August 2008

Destinations ® : The UL ExperienceInstalling and amending Destinations ®

Mary SweeneyDr. Colm Cunniffe

Cooperative Education & Careers DivisionUniversity of Limerick

August 2008

Overview

• CCMS Partner Fellowship• UL Project Details• Project Schedule• Project Team• What have we done• Work in Progress• Reflections• IT implications• Q & A

August 2008

CCMS Partner Fellowship

• Aug 07 - CCMS Partner Fellowship• Contract between UL and Reading

– Installation of Destinations ®– Training & IT support– Community of Practice – 5 partners– Adaptation and deployment– Evaluation – Dissemination

August 2008

UL Project Details

• Customise website for Irish students– Identify Irish links and resources

• Pilot Destinations® with career module– Business, Public Admin, Language, Music, HPSS

• Develop as resource for work placements• Promote through careers website• Provide student feedback• Disseminate outcomes to GCI colleagues

August 2008

Project Schedule

• Sep 07: Upload website & training• Oct 07: UL references; video clips• Nov-Dec: Review contents• Jan-April: Customise text, amend resources, pilot

with students• March-May: Edit and upload video clips• June-Sept: Create new videos, upload on VLE• Aug 08: Upload new release• Sept ->: Customise new release• Sept ->: Use resource with class groups

August 2008

Project Team

• Cross Functional Project Team– 2 Careers Advisors, Coop Ed Manager,

Placement Officer, IT Coordinator, UL Web Editor, 2 Academics, Teaching & Learning representative, Student

• Monthly meetings• Allocated tasks to small working groups• Familiarisation, consultation, identification

of changes

August 2008

UL Version

• Minimalist approach to text changes– Amend, correct, or add value– Reviewed contents, identified need for amendments

• Units requiring significant amendments– Careers & Employers– Postgraduate Study– Work Experience– Links and resources throughout– Disability information– Promoted Gradireland throughout

• Video Clips: Editing and transcripts

August 2008

What have we done?

• Installed on server and linked to website• Filmed video clips of Irish employers

– 7 employers, 38 video clips

• Added, deleted, amended text– 1229 files of a total 4055 files – 90 new links created

• Amended teaching resources• Customised graphics• Designed posters & flyers

August 2008

• Monitored student usage– 600 pages, 4400 hits per month

• Commissioned usability studies

• Surveyed students– Early reactions– Reading online survey

What else have we done?

• Promoted to students– emails, workshops, fairs, publications, posters

• Piloted with Humanities class groups

August 2008

The Greening of Destinations®

• Video Clips– Cross section of employers

• Ericsson, Google, Kerry Group, Kingspan, PWC, Stryker, Ulster Bank

– Primary focus on selection process: • Applications, CVs, Interviews, Assessment Centres, Skills,

Personality, Work Experience, Careers & Employers

• Text – Irish statistics, publications, CVs, Postgrad funding,

Graduate Placement schemes, Employment legislation, Work Experience, Resources

August 2008

Work in Progress

• New and more professional video clips– Work Experience & Postgraduate study– Include Irish interview

• Customise new releases• Use with new class groups

– Business Studies & Postgrads• Use on VLE – SAKAI• Evaluation activities

– Interview students– Focus groups of academics and careers advisors

• Share output with GCI community

August 2008

What do we think?

• Reflections on our experience– Think, plan, act, review– Importance of positive & versatile group– IT expertise invaluable– Customising requires time commitment– Overlap between Destinations ® and own website

• Assessment of Destinations ®– Great careers resource, developed by experts– Flexible, versatile, accessible, relevant– Excellent teaching resources– Low cost – high benefit: win-win solution

August 2008

August 2008

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IT Implications

• Installing Destinations ®• Upload Destinations ® folder to server

using FTP or SFTP• Where?

– In the case of UL– http://www.ul.ie/careers/destinations

• Time Required– About 30min – 1 hour

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IT Implications

• UL Webserver– Linux webserver– Apache 2.0 – LDAP support (for authentication)– If using apache there is more sophisticated LDAP authentication

in Apache 2.2• Securing Destinations ®

– UL uses Active Directory– Two domains:- student and staff– Authenticated using .htaccess file and LDAP protocol

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IT Implications

• Important points for your IT admin– Set up server to process SSI (server side includes), this will be default

on most servers– In our case we replaced <!-- #include file' with '<!--#include virtual– Server must be set up to recognize FLV file types– Secure using LDAP and Active Directory

• Amending Destinations ® – A good start is the technical documentation.– Editing using Crimson/text editor– All edits were done manually in order to adhere to the structure of the

Destinations files. – Topic-breakdown, video log and download logs were amended with

edits– Menus were updated as new sections were added

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