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JISC RSC South East
D Block, Keynes
University of Kent
Canterbury
CT2 7NP

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Case studies

This page contains summaries of interesting and useful case studies throughout the South East region that are published in full on the LSIS Excellence Gateway. To view any particular case study in its entirety, please click the Excellence Gateway logo beneath each synopsis.

Personal Learning Spaces - The Next Challenge for ILT

Thanet College has launched the pilot phase of a scheme to create online ‘personal learning spaces’ (e-portfolios) for all staff and students that are separate from the College’s virtual learning environment (VLE). Commencing  in September 07 with 150 Pebble Pad accounts for all members of staff, these e-portfolios will enable assets to be stored, organised, linked and made visible as required for a multitude of purposes without imposing the institutional security, control and ownership needed in a traditional college VLE.

 Esher optimises data integration with SharePoint

As learning providers across the country continue to develop their MIS, orgnisational intranets, VLEs, email systems and websites, so the need to combine this wealth of disparate data grows. We examine how Esher College has made
excellent use of Microsoft’s SharePoint to achieve quite remarkable levels of integration.

ISIS provides value added data to Itchen’s students and staff

So many post-16 learning providers have been trying to solve the same problem: how to give their students and staff web-based user-friendly any time/anywhere access to data held on the organisation’s management information system (MIS). When Itchen College decided to build its own custom designed interface, it took the opportunity to integrate many value-added features tailored to meet the needs of staff and students. The result is ‘ISIS’, the highly successful Itchen Student/Staff Information System.

Itchen provides improved enrolment with Choices

Summer enrolment of students is a hectic, time-consuming and often arduous time of year for many learning providers. The administrative burden of selecting appropriate courses and creating individual timetables that satisfy the student, the tutors and the college as a whole can be substantial, particularly when using manual or semi-manual systems. To alleviate this situation, Itchen College has designed ‘Choices’, an elegant in-house software program created to streamline the enrolment process, automate many of the ‘number crunching’ tasks and provide some unique value-added ‘extras’.

Amersham embeds exemplar e-learning into ESOL programme

Despite roaming like nomads from location to location loaded with sundry IT equipment, the outreach ESOL provision at Amersham & Wycombe College has been providing high-quality teaching of English to speakers of other languages (ESOL) for many years. However, the barriers to any coherent development of e-learning were considerable. That was until the outreach classes found a new home in a purpose built ESOL Centre equipped with two well appointed IT suites, interactive whiteboards and the Blackboard learning platform. In just over a year, the outreach ESOL Centre has developed some of the best examples of blended e-learning in this sector and found great success by integrating IT skills courses within the ESOL programme.

Maths on Moodle sets e-learning standards at Varndean

Under-utilisation of virtual learning environments (VLEs) is a common complaint from many learning providers. Not so at Brighton-based Varndean College where the Mathematics Department is leading the way with its comprehensive suite of Moodle courses bristling with targeted online resources and tests supporting every module of the syllabi offered to students and adult learners.

Introtrain at the Cutting Edge of WBL e-Portfolios

The introduction of e-portfolios into work-based learning (WBL) environments represents one of the biggest challenges to this increasingly important strand of e-learning. When training provider Introtrain first trialled e-portfolios into its hairdressing apprenticeship scheme in 2006, the company was breaking new ground. Two years later, its e-portfolio system has successfully expanded to encompass 150 learners in 60 different employer locations. This case study looks at the impact on learners, training provider and employers as well as some of the lessons learned.

MidKent optimises student ICT activities with LanSchool

LanSchool software has transformed theway in which tutors and Learning Resources Coordinators manage the ICT classroom and library environments at MidKent College. This Classroom Management application provides a more convenient and targeted way of controlling internet access within a class (as opposed to global firewall restrictions). It also empowers the tutor with controls and features allowing them to observe each student desktop from their PC, share their PC with the class, view internet history, use built-in voting technology and interact individually either by taking control of the student machine or discreetly guiding the student with indicators.

Gyration Suite helps BCOT deliver ILT resources to the student

Basingstoke College of Technology needed to find a cost-effective way of ensuring its significant investment in ILT resources was made available to its students whilst continuing to operate in an aging site before the much anticipated move to its new build. In discovering and implementing the Gyro Suite, the College found much more than just a low-cost alternative to the interactive whiteboard.

Slough ACL Excels with custom designed e-Register

Slough Borough Council (SBC) Lifelong Learning has developed an Excel-based electronic register that streamlines and integrates induction, initial assessment, Individual Learning Plans (ILPs), withdrawn/retained statistics, learning outcomes and all necessary data into a single, easy-to-use spreadsheet, thus greatly reducing workload for tutors and practically eliminating data-entry errors. Oh and by the way, it also takes the register.

Chichester’s ILT Café serves up Barracuda for Staff Development

Providers throughout the region are constantly looking for new ways to make staff development more engaging, especially when it comes to developing tutors’ ILT skills. Chichester College seems to have found a successful ‘recipe’ by combining the Barracuda suite of ICT resources with an ‘ILT Café’ approach to its Inset days.

Sparsholt College: Improving student engagement with Moodle-based e-portfolios

An ICT Key Skills lecturer from Sparsholt College is using Moodle-based e-portfolios to raise levels of student engagement, making full use of the learning platform’s integral Advanced Assignment Activity and Grade Book tools to create approximately 300 active e-portfolios producing evidence for Key Skills up to Level 3. The College is hoping to model this internally-developed e-portfolio system for Application of Number and Communications key skills.

Brockenhurst drives up quality with "Rolls Royce" eSARs

For the last three years, Brockenhurst College has been using its internally-developed Electronic Self Assessment Reporting (eSAR) system to drive up quality levels throughout the College. By integrating tailored management information, student performance data and analysis, lesson observation profiles and learner value-added reports within a structured authoring framework, the College has created a ‘Rolls Royce’ system of self-evaluation (as recognised by Becta and Ofsted) that supports continuous improvement, qualitative reflection, target setting and inter-departmental benchmarking.

Portsmouth streams its multimedia down the open-source route

Since October 2008, Portsmouth College has been piloting its own internal media streaming service. Simply named TPC.TV, this new facility for students and staff combines open-source software with ‘retired hardware’ to provide a highly cost-effective and simple-to-use solution to support teaching and learning with anywhere anytime video resources.

 

SBC Lifelong Learning pilots IT courses for visually impaired students using SuperNova

Addressing the accessibility needs of disabled learners is a top priority for Lifelong Learning at Slough Borough Council. In conjunction with the Library Service, a pilot scheme to deliver basic IT courses using SuperNova to visually impaired students has been introduced in Slough. Many of the lessons learned in the early phases of this initiative are shared in this case study.

 

MidKent College: ‘Net-savvy' tutor engages sports students with Moodle

One of the driving forces behind the development of e-learning is the necessity to meet the needs of the modern ‘screenager’ or ‘net-savvy’ learner. However, what about the new generation of practitioners that have also been raised on a diet of social networking, mobile telephony, i-pods, wikis and blogs? This case study focuses on a young Leisure Sports and Fitness tutor in her second year at MidKent College and how she has effectively adapted and used Moodle to engage her students, streamline course delivery and increase the ‘fun factor’.

Taunton’s College Southampton makes ‘virtualisation’ a reality

Network servers are the backbone of all IT provision in any organisation. ‘Server Virtualisation’ - the partitioning of a physical server into smaller ‘virtual servers’ – is an emerging technology that, according to some, promises to slash hardware overheads, cut energy costs, reduce carbon footprints and lessen maintenance workload whilst at the same time increasing flexibility, scalability and reliability. Taunton’s College in Southampton is now two years into its server virtualisation programme and this case study examines how successful this new technology has been in supporting the College’s IT and e-learning infrastructure.

Abingdon & Witney uses social network to deliver online collaboration to trainee teachers

When it comes to online collaboration, social networking sites have the potential to provide a real alternative to virtual learning environments (VLEs). Many providers are still reluctant to introduce Facebook or Beebo into the curriculum for all the obvious reasons. However, there are several other ‘serious’ alternatives such as Ning and Multiply. This case study examines a pilot run by Abingdon and Witney College using one such social networking site to deliver part of its DTTLS teacher training qualification. This project not only provided ITT students with first-hand experience of remote online collaboration, but also allowed them to evaluate the relevance and value of such teaching methods for eventual use with their own students.

BHASVIC uses social networking to get revising

The debate surrounding the pedagogical and practical value of social networking websites as part of the teaching and learning process rages on. For some providers, the introduction of the likes of Facebook and Bebo into the curriculum is a non-starter, whilst others see great opportunities for engaging and collaborative online working. This case study looks at one successful implementation as BHASVIC begins to use a revision social networking site to help its students prepare for examinations and consolidate their learning.

Southampton City College: EFL lecturer raises ILT game to achieve Moodle Gold

This case study examines how one EFL lecturer at Southampton City College decided to ‘raise his ILT game’ by making full use of the Moodle virtual learning environment (VLE) to create blog-style resources and interactive forums to increase the levels of engagement, motivation and collaboration for four of his student classes. As a result his courses have received a Gold Award under the College’s Gold, Silver and Bronze Moodle Benchmarking Initiative.

Southampton City College strives for Gold with Moodle benchmarking scheme

How do you answer the question: “How well is your VLE being used?” Southampton City College rose to the challenge with the creation, development and implementation of a highly motivational ‘Gold, Silver and Bronze’ benchmarking system to evaluate and recognise quality of content and activity on its College Moodle system. The results are impressive.

City College Brighton & Hove: CCB Stream puts the ‘wow’ back into teaching and learning

The benefits of using multimedia – particularly video – to support teaching and learning are pretty obvious to most. However, the practical process of blending such resources into the curriculum can be expensive, time-consuming and frustrating. Many providers are now attempting to move away from the traditional model of using their learning resource centres (LRCs) to record on-air programs to order then book out limited numbers of VHS tapes and DVDs which get mislaid or damaged with ease. Media streaming seems to be the way forward for many and the solutions filtering through are diverse. This case study examines the success enjoyed by City College Brighton and Hove with its ‘home grown’ open-source service called ‘CCB Stream’.