Mobile Learning and MBAs 

Quote :

"The service will work as a supplementary learning aid and will allow taking quick tests on specific subjects, access wordlists/ flashcards, quick tips on math and logic etc. The interactive nature of the medium makes it possible to provide quick and personalized feedback from the trained faculty of IMS. Further, a student will also get help to figure out eligibility across institutes and universities in and outside the country. Eventually, this service will also facilitate greater interaction within the student community."

Didn't we discuss something similar at the last meeting?

Simplifying the service to delivery of flashcards, glossaries and quick to digest Key data and facts is I believe of fundamental improtance to the success of any joint OU/Emerald/Crandfield/LBS tie-up.

JISC April 07 Roadmap

The call that caught my attention, and the one I think we might have a chance with, was this one:

e-Learning : Cross Insitutional use of e-Learning to support Lifelong Learning.

"Regional and collaborative projects to pilot the use of e-learning to support lifelong learning, including the support of progression and workplace learning, and the provision of flexible delivery and personalised learning experiences. "

There is also quite a bit of information available about the projects currently underway. We need to be careful to not to make a pitch for a project that someone is already developing. See these pages for more:

Last round winners

Cross Institutional Projects for Lifelong learners already underway 

I'm not sure if this is directly related to our own plans, but it did prompt me to think that developments in Resource Discovery methods could be quite valuable for Institutions seeking to offer Fast, accurate and contextually aware Information Services to Alumni.

One to watch I think.

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The JISC wishes to commission a project to explore and evaluate the value of cross search based on metadata and the combination of metadata and full text. The project should also explore what types of resources are best suited to cross-searching/meta-searching.

The aims and objectives of the study are:
· To conduct an evaluative study to explore what value end users gain from the different implementations of metadata and full text combinations in information retrieval/resource discovery. For example searching metadata on it’s own or metadata and full text together across resources.

· To explore the different types of resources/material that are best suited to cross searching/meta-searching e.g. searching across library catalogues, bibliographic databases and repositories. What is valuable for the user in terms of making sense of the results set. This work should build on the findings of the Contextual Resource Evaluation Environment (CREE)Project.

· To build a demonstrator to identify and exemplify the issues, challenges and benefits for end-users of search services implementing full text/metadata and cross-searching/meta-searching.

· To make recommendations for potential work within the JISC Information Environment in order to help address the associated issues including the enhancement of JISC services.

· In particular to work with the Intute Repository Search Project in order to inform developments of the repository search project.

· To report so that findings are not only relevant to JISC Services and development programmes but also so universities and colleges can use the findings to help inform their resource discovery services.

The deadline for receipt of tenders is 13.00 on Monday 21 May 2007. Funding of up to £50,000 (Inclusive of VAT and related travel and subsistence) is available for the study.

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/programme_capital/c

Some interesting projects and worth bearing in mind when we look to develop our own proposals for the next round of awards.

30^th March, 2007. Over 80 projects, totalling more than £15m of funding, have been successful in the latest round of JISC’s capital programme, it was announced today.

The projects are being funded under e-learning, repositories and preservation, e-infrastructure, users and innovation, and e-research strands of the overarching programme, which represents an investment of some £90m over three years. The call for proposals was issued in September of last year, the second of three under the programme.

Among the e-learning projects to be funded are those that will explore administrative processes to support admissions and course validations and develop automated course descriptions. Other projects in this strand will look at further themes, including e-assessment, e-portfolios and personalised learning.

e-Research projects have as their focus community-based approaches to the further development of the national e-infrastructure, disciplinary differences and addressing the issue of the barriers to the wider adoption and take up of e-infrastructure services. The development of virtual research environments (VREs), which allow researchers to collaborate across institutional boundaries, will be supported through the funding of four further projects which will have important implications for researchers in a wide range of disciplines.

The new round of funding also sees the launch of the Users and Innovation programme. Central to the new programme is a Community of Practice, involving more than 50 institutions, which will allow more than 150 practitioners to share their thinking and collaborate on innovation to enrich the learning experience of students.

The heaviest investment in the current round of funding is being made in support of the establishment and development of institutional repositories. Nearly £5m is being awarded to more than 40 projects, including start up and enhancement projects, preservation activities, those building tools such as software, metadata, retrieval and text-mining tools, and projects building national infrastructure services.

The current round of funding follows the award of £5.5m last September and a range of other activities under the overarching capital programme, including: SuperJANET5, the upgrade to the JANET network (£27.6m); enhancements to the national e-infrastructure, including enhancements in the areas of access management, the National Grid Service and text mining (£3.6m); the establishment of 'The Depot', a repository which can host research outputs should institutions not have a repository in which to deposit (£0.5m), and collaborative activities with the Higher Education Academy in the area of e-learning (£2m). In addition, a further £12m was awarded to 16 new digitisation projects in January.

A third call for proposals, to be issued in April, will focus on e-learning, repositories and preservation and semantic services for e-infrastructure alongside a cross-programme call.

For details of the newly-funded projects, please go to: www.jisc.ac.uk/capital  

For details of the newly-funded digitisation projects, please go to: www.jisc.ac.uk/digitisation_home.html  

For further information, please contact Philip Pothen on 07887 564 006 or p.pothen@jisc.ac.uk

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