JISC

Start date: 1 November 2002

End date: 30 September 2005

Funding programme: Exchange for Learning (X4L) programme

Project website: http://www.rdn.ac.uk/projects/rdnfe

JISC theme(s): e-Learning

Introduction

The Resource Discovery Network (RDN) is a JISC-funded service dedicated to providing effective access to high quality Internet resources for the learning, teaching and research community. The RDN provides access to a series of Internet resource catalogues containing descriptions of high quality Internet sites, selected and described by specialists from within UK academia and affiliated organisations. 

Originally funded by higher education (HE), since Spring 2000, the JISC has been supported by both the further education (FE) and HE funding councils in the UK. In response to this change in remit, the RDN has been working closely with the FE community to develop its services to ensure their relevance to this new audience. In the last year, this has been achieved via two key projects in particular:

1. RDN Virtual Training Suite for FE (VTS4FE): after a ten month project, in June 2002, the RDN launched eleven new tutorials in the Virtual Training Suite  aimed specifically at FE users.
   
2. RDN Case Studies for FE (RDN Case Studies): the RDN is currently working with a group of FE practitioners who are evaluating the content of hub catalogues for particular FE curriculum subject areas and are producing case studies aimed at FE staff based on RDN resources (available end 2002).

RDNFE will build on these two projects by developing the content of RDN hub catalogues to include considerably more content suitable for FE users. The evaluation of the content of hub catalogues via the RDN Case Studies project will show where key content needs to be added in particular subject areas. In addition, the new tutorials in the VTS4FE project and the materials produced during the RDN Case Studies project will form part of a set of teacher packs, guides that will be developed under the RDNFE project showing how RDN resources can be used to support the teaching of particular FE curriculum areas.

Aims and Objectives

This project aims to significantly develop the content of RDN hub Internet Resource Catalogues (IRCs) for FE users. This will be achieved by increasing the number of resources in hub IRCs relevant to the FE community by collecting records enhanced with FE level and subject information from two major institutional resources. In addition, selected existing RDN resources will be mapped to FE level and subject information. These mapped resources will then be linked to the curriculum through the production of a number of subject-based showcase teaching packs. 

The objectives of the project are to:

• Document a process that will allow third parties to repurpose and enhance RDN resources
• Gather records from 2 FE colleges into RDN hub catalogues enhanced with FE level/subject and an FE notes field
• Employ FE practitioners to tag existing RDN resources to FE level/subject, and to add an FE “notes” field
• Work with a group to FE practitioners to develop 24 curriculum-based “learning pathways” for FE
• Develop a series of subject-based teaching packs presenting newly created learning pathways and other RDN materials (eg Virtual Training Suite tutorials etc)

The major outputs of this project will be:

• Updated RDN Interoperability Guidelines
• A tool that will allow third parties to repurpose RDN records
• Approximately 8,000 RDN records tagged to FE level/subject and with an FE notes field. These will be made available via search/browsing interfaces on FE level/subject
• 24 curriculum learning pathways that will showcase the resources available in the RDN for a particular qualification and give some ideas for teachers wanting to embed RDN resources in their lessons and courses
• A set of subject-based teaching packs drawing together a range of RDN materials (currently existing or newly created), showing FE staff how they might use the RDN to support their learning and teaching in particular curriculum areas
• A set of evaluation reports