JISC

The project (COLOSSUS) brought together four Scottish Further Education Colleges (Adam Smith, Forth Valley, Stevenson College Edinburgh and Stow), the Western Colleges Consortium representing four colleges in the South West of England and the University of Strathclyde to pursue two broad aims; to develop online learning materials relevant to the Social Sciences and to develop a workflow model for the continued development of online learning materials within the institutions that was sustainable beyond the period of external funding.

Executive Summary

To this end the partners not only worked on the creation of the learning materials but did so in a self reflective manner examining the whole development process including;

• organisational and administrative arrangements surrounding the development
• the workflow processes undertaken by the various staff engaged in the production
• the roles performed and the levels of engagement exhibited by staff
• the technologies employed and their effectiveness
• third party materials available to the development and the use to which they were put
  

Through the life of the project the Scottish FE partners developed forty four learning objects in five subjects; Economics, Women's Studies, History, Politics and Psychology. These objects were constructed as standalone learning experiences comprising explicit learning objectives, activities, integral assessment and further documentation for prospective tutors. The objects were packaged according to the SCORM 1.2 specification to interoperate with SCORM-compliant VLEs. These objects are now available from JORUM. Opportunities for reuse were investigated using some of these learning objects. Central to this investigation was an assessment of the usefulness to English curricula of materials developed to meet the requirements of the Scottish Qualifications Authority Higher National Social Science framework; the results of which were generally very positive. Another aspect of the investigation was to explore opportunities for reuse with additional materials and in different formats; and a series of practical guides were developed. These case studies are available from the COLOSSUS Project website.

However it was the examination of and reflection upon the workflow processes that will likely prove the most valuable for the partners engaged in the development of the learning objects. Individual institutional the Workflow Model Case Studies reflect not only the individual experiences of the colleges, but also reveal common challenges and responses.2 As a result of this exercise partner colleges have revised and adapted their approaches to online learning development to become more structured, streamlined and ultimately sustainable. The result is the COLOSSUS Sustainable Development Model, a guide to workflow process management and development practices that facilitate the ongoing development of online learning materials without the need for additional external funding. This model has been adopted and adapted by partners to support their own developments.

Read the final report below. This report is available electronically only.