Category Archives: curriculum design

Summary of technologies in use in the JISC Developing Digital Literacies Programme

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The JISC Developing Digital Literacies programme is now well underway. As I reported from the programme start up meeting last October , the aim of this 2 year programme is too

” . . .promote the development of coherent, inclusive and holistic institutional strategies and organisational approaches for developing digital literacies for all staff and students in UK further and higher education.”

with projects:

” . . .working across the following stakeholder groupings in their plans for developing digital literacies: students, academic staff, research staff, librarians and learning resources and support staff, administrators and managers and institutional support staff . . .”

As part of the programme support project, over the last couple of months I’ve conducting our usual technical audits with the projects to get a picture of what technologies and standards they are using/considering to use at this stage. The results of these conversations are recorded in our PROD database.

The projects are due to complete their baselining phase at the end of January, so it has been timely to discuss some of the wider issues around using various technologies with each of the projects. The rest of this post gives a snap shot of the range of technologies the projects are currently using. NB Unfortunately I haven’t been able to speak with the UCL team, but once they have completed their baseline report we will be meeting and I’ll update the data, however don’t expect the general trends outlined in this post to change much.

The map shows the locations of the 12 projects, with links to the prod entry for each. As the programme progresses, I’ll be adding a links to the design studio pages for each project too.

Map showing locations of DDL projects

Map showing locations of DDL projects

The mindmap below gives an alternative view of the data entries for each project (if you click on the picture it will take you to a live version, NB the mind map will be open so you may find it easier to close nodes before exploring it in full).

Mind map of PROD entries for DDL programme

Mind map of PROD entries for DDL programme

The focus of the programme is more on the effective use of technology rather than as with other JISC funded work, the development of technology. On saying that, there are a couple of projects who are planning to develop some mobile applications and there are strong links between the work of the W2C project at MMU in relation the provision of mobile services, particularly with the SEEDPod project, University of Plymouth who have been working with MMU in conducting surveys of students uses of mobile devices. There are a number of approaches to mobile provision. The Developing Digital Literacy as a Post Graduate Attribute project is providing students with ipods to record and share their learning journeys, and to some extent leaving it to the students to find what works/doesn’t work for them. Whereas other projects (SEEDPod, InStePP) are developing more holistic, device and location agnostic approaches to provision of services/content.

So far we have 94 individual technologies and standards. The wordle below gives an overview.

Wordle of technologies & Standards in DDL progamme (Jan '12)

Wordle of technologies & Standards in DDL progamme (Jan '12)

This bubblegram gives another view of the range and instances of technologies and standards. Again if you click on the picture you’ll go to a larger, interactive version.

Bubblegram of technologies and standards in DDL, Jan 2012 (v4) Many Eyes

The projects area all blogging (you can access aggregated feeds here) and WordPress is top of our chart with 8 projects using it, the majority of these are also using institutionally hosted versions. What is also noticeable, is the (relatively) high instances of non- institutionally based services such a social networking sites – particularly twitter and Facebook. At the moment the main (and anticipated) use of both is for general project dissemination, however a number of projects are both to communicate with staff/students e.g. to get people involved in focus groups. The PADDLE project are planning to use existing facebook groups as collaboration/communication point with some of their focus groups.

Other external services such as drop-box (for document sharing), doodle for arranging meetings and a range of google apps (docs, calendar etc) are also being widely used. For the later there is a mix of institutional provision and more general use of, for example google docs for sharing project team related information. As with other programmes and the following a general sector wide trend, Moodle comes out as the most common VLE across the programme.

In terms of standards, the main focus was on packing formats with IMS CP, IMS CC and SCORM all getting one mention each. As we are still in early days, most projects haven’t got a clear idea of what format they will release any content in, however there was an overall interest in, and indeed knowledge of OER (i.e. the DIAL project is building on experiences from a previous UK OER project) and most projects expressed an desire to release any relevant content as OERs.

A number of projects (e.g. The Exeter Cascade Project, InStePP) are looking at greater integration of digital literacies into wider competency frameworks through for example making more explicit curriculum links to institutional graduate attributes; and also through working with other wider programme related stakeholders such as SCOUNL and ALT.

As mentioned earlier, projects are just coming to the end of their baselining work, and at this stage they are keen not to be prescriptive about the technologies they will be using, as they want to be as flexible as possible. Also, key to number of the projects is the exploration of the how, what, where and why of technology use (both hardware and software) of staff and students and then making appropriate interventions/recommendations for wider institutional policies.

When I repeat this exercise next year, I have a suspicion that there may be a subtle shift to more institutionally based services as more content will have been created and being used/shared within VLEs/repositories. As any changes to curriculum provision, and institutional policies, if not in place, will be fairly well scoped by then too. I am wondering if we will see, similar to the Curriculum Design programme, an increase in the use of Sharepoint for more formal documentation and a decrease in use of more informal sharing services such as drop box. At the moment there the project teams are using drop box primarily for the convenience of any time/where/device access.

One of the things I was curious about was if these projects would be more “literate” in their choices of technologies to use, and what would be the balance between use of institutionally based services and more general web based services. I don’t think I have an answer to the question, but I have seen a healthy sense of pragmatism displayed by all the projects in terms of their approaches.

I’ve had some really interesting discussions with projects (particularly Digitally Ready) around the definition of technology and what it was I really wanted to record i.e. everyday /commonplace technologies like email, calendars etc; was I interested in what the project team were using for project management or more what they were using for stakeholder engagement? In fact it’s all of the above – which probably goes some way to explaining the number of different technologies recorded to date. I feel it’s also worthwhile every now and again just stepping back and reflecting on how our expectations of peoples and projects use of technologies (JISC programme digital literacy perhaps?) have evolved. A few years ago, we’d be lucky if we got all projects to have a blog with more than 2 or 3 entries by the end of a programme – now, it’s one of the first things on a projects to do list, and most institutions provide some kind of hosted blogging service.

When we were developing PROD originally it was to record the tools, standards outputs and development processes of very technically focused projects. However as we’ve started to use it more widely across the JISC elearning programme, we’ve used it not just to record what projects are building, but the what, how and when of technologies projects are actually using. In the not so development focused projects such as DDL this is central. I think that this is starting to give us some real evidence of the diversity and commonality of approaches within and across programmes, and give us greater understanding of how actual use of technologies is being enabled and embedded both from the bottom up and top down.

As they move into the next phase of the programme it will be fascinating to see how the projects start to use the findings from their baselining and how that will impact on their next phase of development.

A conversation around what it means to be a digital university

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Over the past 18 months I’ve been having a series of discussions with Bill Johnston (a colleague of mine here at Strathclyde) around notions information and digital literacy and of what it means to be a digital university.

We moved from a series increasingly long, and wide ranging ad hoc “in the kitchen/pub” chats to slightly more formal meetings with the idea of writing a paper. However, as the months have passed, we’ve actually come round to the idea of extending our conversation in a more informal way, and (hopefully) to a wider audience via this blog.

In this post, I’d like to introduce you, dear reader, to Bill and the some of the key questions and issues we’ve been been working on.

Bill Johnston is recently retired, but he is still an active Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Strathclyde. Bill has spoken, researched and published in the areas of critical thinking, educational perspectives on the student experience, curriculum design, and information literacy. Together with Sheila Webber, he developed a credit bearing Information Literacy class for Business School students at Strathclyde University. They also completed the ground breaking and influential study of UK academics conceptions of information literacy.

Early on in our discussions we agreed that using an information literacy framework would provide a unique lens to explore a number of internal and external drivers for institutional change and to explore notions of the term “digital university”. We felt that exploration of this overarching term offered the potential to act as a catalyst for fundamental change throughout an institution from administration to teaching and learning. We deliberately chose not to use the term “digital literacy”, as we felt that at the institutional level, the more holistic notion of a digital university was more encompassing. It was also a term we were both hearing being used both in our own institution and by others. However, we both found it was being used in a very narrow context, mainly relating to digital technology like repositories and/or VLEs. Digital literacy, is also a term that although increasingly being used in HE (e.g. the JISC Developing Digital Literacies Programme) it is still not commonplace, and digital literacy is often seen as narrow, computer science related skills, as exemplified by Michael Gove’s recent speech, and not as a developing set of wider ranging competencies as identified by Josie Fraser’s excellent response. Bill and I also believe that digital literacy is an extension of information literacy, and that one cannot exist without the other. So, the “literacy” of the digital university is the literacy of information. This in turn raises wider social issues of digital inclusion and the role universities can play in the wider community, but more on that angle in a future post.

We felt that information literacy could act as a gateway to creating dialogue at the institutional level as it provides the means, knowledge and skills needed to allow meaningful interactions between people, digital content and technological systems. In other words, it affords a way to allow optimization of digital participation and measure progress. Furthermore, in true abstract writing style ;-) , using an information literacy lens provides us with a means to produce a coherent outline of a digital university and suggest strategic developments of the digital infrastructure, learning environment and management culture required to fully achieve the potential of the digital technologies. We are also both convinced that a truly digital university only occurs where there is a fusion between technology and staff/student developments driving innovation and creativity.

The diagram below shows an integrated view of the topic areas of a matrix we have been developing. We feel that these areas are key for strategic conceptualization of provision of the required functionality for any 21st Century University.

Information literacy based planning matrix

Some key questions we’ve identified around these topic areas include:
• What constitutes an information literate learning environment? The physical campus? The VLE? A mix of both? What are the common understandings of information literacy ?
• How can we understand the requirements for the provision of institutional learning environment for the next 10 years?
• What are they key operational requirements from digital infrastructure? To support:learning, teaching, research and management? What balance is required?
• What type(s) of infra-structure is actually needed?
• Is key data about courses easily available for a variety of purposes including marketing, formal reporting requirements such a HESA, KIS?
• Is there ubiquitous, stable wifi connection; refurbished physical teaching and learning spaces as well as state of the art research facilities?
• What are the key digital literacy skills needed by both staff and students currently?
• What are the key digital literacy expectations for/from students and staff?
• What will be the key digital literacy skills needed by both staff and students in 10 years time?
• How can institutions begin to distinguish their unique features and make them explicit to increasingly demanding student (customer) requirements?

Over the next few posts, we’ll begin to expand more of our thoughts behind the matrix, organisational issues and digital inclusion. We’re also very interested in hearing other views, so please, share any thoughts you may have in the comments section.

*Part 2
*Part 3
*Part 4
*Part 5

De-regulation, data and learning design

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Data,to coin a phrase from the fashion industry, it’s the new black isn’t it? Open data, linked data, shared data the list goes on. With the advent of the KIS, gathering aspects institutional data is becoming an increasing strategic priority with HE institutions (particularly in England).

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been to a number of events where data has been a central theme, albeit from very different perspectives. Last week I attended the Deregulating higher education: risks and responsibilities conference. I have to confess that I was more than a bit out of my comfort zone at this meeting. The vast majority of delegates were made up of Registrars, Financial Managers and Quality Assurance staff. Unsurprisingly there were no major insights into the future, apart from a sort of clarification that the new “level playing field” for HE Institutions, is actually in reality going to be more of a series of playing fields. Sir Alan Langlands presentation gave an excellent summary of the challenges facing HEFCE as its role evolves from ” from grant provider to targeted investor”.

Other keynote speakers explored the risks, benefits exposed by the suggested changes to the HE sector – particularly around measurements for private providers. Key concerns from the floor seemed to centre around greater clarity of the status of University i.e. they are not public bodies but are expected to deal with FOI requests in the same way which is very costly; whilst conversely having to complete certain corporation tax returns when they don’t actually pay corporation tax. Like I said, I was quite out of my comfort zone – and slightly dismayed about the lack of discussion around teaching, learning and research activities.

However, as highlighted by John Craven, University of Plymouth, good auditable information is key for any competitive market. There are particular difficulties (or challenges?) in coming to consensus around key information for the education sector. KIS is a start at trying to do exactly this. But, and here’s the rub, is KIS really the key information we need to collect? Is there a consensus? How will it enhance the student experience – particularly around impact of teaching and learning strategies and the effective use of technology? And (imho) most crucially how will it evolve? How can we ensure KIS data collection is more than a tick box exercise?

Of course I don’t have any of the answers, but I do think a key part of this is lies in continued educational research and development, particularly learning analytics. We need to find ways to empowering students and academics to effectively use and interact with tools and technology which collect data. And also help them understand where, how and what data is collected and used and represented in activities such as KIS collection.

As these thoughts were mulling in my head, I was at the final meeting for the LDSE project earlier this week. During Diana Laurillard’s presentation, the KIS was featured. This time in the context of how a tool such as the Learning Designer could be used to as part of the data collection process. The Learning Designer allows a user to analyse a learning design in terms of its pedagogical structure and time allocation both in terms of teaching and preparation time, as the screen shot below illustrates.

Learning Designer screenshot

The tool is now also trying to encourage re-use of materials (particularly OERs) by giving a comparison of preparation time between creating a resource and reusing and existing one.

The development of tools with this kind of analysis is crucial in helping teachers (and learners) understand more about the composition and potential impact of learning activities. I’d also hope that by encouraging teachers to use these tools (and similar ones developed by the OULDI project for example) we could start to engage in a more meaningful dialogue around what types of data around teaching and learning activities should be included in such activities as the KIS. Simple analysis of bottom line teacher contact time does our teachers and learners an injustice – not to mention potentially negate innovation.

The Learning Designer is now at the difficult transition point from being tool developed as part of a research project into something that can actually be used “in anger”. I struck me that what might be useful would be tap into the work of current JISC elearning programmes and have one (or perhaps a series) of design bashes where we could look more closely at the Learning Designer and explore potential further developments. This would also provide an opportunity to have some more holistic discussions around the wider work flow issues around integrating design tools not only in the design process but also in other data driven processes such as KIS collection. I’d welcome any thoughts anyone may have about this.

Exploring learning in transition, latest JISC Radio Show

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In the run up to this years JISC online conference, a selection of the key note speakers have contributed to the latest JISC radio show, JISC Online Conference explores learning in transition. As well as giving some insights into their views on some of the key topics the conference, during the show keynotes also share some of their experiences of being a participant in an online conference.

Touching on topics from open education and the use and development of OERs to curriculum design to increasing learner engagement, the podcast gives a tantalising taster of some of the issues these keynote speakers will be raising. For example, Ewan MacIntosh poses the challenge to universities and colleges of providing learning maps, compasses or ulitmately GPSs for students for their learning journeys, whilst Mike Sharples highlights the importance of the “co-evolution of learning and technology” to create truly engaging and effective learning experiences. All in all a great way to warm up and get thinking about the discussions and debates which will take place during the conference week.

The podcast (and transcript) is available from the JISC website, and it’s not too late to register for the conference itself, more information is again available from the JISC website. If you’re still in two minds about participating in an online conference, there’s also a nice little video from past participants sharing their experiences at the bottom of the main conference page.

Accreditation! A games based approach to supporting curriculum development

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Earlier this week Rachel Forsyth and Nicola Whitton from the SRC (Supporting Response Curricula) Project at MMU led a webinar titled “Models of Responsiveness”. The session focused on the ways the team have been working with staff across the institution around the complex internal and external issues and drivers around developing “responsive” curricula. The project has done a lot of work in developing a model for measuring responsiveness (see screen shot below) and more information on their work around this is available in the Design Studio.

A Model of Course Responsiveness (SRC)

A Model of Course Responsiveness (SRC)

A core part of the SRC project has been around developing ways to engage staff in not only recognising the need for change but also in helping staff (technical, administrative and academic) make changes in an appropriate and timely manner. The team also recognised that certain aspects of the course approval process could be quite dry. So, to try and make a more engaging experience, as well as a series of traditional support materials, the team have developed a board game called Accreditation! which has been designed specifically to increase knowledge of course approval processes.

Accreditation!

Accreditation!

Working in pairs, players have to move through three zones, and are faced with a series of series of course approval related dilemmas. Five “quality” stars are needed in order for players to move from zone to zone. Although we only had time to look at a couple of the dilemmas during the session, it was clear that they have been based on very real experiences and are great discussion starters.

Of course games don’t appeal to everyone, and Nicola did point out that at a recent conference some players got a bit carried away with the gaming element and just wanted to win. However, I do think that this approach could have a lot of potential to engage and start discussions around the many aspects of curriculum design.

The game has been released under a CC licence and is available from the Design Studio, and if you did want to use it, you could also develop your own dilemmas too. The team are keen to get feedback from anyone who has used it too.

A recording of the very engaging presentation (c. 1 hour in duration) is available here.

Timeline of an event

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As readers of this blog will know, I quite like experimenting with a number of services to record, represent and re-present various activities. One tool I have been revisiting over the past few months is memolane. When I first looked at this service I thought it had potential for projects and also as a kind of corporate memory. I’ve now started to use its “story” feature to record tweets and blogs from a number of meetings and conferences e.g. e-Assessment Scotland, EuroSakai, and I’ve just pulled together my blogs and tweets from the recent Design Bash 11 meeting – see embedded story below. Clicking on the blog posts expands them so you can read the whole text, and you can move along the timeline using the arrows on top right hand side of the frame.

I think this gives a really nice overview of my pre, during and post meeting activity. I’d be interested in hearing how useful others think of this view of an event.

Outputs, deliverables and other stuff

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Sustaining and embedding changes to curriculum design practices and processes was the theme for the Curriculum Design Programme meeting held last week in Nottingham.

The projects are now in their final year of a four year funding cycle, and the focus of the activities and discussions were to:

“*Explore how projects can best ensure their activities result in real and sustained changes to curriculum design processes and practices and how to evidence this impact
*Showcase innovative practice from the Curriculum Design programme and explore and discuss how these outputs can assist in transforming curriculum design more widely in other institutions
*Further explore how projects can contribute to the programme level narrative around how institutions are changing the processes and practices relating to curriculum design and the role technology plays within this”

So that by then end of the two days, projects would (hopefully) be able to:

“* outline a clear approach to sustaining their innovations and changes to the curriculum design practices and processes
*outline benefits realisation proposals for embedding their outputs to support institutional enhancement and realising the benefits of their projects more widely
*all projects will have a clearer understanding of the good practice, innovation and findings which have emerged from programme and how this can enhance their own projects and practice.”

Unsurprisingly all the projects have been on quite a journey over the past three and half years. There have been changes to project staff; most projects have had at least one change of Vice Chancellor had to deal with the various re-shuffling of senior management teams which that inevitably brings. For projects concerned with institutional level change and indeed with any project tasked with embedding a change in practice these changes at senior management have been particularly challenging. Set this against the current political climate we have to give credit to all the projects for managing to navigate their way through particularly choppy waters. But will projects leave a legacy which actually is able to sustain and embed changes to practice?

Paul Bailey and Peter Chatterton led a session on managing change and used a really nice visual metaphor of a snowball to represent the different push-pull and self momentum that projects can often find themselves in. I think it’s fair to say that most projects have found that in their discussions and base-lining activities that the “curriculum design” space was ripe for conversations. A number of projects have had to deal with some significant pressures of scope creep, and being seen as the panacea for whole host of related issues.

Stephen Brown and the projects from one of the programme cluster groups then led a session on sustaining change. This allowed for a very useful discussions around project identity, outputs and deliverables and how to “hand on” using that great catchall term, the “stuff” projects have produced. Helen Beetham has written up this session on the Programme Blog far more eloquently than I could. From the marketplace activity where projects were given an opportunity to show off their wares, there is a lot of great “stuff” coming out of this programme.

One of the high points of the meeting was the debate, where the quite challenging motion proposed was “This house believes that this programme will not actually change the pedagogic practice of curriculum design”. I won’t go into details on the substance of the debate here, however one question that I should have raised (but of course didn’t ) was – if this programme can’t, then what will? When JISC did fund a programme specifically around changing pedagogic practice (the Design for Learning Programme) one of the clear messages that came out was that projects couldn’t make any sustained impact on practice if they weren’t embedded in wider institutional processes around the curriculum design process. Whilst I can see that some projects maybe don’t see themselves as having direct impact on practice as they are more focused on the business process end of things; at a programme level I believe there is growing evidence that overall there are quite significant impacts being made. I’m not sure if this was planned or just one of those serendipitous coincidences but I think this post from Martin Weller whilst the meeting was in full swing is a good example of precisely how the programme is changing the pedagogic practice of curriculum design.

More information about the meeting is available from the Programme Blog and the storify version of the meeting and projects are continuing to share their outputs and “stuff” in the Design Studio.

Sustaining and Embedding Change: Curriculum Design Programme meeting overview

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The penultimate Curriculum Design Programme meeting took place earlier this week in Nottingham. Three and a half years into the funding cycle, the meeting focused on life after programme. What are the most effective ways to share, embed, build on the changes instigated by projects within and across institutions?

I’ll be writing a more reflective post over the coming days but here is a summary of the two days, based on the #jisccdd twitter stream.

[View the story “Sustaining and embedding changes to curriculum design practices and processes” on Storify]

Design bash 11 post event ponderings and questions

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Following on from my pre event ponderings and questions , this post reflects on some of the outcomes from our recent Design Bash in Oxford. A quick summary post based on tweets from the day is also available.

Below is an updated potential workflow(s) diagram which I created to encourage discussion around potential workflows for some of the systems represented at the event.

Potential learning design workflows

Potential learning design workflows

As I pointed out in my earlier post, this is not a definitive view, rather a starting point for discussion and there are obvious and quite deliberate gaps, not least the omission of content sources. As learning design is primarily about structure, process and sequencing of activities not just content, I didn’t want to make it explicit and add yet another layer of complexity to an already crowded picture. What I was keen to see was some more investigation of the links between the more staff development, face to face processes and various systems, to quote myself:

“starting from some initial face to face activities such as the workshops being so successfully developed by the Viewpoints project or the Accreditation! game from the SRC project at MMU, or the various OULDI activities, what would be the next step? Could you then transform the mostly paper based information into a set of learning outcomes using the Co-genT tool? Could the file produced there then be imported into a learning design tool such as LAMS or LDSE or Compendium LD? And/ or could the file be imported to the MUSKET tool and transformed into XCRI CAP – which could then be used for marketing purposes? Can the finished design then be imported into a or a course database and/or a runtime environment such as a VLE or LAMS? “

Well we maybe didn’t get to quite as long a chain as that, however one of the several break-out groups did identify an alternative workflow

potential workflow tweet

potential workflow tweet

During the lightening presentation session Alejandro Armellini (University of Leicester) gave an overview of the Carpe Diem learning design process they have developed. Ale outlined how learning design had provided a backbone for their OER work. More information on the process is available in this post.

In the afternoon James Dalziel demo’d another workflow, where he took a pattern from the LDSE Learning Designer (a “predict, observe, explain” pattern shown in the lightening session by Diana Laurillard) converted it into a LAMS sequence, shared it in the LAMS community and embedded it into Cloudworks. A full overview of how James went about this, with reflections on the process and a powerpoint walkthrough is available on Cloudworks. The recent sharing and embedding features of LAMS are another key development in re-use.

Although technical interoperability is a key driver for integrating systems, with learning design pedagogical interoperability is just as important. Sharing (and shareable) designs is akin to the holy grail for learning design research, but there is always an element of human translation needed.

thoughts on design process

thoughts on design process

However James’ demo did show how much closer we are now to being able to effectively and easily share design patterns. You can see another example of an embedded LAMS sequence here.

The day generated a lot of discussion and hopefully stimulated some new workflows for participants to work on. In terms of issues coming out of the discussions, below is a list of some of the common themes which emerged from the feedback session:

*how to effectively combine f2f activities with more formal institutional processes
*useful to see connections between module and course level designs being articulated more
*emerging interoperability of systems
*looking at potential integrations has raised even more questions
*links to OER
*capturing commonalities and mapping of vocabularies and tools, role of semantic technologies and linked data approaches
*sufacing elements of course, module, activity design and the potential impact on learners as well as teachers
*what are “good enough” descriptions/ representations of designs to allow real teachers to use them

So, plenty of food for thought. Over the coming months I’ll be working on a mapping of the process/tools/guides etc we know of in this space. I’ll initially focus on JISC funded work, so if you know of other learning design tools, or have a shareable workflow, then please let me know.

Sakai – worth another look

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I spent part of last week at the EuroSakai Conference in Amsterdam. I haven’t really had any involvement with Sakai, and to be honest, I’ve tended to think of it as a something slightly peripheral (probably due to its low update in the UK) and dominated by the US – a sort of “it happens over there” kind of thing. However the community driven development approach it is taking is of interest, and over the past year we at CETIS have been making a concerted effort to engage more with the Sakai community and try and build more links to relevant JISC funded activity e.g. the current DVLE programme.

Ian Dolphin’s opening keynote gave a really useful overview of the history of Sakai, their vision of ‘plugability’ and ease of integration of tools and services. The community continues to grow with over 330 known adopters, 71 foundation members, and 20+ commercial affiliates. (As an aside one of the more intriguing aspects of cultural diversity was the presentation from St Petersburg State University talking about their use of Sakai and how they are now working with private Islamic schools across Russia in developing their curriculum delivery).

My main interest in the conference was to try and find out more about developments with their Open Academic Environment (OAE) which I know involves integration of widgets and explore potential links particularly around the JISC DVLE programme. I also wanted to get some more clarity around the differences/links/integrations between the OAE and the original CLE (Collaboration and Learning Environment).

The OAE works seems to be developing apace, and it was heartening to see (and hear about) their development process which is very much user led. The project is creating and using what they call “design lenses” to guide developments. Each lens corresponds to a particular aspect of teaching and learning. The over-arching lens is conceived as a mindmap (see screen shot below) and there is a high level of alignment with work of the JISC Curriculum Design and Delivery Programmes and the challenges, processes and technologies structure of the Design Studio.

Sakai Learning Capabilities Design Lenses

Sakai Learning Capabilities Design Lenses

The demos I saw from the project group and in particular from the team at NYU, it would appear that the OAE is a usable and flexible environment. There is also an online demo by Lucy Appert, NYU available here. Some highlights of the system were the use of widgets; tagging of content, increased levels of openness from private to shared to public; more integration with the usual suspects of external sites; integrated licencing and more.

In terms of widgets we have had some interactions over the past couple of years with developers from the University of Cambridge through our early widget working group meeting. Although not taking the W3C/Apache wookie route, they were able to do some basic interoperability and repackaging to make them run in a wookie server so it might be worth the team looking at the growing number of widgets available from that community and re- purposing them.

The OAE group are working towards creating templates and again, I can see lots of links to the Curriculum Design and Delivery programmes, and also to the wider context of learning design and the range of stakeholders who came to the Design Bash later in the week in Oxford. We have a wealth of case-studies and resources around staff and student engagement at a range of levels across the curriculum design process which I’m sure could be of mutual benefit. The work Robyn Hill (University of Wyoming) has been doing around templates also highlighted commonalities around the issues of shared understandings of terminology, context specific use etc, etc, which again all came up during Design Bash.

The CLE is also developing with the latest version due for release in Spring 2012. Chuck Severance gave an update on developments, which have also taken a very user centric design process. Unsurprisingly given Chuck’s involvement in both communities, one of the major updates to the CLE will be the integration of the new IMS CC specification (which will incorporate basic LTI). Chuck sees this as being a (or perhaps the) “game changer” for Sakai. Despite appreciating the benefits of LTI, I’m somewhat skeptical about that in the UK context. However, if there is a rush of LTI producers and consumers of the coming 18 months then it could indeed give Sakai an edge over other systems.

The OAE and CLE were talked about as being complementary, but the community is obviously in a hybrid phase at the moment until there is a complete integration. So for people thinking about adoption, they will probably need to have clear timeline of integration and release of features to their community. The OAE looks very pretty and I can see it appealing to academics – however you will need quite a bit of dedicated technical support to use it. NYU are still just piloting its use in selected courses/schools.

As I mentioned earlier, Sakai doesn’t have a huge uptake in the UK but I was able to get more of an overview of the UK scene during the “Towards a common European Sakai Fishing Policy” session presented by Adam Marshall (Oxford University) and Patrick Lynch (University of Hull). Now Oxford isn’t your typical HEI however Sakai does seem to work for them. Their transition from their previous system (Boddington – hands up if you remember that one!) seems to have gone remarkably smoothly. Customization is crucial to Oxford and Sakai has afforded them the level of flexibility they require. Hull on the other hand is more representative of a typical HEI and both Adam and Patrick are keen to expand the UK user base to include more “normal” institutions. Currently the users in the UK and Ireland are Newcastle, Lancaster, Daresbury, Hull, Oxford, Cambridge, Bath and Limmerick, with Newcastle and Bath using it more as a research environment than a teaching and learning one. A UKissN (UK and Ireland Support Network) has been formed, more information is available from their blog and over the coming months they hope to produce more case studies etc of implementation to encourage interest.

One phrase that did keep cropping up in various conversations over the course of the conference was “you don’t fired for choosing moodle”. I’m not sure that is the main reason for the increased migration stats we’ve seen in the UK over the past couple of years, however there is an underlying truth in there. By the same token I can’t see anyone getting fired for having another look at Sakai. So I would encourage you to go the the UKissN site, explore what’s happening and start asking questions.

Obviously I haven’t been able to cover everything in the conference in this post, but as ever, I was tweeting away during the conference, and I’ve collated my tweets including lots of links here to give another view of the conference.


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