Scotland’s Colleges

Symposium 24 March 2010, Worcester

Learning and teaching repositories: is this the last chance?

Jackie Graham

jackie.graham@scotlandscolleges.ac.uk

Scotland’s CollegesScotland's Colleges is the key policy and development agency for the

Scottish college sector.

Formed in 2009 from the merger of four support agencies:

SFEU, COLEG, ASC and SCI.

We support Scotland's 43 colleges in the following areas:Staff developmentDevelopment of resourcesFacilitating the sharing of resources and practicesPolicy development

StrategyOur strategy for learning resources has two main components:

Developing resources in support of the college curriculumSupporting and facilitating the sharing of resources and practice

The college curriculum is becoming more complex with new qualification, curricular and policy developments:

HN and NQ modernisation, Curriculum for Excellence, More Choices, More Chances.

Investment in resources needs to support and encourage practitioners to adopt the aims of these developments.

On-line services

How can our on-line services be developed to better fulfil the needs of practitioners and support these developments?

How can they be used to support and encourage greater sharing of resources?

Scoping exercise to review: how well existing services meet our requirements.Identify which areas which can be improved on.Identify other services in use across the sector.Identify where services could be integrated to improve and simplify the user experience.Identify options in terms of software and hosting solutions.

Repository servicesIn 2008 COLEG launched a learning object repository.

Primarily to host its existing catalogue of resources, but also to offer colleges a means of sharing their own materials.

Software: intraLibrary (100 contributor licence) Authentication: Open Athens (added March 2009), Shibboleth (added

August 2009)

VLE plug-ins made available for colleges:

Moodle and Blackboard plug-ins (from Intrallect).

MrCute plug-in for Moodle

Public search also provided on Scotland’s Colleges website . Reporting: Intrallect reporting tool commissioned (March 2009).

Repository containsAround 2000 learning and teaching resources

A wide range of resources, in a number of subject areas, developed specifically for colleges in Scotland:

learning packs, tutor resource packs formative assessments assets (slides, images, video clips)

From a variety of sources:COLEG, Scotland’s Colleges (quality assured)member collegesother partners

For a variety of delivery methods: Open, blended, online, classroom

Repository usage

Number of registered users

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

Aberdeen CollegeAdam Smith College

Angus CollegeAnniesland College

Ayr CollegeBanff and Buchan College

Borders CollegeCardonald CollegeCarnegie College

Central College GlasgowClydebank CollegeCoatbridge College

Cumbernauld CollegeDumfries and Gallow ay College

Dundee CollegeEdinburgh Telford College

Elmw ood CollegeForth Valley College

Glasgow College of Nautical StudiesGlasgow Metropolitan College

Inverness CollegeJames Watt College

Jew el and Esk CollegeJohn Wheatley College

Kilmarnock CollegeLangside College

Lew s Castle CollegeMoray College

Motherw ell CollegeNorth Glasgow CollegeNorth Highland College

Orkney CollegePerth College

Reid Kerr CollegeShetland College

South Lanarkshire CollegeStevenson College Edinburgh

Stow CollegeWest Lothian College

Extent of college roll-out:

(number of user accounts created)

Monthly login activity from March 2009.

Monthly downloads from March 2009.

User logins(March 2009 to Feb 2010)

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

Mar

-09

Apr-0

9

May

-09

Jun-

09

Jul-0

9

Aug-0

9

Sep-0

9

Oct-09

Nov-09

Dec-09

Jan-

10

Feb-1

0

Month/Year

Nu

mb

er

of

Lo

gin

s

Shibboleth

Athens login

Manual Login

Downloads (March 2009 to Feb 2010)

0

50

100

150

200

250

Mar

-09

Apr-0

9

May

-09

Jun-

09

Jul-0

9

Aug-0

9

Sep-0

9

Oct-09

Nov-09

Dec-09

Jan-

10

Feb-1

0

Month/Year

Nu

mb

er o

f d

ow

nlo

ads

ExportmetadataExport viapublic URLExport viabasketExport package

Encouraging engagement

What will encourage active engagement?

Increasing the usability of repository and web services.

Widening contributor access and simplifying the deposit procedure.

Simplifying licensing.Encouraging the use of tools to search from within other web environments and college VLEs. Greater promotion of existing resources and how they have been or can be used.Encouraging the development and depositing of new resources.

Encouraging communication and sharing of resources and practice through subject networks.