JISC

Region South East

Overview

With the emphasis on widening participation it is important to find innovative ways to provide a seamless learning experience that extends beyond the course delivery and which makes it much easier for non-traditional learners to engage and stayed engaged.

There are many more links between institutions than there were (particularly with foundation degrees) and this project seeks to make the most of resources that can be shared across institutions, thus saving duplication of effort, whilst allowing individual institutions to look after their own learners.

This project will deliver a pilot version of a personal learning portal that can be used from multiple institutions and which will provide access to a range of services including induction and support services, personal development planning and e-portfolios across institutions.

Aims and Objectives

This project will result in a pilot of a personal learning portal. At this stage it is not clear how much true portal technology can be used, this will be determined as the project progresses. The primary objective of the portal is to provide non-traditional learners with simple access to a range of services that will help them optimize their personal learning experience whether their actual course includes on-line course materials or not. The services to be included are induction and support services, personal development planning and e-portfolio. The portal will be linked to existing projects to provide shared desktop access at the Universities at Medway project and VLEs at partner institutions.

The project intends to set up shared services accessed through the web that will also serve to develop an awareness of the HE learning environment and support the development of information skills required by this environment. This will be achieved through building on strategic e-learning partnerships between existing KNTI partners, within the region as well as the institutions directly involved at Medway.

The objectives the project is designed to address are:

• Facilitating wider participation by improving the user experience for non-traditional learners
• Sharing support resources and services across institutions
• Delivering tools and information from a wide range of sources to the learner at home or in the workplace
• Identification of issues which need to be addressed to offer cross-institutional eLearning systems and services.

Project Methodology

The project is being tackled in three phases

• Phase 1 – Technical infrastructure and development of PLPP
• Phase 2 – Identification and linking of resources into PLPP
• Phase 3 – Testing and evaluation of PLPP

The PLPP will be designed bearing in mind the needs of learners who may well benefit from a substantial level of support so that they can engage with the learning experience effectively – predominantly part-time students and those in employment or those just beginning to engage with education.

As the key objectives for the project relate to the user experience the technical approach will follow two strands:

• Establishing a system that provides the user with access to the different services and which looks and feels much the same as a full portal and so would to enable this project to evaluate the usefulness to the end user but which may, technically, only emulate the way a true portal would work. Every effort will be made within the project to do as much as is possible with the portal development to ensure it is a true portal.
• Establishing a basic portal service using U-Portal with at least one true portlet which will enable the project to tackle the technical issues around developing a full portal and plan for moving the proof of concept portal towards a true portal in the future.

Deliverables/ Stakeholders

The project will be of benefit to non-traditional learners in enabling them to engage more effectively by providing access through the personal learner portal to a range support services in addition to course delivery regardless of whether a particular course is delivered using e-learning technologies or not. It is also likely that some of these services may be made available to potential students to help them build confidence and skills before the formal start of courses.

There are many more links between institutions than there were (particularly with foundation degrees) and this project seeks to make the most of resources that can be shared across institutions, thus saving duplication of effort, whilst allowing individual institutions to look after their own learners. This will benefit the partner institutions directly involved in the project, the members of the Kent New Technology Institute consortium and the wider JISC community.