Spring 2003 Volume 1 • Issue 3

the termly newsletter produced by RSC East Midlands

Welcomefrom the Editor

Comments please! This is our third newsletter and we would like to hear your

comments on how we are doing. For example: do you like the format of the newsletter, is it

too long or too short, do you find the articles interesting and relevant, do you like the regular

features, what would you like to see included? Send your comments/suggestions to us at:

support@rsc-east-midlands.ac.uk and help us to make this a newsletter worth reading.

Judi Millage, ILT Advisor

I N S I D ETHIS ISSUE

ILT and Inspection– How can we help you?

Under the Raising Standards initiative,

Becta were tasked with consulting with

college practitioners and representatives of

the inspectorates, the LSC and other

interested bodies to consider and report on

measures that could be taken to assist both

colleges and college inspectors in

preparing for the inspection of good

practice in ILT. The result of this process

was the publication released at BETT 2003

entitled ‘Managing Inspection and ILT’.

The questions that are now going to be

asked of colleges will reflect this change in

emphasis and colleges should be prepared

to highlight how they are using ILT to

provide their students with a better learning

experience. There are various ways that this

can be demonstrated, it may be that

students are given the opportunity to

improve their research and study skills, that

there has been an improvement in the

flexibility of delivery or that there is

improved communications between

learners and teachers due to the use of

internet based communication technologies

and applications. However, it should be

remembered that ILT is not the panacea for

all eventualities; it only adds value when it

is used effectively and appropriately.

Our team at the East Midlands RSC can

help you plan for inspection in a number

of ways. We can help you identify areas of

good practice within your college; we can

provide staff development opportunities to

improve skill levels, we can provide a

Network Healthcheck to ensure that you

are making the most of what equipment

you have and we can also advise on

teaching and learning resources.

If you would like further information on ILT

and Inspection please don’t hesitate to

contact us. You can find a copy of the

publication Managing Inspection and ILT on

the Ferl website - http://ferl.becta.org.uk

Lesley Price, RSC Manager

Welcome

ILT and Inspection

The Television and Radio Index for

Learning and Teaching (TRILT)

JISC Services: What’s on offer?

Hints & Tips: Creating drop down boxes

using MS Word

Network Analysis: Knowing what is

happening on your network

University for Industry

Forthcoming Events

College Focus: West Nottinghamshire

College

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The word ‘inspection’ traditionally sent shudders of fear and dread through the minds of allcollege staff and that was before the introduction of the Common Inspection Framework andinspections carried out by Ofsted and Ali. During the past few years there has been significantinvestment both at a national and local college level in ILT. Until now, the emphasis duringinspection has been on resources - the numbers of computers, connectivity speeds, reliabilityand accessibility of the network to both students and staff - there has been very limitedcomment on the impact all this investment was having on the learner.

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JISC Services:What’s on offer

The Television andRadio Index forLearning andTeaching (TRILT)

The Television and Radio Index for

Learning and Teaching (TRILT) is a

JISC funded service which contains

programme and scheduling

information, web-links, bibliographic

information, keywords and images in

the form of a searchable database

accessible over the Internet.

TRILT is offered through the British Universities

Film & Video Council (BUFVC) and enables staff

and students to see, at least five days before

transmission, what will be broadcast on around

300 UK terrestrial (including regional and

language variations), cable/ satellite television

and radio channels.

Under the terms of the Educational Recording

Agency (ERA) Licence, many higher and further

education institutions make extensive use of off-

air recordings from UK terrestrial television.

Knowing, in advance, what is about to be

broadcast is a key component of this process.

Identifying programmes from the Radio Times

and other listings magazines can be

unsatisfactory as it takes time to circulate listings

information to relevant staff. TRILT offers some

solutions; it is available over the Internet to all

users simultaneously, cutting out the need to

circulate listings and it allows the user to auto

alert themselves and others when relevant

programmes are going to be aired or repeated.

Any missed recordings for UK terrestrial

television can be retrieved through the BUFVC

Off-Air Recording Back-Up Service. The

BUFVC’s existing television database - the

Television Index - will gradually be incorporated

into TRILT, supplying selected television records

back to 1995, ensuring that TRILT is the most

comprehensive record of British broadcasting

available on the Internet.

For more information about TRILT or BUFVC go

to www.bufvc.ac.uk and then select: Television

& Radio Index.

Chris Bell, e-Information Officer

?Did you know that the first national serviceto tackle the growing problem of Internetplagiarism is now available to the UKhigher and further education communities?

College staff and students are now able toobtain free advice and guidance onpreventing and detecting plagiarism.This service is funded by the JISC and basedat the University of Northumbria.

This new service will assist institutions intheir task to prevent plagiarism by:

• Providing help to lecturers, teachers andadministrators with verifying that workfrom students is original.

• Assisting staff in identifying plagiarism toallow them to concentrate on the issue ofprevention.

• Giving students guidance and advicerelating to the key areas of essay writingand study skills and providing them withguides to good practice

• Promoting good practice and providingonline access to information aimed atsenior managers, academic staff andstudents.

• Offering advice on prevention ofplagiarism.

The Plagiarism Advisory Service alsoprovides a link to the Electronic PlagiarismDetection Service which checks submittedwork against material available on theInternet and held in the service database.

Further details on this new service areavailable on the JISC website(www.jisc.ac.uk) or alternatively to accessinformation directly from the University ofNorthumbria go to (www.jiscpas.ac.uk).

Gwen Callaghan,Events and Admin Co-ordinator

JISC Plagiarism Advisory Service

H i n t s & T i p sC r e a t i n g d r o p d o w n b o x e s u s i n g M S W o r dMS Word can be used to create simple interactivelearning materials. One technique is to converthandouts into ‘cloze’ activities using the forms feature.

Open the file or type in the text you wish to use. Youthen need to use the forms toolbar. You can find it under:

View - Toolbars - Forms

Before you start make sure you have the form fieldshading button turned on -

Highlight and delete the words in your text that youwant to create choices for. The drop down box will havean arrow next to it so the spaces need to be slightlylarger than the word that will fill them.

Put the cursor in the first space and click the drop downform field button on the forms toolbar.

A grey box will appear in the space. Right click on this boxand select the properties option from the sub menu. Thedrop down forms fields option dialogue box will appear.

In the Drop-down item field type in the first word(s) youwant the user to choose from and click the Add buttonbelow it (Hint: enter ‘select one of the following’ first asthe users will see this in the gap first). Repeat this for allthe words you want to appear in the drop down list. Byhighlighting a word in the Items in drop-down list fieldand using the arrows next to it you can change the orderby which they are listed. Once you have entered all thewords click OK.

Highlight the greyed box and copy and paste it to theother gaps. Then to complete the activity you need toprotect the document by clicking on the protect buttonon the forms toolbar.

You could also provide differentiation for your exerciseusing the add text help button in the drop down formsfields option dialogue box. This can be used to providethe user with a hint by using the F1 key.

The exercise is now completed and ready to use, butremember to make any changes you must unprotect it first.

John McKenzie, ILT Advisor

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learndirect, Ufi’s network of online learning

and information services, uses Information

Communications Technology (ICT) to

revolutionise where and how people learn.

There are now over 170 learning venues

throughout the East Midlands providing access

to learndirect. Working in partnership with Ufi,

the RSC assists these venues in providing a

quality learning experience by providing ICT

advice and guidance.

To date the RSC has worked with learning

venues and Ufi regional offices on projects

covering many aspects of ICT. These include

giving advice on upgrading Internet connections,

troubleshooting network and desktop PC issues

and providing information about new

technologies such as Satellite Broadband and

wireless LANs. In addition we have provided

training for learning venue staff and have

recently initiated a regional ICT Forum to

facilitate the sharing of ideas within the region.

If you would like more information about the

advice service, the RSC, Ufi and learndirect, or

have a problem you think we can help you

with then please contact me at the RSC.

Ian Houseman, Ufi Technical Support Officer.

http://www.ufiltd.co.uk

http://www.learndirect.co.uk

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UNIVERSITY for industry

As systems become more and more powerful and capable ofgenerating ever-increasing amounts of network traffic, it isextremely important to know exactly what types of traffic areflowing around the network and where this traffic is travelling to andfrom. Network analysis and traffic monitoring can help with this, butit does not include the actual contents of emails, or details ofwebsites that have been accessed.

There is a large quantity of legislation in place, defining precisely whocan carry out these kinds of network monitoring and also for whatpurpose. More information about this legislation can be obtainedfrom the following websites.

The JISC’s Legal Information Servicehttp://www.jisc.ac.uk/legal/

Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/20000023.htm

The JISC’s Senior Management Briefing Paper 14http://www.jisc.ac.uk/pub01/smbp14.pdf

With the increasing use of IT systems in colleges for administration,management and teaching purposes, there is now a frequent demandfrom senior management and auditors to have information about thereliability and performance of the college network and systems. Thismay simply be a calculation of the overall “uptime” of main collegeservers, but there may also be a need for information on theavailability of the college website or email system, both from withinthe network and also from outside the college. This is particularly thecase when remote learning is considered, as students may be loggingin at any time of the day or night and will require access to systemsin exactly the same way as other students that attend college duringthe day.

There are many products commercially available that can beconfigured to monitor the availability of systems. In many cases they

will also provide customised reports and can be used to contact

technicians (by email or pager) should a system fail to respond for a

certain period of time. Information about some such products can be

obtained from the following websites.

WhatsUp Gold

http://www.ipswitch.com/Products/WhatsUp/index.html

Nagios

http://www.nagios.org/

It is also important to consider the types and quantities of traffic passing

around a college network. Some areas of a network may be heavily

congested, due to the concentration of large quantities of network

traffic and this will result in degradation in the level of performance of

the network. If this congestion involves main college servers, then the

effect on network users will be even greater. Again, there are a number

of commercially available products designed to assist in determining

network traffic levels to help avoid network “bottlenecks”.

Fluke Network Inspector

http://www.flukenetworks.com/us/LAN/Monitoring+Analysis+Diagra

mming/Network+Inspector/Overview.htm

The JISC East Midlands Regional Support Centre is keen to assist

college technical staff in ensuring their networks are as free as

possible of congestion and problems. For this reason the RSC Network

Healthcheck Service has been developed for colleges in the East

Midlands. The service is currently free of charge. For more

information contact the RSC either by telephone on 01509 618110 or

by going to the RSC website: http://www.rsc-east-midlands.ac.uk

James Higham, Network Specialist

Knowing what is happening on your networkNetwork Analysis:

Ufi is working towards the Government’s concept of a ‘university for industry’ to help adults improve theiremployability by acquiring new knowledge and skills and help businesses become more competitive.

Forthcoming

EVENTS

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March4th LRC Forum

4th JISC Conference: Exploitingthe potential of ICT

6th Using ILT in Science

18th JISC Workshop: Physical& 25th Learning Spaces

25th Wireless Technologies

AprilDate to be Using ILT in Hair & Beautyconfirmed

MayDate to be Netskills: Effective learning confirmed with VLEs

Date to be Web Developer’s Forumconfirmed

Date to be Embedding ILT into Staff confirmed Development

JuneDate to be Resource Discovery confirmed Network Roadshow

For further details see our website

www.rsc-east-midlands.ac.uk

West Nottinghamshire College operates out of tenmain centres and some eighty community venues inand around the Mansfield and Ashfield Districts ofNorth Nottinghamshire. The college has a policy ofsignificant annual investment in the support and useof ILT in terms of infrastructure, hardware andstaffing. This has included:

• Network connectivity to outlying centres, datacabling to teaching/learning areas and staffworkrooms.

• Wireless LANs and bridges.

• New servers and switches.

• PCs and laptops, for both staff and students.

• Installation of data projectors and SMARTBOARDSin teaching areas.

• Granada Learnwise (Virtual Learning Environment)

• Appointment of an ILT Development Co-ordinatorto work with tutors to embed the use of Learnwise.

• Time given to ILT Champions to embed ILT inteaching and learning.

• The creation of a materials development team

Needless to say once you are on the IT conveyorbelt, it is very difficult to get off as further investmentis continually required to ensure that performance isof an appropriate standard and new developments intechnology are taken on board. The college iscommitted to allocate funds for this purpose.

This investment strategy has paid dividends inensuring there is sufficient access to ILT for all collegelearners and this has been embraced by those staffdelivering ILT, or who have an appropriate skill level.However, the continued use and development of ITsupport for learning has still to be embedded in manyareas of college delivery. There is still a considerablestaff development requirement for ILT.

Identifying and freeing up enthusiasts as part of theILT Champions initiative has been extremelybeneficial in areas where the ILT Champion has beenproactive and encouraging. This has not been thecase in all areas.

In order to address this issue the college hasimplemented a new strategy. The way forward isbased on the appointment of a Strategy Manager: ILTTeaching and Learning whose role is to drive forwardthe college’s policy to embed the use of ILT inteaching and learning. In addition to this, the rolesand numbers of ILT Champions have been redefined.They now have a cross college remit instead of theirprevious curriculum area focus. This will include anew job description and the creation of individualaction plans.

Practical measures that have been taken to developstaff include:

• taking part in the FERL Practitioners PilotProgramme.

• a staff development day dedicated to ILT so that allstaff have an opportunity to upskill themselves.

• the undertaking of a college wide skills audit.

• Identification of appropriate, qualification basedILT programmes.

Ferl Practitioners Programme.

Our approach to the FPP during the pilot stage is toconcentrate on a small number of staff - ILTchampions, key support staff, senior managers andenthusiasts. John McKenzie and Judi Millage fromthe RSC delivered the common modules A,B,C,D intaught group sessions. Reaction to these sessions hasbeen fairly consistent:-

• Module A needs to be re-written if it is to inspireand enthuse staff in the use of ILT in teaching andlearning - it is felt to be very dull and boring.

• Modules B,C and D are much better in that thereare some very good resources that can be used incolleges e.g. the skills audit.

• The information sheets provide very goodbackground knowledge to ILT e.g. Legislationand ILT.

• The structure of modules is probably bestdesigned for self-directed learning rather thanbeing taught in groups.

Having completed modules A,B,C,D, those staffinvolved in the pilot are working through themodules in either Strand B (for Learning Resourcesand Learning Support Staff) or strand C (for ILTchampions) by self-directed study. Individual actionplans from each module are being put together aspart of the portfolio of resources that are beingcompiled from each module.

Staff Development Day.

A range of workshops and presentations were put onfor staff to participate in. These ranged from trainingsessions in:

• College information systems.

• Office applications at levels one and two.

• Examples of good practice of the use of ILT inteaching and learning.

• Use of equipment e.g. SMARTBOARDS, dataprojectors and digital cameras.

• Electronic learning resources.

• Use of Granada Learnwise.

• Exhibition of new technology.

Staff were given an opportunity to attend workshopsin the morning, while the afternoon was dedicated toteams getting together to discuss these sessions and todetermine how they need to further implement ILTinto their teaching and learning over the year to come.

Each team is to produce an action plan revolvingaround the seven key inspection questions. Theseaction plans will feed into an overall five yearcollege strategic plan that will be co-ordinated bythe Strategic Manager, ILT Teaching and Learning.

Keith Mellor,Development Manager: Learning Resources

C O L L E G E FOCUSILT at West

Nottinghamshire

College