E-Learning Project Steering Group Committee 8 th September 2005 Facilitating WebCT uptake in c.40 Biology courses

Agenda 1. Background and remit of committee (PMcL) 2. Technical report (KH) 3. Future direction (PMcL/KH) 4. Any other business

The problems A solution Consistency of design – user familiarity- ease of updating (1) Steep Learning curve for academics/secretaries (2) Access to Information for course management (Wisard, BTO database) (3) Updating and checking consistency of many web pages(4) Support for “sick notes” (5) Support for multiple choice questions (6) Course Books – tedious to update and keep consistent (7) FAQ (2) Specific to design Biology Teaching Organisation – Cold Fusion Database (3) Consistent interface (1) Submit sick note (5) Manage Question Banks (6) Web Content Management (4) Course Book (7)

Template Original version built summer 04 Course books are used to populate template Tidied up and tweaked this year Trying this year to give ALL course staff some level of access

Staff & Student Feedback Students:  Course questionnaires for staff who actively used WebCT  An e-learning questionnaire filled in by 16% of the BTO students (see appendix 1) Staff:  Informal chats  An e-learning questionnaire filled in by 31% of BTO teaching staff (see appendix 2)

Training & Help Individual COs 4 awareness sessions ran before Xmas Face-to-face tutorials Summer: short training sessions focussing on specifics (as requested in staff questionnaires) New documentation and training material developed [show] Away Day for administrative staff Honours staff starting to come on-board Interest from BTO teaching staff/admin staff increasing

PRS “Clickers” Successful in bidding for funding to run PRS with MAC1 (400 students with a clicker each) Overlap with this project but should allow the project to be supported for longer Hope to link the ‘clicker’ system into WebCT/VLE eventually.

WebCT Tools Announcements tool nearly ready [demo]  Staff feedback and course usage Hope to build more WebCT tools over the coming year.

General Issues & Problems VLE – final decision to be made  Will impact documentation, training, and tool development no matter what decision is made Training sessions not well attended, everyone wants individual help! Workload slowing progress down

Course Information Database Staff external to course can view details Keeping same info on web-site means updating two (or three) different sources Maybe use a course database to create course guides manually – or vice versa?

Course Information Database Course Database Course Data Course Book Intranet and WebCT Public Web- site Guides for years

Course Information Database Course Database Course Book (coded in XML) Intranet and WebCT Public Web- site …or…..

Issues… Course books are too different  Need to structure more strictly  Too many sources of similar information “University owned information” will not be easy to get until EUCLID comes online (when?) Need help to get data collected and corrected!

Current Status Areas of course are database driven now (quick demo) BUT no admin interface at the moment:  Waiting for EASE to be installed on server before starting to develop authentication Admin interface will also be the same for School web-site

Future CMS QM Perception Announcement Tool Sick note Data Entry Searchable Help Semi-auto’ Marking PRS Course Book Update

Threats WebCT 6 Strategy imposed Staff time Accessibility Copyright

Strategy How to foster “e-learning” rather than just providing a repository for lecture notes? How to make good on promise to save time? Advisable to have database-driven course books? Academic paper(s)?