NewsFeed | RSCs Scotland
Fortnightly bulletin from the Scottish Regional Support Centres
20th February 07
Welcome to the Shrove Tuesday edition. Start by checking out Wikipedia for the pancake-shaped traditions surrounding today's date.
Then turn to the serious side of Newsfeed, stuffed with up-to-date information on current issues relating to the use of ICT for teaching and learning. As always, we welcome feedback on NewsFeed (or any RSC service you may have used) through the RSC website.
1. JISC News
OSS Watch Briefing - Digital Photography & Images
Open source software for the keen photographer Digital photography for amateurs and professionals alike is booming. Ramón Casero Cañas introduces the idea of workflow in digital photography, before focusing on how to deal with different file formats of interest (JPEG, TIFF and raw) using free and open source software.
Developing the UK's e-infrastructure: major report published
Future growth of the UK economy depends upon the innovation of its researchers, says a working group from the Office of Science and Innovation (OSI). Maintaining the UK's world leadership in research and innovation requires a national e-infrastructure capable of meeting the needs of researchers in the digital age. Without such an e-infrastructure, the development of the UK’s science and research base and the growth of its knowledge-based economy will be seriously impaired. These are some of the findings of a recent major report which sets out the requirements for a national e-infrastructure to help ensure the UK maintains and indeed enhances its global standing in an increasingly competitive world. The report ‘Developing the UK’s e-infrastructure for science and innovation' calls for greater coordination between the key agencies in the field; greater investment in e-infrastructure and a ‘step-change’ in 'national provision and concerted action towards e-infrastructure development.' Without such a 'step-change', the report warns, the UK risks being overtaken by rapidly industrialising countries such as China, India and South Korea. More details available from JISC.
JISC ITT: Review of Accounting & Usage Monitoring with regard to FEC Readiness
The JISC invites tenders for a review of Grid Accounting and Usage Monitoring, in the context of usage amongst the Higher Education community and with regard to Full Economic Costing (FEC) readiness. Funding of up to £50,000 (Inclusive of VAT and related travel and subsistence) is available for the study. Deadline for proposals is 12:00 noon on 27th February, 2007 and the successful bidder should expect to commence work in April, 2007. The final report should be delivered in July, 2007. Full version of the Invitation to Tender.
2. CILIPS First-Line Management Course
CILIP (the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland) is pleased to announce that bookings are open for a workshop taking place on Thursday 26th April in Glasgow. There are 15 places available on this course which seeks to develop awareness of transferable management skills and competencies to meet the demands of a changing professional environment. Costs: £60 members £95 non members. Further information and an online booking form.
3. The Web is Writing Us
An excellent philosophical/anthropological overview of how recent developments in web technologies - particularly web 2.0 - may affect our relationship to society and to the ways in which we organise data. Heavy ideas delivered with a very light touch and well worth the five minutes it takes to view on YouTube.
4. Your chance to contribute to the world's first 'Wiki' novel
Everybody has a novel in them, so they say. Wouldn't it be better, though, for a million people to club together to write one? This is the theory behind an initiative launched recently by Penguin Books, in collaboration with students at De Montfort University in Leicester. They plan to create the world's first 'wiki' novel, fiction that will be concocted online by millions of contributors across the globe. Until the end of the month anyone can join in to help write the novel, which has the provisional title of A Million Penguins. Introductory information and the story so.
5. Paris Students to Receive Free Software
French authorities will give out 175,000 USB memory sticks loaded with open-source software to Parisian high-school students at the start of the next school year. This will give the students, aged 15 and 16, freedom to access their e-mail, browser bookmarks and other documents on computers at school, home, a friend's house or in an Internet café, but at a much lower cost than providing notebook computers for all, according to a spokesman for the Greater Paris Regional Council. The sticks will probably contain the Firefox 2 Web browser, Thunderbird e-mail client, an office productivity suite such as OpenOffice.org 2, an audio and video player, and software for instant messaging but the exact mix will be defined by the company winning the contract to supply the sticks. However, all software used will be open source.
6. Websites on the move
Access to information on technology for learning is set to become even easier as two Becta run websites are moved to become part of the Quality Improvement Agency's (QIA) 'Excellence Gateway'. The sites, Ferl and aclearn.net, will transfer at the end of March 2007 and will join the Adult Learning Institute's good practice database. The move comes as the agencies working in the learning and skills sector recognise the need to streamline the way information is delivered to practitioners.
7. New Report on the impact of e-learning in FE
The Department for Education and Science (DFES) has just released a research paper called e-learning in Further Education: The Impact on Student Intermediate and End-point Outcomes The research identified four critical conditions for effective ILT use:
- availability of adequate ILT equipment
- the need for tutors to use ILT purposefully within a teaching approach based on sound pedagogic understanding and practice –
- tutors' awareness of how to use ILT to support learning and teaching in their subject
- time for tutors to develop their ILT practices, individually and collaboratively.
It also found that as colleges matured in the use of ILT, they focused on embedding it within teaching and learning to improve students' understanding and involvement in learning and in learning how to learn. The report makes several recommendations, including the need for adequate funding for ILT, national or regional networks to share expertise, subject-specific ILT training and support for ILT from senior management. The complete report (pdf file).
8. Trade Tesco Points for an Open University Course
Forget swapping your Tesco vouchers for a bag of groceries. Now shoppers who diligently collect points using their loyalty cards can exchange them for a university degree. A new partnership between the Open University and Tesco will sees shoppers able to pay for all or part of an OU course by exchanging Tesco Clubcard vouchers. The OU is the first university to use the loyalty card scheme as a marketing tool. Tesco shoppers can receive four times the value of their collected vouchers, so for every £10 of vouchers shoppers will receive £40 towards the cost of their OU course. Read the full Guardian article.
9. Extra Energy Efficiency Funding for Tertiary Education
Scotland's colleges and universities are to share in a £4 million fund targeted at making them more energy efficient; it was announced on 6th February. The Scottish Executive’s £20 million Central Energy Efficiency Fund for Local Authorities, NHS Boards and Scottish Water has now been extended to cover Scotland's 59 further and higher education institutions.
10. You can never find a 'digital plumber' when you want one…
Internet technologies are making it cheaper to set up home networks and Britons keen for their homes to be digital playgrounds will soon be able to call on specially-trained tradesmen. An industry association has drawn up qualifications that recognise trade expertise in the technologies used in home entertainment and automation. Cheap hardware and larger personal stores of digital media mean many people are looking to pipe movies, pictures and music around their homes. Educational institutions are already signing up to teach the course. Those who complete the training programme drawn up by the Computing Technology Industry Association emerge as certified Digital Home Technology Integrators. More from the BBC.
11. SQA Consultation on Online Assessment
The SQA (Scottish Qualifications Authority) is currently seeking views on its plans for the development of e-assessment. In March 2005 SQA published a 'Vision and Strategy for e-Assessment', a first comprehensive statement of its thinking and plans in this area. They now plan to publish a revised document in spring 2007 to ensure that the strategy adequately reflects new developments both in education and technology. A first draft of the revised document is currently available on the SQA website and comments are welcome on any aspect of it. Submnit comments by 28 February.
12. Intel Unveils New 'SuperChip'
Chipmaking giant Intel announced Feb. 11 that it has successfully produced a chip the size of a fingernail, capable of processing a mind-boggling 1 trillion calculations a second. The chip, which Intel claims is the fastest ever made, is expected to start being used commercially in around five year. The test chip also demonstrates chipmakers' ability to continue to increase dramatically the number of processors placed on a tiny sliver of silicon. Just 10 years ago, a cluster of supercomputers capable of processing the same amount of calculations took up more than 2,000 square feet and consumed a half-megawatt of electricity.
13. Visual Thesaurus 'Visuwords™ online graphical dictionary'
It's a dictionary! It’s a thesaurus! Great for writers; journalists; students; teachers and artists. The online dictionary is available wherever there’s an internet connection. Visuwords™ is available as a free resource to all patrons of the web. Look up words to find their meanings and associations with other words and concepts.
14. WIDWISAWN
The Confederation of Scottish Mini-Cooperatives (COSMIC) has launched Vol.5 No.1 of Widwisawn, a 'webzine' covering various developments in the Scottish library, museums and archives communities.The latest issue of Widwisawn is available for free via the SAPIENS Electronic Publishing Service.
No.1 features the following contribution: The e-Framework and a service oriented approach
15. Training from the Scottish RSCs
RSC South & West
- 1 Mar 2007: Change Management Workshop
- 5 Mar 2007: Education software to support the needs of students with a variety of support needs (including visual impairment, dyslexia, print impairment and literacy needs)
- 27 Mar 2007: Blogs, Wikis and Social Networking
- 19 Mar 2007: Advanced Animation in PowerPoint
RSC North & East
- 27 Feb 2007: Programming for Web Developers
- 28 Feb 2007: PHP: Primed and Ready
- 1 March 2007: Databases on the Web
- 2 March 2007: Time Management Skills Using Microsoft Outlook
- 27 April: Information Skills and Staff Development: Are you doing enough?
- 11 May 2007: Identifying and preventing plagiarism: Issues for HE tutors in FE colleges
- 11 May 2007: Preventing and detecting plagiarism: Using the TurnitinUK plagiarism detection software
The full listing of all the workshops currently being run by both RSCs in Scotland is available at: