JISC

Start date: 1 October 2002

End date: 31 December 2005

Funding programme: Exchange for Learning (X4L) programme

Project website: http://www.ioe.stir.ac.uk/centres/daice/

JISC theme(s): e-Learning

Introduction

This project is based on a consortium of institutions in Central Scotland (University of Stirling, Falkirk College, Cumbernauld College, Clackmannan College and Lauder College). The project will identify and make available to the FE/HE community learning objects to support students in the acquisition and development of learning and study skills. The project will focus on two particular areas, which are inter-related:

• adults returning to learning through FE
• the transition from FE/HE

The fundamental aim underpinning the project is to provide a coherent range of high quality learning objects that can be used flexibly and in a wide range of different learning contexts to support (adult) learners as they return to learning through FE and all learners making the transition from FE to HE. 

Policy makers in all parts of the UK are promoting growth in the amount of higher education that takes place within further education, as a means of expanding and broadening participation. This process has gone furthest in Scotland, where some 40% of higher education students are in the FE sector. Yet research in England and Scotland suggests that such students are less likely than the mean to achieve their final qualification. The underlying purpose of this project is to develop and evaluate products that will directly help improve achievement and retention among a large and significant body of non-traditional further and higher education students. 

The project is relevant to current work in the area of articulation arrangements between FECs and HEIs and intends to contribute to the support offered to students as they make this transition. 

Aims and Objectives

Project Aims

• Support the development of appropriate study skills amongst two particular groups of students (adult learners moving from informal to formal learning in FE and students moving from FE based learning to HE based learning)
• Develop understanding of the role of learning-objects and on-line learning as an element of a broader learner support framework
• Build capability within each of the partner institutions to undertake re-purposing work effectively

Project Objectives

• Produce clear resources-needs analyses (based on skills-resources maps) that identify areas across the consortium where resources are inadequate or non-existent
• Develop clear search and evaluation criteria and protocols to guide the detailed re-purposing and object packaging work
• Identify resources that match the areas of need identified in the resource-needs analyses
• Re-purpose existing resources to produce learning-objects that meet the needs of the partner institutions
• Compile a set of test results that document how the learning objects developed adhere to standards of usability/accessibility and interoperability
• Produce formative evaluation reports that document the ongoing project work and highlight key issues arising from that work
• Produce pedagogic evaluation reports that highlight the implications of using the learning objects within programmes offered by the partner institutions