BLE-Bulletin January 2008

Rounding up e-learning news for the Bloomsbury Colleges

Contents

1. News
2. Events
3. Funding Opportunities
4. Resources

1. News

i) Bloomsbury Colleges funded by JISC
JISC has awarded the BLE community £200k for a 15 month project to commence this month. Managed by Sarah Sherman, the project will fund six individual mini-projects across the Bloomsbury Colleges, which will be examining how the application GoogleDocs can be used to support and enhance learning, teaching, research and administration.

ii) WoCRIG
David Flanders has also secured JISC funding, on behalf of the Bloomsbury Colleges, to mange a project supporting the JISC CRIG. The JISC Common Repository Interfaces Working Group was established to identify and address the priorities for enhancing inter-working between the emerging base of UK repositories. In brief, this new project is seeking to get consensus throughout UK HE on using common interfaces of Repository/Content Systems. The project is 18 months long and funded at £150K. Ideally, this project will enable Bloomsbury to have the most advanced architecture in the UK for dealing with content.

iii) Podcasting at the RVC
At the November BLE Pedagogy Group, Ana Mialdea and Brian Cox demonstrated how the RVC is now providing audio podcasts of lectures. Students work with the E-Media Unit to record, edit and upload podcasts of their lectures to the streaming server, which are accessible in Blackboard. Students can subscribe to the podcasts, which means every time new material is uploaded it is automatically added to the aggregator tool being used (e.g. iTunes, Google Reader, etc).

iv) Staff News at SOAS
SOAS is delighted to welcome Mike Green as their new Learning and Teaching Services Co-ordinator (E-Learning). Mike has taken primary responsibility for BLE support, as well as for the support of the distance learning platform provided by the University's External Programme.

v) Records from the IOE's online catalogue have been added to Copac
The Copac library catalogue gives free access to the merged online catalogues of major University and National Libraries in the UK and Ireland, including the British Library. The IOE has the "largest collection in Europe of learned books and periodicals on educational studies". The library covers all aspects of education both in the UK and internationally. It also covers education-related topics such as psychology, philosophy, sociology and linguistics.
http://copac.ac.uk/

vi) Bloomsbury e-Learning Showcase: a date for your diary
This year, the Bloomsbury e-Learning Showcase will take place on 14th February at Birkbeck College. Details to follow soon. For more information contact Sarah Sherman s.sherman@bloomsbury.ac.uk

2. Events

16/01/08 Change Management
Islington City Learning Centre, £75+VAT
http://www.rsc-london.ac.uk/1210/

18/01/08 Power of Information review and unlocking UK Government Info
Brettenham House, London, free
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/events/2008/01/powerofinfo.aspx

22/01/08 Using learning resources: transforming the educational experience
Aston Business School Conference Centre, Birmingham
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/events/2008/01/resourcesconf.aspx

23/01/08 Being Strategic about Innovation: Web2.0 and Social Networking
Free webinar
http://www.rsc-london.ac.uk/1209

24/01/08 Assessment for Learning: Harnessing Technologies
Oxford University Computer Centre, free
http://www.netskills.ac.uk/content/products/workshops/range/heajisc.html

13/02/08 Mobile learning: Beyond the Gadgets
Webinar, free
http://www.rsc-london.ac.uk/1211/

13-14/02/08 Training the Trainer workshop
LSHTM, £220
Contact Doug Parkin doug.parkin@lshtm.ac.uk

28/02/08 Digital Creativity Event for Learning and Teaching
Brettenham House, London, £50
http://www.rsc-london.ac.uk/1221/

05/03/08 E-assessment: the next technology-based classroom revolution?
Brettenham House, London, £35.25
http://www.rsc-london.ac.uk/1220/

12-14/03/08 UCISA2008 Annual Management Conference
Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre, Glasgow
http://www.ucisa.ac.uk/events/2008/conference/

18/03/08 RSC Midlands HE Conference
South Birmingham College, £75
http://info.rsc-wm.ac.uk/events/event_details.asp?eid=350

07/04/08 What to preserve? Significant Properties of Digital Objects
British Library Conference Centre
http://www.dpconline.org/graphics/events/080407workshop.html

15/04/08 JISC Conference 2008
ICC Birmingham, free
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/events/2008/04/jiscconference08.aspx

5/06/08 Learning and Learning Environments for the Future
Edge Hill University
www.edgehill.ac.uk/solstice/conference2008

18-19/06/08 Blended Learning Conference 2008
University of Hertfordshire
http://perseus.herts.ac.uk/uhinfo/info/blu/blu/events/blended-learning-conference-2008.cfm

01-03/07/08 2008 Higher Education Academy Annual Conference
Harrogate International Centre
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/events/conference

14/07/08 Fifth Pan Commonwealth Forum (PCF5)
University of London
http://www.cde.london.ac.uk/support/events/event2987.htm

15-18/07/08 BbWorld’08
Las Vegas, USA
http://www.blackboard.com/company/events/bbworld08

8-10/10/08 mLearn08
University of Wolverhampton
www.mlearn2008.org

13-15/10/08 Handheld Learning 2008
The Barbican, London
http://www.handheldlearning2008.com/

TASI (JISC’s Technical Advisory Service for Images) has announced a number of workshops from Jan to April: http://www.tasi.ac.uk/training/

3. Funding Opportunities
Please find below a link to future JISC funding opportunities for the period January - summer 2008. This information has been put together to provide the community with information about future calls for funding, either through JISC Circulars issued to HE/FE institutions or more open invitations to tender published on JISC's website.
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/fundingopportunities/futurecalls

4. Resources

i) Accessibility Law
The Accessibility Law webcast which is available on the JISC Legal website has also been made available with subtitles, on DVD.
http://www.jisclegal.ac.uk/Webcast/accesswebcast.html

ii) Information Management Toolkit
JISC InfoKits are a set of freely available online “how-to” resources. The Information Management infokit which is based upon the principle of an information life cycle and provides a consistent framework for managing all types of internal information.

iii) Draft Guidance on Institutional Use of Web 2.0
The University of Edinburgh has made an early attempt at drafting institutional guidelines which may help others as they navigate the risks and benefits of Web 2.0 use by their learners and staff. http://www.vp.is.ed.ac.uk/Web_2.0_Initiative/Guidelines

iv) JISC e-books project
The JISC national e-books observatory project is making freely available to HE institutions 36 core and recommended reading e-books, to support HE taught course students. Full details at JISC national e-books project.

v) Considering Open Source Software
Ross Gardler, Manager of OSS Watch, says that procuring and developing IT systems which can meet the needs of colleges and universities requires a full consideration of open source software. In this podcast interview, he explains why open source is so important and how most of us use it even without knowing it….download or subscribe to the podcast here

vi) Guardian/Observer archive
This archive will eventually contain the digital reproduction of every page, article and advert published in the Guardian (since 1821) and the Observer (since 1791 - the oldest Sunday paper in the world). For this launch the archive covers the period of 1821-1975 for the Guardian and 1900-1975 for the Observer as we are still working on digitising the remaining material. From early 2008 onwards the entire archive up to 2003 will be available - more than 1.2m pages covering all major historic events over 212 years as reported at the time. http://archive.guardian.co.uk

vii) The 19th Century British Library Newspapers Website
The 19th Century British Library Newspapers Website, managed by Gale, offers 1,000,000 pages of digital content. It is freely available to Further and Higher Education UK institutions. This digital resource provides access to national, regional, and local 19th century British newspapers. It includes 48 titles, totalling approximately 2.2 million pages, which reflect the social and political developments of the time.
http://www.jisc-collections.ac.uk/19thblib

Please send comments and contributions for next month’s BLE-bulletin to Sarah Sherman, BLE Service Manager, s.sherman@bloomsbury.ac.uk, 07515 580 385.