Curriculum delivery call: Funded projects : JISC

Curriculum delivery call: Funded projects

Curriculum Delivery Call

The JISC e-Learning Programme invited proposals for projects in Circular 08/08 for projects who wish to transform how they deliver and support learning across a curriculum area through the effective use of technology, in response to a particular challenge faced by the discipline(s), department(s) or institution(s) involved.

A total of 65 bids were received for this call, reflecting the high level of interest in this work, which included 9 proposals from Further Education colleges seeking Becta funding (available for up to 2 projects).

A total of 15 projects were funded, 13 through JISC funding, and 2 by Becta (each led by a Further Education College).

Funded Proposals

The proposals from the projects are available below. The projects start in November 2008, and will complete by October 2010. The programme is supported by a central Support and Synthesis project which is managed by JISC infoNet with contributions from JISC Advisory Services and Innovation Centres.

For further information on this programme, please contact Lisa Gray.

Lead Institution	Summary	Funded Proposal
Newcastle University	Navigable Dynamic Learning Maps will be developed and evaluated to assist students and staff in actively mapping learning by drawing on formal curricular and personalised learning records, supported by easy to use facilities to add and rate resources, and tools to support discussion and reflection. These maps will fuse both ‘semantic web’ and ‘Web 2.0’ approaches, building on established technologies and standards to provide ‘mash-ups’ of resources and curriculum information (managed learning environments) and personal learning records (ePortfolios/blogs).
Kingston College	This project aims to develop and evaluate models of good practice in using technology to transform the teaching, learning and assessment in higher-level business education delivered at Kingston College in partnership with Kingston University. It will involve supporting learners through the use of interactive online resources; enriching learning and teaching through the use of mobile technology; extending the role of e-learning through blended curriculum delivery models; and supporting teaching staff through an e-supported peer observation scheme.
University of Westminster	This project will enhance curriculum delivery through the development of an innovative assessment feedback system. Existing e-based technologies (currently available through the existing VLE) will be used in an innovative way to develop an integrated process which will collate feedback, guide student reflections and facilitate their use of feedback to improve performance and inform their ensuing aspirations.
University of Bristol	This project aims to transform the delivery of laboratory based courses in the biosciences by deploying and evaluating a personalised learning space. Today’s larger and more diverse learner cohort coupled by the decreasing unit of resource has tended to make laboratory sessions more facile and ‘cookbook’-like. It is the aim of the project to transform lab-based courses so that they realise their potential to be active and discovery-led, through the provision of tools that allow learners to interact with and contextualise the tasks to be accomplished within a multi-layered virtual environment.
University of Leicester	This project aims to develop advanced delivery, presentation and assessment processes to enhance the work-based learning experience for students studying remotely. They aim to demonstrate the practical marriage of sound approaches in delivery with new technologies and work-based pedagogies for learning support, communication and assessment of professional adult learners from commencement to completion of study. The project will support three programmes of study to delivery peer-enabled, work-based, professional development by driving delivery through collaborative group work and ‘e-tivities’, as well as offering the three programmes three innovative approaches – e-books, weekly pedagogical podcasts and deployment of the Second Life Media Zoo.
Kingston University	This project will develop the idea of learning beyond the institution by developing discipline-based approaches to the enhancement and student-ownership of fieldwork and placements. In particular, the project will integrate outcomes from previous projects on mobiles, web 2.0, and learner experience in order to focus on issues of isolation, interaction, reflection and feedback for students undertaking fieldwork and placements. This will be achieved through a partnership between students, employers and tutors.
The Open University	This project will construct a virtual atelier that combines well established practice in art and design education with new opportunities presented by ICT to create a powerful new approach to learning and teaching design. It is founded on the delivery of three core design courses and their integration in a new design programme. The project platform will be OpenLearn, the Open University’s open content initiative plus other elements of the VLE such as Web 2.0 tools (e.g. videoconferencing and social networking applications), knowledge mapping software and a virtual design studio.
University of Exeter	This project looks to address the challenges faced by the University’s flagship Business School as it enters a phase of student expansion and international diversification. Drawing on, and supported by the Carnegie Institute’s Integrative Learning Project the project aims to foster students’ abilities to integrate learning over time, across courses, and between academic extra curricular, community and personal life. Technology will provide an integrative framework through which learners will be able to connect higher level skills, knowledge and experiences drawing on multiple sources. Pedagogic tools, including technology supported communities of learning, technology-enhanced assessment and feedback, and e-portfolios (e-PDP) are at the heart of the project.
Middlesex University	This project will address a recurrent problem in design education, that students are sometimes disengaged from key ‘creative conversations’ and that this problem can be exacerbated by learning technologies. The project will deploy trial ‘information spaces’ that will provide learners with the appropriate artefacts and modes of interacting with a learning situation, and with their peers and tutors, to enable them to engage more flexibly and effectively in conversations characterised by innovation and reflective, critical thinking. Key technological components will be the management and display of design information and critical feedback across appropriate display surfaces; the capture in appropriate media of significant design information; and the ability to replay, annotate and reflect upon such captured content.
St George's University of London	St. George’s, University of London currently delivers a problem-based learning curriculum for its undergraduate medicine course, which is paper-based, linear and inflexible. This project aims to use recently-developed technologies to assist in the creation of a more interactive and integrated model for curriculum delivery in medicine. This will include interactive patient cases which provide students with the opportunity to make realistic decisions and explore the consequences of their actions. The intention is to create a more adaptive, personalised, competency-based style of learning which more closely matches the role of practitioners.
University of Oxford	This project aims to implement new strategies to create improved curriculum delivery models that allow the Department of Continuing Education to respond more flexibly to stakeholders’ needs. The project will develop and pilot a series of technology-enabled delivery models and policies and strategies to embed these new delivery solutions on an ongoing basis.
Coventry University	The project is looking to address the challenge of the need to provide students with academic writing support. They will develop a pilot implementation of the new approach including online writing tutorials and sample stand-alone writing resources and teaching materials, in paramedic science and economics. They will then roll this out all areas of work.
University of Hertfordshire	This project is responding to institutional and national concerns regarding assessment and feedback. Working with two Schools in the institution, the project will develop assessment for learning activities to enhance the assessment experience for all learners and staff in the schools. Building on the curriculum development activities within their Blended Learning Unit, they will investigate and incorporate ICT to improve effectiveness and efficiency of assessment practices.
College of West Anglia	The project will establish and sustain an Internet TV Station to enrich curriculum delivery by providing enhanced resourcing and a diversity of learning experiences for learners on the First and National Diploma in Film and Television Media Production, ‘A’ Level Media and Film Studies, and on the colleges pre-journalism courses with subsequent extension to support the 14-16 Diploma in Creative and Media. The project will create a realistic fully operational TV production and broadcast environment in which learners are able to develop media skills underpinned by relevant subject knowledge.
Lewisham College	This project will address the national challenge – the introduction of the new diplomas. The key challenge is that it is delivered through a shared responsibility and in a variety of locations between schools, the College and employers. They will address issues such as timetabling, data management, tutorial planning, access to support, and monitoring progress from different locations. The Learner Portal will bring together a wide range of existing college systems, as well as introducing new functionality to provide Diploma stakeholders with a ‘one stop shop’ for all aspects of the course.