The Southampton Learning Environment:

CETIS

Hugh DavisNov 2010

What is the SLE?• SLE – Southampton Learning Environment • looking to enhance the student and staff experience around learning and living

at UoS• Closely aligned with the Southampton Research Environment (SRE) and the

Southampton Business Environment (SBE)

2

Top Level goals• make it possible to undertake every aspect of

livinglearningteaching

• support a wide range of pedagogical approaches• a single place where you can go for

toolscommunicationcollaborationinformationresources

• act as a vehicle for reviewing and aligning our processes across the University

• provide much more flexible systems• single login to all university tools and repositories

3

appropriate to your role in the university

online

Why are we doing this?

4

To improve student experience Students expect to be able to be able to do things on-line, and find all the information they need on-line

To improve staff experience The current systems are limiting, hard to use and inflexible.

To make our graduates’ more employable

Employers expect their staff to participate, work and collaborate in globally distributed organisations

To introduce efficiencies in terms of standardising administrative processes associated with education

To enable us to scale up our numbers at little extra cost

by enabling alternative delivery mechanisms

• Remotely supported learning• Blended learning• Distance learning

To alleviate our teaching space problem

One of the solutions to this is to consider alternative delivery mechanisms

A technical view

5

Tools, Services and Data

6

E-Assignment

EdShare

Blackboard (or other VLE?)

Question Mark Perception

HR Records

Lecture Capture and Replay

Fees Payment/records

Room BookingsTimetable

Student Records

On-line Journals

Open Educational Resources

E-Books

Library Catalogue

Podcasting

The SRN

Student Handbook

Module selection Course Announcements

Uni/SUSU announcements

External RSS Feeds

Podcasts

On-line forms

Programme/Module Catalogue

WIFI STORAGE

COLLABORATIONSPACE

INTRANET

EXTRANET

EmailForums

Presence

Video Conferencing

Chat

PROFILES

CLASSROOMS

PUBLICWORKSTATIONS

INTERNALSOFTWARE

TurnItIn

Live@Edu

GoogleDocs

Delicious

Internal RSS Feeds

Communication tools

InternalServices

Institutional data

Infrastructure Cloud services

Push

Resources

DropBox

Search

SEARCH

A Rich Learning Environment

7

The SLE• There are underlying implications for

• Technical infrastructure (WiFi, Storage)• Identity Management• Open Data• How we design courses• How we support curriculum design

8

9

Agile Development:• A new approach for majority of UoS• Rapid and responsive• Collaborative and challenging• Enables progressive skill and output evolution and improvement

over time• Requirements must be agreed up front, delivered, then move on• Needs focus on quality assurance and sign off of stages• Potentially provides quick wins in basic form

The SLE Programme will be adopting these approaches wherever possible such that early benefits can be achieved for end users and tool interface and interconnectivity can be developed.

10

SLE Proof of Concepts (PoC): potential quick wins

• We will be making 4 week “sprints” to produce prototypes of• SUSSED replacement• Blackboard replacement/upgrade?• And others – e.g. The Student Dashboard

Our First PoC

• SUSSED 2.0 (replaces our aging Portal)• Will provide

– A launch page to tools– A gateway to resources– A profile page for the user– Status information

• An excellent smart search function is highest priority • Will allow the installation of widgets from an “appstore” • Personalised and Personalisable• Shared Workspaces

11

EdShare http://edshare.soton.ac.uk

Some Applications we are leading on

• Let me personalise my personal timetable• Let me select my options (fully informed)• Let me book an un-used classroom near me for a SEG group

meeting• Tell me what bus I need to get from home to get to my next

lecture in time• Remind me of the name of my tutee who is standing in front of

me now, and let me know their current progress.

First POC already conducted by SRE team

• Intranet for typical research activities – Applying for a grant– Setting up a grant team– Pursuing research– Managing a grant– Disseminating research– Updating an Academic CV

14

Comments on Subversion

• This is all really about making our university think about– The sort of educational experience they wish to offer– The processes they need to support (e.g. assessment and

feedback)– Ensuring equality of provision– Digital literacies and employability– Coping with the climate

15