Scotland’s Colleges
Symposium 24 March 2010, Worcester
Learning and teaching repositories: is this the last chance?
Jackie Graham
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.