© Banff and Buchan College 2002 Banff and Buchan College SWaNI Project Engaging with Skillnet ]

© Banff and Buchan College 2002

Banff and Buchan College SWaNI ProjectEngaging with Skillnet

]


Aim of project

• To promote the use of e-learning by developing interoperability between, B-net (the College Intranet system), SITs (MIS) and Skillnet (VLE).

• To provide a cost effective solution that can be applied to all colleges,


Objectives

• Link the student record system in SITS to the user accounts system in Skillnet and the college Intranet

• To automate enrolments for online courses and share access to support materials

• Enable transfer of data between components to create a synchronous lifelong learning log

• Exchange content between repositories of the systems

• Use IMS standards to achieve the above.


Why this project?

• College keen to develop a cost effective MLE

• College needed support of partners with skills and experience

• College keen to support the development of SUfI (Learndirect)

• College keen to develop its own intranet to current standards


Main activities

• Working with the VLE vendor to propagate student enrolments across all of the necessary domains via a central staging point for student records (central database server). System user information stored as XML data that conforms to LIP standard.


Main activities

• Converted our existing Intranet content repository to a system that is capable of handling legacy documents and learning objects that conform approximately to the Dublin Core spec for learning objects.


Main activities

• Working towards publishing content to the VLE environment.

• Attempting automatic propagation of VLE access from student enrolment process.


Benefits

• Accelerated our understanding of the complex issues surrounding interoperability

• Increased our commitment to the development of a functional MLE.


Challenges

Original scope of the project was probably too ambitious – leading to;

• tension in workloads

• lack of staff expertise and resources

• massive learning curve

• maintaining effective project management

(especially given our remoteness)


Results/outputs/findings

• The project was of great benefit to the college, as it developed skills knowledge and competence previously lacking within the college staff.

• The development of interoperability between systems creates a need for a detailed overview of all college processes.


• The project has shown that interoperability is achievable between the SRS and B-net and from B-net to the Skillnet VLE. - after a lot of development

• The partnership approach has been successful. Both organisations have benefited from the project,


Contact details

Graeme WattICT Manager / Project Manager at BBCFE1Tel: (01346) 586100 ext: 2151Email: [email protected]

David HerdLecturer and Intranet / Web Developer at BBCFETel: (01346) 515777 ext: 2183Email: [email protected]

Paul SherringtonDepute Principal / Project Director at BBCFETel: (01346) 515777 ext: 2102Email: [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]




Henderson Road, Fraserburgh, AB43 9GA

Tel: (01346) 515777 Fax: (01346) 515370

www.banff-buchan.ac.uk

[email protected]

Documents

© Banff and Buchan College 2002 Banff and Buchan College SWaNI Project Engaging with Skillnet ]