Information Point not working 23rd Nov to 3rd December 2007

Met up with Max from Stoke on Trent and Dave from Shrewsbury at Burton College on 23rd Nov 07 to restart the pilot with our "friendly employer" Ruth Gill. The information point fell over everytime we tried it. Reports made to Sam Rowley during appointment with Ruth. We did get to screens of employer and employee but "work based learner details not available" appeared when we attempted to go further and provided Ruth with a link to her learners details.

November 07 Update

SMT welcomed visits from WBLWAY Team to college groups. Comment, "as project has invested £Xxx in college there is an expectation that updates occur".

Staff most responsive to Harvest Road Hive developments. Some are eager to access FD materials formerly in Blackboard in our own VLE.

ILT curriculum development bids which have been accepted include the kind of employer engagement that WBLWAY promotes. I have been charged with "keeping developers informed of WBLWAY". Gerrard Larkin (computing and Electronics) looking also at integrating FD with PTime HNC. Students to either opt out after 2 yrs and gain HNC or take final yr to gain FD.

Marketing WBLWAY within college to Senior Staff

SMT (Senior Management Team)
Along with Assistant Principal Garry Phillips and following Mark and Fleur's presentation to our ILT Group, I included WBLWAY in my 1st October update to the SMT on my activities to drive ILT before our anticipated inspection. "The Future is further away than you may think" and " "The future is already here" were my two themes, as I put a realistic slant on where Burton College stands and where our SMT wants me to quickly go (all by myself it appears ).

College Work Based Learning Team.
As a result of SMT meeting I was asked to perform again on Wednesday October 24th for the WBL team. (Note at this stage: That I have informed a recent college governors initiative aimed at questioning the new college structure that cross college organistion of WBL stops at a level below FD's.)
People who should but aren't involved in WBLWAY attended the meeting (ie Marketing) were introduced to all of my initiatives (mostly VLE, ILT training, and WBLWAY). All that I can say is that I raised awareness without really establishing any future level of co-operation.

However with Mark and Fleur's performance at our ILT group, and these two meetings, I can say that all of our senior managers would have a problem claiming they don't know about WBLWAY or the future that I hope we are heading towards.

Burton Pre - trial trial

Richard Booth and Dave Shearan from Shrewsbury College met up with Myself (Mike Parker) today to run through the support portal and run a pre-trial trial with friendly employer Ruth Gill and one of her FD students Kim Padmore. As the support portal is not due to be launched for trial until next Monday (22nd October 07) we expected disappointments...and we were not disappointed. A bug report was sent to Fleur today....plus a repeated request for a "clean system" to be available when the trial starts in earnest. (Clean = all user data cleared for Mon 22nd Oct 07 - except for student info access via staffs logins.) Ruth was impressed with the potential of the support point but not the registration process. Kim was baffled by the process - "couldn't the reason for the access password to enable employer to view student data be explained?"

Software developments at Burton College

As a consequence of Mark and Fleurs visit to the Burton College ILT Strategic Planning Group, some further explanation of the developments planned for our IT infrastructure is needed. The statement about our IT infrastructure issued on Google Groups WBLWAY gives a succinct description of our plans - noting that we do not have the data to support WBLWAY at the present time.
Tribal Group runs our IT/ILT development and daily operations. Mark and Fleur will have noted that the agenda of the ILT Startegic Planning Group meeting continued after they left the meeting and included the tabling of the College ILT Strategic Plan AND Tribals ILT Operational Plan (which is now to be added as an appendix to the college plan - and details the business agreements and software implementation that Tribal is contracted to deliver).

In respect of our incapability to provide data for the project:

The college runs EBS and is working towards using all available modules.

Click to view http://www.tribalgroup.co.uk/index.php?ob=1&id=115

We are about to launch MAYTAS

http://www.tribalgroup.co.uk/?ob=1&id=118

For all HR functions with our own staff we are going to use "World Service"

http://www.hrsystems.net/distributed.php

September update

Mark Stiles and Fleur Phillips (Corfield) attended the College ILT Strategic Planning Group chaired by our Deputy Principal, Jon Vincent, and several senior post holders. Mark and Fleur presented the project aims to the group and introduced the possibilities surrounding the repository developments (Harvest Road's HIVE) that will impact the project delivery.
The projects developments interested the senior managers present as they could be considered alongside the IT infrastructure developments planned by Ian Ross, the Assistant Principal contracted to Burton College from Tribal. Ian's IT plans are documented on the project Google Groups Pages, as the depth of useful data on college management systems is affecting the project. This is apparent at all project partner colleges.
Recent attendance at ALT C 2007 has proved productive in regards to development of college ILT training. Interesting ideas are being cascaded into teacher training programmes.

Ready to begin promotion of WBLWAY

Damian Brant, our newly appointed Quality Manager, has began to get involved with the promotion of our ILT services and has included WBLWAY in this. Internally, Damian will ensure that Curriculum Area Leaders, and their Advanced Practitioners responsible for employer engagement, are aware of WBLWAY. Damian is aware of the selected participants (tutors to employers) who we have enlisted for the trial.

I'm beginning to think about how I'm going to introduce WBLWAY (particularly to employers) - and awaiting the leaflets.

On a wider ILT front, I await the roll-out of Hive. Hopefully, all of our ILT efforts will begin to converge....to ensure that end-users avoid confusion.

New Employer for trial added.

Details of Burton's three employers who will participate in the WBLWAY trial have been put onto the WBL-WAY Google groups.
The final addition is The Burton Brewhouse. This Arts Centre, fairly recently opened by the Queen, has began to work with the college on a range of initiatives. Amanda Skevington (Curriculum Area Leader for Performing Arts) has recently launched the Foundation Degree in Dance and Theatre Arts (DATA). Amanda works closely with Rachel Walker (Brewhouse Principal Arts Manager) who has agreed to help us with the WBL-WAY pilot phase. http://www.brewhouse.co.uk/brewhouse/index.htm

Rachel joins Sue Cormes (East Midlands Children's Centre) and Ruth Gill (Burton College Nursery) as our "trialists".

With the devolvement of WBL responsibility down to Curriculum Area Leader level at Burton College, we have a range of new FD initiatives (including Hair and Beauty).

When choosing "trialists" I have found it difficult to tap into long term employer contacts (ie. Engineering, Construction) as staff a worried about harming relations (with some employers still looking back to HND's etc). Our chosen "trialists" include a new initiative and two options with students at all levels.

Checking on Data held

After meeting with Ian Ross (Assistant Principal MIS and IT Services), Muhalb Alsaffar (Network Manager), and Tim Davies (IT Database Support), our statement on information held electronically has been updated and added to Google groups.
Ian and Garry Phillips (Assistant Principal Standards and Development) have concerns about allowing access to information. Having said that, based on discussions with Howard Brierley (Assistant Principal Collaboration and Learner Services), it is apparent that information of use to the project is limited at the moment. The new college structure (with key posts only recently appointed and roles and responsibilities still "bedding in") has devolved responsibility for employer engagement down to Curriculum Area Leader level, with each Faculty having an Advanced Practitioner with some responsibility for Employer Engagement. Devolvement results in local expertise being used but also a little confused administration - particularly on the systems front.

Involvement in pilot phase

The new mangement structure at Burton College (Faculties/Curriculum Areas/with supporting cross college roles for 4 Assistant Principals/Dircctors) has now been embedded with all key pot-holders in place. Employer engagement at HE level, and particularly FD's, is achieved at Curriculum Area level . My blog already discusses the need for cross college data (which is not easily obtainable) and data collection developments underway to address this.

Taking this into account, I intend to trial WBL-WAY with the Curriculum Area of Early Years and Care. Reasons: they have good administrative support, they have a strong FD programme, staff and students have experience of SURF Information Services support. The trial can be controlled because we can offer Burton College Nursery and East Staffordshire Childrens Centre as users who will trial WBL-WAY in a proactive way, without being over-critical. Caroline Burnham (Administrative support for Early years and Care) will assist with the monitoring of the trial.

Involving College Managers

I'm looking forward to the next WBL-WAY meeting where we are going to involve college managers and brief them on the project progress.
Having explored Burton College's organisation and IT infrastructure, in respect of the marketing of Foundation Degrees, I have found problems that will impact on the project. Restructuring activities and plans to rapidly develop the IT/MIS infrastructure have not yet provided adequate data sources to support WBL-WAY.
On the bright side, the next WBL-WAY meeting should provide thoughts on how to involve key college staff in the promotion and use of WBL-WAY. There is a sense that it exists in isolation at the moment.

Information into college etc

I have posted two new documents to WBL-WAY Group. One gives details on usable FD data the other suggests different focus for the portal.
On the data front, our development of "useful databases" is not really sophisticated yet to provide the portal with anywhere near the depth of data requested. Cross college collation of FD info is sparse unless it is paper based. As the report shows, this being tackled but not quickly enough to impact on the project.
On the course development front, the Dance section has provided "food for thought". The WBL materials should be made available and marketing towards placement providors who are not students/learners existing employers needs looking at.

Restructure continues

The development of Foundation Degrees at Burton college continues against a backdrop of restructuring and ecpd developments. These will impact on project aims.
Having moved to a faculty structure with Assistant Principals providing cross faculty senior management development impetus, there is now a Standards and Development Unit. Comprising of an Assistant Principal, a Quality Manager, a Curriculum Area Leader for ILT and E-Learning, and admin support. The whole topic of quality assurance, particularly in HE, is now under closer control.
Ecpd developments and ILT developments now have far more "management Clout" which should begin to impact on elearning and online information services development. Moodle developments are particularly being pressed.
The WBL-Way project has led to marketing seeking to improve links with employers, initially by developing a college news publication for employers. Of course, WBL-Way will feature in the first issue to be launched in June 2007.

Completed Surveys

Finally got most respnses to questionnaires back. Respondants include SMT, Curriculum Area Leaders, tutors and four groups of students - along with interesting inputs from Marketing and self financing students. Some of the student groups were not populated by HE type students - who appeared to be "muddling through" to quote one comment without any understanding or support.
Curriculum Area Leaders, who are charged with FD development, are reluctant to encourage me to contact employers. "Lets give them some support first before making them any more frightened than they already are." The students, particularly those on the Early Years FD, thought that it would be less than productive until I could go "bearing gifts".

Equipping Our Teachers et al.

Inside college - final gathering of questionnaire data underway.
Within project group - wondering what the response will be to the Shrewsbury & Burton attempt to produce a definitive model for the project (not much from elsewhere yet). Seems to be too easy to get into committees & Camels type arguments where everyone talks at cross purposes.
Equipping Teachers (East Mids RSC event). Really brought home the fact that even the people who train teachers accross a whole region have not got a fix on ILT or elearning or any type of e-support. ESCALATE looks useful (www.escalate.ac.uk) an HEA offering. Note there is even money available - seemingly easier to get your hands on than JISC - for staff development projects.
As usual, got some info on thing that I maybe should know about. ie http://www.learningtechnologies.ac.uk/itq/lrc/how_to_guides.htm
which I may have seen before ...but not made use of.

Gettysburg Meeting

On 15th of February 2007 there was a seminal meeting at Shrewsbury college - where a scoping review document was devised. Soon to be attached to WBL-Way documents, after Steve and Hamza have viewed it. The following email was sent back to Shrewsbury with revisions to the document. This is not intended to be facetious.

"Hi Dave and Richard
I have added a few words - under "Tutors" for example. I was tempted to try to knock up a student screen but stopped myself ....thinking about your wise-words yesterday. We have, in this document, a statement that defines exactly what we feel would provide a functional portal. By exactly I mean just do what it says...nothing left out and nothing more added.

Like one does............I was reading about Lincoln's Gettysburg speech last night. Apparently it went unnoticed on the day, as he wasn't even the main speaker. Someone else spoke for two hours then Lincoln got up and uttered 200 hastily penned words. His address was so short that the New York Times was able to print it verbatim in its obscure centre pages where it remained unadmired for quite a time.
The moral of this story is that if someone shoots you at the theatre within the next few weeks someone might realise just how good this scoping document is!

Send it to Steve and Hamza (telling them that it is an attempt to be concise)....then post it to Google docs and tell Fleur and Sam."

Scoping Tactics February 2007 and early ideas.

Given the task of investigating administrative procedures at Burton during our January WBL-Way meeting, I have immediately noted the lack of prescriptive organisation. Responsibility for employer engagement has been devolved to Curriculum Area Leaders (more clearly I should say "abdicated" by senior staff).

In order to test the water, I have sent a questionnaire to all members of the college HE Curriculum and Quality Group which is chaired by Garry Phillips (the Assistant Principal I nominated as project leader). I have asked them to reply before the next meeting of the group on 23rd Feb 07 and told them I intend to report to the project and formally to them (minutes to Academic Board -which I am a member of). I am hoping to tease out the "appearance and reality" of FD procedures - and get some concensus about standardising things (which the portal should assist).

Student Perceptions

I have, during January and early February 2007, met many groups of FD students. As a college issue, all of them are not receiving any kind of support from our VLE services (from either the existing Tribal Le or the Moodle trial we are running). This is pertinent as many of the students request portal development of services and support that staff could be providing via VLE's (even if this is only basic communication tools or advice or collaborative features). This is a teaching culture issue.

Early indications are that WBL placement providers are not fulfilling any FD requirements. This is particularly true in Care FD's where the students themselves are often the most highly qualified employees on site. Therefore they struggle to obtain mentors or Work Based assessment guidance.

Early (Jan 07) reports to Fleur are included in her review of scoping for Burton/Shrewsbury/Stoke in Google Docs.

Early Days January 2007

The first version of the staff/student questionnaire has been worked through with Senior Staff at Burton, selected Curriculum Area Leaders, and FD students who are employed by the college. Early indications on the level of support and organisation provided by employers is not good. Neither is the implementation of adminstrative support from the college.