JISC

Overview Project Final Report

The University of Worcester believes that the university should play an active role in the development of student employability skills. The University has run a module in its degree programme called “Managing and Communicating Information using IT” since 2003. The JACS description for this course would be X220 Study skills. Though the amount of e-learning used to deliver this module has increased the university now wishes to re-design the module to increase the flexibility of delivery by including more online learning and more use of digital resources. This module develops study skills and employability skills, integrated with students academic work.

Aims & objectives

• To design and deliver study skills in a blending learning environment to support learners within the HE community from the beginning of their assessment process to the end. It will re-use learning material from:
  • Existing module
  • External resources
  • Intute Informs tutorials
  • OLIVIA (Imperial College, London)
  • InfoTrail@Lboro (Loughborough University)
  • Hot potatoes exercises
  • Material from JORUM

  
  Project methodology

  The Project Manager reports to a group made up of Debbi Boden, Ruth Harrison and Ruth Stubbings (the “Management Committee”). The chairman of the Management Committee is Debbi Boden of the University of Worcester. The Project Manager co-ordinates the implementation of the work plan, contributes to the development and creation of content, manages the development of existing and new content, works in close collaboration with the Management Committee. The Management Committee ensure the proper progress and completion of the tasks. University of Worcester will call on the skills of library and computing staff as well as academic staff as needed.

  
  Anticipated outputs & outcomes

  • Website.
  • Web log which outlines progress of the project.
  • Adaptable HTML information literacy and study skills module Interactive database tutorials.
  • Formative assessment.
  • Teaching materials.
  • Briefing, plus attendance at conferences.
  • Case studies.
  • Demonstrate good practice in blended learning and illustrate the ease with which new material can be created by re-purposing teaching material.
  • Help generate a culture of sharing teaching materials.
  • Give learners the understanding of different types of information available, searching effectively and evaluating the quality of retrieved information.
  • Understanding of plagiarism and the issues surrounding the ethical use of information.
  • Understanding of the principles of academic study and writing.

  
  Technology/Standards used

  • London Pedagogy Planner Tool
  • Microsoft Office applications e.g., Word and Excel
  • Informs tutorial writer
  • Captivate
  • Hot potatoes software
  • Dreamweaver
  • VLEs (Blackboard and Moodle)

  
  Lead institution

  University of Worcester - www.worc.ac.uk

  
  Project partners

  Imperial College London - www.imperial.ac.uk

  Loughborough University - www.lboro.ac.uk

• Create new material
• Place module into VLE and pilot at University of Worcester.
• Evaluate students and staff feedback
• Transfer content to HTML
• Promote use of existing learning material available from repositories such as JORUM by provision of case studies.