This issue of NewsFeed opens by introducing the RSC's new Seasonal ONLINE ADVENT CALENDAR! Throughout December, this will bring you day-by-day snippets of useful and amusing information, iced over with the prospect of winning a prize at the end by answering a few simple questions from Santa. We also give you the chance to get on board the Image Engine, our major digital imaging project. There are two new internet resources in the Resource Discovery Network, and we showcase a new site (sicht) for fowk interestit in Scots language and culture. Jings - it's braw! Several projects are looking for your help and participation, we have reports on e-pedagogy and assessment and we highlight one of the biggest collaborative projects of all with Wikipedia, the open-access encyclopaedia. We end with some technical items, drawing reader's attention to Skype and looking at network issues. It's a bumper issue! All we ask in return is that you let us know what you think by giving us feedback on NewsFeed (or any of the RSC services you may have used) through our website at http://www.rsc-ne-scotland.ac.uk/about/contact.php.
In seasonal spirit, the RSC will launch its seasonal online advent calendar from today. This coincides with our freshly redesigned website, and offers readers the day-by-day chance to gather some fascinating facts about JISC services, the work of the RSC, useful websites and software and the brave new world of online learning. Santa will also be there in the shape of our seasonal competition, which will give readers the chance to win a suitably festive prize. Don't miss out - go straight to our new website to see what's behind those mystery windows!
During Autumn 2004, the Regional Support Centre Scotland North & East has been piloting an innovative project - the Image Engine - looking at all aspects of the use of images in teaching and learning, from creating and manipulating original digital images to weaving these together into meaningful, interactive learning resources and reinforcing these with assessments. The first class of 'Image Engineers' ran with the participation of staff from Aberdeen, Glenrothes, Telford, Elmwood, Fife, and JEVC Colleges. The RSC is now collecting applications for the second and third classes of Image Engineers, which will run from January and from April. Invitations to participate are now being extended to ALL 25 COLLEGES in our wide area from Borders to Shetland. If you would like to be considered for this dynamic and practical project, please get the support of your local staff development officer and make your application through the RSC's online application form at http://www.rsc-ne-scotland.ac.uk/ie/
More information on the Image Engine is available at www.rsc-ne-scotland.ac.uk/ie
The RDN is a series of gateways to the internet, arranged across eight subject areas. Each gateway uses ubject specialists to catalogue and evaluate internet-based resources in its own area. New FE Subject Packs have been added to the PSIgate and GEsource portals within the RDN. PSIgate is the physical sciences gateway, which has produced new material about Relativity and Vectors, as well as revising existing material about Acids and Bases. GEsource is the gateway to information about Geography and the Environment, and there is new material here about Coasts. The Resource Discovery Network homepage is at http://www.rdn.ac.uk/ and it's well worth spending time looking through this if you haven't visited it recently.
PSIgate is within the RDN site at http://www.psigate.ac.uk/
GEsource is at http://www.gesource.ac.uk/
Four focused search engines from EEVL, the Internet guide to Engineering, Maths and Computing within the RDN, now let you search the content of over 250 free ejournals. The Computing engine searches 60 freely available full-text ejournals at http://www.eevl.ac.uk/computing/index.htm
The Maths engine covers 28 freely available full-text ejournals at http://www.eevl.ac.uk/eese/eese-math.html
The Engineering engine is the largest of the three, with 160 freely available full-text ejournals available at http://www.eevl.ac.uk/engineering/index.htm
Alternatively, all 250 journals can be searched simultaneously at http://www.eevl.ac.uk/eese/eese-eevl.html
If this headline makes no sense, what you need is SCOTS –the Scottish Corpus of Text and Speech, a new online archive which aims to build a large electronic collection of both written and spoken texts for the languages of Scotland. The archive combines 400 broad Scots and Scottish English texts with a search facility based on word, author, region and time-period, and has taken a team at Glasgow University nearly three years to produce. The resource also includes both video and audio files, complete with supporting transcriptions. The intention is to create and maintain a resource which will allow those interested in Scotland's linguistic diversity, and in Scottish culture and identity, to investigate the languages of Scotland in new ways. Background information on the SCOTs project can be found at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/4052563.stm
The SCOTS homepage is at http://www.scottishcorpus.ac.uk/
Google has launched a new version of its popular search engine aimed at academics and students. Google Scholar allows the user to search for keywords in theses, books, technical reports, university websites and traditional academic publications. The site is available in a beta version at http://www.scholar.google.com/
A background article to the new Google Scholar tool can be found on The Guardian website at http://education.guardian.co.uk/elearning/story/0,10577,1356819,00.html
The SCRAN image database provides fully searchable access to over 300,000 high quality images, animations, sound files and video clips from museums, galleries, archives and the media. It can be used generically - as a substitute for clip art - or for particular learning applications. This resource has been available to education on subscription for the past 5 years, and the JISC Collections Team are now undertaking a sector audit to gauge subscription interest for the next 3-year contract period. Subscription levels will be dependent on the level of interest expressed – so let JISC know if your institution has used the resource, and intends to subscribe again! Sets of materials and case studies already produced by institutions can be viewed at http://scran2004.scran.ac.uk/packs/exhibitions/jisc.php
To trial the resource please contact Neil Fraser,
mailto:neil.fraser@scran.ac.uk or by telephone - 0131 662 1211
To let the Collections Team know whether your institution would be interested in
subscribing to SCRAN, complete the online evaluation format:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=form&formid=706842171
There is no commitment to purchase at this stage.
The Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC) has received funding from the Scottish Executive Digital Inclusion Unit for a project which will equip 2000 learners with new skills. The project aims to improve learner's Information Handling Skills, ICT Skills and Customer Care Skills, which will improve their knowledge and employment prospects. SLIC are keen to work with the Further Education community across Scotland on this project. The project will start in January 2005 and continues until June 2006. If you are interested in taking part, please contact Hazel Lauder, Network Officer, SLIC. E-mail h.lauder@slainte.org.uk Tel 01698 458888.
Assessment is a vital stage in the learning process, but incorporating assessment into online learning has presented some complex issues and problems all of its own. An interesting new report from NESTA FutureLabs aims to present key findings on research in e-assessment; describe current UK government plans, and likely future developments; provide links to interesting examples of e-assessment; offer speculations on possible future developments; and stimulate a debate on the role of e-assessment in assessment, teaching, and learning. The report can be viewed at http://www.nestafuturelab.org/research/reviews/10_01.htm
'Linking Thinking' is a significant report on Online Learning which has been published by the Australian Government's department of Education, Science and Training. The report is set in the Australian context, but many of its observations and conclusions are equally relevant to the UK. The full report is a chunky 350 pages, but an interesting overview is available at http://www.dest.gov.au/research/publications/linking_thinking/exec_summary.htm
The educational implications of mobile phone and personal digital assistant technologies are the subject of a new report from TechWatch (the JISC service which tracks the educational implications of technological developments). The report considers the cultural significance of these technologies to young people, and reviews the factors which may affect their educational application. Background details, and a link to the report itself can be found at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=news_mobiledevices
JISC infoNethas announced the launch of its latest infoKit on Risk Management. In education, as in any other environment, it is impossible to avoid risk-taking. Risk Management is fundamentally about making better decisions and the infoKit has been designed to help users achieve this. It has been produced as a supplement to JISC InfoNet's popular Project Management infoKit and will help users evaluate their own approach to risk and give them some suggestions on how to manage the risks they do decide to take. The infoKit offers practical advice and suggests ways in which a more planned and systematic approach to risk can ensure the success of systems projects and open up new opportunities. See www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/InfoKits for more information.
Several colleges and universities in Scotland are planning for new campus builds. JISC has recently commissioned the University of Birmingham to report upon the ways in which learning technologies (virtual learning environments, mobile technologies, wireless LANs and broadband - to name just a few) are influencing the design of physical learning spaces in further and higher education institutions. Through this study the project hopes to bring together examples of the wide range of current practice, publish a set of guidelines for managers and provide some possible scenarios for the future. A key element of this study involves consulting with senior staff and reviewing the strategic developments in this area. If your institution is using learning spaces in innovative ways then the project would like to hear from you. Contact the Project Manager, Steve Hewett at.j.r.hewett@bham.ac.uk
A cornerstone of 'constructivist' learning theory is the notion that learners do not simply absorb given information passively, but create knowledge for themselves by interacting and collaborating with others. So far, so good - but how does this work in practice? There are several interesting websites that illustrate this, and show how collaborative learning (for example, through threaded discussion on a VLE) can work.
Wikipedia is a 'free content' encyclopedia which is written, amended and edited collaboratively by contributors from around the world. Anyone can be a contributor – it could even be you! This open, organic method of composition is the opposite of that adopted by conventional encyclopedias such as Britannica, and raises interesting questions about the status and reliability of knowledge. Some of these are covered in a background Guardian article at http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1335837,00.html Wikipedia itself can be accessed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About
The AnswerBank isdescribed as a 'community question and answer site' andwas conceived 'as a central point where users can ask genuine questions and receive helpful answers, and, on occasion to provide a forum for debate on issues of general interest'. Rather like the Q&A sections which appear in some newspapers and invite readers to respond to the problems featured, this relies on responses from contributors to build up a range of possible answers via threaded discussion. Exasperating? Fascinating?? Judge for yourself by going to http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/How_it_Works/
Skype is a 'peer-to-peer' (P2P) network application which allows users to make and receive internet voice calls easily and with high sound quality. Unlike conventional client/server networks, which depend on the existence of centralised storage and processing resources to operate, P2P networks grow 'organically' by using each participant’s own computing resources to add computing power and bandwidth. P2P networks thus avoid the large costs associated with centralised resourcing (which is one of the reasons why they have been so successful in providing ‘alternative’, consumer-driven distributive networks in the online music marketplace, with applications such as Napster and Kazaa). Skype claims to have largely solved the quality problems which have bedevilled voice-over-internet telephony up until now, and to have developed a uniquely consumer-friendly interface which makes using the product as simple as possible. Other critics disagree, pointing to potential security problems when such P2P technology is combined with existing client/server networks within an organisation. However, the potential of unlimited free international and regional telephone calls between online users has excited a lot of interest in the technical and educational worlds.
For more on this developing topic, go to the following links :
Skype Website : http://www.skype.com/products/explained.html
A technical perspective ::http://networks.silicon.com/telecoms/0,39024659,39124456,00.htm
An educational perspective : http://www.scilt.stir.ac.uk/Languagesnews/ICT/ict20033.htm
On 7th December, 2004, the JANET nameservers will be configured to respond only to requests for which they are authoritative. They will no longer resolve general DNS queries. UKERNA has contacted all JANET organisations at present using the nameservers as resolvers, so there should be no operational impact. If users anticipate any problem, then contact Rodney Tillotson of JANET-CERT at R.Tillotson@ukerna.ac.uk or by ‘phone on 01235 822 255.
A call for proposals has been issued by UKERNA for the provision of advice to JANET connected organisations on network reliability. The main aim of this work will be to help organisations identify and understand the risks facing their local networks and their connection(s) to JANET. The call can be found at http://www.ja.net/itt/network-reliability.pdf
JISC offers regular funding opportunities across both FE and HE, generally by calling for project proposals which tie in with work areas identified by the various JISC Committees. You can check these opportunities, or look at the work of completed projects, on the JISC website at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=funding
A full listing of all the workshops currently being run by both RSCs in Scotland is available at:
RSC Scotland North and East www.rsc-ne-scotland.ac.uk/rscsupport/training.html
RSC Scotland South and West www.rsc-sw-scotland.ac.uk/events.htm
These courses and others are listed on the Scotfeict website at: www.scotfeict.ac.uk/events which also lists other staff development opportunities for FE staff within Scotland.
Nationwide training opportunities are available on the NLN events database at www.nln.ac.uk/events