We had the Feb meeting this week. A couple of people couldn't make it but sent updates. The biggest problem recently is that our HIVE guru has been on holiday for 3 weeks and so work has practically stopped, albeit temporarily. Things are back to normal now and so things should start moving on getting documents into Hive. This has got to a point now where we need to start playing with real data and working out if our descriptions actually work.
We have been concentrating more on the "models" and "fast-track" side of the project recently. Christa has come up with a set of starting points or categories for her approaches or models based around the follwing:
• Structure
• Delivery
• Content
• Interactivity
• Assessment
• Resourcing
• Support
We think it'll be a good idea (given the time left on the project) to concentrate on delivery, interactivity and support for now. We can see how the interactivity planned on a course will influence the support needed. If we can marry this to templates then we may be able to see a "real" way in which it may work and we could present it to our QIS and ask if we can pilot it. The idea being that we target a validation of an award being led by an experienced team that have previously validated a similar award. I need to think this through more as it is still formulating as an idea, it may take some time!
I also sent a short description of the project to Rob at Netskills so we can demo it at the JISC meeting in March in Edinburgh. We should have something to actually demo by then, the Community of practice is up and running and it shouldn't take much to put in the links.
We also have started to look at evaluation and I had a quick look at the final report templates. I ran away.
Wednesday, 11 February 2009
Tuesday, 20 January 2009
Snail's pace but still moving!
Last week I showed the DIVAS presentation to people from Ashton and Burton Colleges as part of an Enable project meeting. They seemed interested so I've sent them invitations to the Validation Support Network (VSN)in NING. Interestingly this week we found out that not all the colleges can see the VSN site properly, at one of the SURF colleges no pictures were displayed.
Things are still moving, albeit slowly, I wish I could spend more time on the project but I suspect all people involved in projects wish that! I'm going to a Computing & Engineering faculty meeting to talk about the project next week. I have already sounded some of them out about the idea of auto-populated validation documents and they were very keen so it'll be interesting to speak to them. I'm changing the presentation to reflect the change of direction so I'll see how well it goes.
I also have a meeting next week with Fleur to talk about how exactly she wants the colleges to use the VSN to support the Enable project. It may mean somebody needs to do some training, it may mean talking to the colleges about how they let their staff use social networking software, it may mean trouble at' mill!
Things are still moving, albeit slowly, I wish I could spend more time on the project but I suspect all people involved in projects wish that! I'm going to a Computing & Engineering faculty meeting to talk about the project next week. I have already sounded some of them out about the idea of auto-populated validation documents and they were very keen so it'll be interesting to speak to them. I'm changing the presentation to reflect the change of direction so I'll see how well it goes.
I also have a meeting next week with Fleur to talk about how exactly she wants the colleges to use the VSN to support the Enable project. It may mean somebody needs to do some training, it may mean talking to the colleges about how they let their staff use social networking software, it may mean trouble at' mill!
Thursday, 8 January 2009
Happy New Year!
Bit belated I know, but meant nonetheless.
Not as much to catch up on as time suggests what with the xmas break and all, but still we have progress. Things on the HIVE front are looking good. Sam and Sean have worked really hard and Hive has initial version of xcri installed , (it can't cope with attributes only elements so if we need to export as xcri we will need to work on this, this is the royal "we" of course!) They think it'll only be a matter of weeks until they can release a version to Chris and his colleagues in Quality to have a look at.
The meeting with the AMD academics didn't go ahead, in fact the response to my email asking for meetings with academics who are planning validations was very disappointing. I will try once more and if it still doesn't work I'll put plan B into action.
Plan C on the other hand has had a very good reception. Everybody I've spoken to about populating pre-formatted validation documents from Thesis thinks it is a brilliant idea. I suspect its because it isn't 1 persons' idea but an idea formulated over time by everyone. I've asked Ian Watts (he knows Thesis better than the rest of us)if he'll give us a hand and he has agreed so I think this is the way to go.
Christa is now in a position to start thinking about the models side of the project so things should start moving on this soon.
At the Jan meeting people seemed quite happy with what they need to be getting on with and I'm planning on meeting with individuals this month to make sure everyone has everything they need to get on with things.
New years resolution is to get back to writing the blog regularily so don't forget to come back!!!!
Not as much to catch up on as time suggests what with the xmas break and all, but still we have progress. Things on the HIVE front are looking good. Sam and Sean have worked really hard and Hive has initial version of xcri installed , (it can't cope with attributes only elements so if we need to export as xcri we will need to work on this, this is the royal "we" of course!) They think it'll only be a matter of weeks until they can release a version to Chris and his colleagues in Quality to have a look at.
The meeting with the AMD academics didn't go ahead, in fact the response to my email asking for meetings with academics who are planning validations was very disappointing. I will try once more and if it still doesn't work I'll put plan B into action.
Plan C on the other hand has had a very good reception. Everybody I've spoken to about populating pre-formatted validation documents from Thesis thinks it is a brilliant idea. I suspect its because it isn't 1 persons' idea but an idea formulated over time by everyone. I've asked Ian Watts (he knows Thesis better than the rest of us)if he'll give us a hand and he has agreed so I think this is the way to go.
Christa is now in a position to start thinking about the models side of the project so things should start moving on this soon.
At the Jan meeting people seemed quite happy with what they need to be getting on with and I'm planning on meeting with individuals this month to make sure everyone has everything they need to get on with things.
New years resolution is to get back to writing the blog regularily so don't forget to come back!!!!
Friday, 28 November 2008
What can we do that would really help?
It's been a frustrating few weeks with people unable to get to meetings and too many scheduled meetings at odd times of the day! One interesting meeting Sam and I had was with the Corporate information team in charge of THESIS. The good news was that the information we want is stored in Thesis and it's relatively easy to get out. The bad news is that the information isn't put into the system until after it's been through validation.
I can see why administrative staff don't want to enter information into the system if it's going to need to be edited later and would rather wait until it's signed off. But you can change the information in Thesis (well most of it) and I wondered if it would actually save them time in the long run if it means updated documents can be easily run-off? I think the only way to find out is to have a go.
I have a meeting with some people from the AMD faculty in a couple of weeks and wonder if it may be worth asking them to work with us on this? It may mean quite a lot of work for us as we would have to run the system alongside their normal processes and we couldn't expect them to do it on their own. If this works it will be brilliant and with a shift in working practices around the university could make life so much easier for the people who have to actually collate all the validation materials.
The other courses we have targeted haven't replied yet so I may send them a gentle reminder this afternoon and see if we can get them on board.
Next week we have a DIVAS team meeting and Christa, our new team member will be joining us properly for the first time. Christa will be looking at building models based around good practice for the project.
The interim report for the project for JISC is due and I've made a start on it. As it's due in by Dec I may have to get a move on!
I can see why administrative staff don't want to enter information into the system if it's going to need to be edited later and would rather wait until it's signed off. But you can change the information in Thesis (well most of it) and I wondered if it would actually save them time in the long run if it means updated documents can be easily run-off? I think the only way to find out is to have a go.
I have a meeting with some people from the AMD faculty in a couple of weeks and wonder if it may be worth asking them to work with us on this? It may mean quite a lot of work for us as we would have to run the system alongside their normal processes and we couldn't expect them to do it on their own. If this works it will be brilliant and with a shift in working practices around the university could make life so much easier for the people who have to actually collate all the validation materials.
The other courses we have targeted haven't replied yet so I may send them a gentle reminder this afternoon and see if we can get them on board.
Next week we have a DIVAS team meeting and Christa, our new team member will be joining us properly for the first time. Christa will be looking at building models based around good practice for the project.
The interim report for the project for JISC is due and I've made a start on it. As it's due in by Dec I may have to get a move on!
Tuesday, 18 November 2008
November project meetings
It's been ages since my last blog, time seems to have taken one of those leaps recently. Since the last blog we've had the Nov DIVAS meeting much of which was spent discussing the project plan, the idea of the 'fast track' and ended up with us discussing what could be produced by the team as a tangible benefit. We were going to talk about describing objects but we did this in a separate meeting later on in the week.
The project seems to be running to plan and the idea that the 'fast track process would mean producing smoother administration and production of validation materials with guidance should work. Running the pilot of the fast track process along with the project now seems to be too ambitious. As a substitute what we have done is target a group of awards, all due to run in Sept 09 and we will track them and their progress through validation, hopefully ending up with a very real 'rich picture' of validation at Staffs University.
The tangibles we thought about involve using the information stored in Thesis (the university main system) to populate template validation documents. This went down well with the steering group who I met later on in the week. Apparently QIS have tried to introduce template documents before but with no great take-up, perhaps this could be the added benefit that would induce the faculties to use them?
Not much to report from the steering group meeting, they seem happy with the project and its direction. They're also happy with the idea of the 'fast track' process and hopefully our new eLearning Models coordinator will be in a position to start work on this next month. The group reminded us about the Xcri project (run by Manchester Met) and thought it might be useful to look at the Academic Planning Project being run by Paul Baron and Steve Wyn Williams at the university.
At the end of the week we had another meeting to discuss object descriptions, I won't go into detail here as Ben will have blogged in the technical blog. Suffice to say we came up with a list of the things we though people might search on:
The project seems to be running to plan and the idea that the 'fast track process would mean producing smoother administration and production of validation materials with guidance should work. Running the pilot of the fast track process along with the project now seems to be too ambitious. As a substitute what we have done is target a group of awards, all due to run in Sept 09 and we will track them and their progress through validation, hopefully ending up with a very real 'rich picture' of validation at Staffs University.
The tangibles we thought about involve using the information stored in Thesis (the university main system) to populate template validation documents. This went down well with the steering group who I met later on in the week. Apparently QIS have tried to introduce template documents before but with no great take-up, perhaps this could be the added benefit that would induce the faculties to use them?
Not much to report from the steering group meeting, they seem happy with the project and its direction. They're also happy with the idea of the 'fast track' process and hopefully our new eLearning Models coordinator will be in a position to start work on this next month. The group reminded us about the Xcri project (run by Manchester Met) and thought it might be useful to look at the Academic Planning Project being run by Paul Baron and Steve Wyn Williams at the university.
At the end of the week we had another meeting to discuss object descriptions, I won't go into detail here as Ben will have blogged in the technical blog. Suffice to say we came up with a list of the things we though people might search on:
- Subject (use JACS?)
- Level eg BA (Hons)
- Validation date
- Face-to-face or distance Learning
- Site of delivery
- Form of assessment perhaps?
- F/T, P/T etc
- Faculty/School
- Award title
- Prof body associated
Tuesday, 28 October 2008
Fast-Tracks
Didn't blog last Friday as I was in meetings for most of the day. In the morning I went to an Enable project meeting. I gave them a short presentation about the DIVAS project and arranged to go out see them at Newcastle College in Nov.
Chris sent me the list of contacts for the awards we decided to target, as soon as I have an award from Health I'll contact them. One we looked at and rejected was a collaboration between the Oasis Christian Group and AMD, this week I was contacted by Jeremy Thompson from Oasis who I'm hoping to speak to next week, I think it may add an interesting aspect to the project.
I also had a meeting with the project director Jenny Yorke about what she envisaged the "fast-track" process to be. I've made some notes and I really need to go away and think about it properly before I ask the team to contribute and we decide the best way to tackle it. The scope is wider than I thought, though with the time scale of the project I think I may concentrate on certain aspects while hopefully building into the project room for expansion.
Chris sent me the list of contacts for the awards we decided to target, as soon as I have an award from Health I'll contact them. One we looked at and rejected was a collaboration between the Oasis Christian Group and AMD, this week I was contacted by Jeremy Thompson from Oasis who I'm hoping to speak to next week, I think it may add an interesting aspect to the project.
I also had a meeting with the project director Jenny Yorke about what she envisaged the "fast-track" process to be. I've made some notes and I really need to go away and think about it properly before I ask the team to contribute and we decide the best way to tackle it. The scope is wider than I thought, though with the time scale of the project I think I may concentrate on certain aspects while hopefully building into the project room for expansion.
- To build a body of knowledge based upon the positive outputs from validations and the outcomes of the models project. In the extraction of good practice from both to form new models perhaps?
- Map outcomes of validations to elearning models would be a bonus not the whole picture.
- Have to have named approaches
- Detail about good practice elements e.g. protocols for response times (these have been done by sciences)
- Far more detailed than the high level of the elearning models project.
- Look at Teaching & Learning strategies, student support, - especially module handbooks, decisions made about using new technologies would be interesting area to look at - e.g. if we are using emerging technologies who makes decisions about their suitability, support etc
- Learning Support are particularly interested in producing a generic module handbook
- If someone does want to use blogs for example who decides what at validation?
- Decide on which areas of validation to focus on.
Friday, 17 October 2008
LTEC, Plan 1s and 'Fast-Tracks'
On Monday I was invited to the University Learning & Teaching Enhancement Committee (LTEC) meeting where I gave them a 10 minute presentation about the DIVAS project. It seemed to go down well and I notice that several of them have joined the Validation Support Network (VSN) on NING. We've also now put a link to the VSN on the university Quality Services website as suggested by a member of LTEC.
We're still pluggging away at getting people to use the VSN, we've got over 60 members now and Hamza and Sue managed to persuade one of them to contribute a case study about her experiences of doing Market Research. Hamza and Sue are holding several face-to-face sessions next week to try and get people to contribute towards the community so hopefully people will drop-in!
Chris and I met and went through a couple of the Plan 1s that came in to QIS. We've identified 3 new awards that we will target next week. 1 is a Foundation degree, another is an award that will be delivered by distance learning and the other is a traditional on-site undergraduate award. All of the awards are aiming to run in Sept 2009 so we hoped that by targetting these they would have time to go through a faculty validation before the end of the project. While we were looking at the Plan 1s, I took the opportunity to email all the listed members of staff to remind them about the VSN as they are about to start their validation processes.
So far the project is running to plan and we about to enter the next phase of it where we start looking into the "fast-track" aspects of the project and how we can build upon the eLearning models project that was started 18months ago.
We're still pluggging away at getting people to use the VSN, we've got over 60 members now and Hamza and Sue managed to persuade one of them to contribute a case study about her experiences of doing Market Research. Hamza and Sue are holding several face-to-face sessions next week to try and get people to contribute towards the community so hopefully people will drop-in!
Chris and I met and went through a couple of the Plan 1s that came in to QIS. We've identified 3 new awards that we will target next week. 1 is a Foundation degree, another is an award that will be delivered by distance learning and the other is a traditional on-site undergraduate award. All of the awards are aiming to run in Sept 2009 so we hoped that by targetting these they would have time to go through a faculty validation before the end of the project. While we were looking at the Plan 1s, I took the opportunity to email all the listed members of staff to remind them about the VSN as they are about to start their validation processes.
So far the project is running to plan and we about to enter the next phase of it where we start looking into the "fast-track" aspects of the project and how we can build upon the eLearning models project that was started 18months ago.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)