Only Connect
The Only Connect Project is based at the University of Bolton.
This project will create a new communications environment to serve the needs of a student body which is characterised by social diversity, a high degree of distribution across collaborative partners, part-time and work-based patterns of study and loose social connectedness totraditional ‘campus life’. This environment will strengthen the bonds between individual learners and the University which will transcend existing (and in many cases outmoded) formsof academic communication, engagement, representation and support.
The Only Connect project will enable the university to implement and evaluate the next stages of the wider university drive towards eCommunication by:
- creating an Open Messaging system for staff-students communication, accessible on their terms, their technology and at their convenience;
- providing an online automated information portal for personal and individual timetables utilising user defined technologies, and further enhance the use of the Open messaging system to notify students of changes; In the broader institutionally supported eCommunications strategy the university aims to:
- harness the use of personalised technologies and Web 2.0 systems to radically improve student access to learning and academic and personal support;
- model, test and evaluate new generation technology-driven solutions to the issues of student engagement and communication, which informs the university’s future drive towards embracing user technologies.
This, in turn, will begin to address some of the issues surrounding providing an online, automated student support system. that enable students, regardless of their location or pattern of study, to access a wider range of automated information, advice and guidance (IAG) with appropriate signposting to additional campus based resources;
Project Staff
- Patrick O'Reilly - Project Director, Head of Information Systems and Technology, University of Bolton
- Hilary Birtwhistle - Project Manager