access, as well as the social inclusion agenda so that there are no significant numbers of people excluded from making a contribution.
Strategic alliances are important. Scotland is good at collaborating; its scale and its sense of national identity both support that. The merger of the funding councils here supports that too. Institutions in both sectors are going to have to find ways of pooling their efforts. Between them they have a central role to play in making Scotland a prosperous country. JISC's role in providing the infrastructure, the resources, the middleware and so on is absolutely key in all this too.
JI: You will be giving the keynote speech at this year's conference. Quite apart from what we will be learning from you in your address, what do you hope to get out of attending the conference yourself?
RM: The funding councils can only work effectively in partnership with institutions. We have the money so we can act as the catalyst for supporting developments in a particular direction. Our e-learning strategy is a good example of that. So it's important not only that the policy officers at the funding councils know what's going on but also that I myself am up to speed with the direction of change, what's emerging, what the consensus is. I need to know how the early adopters are getting on so that I can have a good understanding of where we are in ICT. I think the conference will be an excellent opportunity for me to find these things out.
JI: Finally, what do you think will be the major changes in Scottish education over the next ten years?
RM: I am not convinced that in 2015 the world will be completely different. Just wind the clock back ten years, to 1995, and ask how different the world is now to then. There have been important changes. For example, just take IT compatibility: you don't have to take all your equipment with you any longer when giving a presentation, including overhead transparencies, duplicate copies, etc. You can simply e-mail your presentation. It always works now. So there have been changes including mobile phones and the Internet, but I don't think there has been a revolution.
What I'd expect to see is that there will be near-universal access to the Internet, with greater use of mobile devices for accessing it. There will be greater flexibility in the delivery of courses; people will be used to bite-size chunks of information, with getting what they need right now. There will be a greater emphasis on 'learning how' rather than 'learning what'. Core skills will take off and there will be a much greater emphasis on equipping people to be adaptable, to learn how to learn. Being a critical learner will be key. As all information becomes available, so the skills needed to get to the right information will become crucial.
Paradoxically physical facilities and estates will be much better at our institutions. Large sums of funding have already been allocated for this. There is something of a sociological trend resisting virtual estates and virtual campuses. Fit-for-purpose buildings and facilities will be attractive to a range of learners, including older students and to business too. Within these, IT support will be excellent. An institution's focus will be on the most cost-effective blend of e-supported learning and more traditional pedagogy to deliver better quality teaching to our students. I think we will have dropped the 'e' by then because it will be no more remarkable that 'e-services' are available than that water or the telephone is available.
Physical connections
A new JISC agreement to make a historic journal archive available free to all further and higher education is set to have major implications for physics education and research. Philip Pothen reports
Some of the most important articles in physics, representing some of its most significant breakthroughs, are now available free of charge to all colleges and universities in the UK.
An agreement between JISC and the Institute of Physics (IoP) now makes the IoP's massive archive of some 110,000 articles and over 1.5 million pages easily accessible to all further and higher education.
Some of the archive's highlights include Sir Ernest Rutherford's exposition of the features of radioactivity, for which he won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1908.
The archive also contains papers by British Nobel Prize-winning physicist Sir Edward Appleton, whose pioneering work on radio waves made radar possible, as well as work by Sir John Fleming, Sir Ernest Rutherford, Neils Bohr and Lord Rayleigh. More recent Nobel laureates whose work has appeared in the Institute of Physics Journal Archive include Harry Kroto, Herbert Kroemer, Anthony J Leggett and Vitaly Ginzburg.
The Institute of Physics comprehensively digitised its historic journal archive back to 1874 in 2002 and this represents some £30,000 worth of material to each institution.
Liam Earney, Collections Manager at JISC, says that this is a major national agreement for UK education. 'It means that universities can get free access to valuable research covering many of the key developments in physics from the last 130 years,' he says. 'JISC is delighted to have worked with the Institute of Physics and colleagues throughout higher education to make this possible.'
Speaking for the IoP, Jerry Cowhig, Manager Director of the Institute of Physics Publishing, says that the deal will have a major impact on physics education and research in this country. 'The Institute of Physics aims to ensure that every scientist who needs to read any paper it has published can do so,' he adds. 'This agreement means that more libraries than ever before will be able to afford access to the UK's biggest archive of physics research.'
Philip Pothen
JISC
Partners in progress
International collaboration is crucial in the networked environment. Pat Leon reports on how a new agreement between JISC and SURF, the equivalent organisation in The Netherlands, is bringing real benefits to both countries.
The partnership of Europe's two national education technology organisations is set to make worldwide waves with joint work on copyright, streaming media, optical networking, digital repositories and interoperability.
JISC and SURF, the Netherlands foundation for information and communications in higher education, signed a partnership deal last November that involves exchanging ideas, resources and people.
Louisa Dale, JISC partnership manager, says the twinning is a logical response to the pace and complexity of technological change. It helps maximise returns on public investment while minimising the risks.
JISC has a long history of encouraging collaboration and it works nationally with the British Library, the new Higher Education Academy and Becta, among others.
Internationally, JISC has established links with the National Science Foundation, the Coalition for Networked Information and Internet2 in the US and Australia's Department for Education, Science and Training.
'When you find like-minded organisations, such as SURF, it makes sense to join forces,' Louisa says. 'Activities such as the development of technology standards are increasingly international. It is not possible to work in isolation. JISC benefits from adopting a global approach rather than being a single voice among many. We can also reach a wider audience in the promotion of our activities, technological developments and services.'
Bas Cordewener, SURF's assistant platform manager IT and education, agrees: 'We are unique, without equivalents in Europe, centrally funded and representing higher education and IT nationally. At an infrastructural level we are similar; for example, you have UKERNA, we have SURFnet. These analogies can be found in almost any other activity.'
Although the agencies differ in size, Cordewener says that the amount of funding is proportionally the same. 'We both have an ability to help people and institutions to do things collaboratively that they wouldn't be able to do on their own. Having the same goals and approach we are ideal partners.'
Joint projects so far include streaming media for e-learning. The aim is to build an international community of experts in media, pedagogy, IT and education and digital media libraries. The focus is on practical use of new learning technology through small projects that directly involve teaching staff and students.
JISC and SURF are also taking forward the Zwolle Group's work on copyright, following the Netherland's DiRECt Digital Rights Expertise Community and UK's RoMEO project (which sits within the Focus on Access to Institutional Resources (FAIR) programme). Activities include publishing agreements, university copyright policies, open access, advocacy and building a copyright knowledge bank.
Other links include work on interoperability, standards and metadata involving the UK's Centre for Educational Technology Interoperability Standards (CETIS) and SURF SiX.
UKLight is now linked with NetherLight part of the international initiative to develop an experimental testbed for optical networking.
As in all relationships, Louisa recognises that partners will not always agree. But there are positive spin-offs. 'It is interesting to explore both similarities and differences. Understanding each other's perspectives and views genuinely helps us progress our thinking.
'JISC understands the value of working in partnership. By collaboration, with hard work and commitment we aim to meet and, where possible, exceed the expectations of UK education and research.'
Brian Mitchell
JISC
Discovering Digimap
Digimap is well established in higher education. However, a new JISC agreement means that from August 2005 all FE institutions will be able to access the service free of charge for a trial year. Brian Mitchell looks at how the service can enrich learning and teaching in further education
Digimap delivers a range of Ordnance Survey map data products for educational use. It once would have been prohibitively expensive for institutions to subscribe, but with the JISC subsidy they are now available at substantially reduced rates.
Staff and students can view and print on-line maps of any location in Great Britain at a series of predefined scales, and query and display postcodes or place names. More advanced online mapping facilities allow users to overlay different map products and print maps up to A0 in size. This means that users do not need to be online or require a suite of computers to use the materials. Users can also download the map, postcode and place name data for use with appropriate application software, spreadsheets and databases.
As these materials are copyright cleared for educational use, they can be incorporated in learning and teaching materials such as course packs, lecture notes and presentations, student reports, projects, dissertations and assignments as well as Virtual Learning Environments.
The value of Digimap is also beginning to be realised within specific courses, especially for developing cartographic and ICT skills on GCSE, AS and A2 Geography as well as the ASET Level 3 Certificate in Geographical Information Systems. Marianne Addy, GIS Course Tutor at Colchester Sixth Form College explains: 'Digimap has been invaluable in providing us with a wide variety of digital data that has been easy to access. Our students have been able to use both vector and raster data sets as an integral part of their Geographical Information Systems (GIS) project researching environmental quality and deprivation issues in Colchester.'
Marianne goes on to say that 'it would have been difficult to run the project without Digimap' due to the scarcity of other suitable alternative digital mapping data resources.
John Curry, HE Area Leader, City of Bath College, also praises the resource: 'Cheap access to Digimap has transformed our teaching using GIS, in particular on our HND Computing courses. With the Digimap data as a backdrop, we have launched a range of student projects on some very interesting and educationally challenging topics including plotting the spread of Foot and Mouth disease in Devon; identifying alternatives for pipeline routes around the historical city centre of Bath; and investigating the long term impact of sea level rise on Watchet.'
Brian Mitchell
JISC
Connecting people to resources
Security, privacy and trust are increasingly important in the online environment, as much in education as in the rest of our daily lives. JISC has recently endorsed Shibboleth as the next generation authentication and authorisation system. Over the following pages we explore what Shibboleth is, how it will work and some of the benefits it will bring to UK education and research
Shibboleth is a word that you are likely to start encountering ever more frequently in the coming months. So what is it and, more importantly, how does it affect you and what do you need to do about it?
Whether it is accessing our bank account online, filling in our tax returns on the Inland Revenue website, or ordering our shopping from Tesco, we are facing repeated challenges on the Internet to prove who we are. While these are valued facilities, users are becoming concerned about the number of organisations that collect and store their personal information.
Increasingly, this is an issue affecting education and research too. In order to access e-mail accounts, library borrowing information, or lecturers' notes, students have long been used to having to enter a username and password. But the growing list of different identities is difficult to remember and to keep secure.
Shibboleth is a potential solution to some of these problems but it isn't a product or piece of software. It is the name given to a set of protocols for the secure passing of identity information. It is also built around the important distinction between authentication and authorisation. Authentication is the process of verifying who you are (which university or college you belong to, for example), while authorisation is the process of deciding whether the identified person has the right to access the protected resource.
Shibboleth works by establishing the institution to which a user belongs, the group to which they belong within that institution (postgraduate researcher, lecturer, undergraduate, librarian, administrator, etc.) and then on the basis of these 'attributes', to decide on the level of access permitted.
So what are the advantages of Shibboleth?
First, there is the issue of privacy. At no time is the identity of the student divulged to the resource provider as a person's identity is stored and checked in only one place.
There is also the issue of trust. The resource provider trusts the integrity of the organisation to keep an accurate and up-to-date record of their staff and students. This is where the notion of federations comes in. Federations are collections of organisations that are prepared to trust each other and who share some common characteristics. They are typically country-centric. There are federations for example in the USA (InCommon) and Switzerland (SWITCH). JISC is in the process of creating a federation (as yet un-named) to cover all of further and higher education in the UK.
The flexibility of the system means it is feasible for commercial data providers to sell their services to departments within an institution a research group, for example confident that access will be limited to that group of people. This opens the way for providers to strike deals to sell very specialised products to only those departments that need them, without impacting, for example, on the library budget.
In addition, the system provides mechanisms for the creation of ad hoc, cross-institutional groups, such as multi-institutional research teams.
Finally, the introduction of such a system will reduce or eliminate the burden that has often fallen on librarians' shoulders of registering and maintaining huge lists of usernames and passwords for remote resources.
So, you might ask, when is this going to happen in the UK, and what about Athens?
Athens has been a major success story. In many ways, Athens has put the UK ahead of the game, by providing a national security system that allows access to a wide range of resources.
Nevertheless, JISC has decided that Shibboleth is the future and has been working on a migration policy for some months now. Fifteen projects have been funded to explore issues related to Shibboleth. Eleven 'Early Adopter' proposals from institutions have been approved for JISC funding to help them investigate and implement migration to Shibboleth. Finally, a service is being established to provide a helpdesk and other support for these early adopters. Over the next year or so you can expect to hear a lot more about the outcomes of these early experiences.
As for Athens, it must be emphasised that there is no plan to turn it off in the immediate future. Gateways are being developed and tested that will enable Shibboleth institutions to access Athens-protected resources, and vice versa. JISC will be providing regular information and guidance on developments and timescales to enable organisations to decide for themselves if and when to move from Athens to Shibboleth. Watch this space!
Terry Morrow
JISC
Case study: Early adopters programme
JISC is funding a number of institutions to investigate the use of Shibboleth in various contexts. As mentioned above, these experiences will be fully shared with the rest of the community.
A good example is the project run by St George's Hospital Medical School. ADAMS (Authentication and Delivery Across Medical courses using Shibboleth) will test Shibboleth as a means of providing secure delivery of core online teaching resources to any UK university and college involved in running medical and healthcare courses. It will also allow on-site access to resources for medical and healthcare students. The project will entail the:
- creation of a Shibboleth 'target' enabling online teaching and learning repositories to be accessed by other institutions
- establishment of an 'origin' server allowing students access to teaching materials from off-campus locations
- development of attribute release policies enabling resources to be targeted at specific courses
i-Skills for all
Two new JISC reports highlight a significant and growing information skills shortage among staff in further and higher education. Dicky Maidment-Otlet investigates
Information skills are not only for students. Staff too should reap the rewards of a real and sustained investment in information skills. This is the key message to emerge from two new JISC reports published last month.
Designed to raise awareness of the importance of information skills or i-skills - among all staff in colleges and universities, the two reports Investing in Staff i-Skills and Improving Staff i-Skills both begin from the basis that information is everywhere in our working lives. How we receive it, assess, use, manage and deliver it therefore impacts directly on our effectiveness as learners, teachers, administrators, managers, librarians, and so on.
Where information was previously the preserve of the library or learning resource centre, the call is now to mainstream i-skills and to suggest the cross-institutional benefits of a more coordinated approach.
The reports have emerged from three related strands, and Gill Joy, project consultant from ESYS plc and coordinator of the Staff Development Provision study strand, has no doubts about the need for i-skills to become part of the mainstream culture of an institution. 'It's about a collaborative effort across departments,' she says. 'What we're trying to do is to emphasise the pervasiveness of information skills: that this is a personal development issue for all staff, not just a "library thing".'
Research undertaken by the three projects found that relatively few staff had the skills or the confidence to use information to its best advantage. Alison MacKenzie is library services manager at Manchester Metropolitan University and project coordinator of Big Blue Connect, another strand of the programme. Alison puts the challenge succinctly when she says: 'Once staff are comfortable with their level of information-handling skills they become reluctant to move outside of their comfort zones.' Alison calls this a '"sufficing mentality"... They do just enough to get by.'
But the benefits to all staff are significant, and not the least are the passed-on benefits to students. 'i-Skills underpin a lot of what we do,' Alison says, 'such as being able to identify quality of information, integrate information into context, and then passing on appropriate skills to students, including, for example, the ethical use of information.'
But the research also suggests that each institution is different, that priorities in this area vary. Does this mean, then, that the reports might have limited appeal?
Paula Taylor, project consultant on the Drivers for Staff Development Study, disagrees. 'Institutions may well have different priorities and therefore need to consider which drivers will trigger a positive response from staff,' she says. 'But one of the important things they have in common is a need to make the best use of information. These reports provide a range of ideas for helping institutions do just that.'
The reports highlight, for example, the need for both subject-based and cross-disciplinary initiatives, the need for champions to develop strategy, for bringing together a staff i-skills task force and the importance of pilot programmes.
Malcolm Batchelor, programme manager at JISC, says that JISC's involvement stems from its role in supporting institutions to maximise their investment. 'Institutions invest in their students,' he says, 'and this needs to be extended to their staff. In an age of lifelong learning, why should we exclude our staff from learning?'
Dicky Maidment-Otlet
JISC
Building a framework
A new JISC programme is, in collaboration with international partners, helping to develop a common technical language for e-learning. Craig Seton looks at why this programme is so important and what it hopes to achieve.
One of the big technical obstacles preventing e-learning technology realising its full potential is the difficulty of accessing and sharing information between the different and often incompatible computer-based information systems and applications used throughout the online learning community.
At present, the sheer range and diversity of IT hardware and software infrastructures, interfaces, log-ins and security systems stand in the way of e-learning fulfilling its promise to become a seamless and more innovative online environment for teachers, learners and researchers.
JISC is one of the leading organisations in a growing international partnership working to overcome these technical barriers. One of the four core strands of JISC's new e-Learning Programme is the development of a JISC framework to create common technical standards, specifications and definitions designed to make it possible to 'join up' the multiplicity of systems deployed in online teaching and study.
This goal of connecting disparate systems and applications through a set of coherent, universal standards in effect, a common technical 'language' for e-learning - is defined as 'interoperability'.
The programme is concentrating on teaching, learning and research in UK further and higher education institutions. Tish Roberts, programme manager for the framework, says: 'Interoperability is our ultimate goal - being able to exchange information and data between different systems, no matter who is the manufacturer or proprietary builder of the system. Many of these systems are monolithic, expensive, inflexible and cannot talk to each other.'
This is essential to support growing collaboration between further and higher education in the UK and between institutions in different countries.
The programme's work centres around enabling institutions to use Internet-based web service technology to give their e-learning communities network access to the key features of teaching and study programmes, such as course management information, e-portfolios, marking and assessment, timetables, student enrolment and reading lists.
There are, Tish says, huge potential gains. It would be easier for teachers and researchers to share course materials and research. Learners would have greater choice of a richer portfolio of study materials and could also transfer their academic records when moving to another institution. More small and medium-sized companies would gain a foothold in the market to produce online teaching and learning materials, widening choice and lowering costs.
The programme working group is collaborating on interoperability standards with JISC-funded CETIS (the Centre for Educational Technology Interoperability Standards) in the UK, and Australia's Department for Education, Science and Training. Tish Roberts says cross-border co-operation is vital to produce common international standards as the market for e-learning products is global.
The JISC framework is in its early stages. With this need to secure national and international collaboration and agreement, great care is being taken to ensure that even the programme's terminology evolves to reflect changing needs and priorities.
The programme's first round work in the UK has focused on developing e-learning toolkits and JISC has funded the first prototype testing and demonstrations of these in UK colleges and universities looking, for example, at methods to integrate multiple information repositories.
For further information, see the e-Learning focus website.
Impacting across continents
A project at Middlesex University and the Islamic University of Gaza recently won the 2004 Higher Education Academy / THES e-Tutor of the Year Competition for delivering an imaginative distance learning programme in spite of enormous technical and physical obstacles. Anthony 'Skip' Basiel and Ralph Cummings reflect on their award-winning work
An invitation to tutor a group of academic staff in the use of the WebCT virtual learning environment (VLE) may seem like a straightforward request. It's one that's encountered by e-learning teams on a regular basis. But what made our situation so different was that the request came from academic staff at the Islamic University of Gaza and, because of the security situation in the area, we UK tutoring staff at Middlesex University - were unable to meet our Palestinian colleagues face to face.
These circumstances, combined with low bandwidth and irregular infrastructure in Gaza, led to the development of a highly flexible and blended approach to learning delivery, but one that proved immensely productive.
The Islamic University of Gaza was the first higher education institution in Gaza and was established in 1978 to serve Palestinian people in the Gaza territory.
We had originally envisaged a week-long face-to-face training course but having been strongly advised by Middlesex not to travel to Gaza due to the security situation there, this was not possible. The suggestion of a meeting half-way in Cyprus was impossible too due to restrictions imposed on the movement of Palestinian staff.
So we developed a series of two-hour online seminars, delivered over five weeks using asynchronous (as opposed to synchronous, or 'real-time') VLE activities each week. While it was circumstance that largely drove this approach, it was clear that there were also gains to be made in terms of the reflection, comprehension and retention that such an approach would bring. It was also central to the 'cascading' nature of the programme and its ongoing benefits to the local institution.
Flexibility was the key to the project's success. So participants were responsible for their own learning programmes, with each establishing individualised learning agreements reflecting their own flexible set of objectives.
WebCT and Macromedia Breeze were used for learning activities and discussion, and although the course focused on developing online tutoring skills, the project team was clear that technology should be an enabler, not a driver. In other words, we wanted the online learning and communication tools to meet the needs of the learners, not vice versa. However, we needed to have back-up systems in place to contend with any technical or pedagogical failures. A 'blended approach', of using real-time tools such as Macromedia Breeze and ISDN videoconferencing, along with asynchronous tools such as the WebCT discussion board and e-mail, proved to be the most effective. This was supported by external e-mail, and even, due to irregular connectivity, hard copy handouts!
Challenges were overcome through the programme's flexibility and through negotiation. Key to the latter were the human bonds which developed during the course. The staff at Gaza used terms like 'my brother' to communicate over the discussion boards. At first we thought it was only a title given to fellow academics, but soon we realised that it was their shared circumstances which drew them together. They were hungry to learn and to share with other cultures. This was obviously heightened by the events unfolding around them. Indeed, despite the political tension surrounding the programme, the staff stayed remarkably focused on the tasks at hand. Debates and discussions on e-learning did not often venture out of the pedagogical or technical arena. It was this focus that undoubtedly led us to the successful completion of the project.
The circumstances of this initiative were quite unique. However, the lessons learned in terms of the importance of using flexible, blended approaches were immense, while the importance of building human relationships in an online environment were surely transferable to any number of situations.
Anthony 'Skip' Basiel and Ralph Cummings
Middlesex University
Entry information for the 2005 eTutor Competition
Have you got the digital picture?
Is the digital revolution taking over the classroom? Are lecturers frantically digitising their slide collections and throwing out their projectors in favour of using digital images? Chances are they are not - yet.
However, the rise of the digital image in higher education over the last decade has brought to the forefront the need for a coordinated effort to address the complexities, issues and problems surrounding this cultural shift in the visual arts education community.
So AHDS Visual Arts, a national body serving the needs of the visual arts education community, has established a UK-wide digital image initiative called The Digital Picture. Mike Pringle, Head of AHDS Visual Arts, explains the project's raison d'être: 'We will explore ,issues relating to the effects of the digital revolution on our use of images. This will enable us to identify problems and develop practical solutions.'
The Digital Picture is inviting individuals in the community to feed back to a survey, using both printed and Internet-based media. The focus is broad, covering cost, image quality, metadata standards, copyright, intellectual property rights, potential loss of resources and training and awareness.
The Digital Picture will, through structured, coordinated consultation, go a long way towards providing a cohesive overview of the use of digital image issues.
Brenda Brinkley
AHDS Visual Arts
Staying on the right side of the law
Finding the right resources for AS and A2 law courses hasn't always been an easy task. It has often meant that staff and students have had to use a number of books, case judgements and legislative materials from a variety of sources. With e-lawstudent.com, staff and students can access online legal materials and resources that are designed to help students to pass the examinations for the AQA and OCR AS/A2 Law syllabi with the highest possible grade.
AS and A2 Law is a demanding course, made more so by ongoing developments and changes in the law and the need for up-to-date and accurate materials. e-lawstudent.com uses the potential of the Internet to overcome these problems by delivering a comprehensive and up-to-date course.
As Harry Barstow of the City of Bath College reports: 'This acquisition has been a genuine success in the teaching of law in our college. It is aimed at the right level for AS and A level; it is very clear and set out in an interesting and student-friendly manner. It has a very comprehensive supply of law information such as cases, charts, law reports and other excellent aspects of information. All the students - and I mean all - think very highly of e-lawstudent and genuinely enjoy making use of all that it offers.'
The course is delivered through a mixture of lectures, lecture notes, case materials, statutes and a Q&A book containing model answers to questions. Multiple choice tests for revision are also included, in addition to numerous reports, articles from newspapers, law journals, other important reference materials and charts giving an overview of either the subject under discussion or how to work through a legal principle.
Liam Earney
JISC Collections
A pattern for progress
Alison Nock reports on how the JISC Regional Support Centres are delivering a major programme of staff development across the UK.
Exploiting the full potential of e-learning is a process and a journey. This is the underlying principle behind a new approach to staff development for e-learning being initiated by JISC Regional Support Centres (RSCs) across the UK. The Learning Journey does not aim to teach everything you need to know about e-learning, but rather to show where and how e-learning can best be used in everyday situations.
Developed by JISC's Sector Support team in conjunction with the RSCs, and now evolving in a variety of contexts - regional, local, subject-based and generic the Learning Journey asks teachers in the post-16 education sector to travel the entire curriculum cycle, identifying opportunities and introducing methods in which e-learning can contribute to the working lives of professionals.
Di Jones is project officer for RSC Central Support based at Bristol. Di says that the cycle of learning is crucial to the success of the Learning Journey: 'The journey takes practitioners through a review and evaluation of current practice,' she says, 'to planning and preparation, practical workshops in, for example, finding and adapting resources, exploring e-assessment and back to review and evaluation. This is proving a really effective model.'
The first national event provided the template for other more bespoke events being held across the UK. They are proving successful in providing programmes of e-learning staff development for beginners. Bob Powell, JISC Sector Support Manager, believes there is a big demand for a programme such as the Learning Journey: 'Many teachers and learning support staff don't have time to learn all the skills first and then work out where it all fits in,' he says. 'They need a first step to effective use of e-learning.'
One regional event is being held by the RSC East Midlands. Chris Hill, East Midlands manager, says that the event won't be a talking shop: 'It's a practical event for teachers, tutors and all those who help learners get the best out of their studies. Expert guides will lead hands-on activity within small groups with access to computers, other hardware and appropriate software.'
Other events around the country are currently being planned and promoted. If, as the Chinese proverb says, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, then the Learning Journey is already well into its stride!
Alison Nock
RSC West Midlands
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