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RSC NewsFeed – 11th March 2004
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This
issue of NewsFeed arrives in your mailbox a little later than our normal
publication
target of Tuesday, thanks to all RSC hands manning the pumps at this
week’s
major conference (see below) Normal
service will be resumed on Tuesday,
23rd
of March.
---------------------------- CONTENTS ------------------------
- Changing the Culture with ICT – Conference
Highlights
- Welcome to Scotland’s Culture –
Fàilte Gu Cultur Alba
- Things you always wanted to know
about FOI but were afraid to ask
- VLE User Group News
- Getting the Picture: Putting your
Images Online
- JISC Conference: Developing Records Management in FE
& HE
- An Introduction to MIMAS
- Using Laptops to Develop Basic
Skills
- “From Little Acorns. . . ”
- Free Offer: Plagiarism:
Prevention, Practice and Policies on the 28th - 30th June 2004
- Training & Events
--------------------------------- 1 -------------------------------
Changing
the Culture with ICT – Conference Highlights
The Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow
on Tuesday 9th March was the setting for this highly successful
conference organised by the two Scottish RSCs. Over 200 delegates from Shetland
to the Solway Firth took part in a full day of presentations
and workshops.
View the conference proceedings, presentations and related materials on the
conference website at:
www.changingtheculture.org.uk/
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--------------------------------- 2 -------------------------------
Welcome to Scotland’s Culture – Fàilte Gu
Cultur Alba
You’ll have had your tea. . .but
if not, there’s a rich menu of satisfying fare at Scotland’s Culture, a one-stop bothie for electronic and physical resources,
presenting the rich diversity of Scottish culture. You can search a selection
of resources covering music, literature, sport and events information. From
what’s going on near you now, to what happened back then, all (Scottish) human
life is here. Check it oot noo oan:
www.scotlandsculture.org
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--------------------------------- 3 -------------------------------
Things you always wanted to know about
Freedom of Information but were afraid to ask
(1) Freedom of Information in Scotland
- The Road to Compliance
A briefing day for Further and
Higher Education in Scotland
on the Act will by presented by the JISC Legal Information Service
and JISC InfoNet at the MacRobert Centre, University
of Stirling, on Thursday 22 April 2004. For full details go to:
www.jisc.ac.uk/legal/index.cfm?name=lis_foi_scot_event_2004
(2) "10 things you
should know about the UK's
Freedom of Information regime"
The Freedom of Information Act
2000, designed to promote greater openness and accountability, comes fully into
force on 1st January 2005.
From that date, everyone will have a legal right to request access to all types
of ‘recorded’ information held by public bodies. The FOI Act covers around
100,000 public authorities such as central and local government, FE and HE, the
police and the NHS. There will be a presumption that the information will have
to be supplied within 20 working days. This very informative paper, by Paul
Pedley, can be viewed by going to . . .
www.freepint.com/issues/050204.htm#feature
. . . .always remembering that the
situation in Scotland is subtly different. A North British slant on FOI can
be found at:
www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/?pageID=198 .
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--------------------------------- 4 -------------------------------
VLE
User Group News
(1) Learnwise User Group Formed
The RSC Scotland South and West
have set up a second VLE user group covering Scottish colleges which have
adopted the Learnwise platform.. The first meeting took place on 27th February at Northern
College in Glasgow
and future meetings will be attended by the Learnwise Account Manager. Issues for
the future include: deployment, training, version migration and materials
uploads.
(2) Other VLE User Groups
Various VLE products are already
in use across Scotland’s
colleges and representatives of colleges sharing common systems meet on a
periodical basis to discuss common issues. To date such groups have proved
useful to institutions deploying the same product, allowing good information
exchange and promoting collaboration. As well as the Learnwise Group, mentioned
above, there are also VLE product groups operating for Blackboard and Teknical.
For further information on the Blackboard Group, please contact RSC Scotland
South & West (support@rsc-sw-scotland.ac.uk). For further information on
the Teknical VLE Group, please contact Kirsten Drysdale (kdrysdale@stevenson.ac.uk) at Stevenson
College, Edinburgh.
The list is still not complete and if there are any further VLE products you’d
like to start a user group for then please get in touch with your RSC.
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--------------------------------- 5 ------------------------------
Getting
the Picture: Putting your Images Online - A Guide for Lecturers
You want to incorporate web-based
materials in your teaching, but don’t have time to become an imaging expert. This
simple, practical image workshop could be for you. It covers the basics of:
·
capturing images
·
organising them
·
optimising them
·
using images within presentations,
VLEs and Web sites.
Workshop exercises will show you
how to convert your pre-existing teaching materials (MS Word and PowerPoint
documents) into Web materials and how to create quick, auto-generated Web pages
from folders of images with a minimum of HTML programming. The day ends with
hints on finding a good web hosting service, how to upload your site and making
it 'live' on the web.
·
Title: Putting your Images Online
- A Guide for Lecturers
·
Venue: Glasgow
School Of Art Library
·
Date: Friday April 16th 2004
·
Details & Online Booking Form:
www.tasi.ac.uk/training/
This workshop is complemented by
two – more specialised - workshops on Image
Optimisation and Colour Management
running at the same Glasgow venue
in April (see the address above for full details).
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--------------------------------- 6 -------------------------------
JISC
Conference: Developing Records
Management in FE & HE
Effective
records management is now a legal requirement and a crucial tool for institutions
to manage assets and function effectively. JISC is actively engaged in raising
the profile of records management within institutions and providing support for
those charged with its implementation.
JISC
is hosting a conference on Friday 21st May 2004 at Barber Surgeon's Hall, Central London.
Target
Audience: * Records Managers
and Archivists
* MIS Officers
* Senior administrators
* Staff with responsibility for FOI,
Data Protection and Records Management
Full
details of the programme, together with an online booking form are available
from:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=event_rm_fehe
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--------------------------------- 7 -------------------------------
An
Introduction to MIMAS
MIMAS
is a JISC/ESRC (European Social Research Council)-supported National Data
Centre providing networked access to a range of information services for
teachers, students and researchers. A series of events is planned for the near
future to demonstrate how these services can be used.
|
An
Introduction to MIMAS Bibliographic Services
|
|
Manchester
|
1st April 2004
|
10:00
-3:00pm
|
Manchester Computing
|
Uni
of Manchester
|
|
London
|
6th April 2004
|
10:00
-3:00pm
|
Maughan
Library
|
King’s
College
|
|
Introduction
to ESDS International
|
|
Manchester
|
14th April 2004
|
14:00 – 16:30pm
|
Manchester Computing
|
Uni
of Manchester
|
|
Introduction
to Analysing Time Series Data using Stata (Manchester)
|
|
Manchester
|
15th April 2004
|
10:00 – 16:00pm
|
Manchester Computing
|
Uni
of Manchester
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Course descriptions and an
online booking form are available via the MIMAS web site at:
http://www.mimas.ac.uk/courses/
Alternatively, contact the
MIMAS Helpline: Tel: 0161 275 6109 Email:
info@mimas.ac.uk
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--------------------------------- 8 -------------------------------
Using
Laptops to Develop Basic Skills
It’s official - using laptop
computers can help learners develop their basic skills and motivate them
to take up further study. These claims appear
in a new publication from the National Research and Development Centre for
Adult Literacy and Numeracy aimed at tutors who want to use laptops in the
community and offering advice and examples of good practice. The publication is
available at:
www.nrdc.org.uk/uploads/documents/doc_2838.pdf
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--------------------------------- 9 -------------------------------
“From Little Acorns. . . ”
Colleges are not exploiting
many good ideas because staff simply don’t recognise their own good practice,
or lack the skills to share that practice effectively - so says a new report
just out from the Learning & Skills Development Agency in England: "From
little acorns: towards a strategy for spreading good practice within colleges"
Read the full report at:
www.lsda.org.uk/files/PDF/1393.pdf
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--------------------------------- 10 -------------------------------
Free Offer: Plagiarism: Prevention, Practice and Policies on the 28th - 30th June 2004
As reported in the last edition of NewsFeed, the Plagiarism
Advisory Service (PAS) is hosting a conference on Plagiarism: Prevention,
Practice and Policies on the 28th, 29th and 30th June at St James' Park, Newcastle.
To help promote the service to the FE community PAS is offering one free place
(saving £180) for an individual from an FE college to each RSC region.
In Scotland that translates to one free place for colleges supported by RSC
South and West and one for colleges supported by RSC North and East. All you
have to do is pick up the phone, or the nearest available mouse and contact
your support centre. The free places will go to the first email or telephone
call received at each RSC. On your marks. . .
RSC South and West - Contact Fiona Drummond on 0141-558-4098 or email at fdrum0001:ucdf.gla.ac.uk
RSC North & East – Contact Caroline Porteous on 0131-315-7674 or email at caroline.porteous@ed-coll.ac.uk
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--------------------------------- 11 -------------------------------
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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