JISC Toolkits & Demonstrators 2007 Start Up Meeting

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Last week I went to a meeting in London, for 9 new toolkit and demonstrator projects.

I hate going on the underground, but I found a great London travel website, and printed out maps and journey times for London buses, and managed to find my way to the meeting.

The meeting was interesting, and the new toolkits and demonstrators sound great, but as Enterprise SIG coordinator, I’m particularly interested in Selwyn Lloyd’s Group Calendaring Web Service, and Carol Shergold and Paolo Oprandi’s XMarks Project, looking at moving assessment and marks data between SRS and VLE (a issue crossing the remits of Enterprise and Assessment SIGs). I was also interested in EFSCE, a project to enable learners to fill course evaluation forms online, something I would have found handy when I was a student.

 Sheila and I gave a presentation about the JISC-CETIS Special Interest Groups, and encouraged projects to come along to meetings.

 The projects finish in 6 months time!

Summary of 3 years of Enterprise at JISC CETIS Conferences

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In response to a request from Christina at eLearning Focus, I have written a summary of 3 years of the Enterprise SIG / Systems Integration / Future of Institutions strand at the JISC CETIS Conferences from 2004-2006, discussing priorities identified and progress made. The summary is here: Priorities and Progress: 3 Years of the Systems Strand at JISC-CETIS Conference.

I found my comments!

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I just discovered 2 comments on my blog posts, dating to Sept and Oct. It’s now Jan. Sorry! I didn’t realise I had to find, read and approve comments, I thought they just added themselves to the blog automatically. My 5 other comments were about gambling, and various unmentionable things, so I can see why comments have to be approved…

Tencompetence meeting in Manchester

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Hi, regular blog readers! Does anyone read my work blog? Feel very welcome to leave some comments (nice ones, please).

The good news is that my computer is working again, and I’ve been back online since last week. I went to Manchester last Thursday to the Tencompetence meeting. Mark Stiles gave a great keynote presentation, as ever, and it was followed by a really interesting presentation about Ultraversity, a distance learning course where students only meet at graduation. It was inspiring to hear about people who have found this a great way to study without giving up work (who can afford to study without a job these days?), or combine study with parenting. As Enterprise SIG Coordinator, I also found it useful to hear Steve Bennet’s presentation on using Enterprise Web Services to connect Smirkboard and Perception (see his article on eLearning Focus for more info), and really liked the Heather Mills example he used to illustrate a point about the transient nature of student data. If you come to my SIG meetings, you’ll know I’m very much in favour of using silly or simple examples to make things easier to understand!

Computer dead

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After just a few days back at work, my computer decided to die. I’ve taken it into the computer hospital, where they think it could be down to an overheated fan. It’s Monday 8th Jan (David Bowie’s 60th birthday, wasn’t he great as the Goblin King in Labyrinth?), and I hope to be back online as soon as they can revive my poor computer. In the meantime, apologies if I don’t reply to any emails, I’m typing this post in a public library some miles from my home/office in the Welsh mountains.

Welcome to 2007

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The Enterprise SIG coordinator is back to work, feeling very rejuvenated after the Christmas break. I’m keen to get on with the next SIG meeting, and am looking for a kind host with access to a meeting room for 30 or more delegates, with internet access and a data projector. Contact me at vashtizarach@yahoo.co.uk if you can help.

I’m off to the TENcompetence meeting in Manchester next week, and have also registered for the JISC Conference in March.

 It should be a busy year for the XCRI (eXchanging Course Information) project, as JISC are currently looking at bids for new projects to implement and test XCRI.

 The Enterprise SIG will also be keeping an eye on IMS which are currently working towards version 2 of the Enterprise Services Specification.

And finally, JISC’s Techwatch are writing a report entitled Service-Oriented Architectures: the way forward for H&FE?