JISC

Start date: 3 September 2002

End date: 31 July 2003

JISC theme(s): e-Learning

Committees: JISC Learning and Teaching committee

Talking the same language?

During 2000-2001 an Interoperability Pilots programme was run in English further education colleges. These pilots were mostly successful in demonstrating that 'IMS with English FE extensions' is a sensible route to achieving systems integration.  However, the pilots did not address all the areas where information needs to be exchanged, so vendors must continue development in order to meet the College’s needs.  Furthermore, the technology, the college needs and IMS specifications are evolving, so more work was identified as necessary to achieve fuller systems integration and to ensure that they meet the needs of those colleges in the rest of the UK.

To this end an extension to further education in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland was developed and was known as SWaNI. 

Aims and objectives

This programme aimed to establish the concepts of interoperability using IMS within managed learning environments in the further education sectors of Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland. Specific objectives were to:

1. Provide further proof that Vendors can achieve inter-operability between core component systems found in MLEs by designing and building each component system to agreed specifications.
2. Test and evaluate the application of these systems to learning situations found in Colleges in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland. 

Work under this programme was undertaken through projects based in further education colleges in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Commercial vendors worked in partnership with the projects. See further information on the programme and the individual projects.

Final reports

Read the SWaNI project final reports. Projects have also produced summary slide presentations.
The formative evaluation report and final programme report, both produced by Glenaffric Ltd, available at the foot of the page.