JISC

Introduction

The aim of this project is to raise the level of Internet information and research skills in Higher Education (HE) and key skills in ICT in Further Education (FE) by re-purposing the RDN Virtual Training Suite (VTS) to assist widespread integration of this JISC resource into Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) and taught courses. 

The RDN Virtual Training Suite consists of 55 “teach yourself” tutorials on the Web, designed to teach Internet information skills for different subjects taught in universities and colleges.  The 11 tutorials published in June 2002 are designed to meet the needs of FE and in particular to support the development of key skills in ICT. 

Web statistics and user feedback (see Appendices) indicate that the RDN Virtual Training Suite is a highly popular JISC resource, yet its uptake in teaching programmes and VLEs is still in the early stages. We would like to maximise the investment placed in the development of this resource by offering teachers and lecturers tools and techniques that can be quickly and easily adopted in a range of courses and VLEs, and to promote speedy and widespread adoption in FE and HE courses across the country.  

Aims and Objectives

Aims:

• Look at the process for re-purposing tutorials developed for HE into a tutorial format designed to serve the needs of FE
• Establish best pedagogical practice in the use of the VTS by lecturers and librarians in taught courses (in both HE and FE)
• Investigate “chunking” and re-packaging of existing VTS tutorials to create new VLE compliant learning objects (in line with existing and emerging standards such as IMS / SCORM)
• Investigate the best way to “plug-in” VTS tutorials into different VLE software packages
• Share the technical and pedagogic solutions developed with the wider community

Objectives:   This project will deliver:

• Five new VTS tutorials for FEstudents (based on re-working 5 HE tutorials) for FE students and lecturers across the country to use
• Case studies from practitioners: describing good pedagogic practice when using the VTS in taught courses so that others can model teaching on this
• A series of new VLE compliant learning objects based on the VTS materials for use in VLEs nationwide
• Test-bed examples of using VTS learning objects in VLEs: with trials in Blackboard, WebCT and Fretwell Downing VLEs. 
• “Guidelines on using the RDN Virtual Training Suite in taught courses and VLEs”: a set of pedagogic and technical guidelines for lecturers, librarians and learning technologists in HE and FE (based on the work above)
• A dissemination programme (in collaboration with the Programme, JISC-ASSIST, the RDN, RSCs and LTSNs) designed to ensure widespread take-up of the VTS resources in taught courses and VLEs across the country.

The final report for this project is appended to this page as a WORD file.