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RSC NewsFeed – September 21st 2004

Lots of material to get your teeth into in this NewsFeed issue from your two RSCs . You can pitch for some funding, join JISC as a Collections Representative, hoover up some free online resources and lots more! There should be something for everyone in this issue, which aims to bring you the best of what’s happening in the fast-moving world of teaching and learning technologies. Whether you’re happy or disappointed with NewsFeed, please help us to help you by offering feedback through our website at www.rsc-ne-scotland.ac.uk/rscne/contact.html.

Now read on…

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Money, Money, Money ….. Possible Funding Opportunities for your College?
Invitation to Learning Resource Centre & Library Staff
Free On-Line Learning Resources!
Measuring Emotional Intelligence OnLine
KnowUK Updates
Whassup??

· Adult Learning Report

· GCSE English Online

· Disability Discrimination Act : Time to Get Equal!

And Finally : Of Mice and Men (and Women) …
Training & Events from the RSCs

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Recent JISC-supported Funding Opportunities

UKERNA call for wireless networking case studies

UKERNA (the JISC-funded organisation which manages the UK high-speed computer network on behalf of FE and HE) in conjunction with the JANET Wireless Advisory Group have issued an open call for wireless networking case studies. If you have an interesting example from your own institution, there may be funding of up to £1,000 available to help you develop a case study. Further details are available from: http://www.ja.net/development/network_access/wireless/wag/opencall.html

FE-specific Support Material

JISC would like to invite tenders for the development of Web /CD-ROM delivered, FE specific support materials, highlighting the JISC Collections to specific FE subject areas. The aim of the Exemplars is to demonstrate and inspire use of JISC collections, but not to create materials outside the scope of resources available to most practitioners. More information on JISC Collections can be found at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/collections . Funding of up to £100,000 (plus VAT) is available for this work. The deadline for proposals is 12 noon on Friday 15 October 2004. The full Invitation

to Tender can be found on the JISC website at:

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=funding_collections_exemplars

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Invitation to Learning Resource Centre & Library Staff

In order to improve communications between JISC Collections and the education community, JISC would like to invite Learning Resource Centre and Library staff to join the JISC Collections Representatives list. The JISC Collection Representatives will be the first to receive information from JISC Collections and will be kept completely up to date about consultations, new resources and renewal details of existing JISC agreements. Representatives are expected to be points of contact within their institutions, ensuring their colleagues receive relevant and appropriate information. It is possible to nominate more than one person from your institution, if you wish. Nominations may be submitted by using the online form at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=form&formid=3848046861

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Free On-Line Learning Resources!

Open Access Publishing Agreement Extended

The ever-increasing cost of subscribing to research journals is a major concern to most educational institutions. An alternative is the ‘open access’ publishing model, which offers authors the chance to see their work published for a fee while offering readers the ability to download articles free of charge. One of the leading Open Access publishers is BioMed Central, which provides peer-reviewed research work in biomedical research. Their philosophy is that “open access to research is central to rapid and efficient progress in science and that subscription-based access to research is hindering rather than helping scientific communication.”

JISC and BioMed Central have just announced the renewal of an agreement which gives all UK universities membership of BioMed Central until September 2005. Through this, UK higher education staff can continue to publish their work without incurring a direct article-processing charge, while the resulting research material, drawn from more than 100 journals, can be accessed and downloaded free of charge by both HE and FE institutions. BioMed’s website can be accessed at http://www.biomedcentral.com/ . Background coverage of the open access issue can be found at http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,1265197,00.html.

Open Source VLE software

The IT equivalent of open access publishing is ‘open source’ software, such as Open Office or Hot Potatoes. The Creation of Study Environments (COSE) Project at Staffordshire University, which was originally developed under JISC funding, offers open source Virtual Learning Environment software which is freely available to download. The Project released version 2.1 of COSE during the summer, which has some major enhancements improving accessibility and content packaging, while remaining committed to maintaining interoperability standards. Further releases, including a fully open source COSE 3 with an entirely new architecture are also being developed. Information about the new release(s) can be found by going to: http://www.staffs.ac.uk/COSE/ and choosing "How to get COSE". The new versions include outputs developed under a number of subsequent and current JISC programmes and therefore will continue to be freely available to the UK FE/HE community.

Merlot links up with WebCT and Blackboard

Merlot is a free and open repository of over 10,000 peer-reviewed online learning materials, created and supported by a community of several thousand members (http://www.merlot.org/Home.po). Merlot reviews resources, acts as a portal providing links to the websites hosting materials and also has an ‘Editor’s Choice’ which recommends the best resources collected across the year. Users can also see how many other users have downloaded a given resource into their own collections, which gives a comparative ‘popularity rating’ measure. Here, for example, is ‘DNA from the beginning’ , an Editor’s Choice animated tutorial on DNA, genes, and heredity (http://www.dnaftb.org/). Both Blackboard and WebCT have recently announced partnerships with Merlot to make it easier for Merlot resources to be used within either learning environment.

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Measuring Emotional Intelligence On-Line

The eLearning Alliance are presenting their annual Scottish eLearning Lecture on 26^th October at Napier University in Edinburgh. The lecture is entitled ‘OnLine Emotions’ and will be presented by American psychologist Dr Richard Majors, who will look at developing on-line techniques for working with Emotional Intelligence, based on Dr Majors’ work with the Teacher Empathy programme for Scottish teachers. Full details of the event can be found on the eLearning Alliance website at

http://www.elearningalliance.org/events/event_viewer.cfm?id=593.

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KnowUK Updates

KnowUK, the popular information database used by many institutions and supported by JISC, has announced a range of updates and new material. They have added a ‘Train the Trainer’ pack for FE and HE subscribers, which will enable institutions to run their own in-house training sessions with resource and teaching staff, and to incorporate the materials into student induction programmes. Updated content has also been added across the range of databases incorporated into the resource, such Who’s Who in Scotland and Scottish Parliamentary Biographies. They may have trouble keeping up with Alex Salmond though ….

Check out the changes in your Learning Resource Centre, or at http://www.proquest.co.uk/products/know_uk.html and http://www.knowuk.co.uk/goHome.do

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Whassup …..?

Adult Learning Report

A new social research report analyses Scottish data from a 2002 survey of adult learners, and comments on a range of issues including participation, information about learning opportunities, access, outcomes of learning and the role of new technology. The report from the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) is divided into chapters, which look at public engagement in post-school learning in Scotland and how people learn about learning opportunities. Researchers for ‘The Elusive Nature of the Learning Society: a profile of adult participation in education and training in Scotland’ also looked at the diversity of learning opportunities: where people choose to learn, the duration of learning, motivation, and what people choose to learn. Other topics include, finance, access and barriers, attitudes to learning and future plans and the role of new technology. The results are reported for the total sample, and then broken down by gender, social class and current learning status. The report can be accessed at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/library5/lifelong/enls-00.asp

GCSE English OnLine : Sheffield OnLine students overtake their face-to-face colleagues

For the third year running students on the Sheffield College's one year Online GCSE English course, have produced outstanding results, with 83 candidates achieving the following (national average comparisons are given in brackets): A*/A - 40% (14.7%); B - 47% (18.6%); C - 13% (26.6%). The retention rate this year was 77%, which is 5% better than for the equivalent face-to-face course. Of the 25 who did not complete the course, 10 now plan to do it in the coming year. Alongside Online GCSE English the college is also running an exceptionally successful "blended" pre-GCSE English course and, this year, will be piloting an Online AS English Language/Literature course. In addition, staff from the Belfast Institute (the largest FE college in Northern Ireland) will be teaching a version of the Sheffield College's course, hosted in Sheffield, but with an Irish prose section which has been written by staff from Belfast Institute.

The project home page is at :

 http://my.sheffcol.ac.uk/index.cfm?ParentID=E1F01836-1241-4130-9497-196FBF41B64A

1^st October 2004 : Time to Get Equal!

Barriers to education mean that disabled people are more than twice as likely as non-disabled people to have no formal academic or vocational qualifications, according to the Office for National Statistics Labour Force Survey published in the  summer of 2003. For this reason and for many more, the government has passed the DDA (Disability Discrimination Act), which comes into force in just a week's time - 1st October. Colleges have been preparing for this for quite a while now, and many have been running development activities to prepare staff for the changes. To remind yourself about the DDA, its aims and implications, all in plain language, check out the ‘Time to Get Equal’ site at : http://www.timetogetequal.org.uk/ and also be sure to look at the TechDis site at http://www.techdis.ac.uk/ ,which is funded by JISC to guide practitioners through the technology-based support available in this complex and sensitive area.

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And Finally : Of Mice and Men (and Women) …

Are you a practical, sophisticated or expressive IT user? You may not know the answer to this question – you may not particularly care – but Microsoft claims to know, based on the type of mouse you use everyday with your PC. To answer a need none of us knew that we had, they have just launched the first ‘designer’ mouse, designed by Philippe Starck, and badged as the ‘S+arck mouse’ (find out more about the beastie at http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/insideit/story/0,13270,1305107,00.html).

Whether you’re a practical, sophisticated or expressive ILT practitioner (and hopefully, you’re all three) the RSCs have the course you’re looking for to develop your skills further. Take time to look through the next section, and see what’s available.

Mice for all types of participants will be provided!

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Training & Events

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

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