Learning Technology October 2000 Page 1

Learning Conversations

Many staff agree that the most effectivelearning occurs through discussion andconversation. E-mail can be useful inthis context, but its lack of structure canmake constructive interactions difficult.MALTS now offers a number ofdifferent approaches to computermediated communication.

Both of the major learningenvironments recently introduced - theIVLE and WebCT - include a structureddiscussion facility, and for the IVLE youwon’t even need to enter all the studentdata because we’ve arranged anautomatic link with the data held byRegistry. (More about IVLE on page 5).The Faculty of Education already makewidespread use of the conferencingsystem First Class, but we are offeringanother commercial conferencingsystem, WebBoard, to departmentswho may be interested. It is anticipated

that for most courses who wish toexpand their use of on-line discussionWebCT or IVLE will be the mostappropriate choice, but WebBoard maybe particularly useful for committees orother groups who would not normallyuse the other features of a virtuallearning environment. You can learnmore about WebBoard from their siteat http://webboard.oreilly.com/ or contactMALTS if you are interested in settingup a WebBoard conference.

Multimedia supportfor Languages

The School of European Languages andCultures has won support from theuniversity development trust to expandits use of multimedia. During the pastyear a range of interactive assessments,making substantial use of audio as wellas graphics and text based exerciseshave been used by students ofPortuguese. Building on this experiencethe range of question styles is to beexpanded, and the project will alsodevelop questions for use in othermodern language courses.

For more information please contactJohn Hobbs S.E.L.C. tel 650 3678 oremail John.Hobbs@ed.ac.uk

Perception

Perception is a web-based test deliveryand management system. That doesn’tjust mean on-line multiple choicequestions. Perception includes ninedifferent question types, which can useaudio and video as well as text andgraphics. The associated reportersoftware offers a secure method ofanalysing the results of a perceptionsession, either by participant or byquestion, and all aspects of the systemare customisable for eachimplementation.

There are sample tests available at http://ivle001.malts.ed.ac.uk/qm/perception.dllusing the username “test” (nopassword needed) or contact MALTSfor more information.

LTSN

The UK highere d u c a t i o nfunding bodieshave established a new Learning andTeaching Support Network (LTSN) of 24centres to promote high quality learningand teaching in all subject disciplinesin higher education (HE). The networkwill support the sharing of innovationand good practices in learning andteaching including the use, whereappropriate, of communications andinformation technology. Most centresare now fully staffed and embarking ontheir programme of activities. Detailsof workshops and other events areavailable from http://www.ltsn.ac.uk.Contact details for each of the centresare available from http://www.ltsn.ac.uk/centres/index.html . Colleagues arestrongly encouraged to contact theirdiscipline centre(s) and request to beadded (free of charge) to the mailing list.

Contentspage 1 LTSN, Perception, Language

Multimedia, WebBoard

page 2,3 Medicine and Veterinary Medicine

page 4 EDINA

page 5 SCRAN, IVLE and CLIVE

page 6,7 Science and Engineering

page 8 Tools and EventsCompiled by Nora Mogey, MALTS. Graphic Design byRachel Ellaway, Learning Technology. Thanks to Nick andEUCS BITS team for their help, and to all contributors.

3LearningTechnologyBITs Learning Technology SupplementNumber Three : October 2000

A WebBoard sample screen

This issue of the occasional supplement to BITs highlights howthe use of learning technologies is rapidly expanding across theuniversity. The integrated virtual learning environment (IVLE) iscurrently being used in four faculties, with continued expansionanticipated, and the other large integrated learning system availablefor general use, WebCT, is also proving very popular with staffand students alike. Other teams are working on softwaredevelopment and discipline specific projects. News of activities inyour department for inclusion in future issues is always welcome.

Learning Technology October 2000 Page 2

New Microlab TeachingFacilities for Faculty ofMedicine

This summer has seen a number ofmajor developments to improvecomputer-based teaching facilities forstaff and access to computers forstudents in the Faculty of Medicine.

1. The Greenfield Suite open-access

Microlab has been refurbished and re-opened in September as the Faculty ofMedicine Greenfield Teaching Microlab.The layout has been changed to make ita more useful and attractive teachingand learning environment and it is nowequipped with:

· two data projectors, screens, OHP,audio facilities,

· teachers desk with networked PCand connections for a portable PC,

· re-arranged PCs to provide: a mainarea (40 PCs) with 2 seats per PC,which is often better for teachingpurposes, and side area (20 PCs) withan additional data projector.

Between 9am and 5pm weekdays duringterm-time, it will operate as a dedicatedteaching facility for the Faculty ofMedicine. Outwith these hours it willoperate as a public microlab (term-time24h/7day) as it did previously. Asupervisor will be available from 9am-5pm Mondays to Fridays to help withany problems which may arise andassist teachers in setting up classes.

2. The new Medical Education Centre,

Western General Hospital on the top ofthe Out-Patients Department at the WGHhas been built at a cost of around £3

Faculty Group of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine

New Features for EEMeC

The Edinburgh Electronic MedicalCurriculum is a ‘home-grown’ VLE forthe MBChB undergraduate medicaldegree course. In its first incarnation lastsession, it contained coursebooks,lecture notes and basic admin.information.

EEMeC has however been greatlyenhanced over the summer with newfeatures such as a personalisedinteractive timetable, chat anddiscussion facilities and an archive of theprevious year’s material.

The interactive timetable wasimplemented to address the problemsarising from the complexity of thecurriculum timetable. For students toidentify their personal timetables is acomplex task, which can be timeconsuming and open to mis-interpretation. Particularly in theirclinical years, each rotation is organisedseparately and the format of theirtimetables can vary tremendously. Nowthat EEMeC has a system that identifiesthe student at login, a timetable can begenerated from a database that isspecific for that student. It can beconfigured in several different waysallowing the student to display anythingfrom a specified day to the whole year.

In addition, chat and discussion areashave been added and extensiveintegration of the various interlinkingthreads that tie the new course together.

For further information, email us ateemec@ed.ac.uk or look at EEMeC itselfat http://www.eemec.med.ed.ac.uk

million and developed in associationwith LUHNT and SCPMDE. It is nowopen and facilities include:

· two computer labs containing 42networked PCs and printing facilities.

· a clinical skills lab with a range ofmannequins and skills trainingequipment,

· a communication skills lab/seminarroom with wall-mounted videocameras/audio equipment, videorecord and playback facilities.

The Medical Education Centre will beofficially opened by the Principal,Professor Sir Stewart Sutherland, onNovember 15th 2000.

3. The Clinical Teaching Resource

Centres, Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh

has similar facilities to those at the WGH.Learning Technology in the form of arange of mannequins is employed aspart of the structured clinical skills andadvanced life support teaching on thenew MBChB course. The CTRC also hassix new networked PCs.

For further information, email us atmvm.its@ed.ac.uk or the LTS website athttp://www.lts.mvm.ed.ac.uk

LTS functions as a management structure to provide a range of services andfacilities to support educational and research activities in the Faculty Group ofMedicine & Veterinary Medicine. These broadly fall into four categories: MedicalIllustration, IT Services, Courseware Development and Clinical/Resuscitation Skills.Detailed information about all of these services is available on our web site:http://www.lts.mvm.ed.ac.uk. Specific on-going projects are featured in other partsof ‘Learning Technology’. For example, in this issue we feature the newdevelopments to improve computer-based teaching and learning facilities for bothstaff and students in the Faculty of Medicine.

The new Greenfield Suite

Learning Technology October 2000 Page 3

CALs for Clinical Skills

Two packages are currently underdevelopment by the Medical TeachingOrganisation and the LTS, forundergraduate medical students topractice and develop their clinical skills.

‘Blood Pressure’ is one of the first in aseries of ‘virtual OSCEs’ (OSCE standsfor Objective Standard ClinicalExaminations) testing a students skillin taking blood pressure from simulatedpatients.

‘Venepuncture’ is aimed at supportingthe learning of the clinical skill of takingvenous blood by undergraduatemedical students. This package willintegrate with practical lab sessions anda video produced by MALTS.

For further information contact RachelEllaway (rachel.ellaway@ed.ac.uk ,511749) or Jake Broadhurst(jake.broadhurst@ed.ac.uk , 511645)

Locomotor Disorders

Produced by the MVM LearningTechnology Section and the WGHRheumatic Diseases Unit ‘LocomotorDisorders’ is the latest CAL resource tobe made available to undergraduatemedical (MBChB) students. It wasdeveloped in collaboration with subjectexperts closely involved with the project,including Professor George Nuki, DrRaashid Luqmani and Dr Nigel Hurst.

Locomotor disorders comprise aheterogeneous group of diseases andconditions in which musculoskeletalpain, stiffness and physical disability areprominent. The MBChB Year 3Locomotor Module teaches this area ofmedicine by providing an integratedprogramme of teaching and self-directedlearning relating to important clinicaldisorders of the locomotor system.

This web-based CAL, in conjunction withbooks, reviews and clinical tutorials,provides students with the necessaryknowledge to give an assessedpresentation both to tutors and to fellowstudents. Textual content is enhancedwith a variety of interactions, animations,illustrations and clinical images. Each

New Browser ‘Front-End’for Medical CALResources

LTS has recently completed a new ‘frontend’ to significantly improve the waythat staff and students of the Faculty ofMedicine are able to access CALmaterials and related resources in thepublic access microlabs. All of theexisting courseware and resources areorganised into appropriately definedgroupings providing more intuitive useof the system and greatly facilitatingbrowsing and selection. The newsystem provides features such as:

• multiple browsing pathways

• previews of each resource

• the ability to launch multiple mediatypes

• fault reporting and evaluation toolsand support for updating andmodifying content

The browser is available now in thepublic access microlabs via the StartMenu: Departmental Software:Medicine: MediCALs. The desktopversion will be available shortly.

Please contact Rachel Ellaway(rachel.ellaway@ed.ac.uk , 511749) orSusan Wexler (susan.wexler@ed.ac.uk ,504642) for more information.

section is further supported by a seriesof self-assessment MCQ’s.

For further information contact StewartCromar, 511645, email Stewart.Cromar@ed.ac.uk or look at the package onlineat http://www.lts.mvm.ed.ac.uk/locomotr

The main menu

A CAL preview

Locomotor Disorders title screen

Radiograph reference image

In the ‘blood pressure’ package, thestudent is introduced to the patient(above) and takes a measurement (below)

Learning Technology October 2000 Page 4

Which EDINA servicesare available to you?

EDINA offers a range of bibliographicand geo-data services across manysubject areas. Currently, the Universityof Edinburgh subscribes to thefollowing EDINA services:

Art Abstracts - 300 leading artperiodicals

BIOSIS Previews - bibliographicinformation for all areas of lifescience research from 1985onwards

CAB Abstracts - research &development literature inagriculture, forestry, human healthmanagement & conservation ofnatural resources

EDINA Digimap- Ordnance Surveymaps, digital map data

Ei Compendex - vast interdisciplinaryengineering information database

INSPEC - scientific and technicalliterature in physics, electricalengineering, computers andinformation technology

UKBORDERS - digitised boundarydatasets

You also have access to the freeSALSER service which cataloguesholdings in all Scottish Universities.

EDINA Digimap casestudies

The EDINA Digimap service providesaccess to on-line Ordnance Surveydigital map data, for printing maps and

EDINA

EDINA is a JISC-funded national datacentre. It offers the UK tertiary education and research communities networkedaccess to a range of data, information and research services. All EDINA services are available free of charge to members ofUK tertiary education institutions for academic use, although institutional subscription and end-user registration are requiredfor most services.

Full details of EDINA services can be found at http://edina.ac.uk

Moira Massey, Training/Learning and Teaching Support, EDINA (moira.massey@ed.ac.uk or tel 504616) or Emma Sutton(emma.sutton@ed.ac.uk or tel 511441 ), Research and Geo-data Services, EDINA will be happy to answer queries about theEDINA services. They also seek further case studies of how EDINA services are being used within teaching.

downloading raw data for use inGeographical Information Systems(GIS) or drawing packages. Read on ifyou would like to see some examplesof how this service is currently beingused in teaching around the UK.

1. Case Study One: Environmental

Planning

A lecturer has used data from theEDINA Digimap service for teaching amodule entitled GIS for theEnvironment, offered to final yearundergraduates on an EnvironmentalPlanning course as a ‘Planning Skills’option. Assessment for the moduleincluded production of a series oflayouts, at least one thematic map andat least one buffering exercise.Students downloaded Land-Line.Plusdata for areas of the country related totheir dissertation topics, in order tocomplete these tasks.

2. Case Study Two: Ancient History and

Archaeology

A lecturer in Ancient History andArchaeology has used data fromDigimap in exercises for a Master’sdegree to teach generation of terrainmodels, cost-surfaces, catchments,simple overlay and feature extractionroutines.

3. Case Study Three: Geology

A lecturer has been downloading rawLand-Form PANORAMA Digital TerrainModel (DTM) data for use in a Year 2undergraduate Maps & RemoteSensing course. He is developing apractical exercise in which studentsstudy the DTM of a particular area usingthe Surfer7 package. The NTF data is

imported into Surfer7 by translatingeach NTF tile into ASCII X,Y,Z, format.Adjacent tiles are fitted together usingNational Grid Co-ordinates and inputinto Surfer 7. The DTM is produced toa suitable resolution from this. As thestudents are geologists rather thangeographers, areas have been chosenwhere the landscape has an underlyinggeological control. The students shouldbe able to call up the DTM of the areaand display in shaded relief format tovisualise the landscape.

4. Case Study Four: Geography

(dissertation)

For a dissertation on flood riskassessment, a student has used Land-Form PANORAMA DTM and Land-Line.Plus data in the ArcView GIS to identifythe precise number of properties at riskin a village in the South of England. Theprocess involved using the DTM tomodel the flood rise of 1-3 metres toreplicate the effects of 50 and 10 yearfloods. By identifying the flooded areas(also weighted within a hydrologicalmodel) from the DTM, it was possibleto create two spatial zones representingthe flood risk areas. This was thenoverlaid on six 1:1250 tiles to see whichproperties fell in each zone, whichallowed for the estimation of probableinsurance loss in each zone.Interestingly the results were measuredagainst the existing flood defencescheme, which the EnvironmentAgency claimed was sufficient towithstand a 50 metre flood. The GISapproach seemed to suggest thatexisting schemes would only protectagainst a 30-35 metre flood!

Learning Technology October 2000 Page 5

Using the IVLE

In the Veterinary Faculty we have been considering for some years how we mightintegrate our electronic and paper-based course materials into a useful on-line learningenvironment that would be easy to access, straightforward to manage and provideadditional facilities. Only briefly did we consider developing such a resource ourselves,and we have been on the look-out for affordable ready-made solutions. MALTS isactive in providing such generally-useful resources, and both WebCT and the InteractiveVirtual Learning Environment (IVLE) imported from the University of Singapore havebeen described in previous Learning Technology Supplements (http://www.malts.ed.ac.uk/resources/).

We are currently giving the IVLE (http://ivle000.malts.ed.ac.uk/) a thorough trial by puttingin information about the veterinary BVM&S curriculum for the coming session. Thetexts of the 13 course handbooks are being entered into IVLE, involving some re-orderingto fit each text into the pre-defined categories of IVLE for each course (Prerequisites,Synopsis, Objectives, Syllabus, Practical Work, Assessment, References, Miscellaneous,Websites). A number of our courses are subdivided into Sections or Modules, a featurenot provided by IVLE as far as these categories are concerned. The re-ordering involveschanging from sections subdivided into categories (in the paper handbooks) tocategories subdivided into sections (in IVLE). Lecture Plans do provide for sections,and can be hyperlinked to appropriate points within the subdivided categories. Duringthe session we shall be trying out some of the additional features (Discussion Forum,Frequently Asked Questions, Distribution List, Quizzes, Workbins, Chat Rooms). IVLEis easy to use. It is already populated with Edinburgh students according to their coursecode registrations. It does have some quirks and occasional minor bugs, which we arereporting back for the next version.

The Integrated Virtual LearningEnvironment (IVLE) developed at theNational University of Singapore, hasnow been adapted for use in Edinburghand is available to all staff free of charge.The IVLE offers a quick and functionalway to manage all your courseinformation and resources, with all dataentry being via easy to use web forms.

It offers a variety of tools and resourcesto assist both tutors and students toengage more fully with different aspectsof the teaching and learning process,but without the need to be atechnological genius. All courses havespace in the IVLE pre-allocated, so thereis no delay or difficulty in establishingwhether you can make use of it. All yourequire to get started is an NT log-in(available from EUCS - this is probablywhat you use if you log in to student labsor lecture theatres) and your course code

SCRAN

SCRAN http://www.scran.ac.uk/ is aMillennium Project to build a networkedmultimedia resource base for the study,teaching and appreciation of history andmaterial culture in Scotland. Funded bythe Millennium Commission, SCRANworks with project partners such asmuseums, galleries, archives anduniversities to digitise selected parts oftheir collections. SCRAN provides accesstext records of historic monuments andof artefacts held in museums, galleriesand archives, plus 100,000 relatedmultimedia resources; video or soundclips, animations, graphics, plans, virtualreality objects and in particular, colourphotographic images.

Access to the text records and thumbnailimages is freely available from SCRAN.Access to full resources is available underlicence only, the terms of which restrictuse of the material for no profit, noproliferation use in education.Authorization details for members ofEdinburgh University are published athttp://www.lib.ed.ac.uk/lib/resources/databases/accounts/scranacc.shtml.

SCRAN, IVLE and CLIVE

(which is listed in the university calendarhttp://www.cpa.ed.ac.uk/calendar/ )

Any member of staff is welcome to tryout the IVLE at http://ivle000.malts.ed.ac.uk- a basic course website should take nomore than a couple of hours to create,and additional features and resourcescan be added at any subsequent stage.For an unbiased opinion read the sectionbelow under the heading ‘Using theIVLE’. More details are available fromthe URL above under User Guide orLogIn help, or contact MALTS.

Collaborative projects

The CLIVE team is able to provideFaculty services because staff posts aresupported by external income, mostlycontract work, which is only acceptedif it results in useful additions to Facultylearning resources. Just completed is“Congestive Heart Failure” forVetStream and InterVet. A CD-ROMsample of “Equine Anatomy” forWarwickshire College will appearshortly with 10,000 copies of “YourHorse” magazine; the full version is dueat the end of the year, as well as “Healthand Safety” (for equineestablishments). “DiagnosticProcedures in Dermatology”, the fourthCLIVE CD-ROM sponsored by Virbac, isdue in January 2001.

The IVLE

Learning Technology October 2000 Page 6

SELLIC supportcourseware development

With the support of a grant from theUniversity Development Trust, SELLIC’sLearning Technology Officer has spentthe summer supervising a number ofprojects aimed at helping academicstaff to develop learning technologyapplications which can be madeavailable to students via the Internet,using one of the Virtual LearningEnvironments (VLEs) which theUniversity has available.

Some of the projects directly involvethe conversion of course materials intoa form which can be mounted throughWebCT or the IVLE. Others are moregeneric, providing tools for the creationof browser-based pieces of courseware.All have been carried out by EdinburghUniversity students (final yearundergraduates, Masters and Doctoralstudents). They have enjoyed carryingout this part-time summer work, whichhas fitted in well with their research anddissertation-writing. A few haveremarked at the refreshing change fromtheir studies, and all have enjoyed theopportunity to create a piece of usefullearning technology. The projects havebeen spread across the departments ofthe Science and Engineering Faculty,and the applications produced by someof them will be available for use acrossthe Faculty and beyond, for anyonewho would find them helpful.

The projects are:

“Beat the Clock” Game

This tool will create a browser-basedgame from a simple database of namesand/or images, challenging students toidentify items or match pairs, against atime standard. They can compete withclassmates or repeat the game to beattheir “personal best”. It is based on anoriginal game developed by PaulMcLaughlin of ICMB. If you would beinterested in finding out more aboutusing this game contact WilmaAlexander, SELLIC’s LearningTechnology Officer.

Environment). There is ample scope,in this new course, for futuredevelopments providing exercises anddynamic illustrations using JavaScript,Java etc. Dr Neil Jessop, the courseorganiser, will also, through the IVLE,have access to feedback on studentactivity which will help him to pinpointsuccessful areas of the course andfocus on “problem” topics.

Interactive Video Clips

This project is taking a brief digitalMPEG video clip which illustrates theactivity of bacteria within cells andcreating a short interactive exercise.Students on this 4th year elective coursehave to identify the visible componentsof the clip, take measurements andperform calculations based on theactivity shown in the clip. This allowsstudents to get some feeling for thereal-time interaction required and elicitsdetails of their understanding of somecore concepts in the course.

For more information on any of theseprojects, see the SELLIC website at http://www.sellic.ed.ac.uk, or contact WilmaAlexander on 650 7409, emailwilma.alexander@ed.ac.uk.

Project ANGEL

SELLIC has been successful in a recentproposal to the Joint InformationSystems Committee (JISC) under itsProgramme Call for the developmentof the Distributed National ElectronicResource (DNER). As a consequence,Edinburgh University Library is a majorpartner in a consortium involving theLondon School of Economics, SouthBank University, De MontfortUniversity, Sheffield Hallam Universityand EDINA. The aim of this consortiumis to develop, over the next 2-3 years, avirtual learning environment designedparticularly to allow users to interactwith information and scholarlyresources on the Internet, as well asthose allocated by academic teachers.

ChemAnim

This is a Unix-based application whichcan be used with the freely availablestandard application MolMol toautomatically generate .avi animations(viewable using RealVideo, QuickTimeor WindowsMediaPlayer 98). Usersstart by creating a plain text file carryinga standard set of coordinates andinstructions for the transformation,rotation, inversion or vibration desired.ChemAnim uses MolMol to generate aset of images which are then assembledinto a short animation. This .avi file canbe embedded in a web page or inapplications such as PowerPoint.

Water flow profile tutorial

This project created an illustrated tutorialfor a Civil Engineering course, part ofwhich deals with how water flows overdifferent types of bed slope. Twocontrasting cases are illustrated andstudents are asked to predict waterprofiles as a means of testing theirunderstanding of the concepts in thecourse. As it is entirely browser-based,using HTML and JavaScript, the tutorialis easily accessible and portable, and canbe adapted or extended for future use.

Chemistry Course

The course handbook and lecture notesfor the undergraduate “Introduction tomain group chemistry” have beenconverted from their paper form into aweb site which exercises and dynamicillustrations using JavaScript, Java etc.Dr Neil Jessop, the Course Organiser,will also, through the IVLE, have accessto feedback on student activity whichwill help him to pinpoint successfulareas of the course and focus on“problem” topics.

Nutrition Course

The course handbook and lab notes forthis 3rd year course on Nutrition havebeen converted into an electronic formto make them available to students viaa web browser, with the aim of makingthem available through the IVLE(Integrated Virtual Learning

Faculty of Science and Engineering

Learning Technology October 2000 Page 7

in using this tool, contact WilmaAlexander, SELLIC’s LearningTechnology Officer, on 650 7409, emailwilma.alexander@ed.ac.uk.

SELLIC LearningTechnology Forum

“Re-usable courseware – dream orreality?”

The next FG4 Learning TechnologyForum will meet on Wednesday 1st

November from 2-4.30pm. The themeof the meeting is “Re-usable courseware– dream or reality?” Creating andmaintaining learning technologyapplications in Higher Education is verydemanding – it requires time, a rangeof different specialised skills, and goodaccess to hardware and software. Inorder to ensure a realistic return on thisinvestment, more and more institutionsare seeking ways of building “re-usability” into their learning technology.National schemes to encourage shareduse of courseware, such as the LearningTechnology Support Network and theComputers in Teaching Initiative, haveencountered certain problems inpromoting shared use. This meeting willdiscuss ways in which the growth inInternet and Intranet use, anddevelopments in technologies andinformation management, can be usedto support re-use of courseware.

The meeting is open to all, but toallow us to estimate numbers pleaseemail the SELLIC Secretary atcooperla@srv4.lib.ed.ac.uk if you intend tocome. For more details see the SELLICwebsite on http://www.sellic.ed.ac.uk.

Teaching InnovationsCommittee

This is a new Science & EngineeringFaculty committee which has beencreated from the former SELLICAdvisory Board, and is convened byProfessor Sabine Flitsch of Chemistry.Administration of the committee is bySELLIC. Members of the committeehave been identified, and the firstmeeting is expected to take placeduring the Autumn 2000 term.

SHEFC C&IT

SHEFC C&IT programme has fundedprojects in three areas: GenericWebtools, Intranets, and StaffDevelopment. The projects aim toaddress a wide range of applications ofC&IT to learning contexts. Details of theindividual projects can be found at http://www.scotcit.ac.uk/Projects.html

The project is known as ANGEL -‘Authenticated Networked GuidedEnvironment for Learning’.

Edinburgh’s main role in the project willbe to develop the authenticationmodule which will conform to JISC’splans for a successor nationalauthentication system to Athens.Authentication has a key role in thedevelopment and promotion of accessto the growing range of networkedresources for research and learning inuniversities. Ensuring security ofdatabases while providing a simpleaccess method for staff and studentsthroughout the country presentstechnical challenges which this projectaims to resolve.

John MacColl is a Co-Director of theproject, and he will be ensuring thatdevelopments are co-ordinated withrelated projects such as SCWEIMS.ANGEL officially began on 1 September,and the authentication workpackagedevelopment is scheduled to start inSpring 2001. Work has now commencedon the recruitment of a programmer tojoin the SELLIC team for the duration ofthe project.

Dynamic Reading List Tool

In response to a proposal from SELLIC,Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centreallocated one of its SummerScholarship Programme students to theProject. Over July and August AndyMarshall, a computing science studentat the University of York, has built adynamic reading list tool which allowsacademic staff to create web-basedreading lists on the web which areautomatically populated with currentdata from the Library’s Voyager OnlinePublic Access Catalogue (OPAC). Somework remains to be done to completethe tool, and Wilma Alexander, SELLICLearning Technology Officer, will aimto complete the finished version readyfor piloting with academic staff in thecoming session. Delivering thesereading lists from a course ordepartmental web site allows studentsto check, directly from the list, on theavailability and status of each item inthe library OPAC. If you are interested

Netskills

Netskills provide a programme ofworkshops tailored to the needs of thehigher education community.Workshops explore the effective use ofboth internet and intranet technologiesfor teaching and learning, research,administration, marketing and otherbusiness activities. A full list offorthcoming events can be found athttp://www.netskills.ac.uk/workshops/index.html

The Distributed NationalElectronic Resource(DNER)

The DNER (at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/dner/)is a managed environment foraccessing quality assured informationresources on the Internet . Theseresources include scholarly journals,monographs, textbooks, abstracts,manuscripts, maps, music scores, stillimages, geospatial images and otherkinds of vector and numeric data, aswell as moving picture and soundcollections. The material available isdivided into nine major subjectcategories, plus a general category forthose which are applicable to allsubjects. There is also an alphabeticallist of subjects for ease of access.Subject Guides for some subjectcategories are also available. Someservices require an individualregistration or an institutionalsubscription - but this is all clearlydetailed at the website quoted.

Learning Technology October 2000 Page 8

Forthcoming LT Conferences

Information Infrastructures for Digital Preservation: A One Day workshop - 6 December2000, and Preservation 2000: An International Conference on the Preservation and

Long Term Accessibility of Digital Materials - 7/8 December 2000, both in York - detailsof both events at http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/events/cedars-2000/

IT in Teacher Education - An International research conference on partnershipsfor technology in education - Tuesday 9 January, 2001 Olympia Conference Centre,London http://fcis1.wie.warwick.ac.uk/~itte__bett/

ICTE 2001 - International conference on technology and education - May 2 - 5,2001, Florida State University / Learning Systems Institute, Tallahassee, Floridahttp://www.icte.org/ Call for papers before 31 Dec 2000

EducatiON-LINE funded by JISC as part of the electronic libraries programmeincludes a detailed listing of education conferences http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/

Sorry you missed it ? -The 7th conference of the Association for LearningTechnology was held at UMIST 11-13th September. The keynote presentationsfrom this conference can be viewed at http://www.umist.ac.uk/alt-c2000/streaming.htm

Michael Wills MP, Minister for Learning & Technology, launched the new BTLifelong Learning Awards at ALT-C 2000, via videoconferencing. Cash awards ofup to £75,000 are available to institutions involved in Further and Higher Education,to fund collaborative projects that illustrate the key themes of access, innovationand teamwork using ICT. Applications for the first round of awards close on 17thNovember 2000. http://www.bt.com/lifelonglearning/

Tools & Toolkits

Instead of using badly photocopiedsheets with photos of your studentswhy not put them on a webpage andadd e-mail links too? MALTS haveprovided a tool to help you do this witha minimum of fuss - but do make surethat your students are happy for you touse their photos in this way - if theyaren’t we’ve added some cartoonimages that you are welcome to use!http://www.malts.ed.ac.uk/resources/index.shtml

The summer has seen many centrally provided facilities being upgraded andimproved. Staff are reminded that there is a detailed guide to the AV facilities inlecture theatres available from the MALTS website at http://www.malts.ed.ac.uk/resources/. Other support materials include an on-line Powerpoint tutorial and asimluation of the controls in one of the main video conferencing suites. Furtherresources and support materials will be provided whenever they become available.

Other tools available from the MALTS website include a simple poll - you ask thequestion and see which response your students favour - no knowledge of html orcgi scripts required (and it is free from advertising!), and a very simple staffhomepage template. Ideas and suggestions for simple tools which could usefullybe provided are welcome.

Evaluation Toolkit

The ‘Evaluation Toolkit for Practitioners’project is funded under the JISCCommittee for Awareness, Liaison andTraining Programme. The projectoutlines the development of a Web-based toolkit to help practitioners in theprocesses involved in evaluating theuse of learning materials to supportlearning and teaching. The project aimsto refine and combine existing materialsproduced as part of previous initiativesand convert these into a Web-basedtoolkit. It gives advice and guidance onall aspects of evaluation, and all stagesof the process. The user is guided by aseries of questions to think about theobjectives of the evaluation and thenceestablish a strategy which is bothappropriate and pragmatic. The on-lineversion of the toolkit builds on work atthe University of North London,integrating it with LTDI’s EvaluationCookbook and drawing in other webresources to support evaluation. To usethe toolkit you must register (no fee, itis just to get a password); the URL ishttp://www.ltss.bris.ac.uk/jcalt .

If all you are looking for is simple webbased form to gather feedback fromyour students try the form provided inthe resources section of the MALTSwebsite at http://www.malts.ed.ac.uk .

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