JISC

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Many institutions recognise challenges in making their administrative processes accessible to students increasingly portrayed as confident with a range of personal communication technologies, and influenced by service expectations set by an increasingly e-enabled society. This project has developed opensource software to enable announcements placed on a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) to be delivered via web 2.0 feeds and through text messaging to a student’s personal mobile device. In addition the project has delivered a number of research outputs which evaluate both student and staff attitudes to these newer forms of communication channel.

Executive Summary

The approach of the project was to develop open-source software which could use news and enrolment information stored within an enterprise Virtual Learning Environment (Blackboard/WebCT Vista) to deliver personalised text messaging and RSS (Really Simple Syndication) web feeds. The approach to the project research was to look at two issues via online survey and interview:

• How do students currently use existing communication channels and what will their reaction be to these emerging channels?
• What institutional issues will be encountered when attempting to embed these technologies in normal working practices?

Main outputs of the project

1. Open Source software which has been successfully trialled in Manchester Metropolitan University and has been provided to one other site with two other sites likely to trial it within 2009. This has been made available under a GSR2 licence
2. Over 1600 students were invited to take part in the trial of these new services with a diverse range of courses – the original coverage of Law, Biology and Computing was extended during the study to cover students in Business & Sociology
3. Research on the project which has been disseminated via the project website, at the JISC Conference, at Blackboard World Europe 2009 (a trade show around the Blackboard VLE) and has been submitted as a contribution to mLearn 2009

Although the project has exceeded its original set of deliverables, introducing these new channels to students and institutions is not as simple as it would appear. Whilst its is true that students have a favourable reaction to these new services when described to them, they don’t necessarily engage with them in large numbers – about 15% of students at MMU signed up. Many still prefer to rely on traditional methods of word-of-mouth to find out about information and events on their courses and these new channels still appeal to a minority. Furthermore some students may see their own mobile phone as their space and not want it utilised by the university.

It is also clear that there are a number of areas of university administration which might want to use these channels including administrators, tutors, finance people and librarians. Each of these audiences has subtly different requirements and unless these are mapped into a clear strategy there is a danger that solutions will proliferate within a single institution leading to confusion amongst staff and students. Like any other new IT-based initiative there needs to be a clear institution-wide strategy which encompasses these new channels if their potential is to be realised fully.

Report available electronically only