JISC Inform 6 Issue 6, Summer 2004

JISC Inform 6 Issue 6, Summer 2004 Towards new horizons: Delivering solutions for learning, teaching and research through technology Flying high Improving standards through technology Mark Russell was named "e-tutor of the year" in 2003 for imaginatively using an MLE to engage his students and for increasing pass rates among his cohort of Engineering students by 25%. Here he explains to JISC inform how he was able to use ICT to help challenge and inspire his students. Teaching at the coalface in the 21st century is dynamic. Growing student numbers, the diversity of student population, and an often attendant decrease in face-to-face contact time are some of the drivers behind this dynamic. To maintain the quality and indeed enhance the educational experience requires that teaching teams understand such factors, and develop strategies that are not only appropriate for this new paradigm but which also have a strong subject-specific context. A first-year module at the University of Hertfordshire, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, had a high failure rate. As part of a programme to tackle this we started systematically and proactively to use two key tools at our disposal: first, our university's Managed Learning Environment (MLE) StudyNet and, second, the development of an integrated Computer Assisted Assessment (CAA) programme. The success of our programme and of our use of these tools has taught us a great deal about the use of ICT in education. The Managed Learning Environment Managed Learning Environments provide opportunities. They can help students study at a pace, time and in a setting that best suits them. They can be used to deliver personalised tasks to students or seek to engender the idea of selfhelp student collaborations by delivering small or whole-class tasks. Online, synchronous (in real time, ie as it happens) or asynchronous discussions may help learners feel part of a learning community as well as opening up further opportunities for them, by sharing their experiences, to teach their peers as well as learning from them. But while such opportunities are possible, and indeed educationally laudable, no MLE can guarantee to realise such returns on the HEI's investment. Using it as a dumpingground for course notes is not, I would argue, likely to be the best use for an MLE. While such practices still allow 24/7 access, they probably do more for the department in terms of saving on the photocopying budget than they do for the teaching and learning opportunities they provide to the students. It is not the technology that brings these enriched learning experiences but the use to which such technology is put. This notion, I believe, is worth printing out in a large font and posting on your computer screen. JISC Inform 6 Issue 6, Summer 2004 On this module, for instance, course notes were provided, as were pointers to useful web sites and other support materials. In addition, the discussion forum was used not only to provide students with another opportunity to ask questions, but also to throw out additional seeding questions to seek and challenge their understanding of the subject. It was also used to remind them of important information ("Did you know/Did you remember...?") as well as to provide hints and tips ("Why don't you...?"). It was the intention that this modules area within StudyNet should be highly active to provide the students with a feel for the need to come back to keep up as well as to pick up new information. From a teaching perspective it also helped ensure that the students were engaging with the materials over and above their timetabled weekly lecture and tutorial sessions. Now the students were being dripfed Thermodynamics! To build on this interactivity, this year's variant now includes a regularly updated collaborative online question which again is thrown out to the students via StudyNet. Here the front page is loaded with a graphic and a question for which a discussion on concepts is sought through the discussion forum. This approach is also being used to develop a collaborative set of notes that the students feel captures the most important features of the lecture/subject. Interestingly, while the concept is liked by many of the students, the actual level of interactivity is lower than I would have liked. This may be due to the fact that they are firstyear students and probably come with the perceptions that "we learn/they teach", and that it is simply not cool to be seen as studious by their peers. Allowing anonymous postings has helped a little. Computer Assisted Assessment (CAA) In addition to the MLE usage, an integrated CAA programme was developed to support the students' learning. The development was not undertaken to replace existing materials or reduce staff time but again was simply developed to engage with the students on a regular basis. This CAA now allowed the students to be assessed each week with their own individual task. The core of the CAA was the delivery of Weekly Assessed Tutorial Sheets unique to each student. The students would submit their answers to a dedicated computer programme and then receive a personalised feedback email detailing their performance. This facility allowed the testing and diagnoses of learning of around 150 students without becoming too resource-intensive. The tutorial sheets and other supplementary information, group feedback and a full worked solution were provided through StudyNet. Again the motivation here was to encourage students to return to the area to gather materials, and also to help them top up their learning. The central performance indicators suggest our strategies and our programme for improvement have proven a success. The students like it, the module feedback improved and, perhaps more importantly, the module failure rates reduced significantly. These lessons are now being developed and shared on other modules. I have always thought that an MLE only becomes effective if students want to engage with it. Stagnant or dumping grounds do little to inspire me and are equally unlikely to inspire today's modern, MTV student generation. Forcing students to use it by only delivering coursework or module notes does little more Towards new horizons: Delivering solutions for learning, teaching and research through technology | Page 2 JISC Inform 6 Issue 6, Summer 2004 than allow the user to tick the box saying the MLE is being used. The box alongside effectively remains empty. Mark Russell Department of Aerospace, Automotive and Design Engineering, University of Hertfordshire At the cutting edge Creating resources for vocational courses Finding the right online resources that cover both the practical and the theoretical aspects of hairdressing courses hasn't always been easy. But now, thanks to a partnership between JISC, HairdressingTraining.com Ltd and MIMAS, we are able to offer Hairdressing Training, aimed specifically at the education community, says Caren Milloy. Hairdressing Training is an interactive online training resource that provides photographic step-by-step guides covering every area of the Hairdressing NVQ curriculum up to level 2, including cutting, colouring and styling techniques; shampooing and conditioning; drying hair; hairdressing equipment and hair care products; health and safety; and consultation and client care. The development and design of this resource has been shaped to reflect the needs of the education community through the intensive consultation and feedback process. Its intention is to foster enthusiasm in those students who may otherwise resist using ICT. This resource also has the benefit of being suitable for a variety of learning styles and abilities. Hairdressing Training has been designed to comply with the Government's accessibility initiative for web sites, making it available to a wide variety of users. The information from this resource can be incorporated into student portfolios in addition to practitioners' course materials for added flexibilit y. It has already attracted interest from a large number of further education institutions and is already beginning to be recognised throughout the education community as an important and valuable resource. "From studying the theory of learning it became apparent that we all learn in different ways, and that online learning is beneficial to certain learner groups. Hairdressing Training is a very good source of information for the teacher and enables different amounts of information to be inputted depending on the ability of the learner. The student of today tends to have less time and many more responsibilities and sometimes dependants. As a result, they also have a variety of learning needs. I therefore feel that this resource, which can be accessed 24/7, is and will continue to be invaluable to the future of lifelong learning. The other great thing about this new resource is that I know and can be confident that it has been developed by experts in the hairdressing industry." Allan Wilson, Programme Manager in the Hair and Beauty Division at Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College Caren Milloy JISC Executive Page 3 | Towards new horizons: Delivering solutions for learning, teaching and research through technology JISC Inform 6 Issue 6, Summer 2004 A clear view The new Chair of JISC, Professor Sir Ron Cooke, looks to the challenges ahead Professor Sir Ron Cooke has a long and distinguished history of involvement in the education sector. A specialist in desert geomorphology, he has a particular interest in the human use of the natural environment. For his contributions to geomorphology he was awarded the Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographic Society in 1994. Sir Ron is perhaps best known as a member of HEFCE, chairing its former Learning and Teaching Committee and the e-University steering group. Since April 2003 he has chaired the Board's Quality Assessment, Learning and Teaching Committee, and was the Vice-Chancellor of the University of York until September 2002. He was knighted for his services to higher education in September 2002. Here Sir Ron talks to JISC inform about his views on the challenges facing JISC. JI: You've had a long and highly distinguished career, culminating in your knighthood for services to higher education in 2002. What was it that made you want to become involved with JISC? RC: It was the wide range of experiences that I've had - as researcher, lecturer, vicechancellor, working with funding councils, and so on - that made me want to continue to use my experience at a national level. JISC is important to both further and higher education. It stands between public funders and the users themselves and therefore has a crucial role to play in terms of service provision and the success of our education system. I've also been involved with computing at various stages and in various capacities in my career. I used punched cards for my PhD, then various computers including Programma101, ZX81, BBC computers, and PDP11s, so ICT has been an important part of the background of my career, and I've spent a lot of time over the years on ICT development committees in universities. JI: Would you consider yourself, therefore, to be an IT expert? RC: No, I wouldn't. But I think as far as my involvement with JISC is concerned, that is an advantage. JISC has a lot of technical experts working for it. What I can bring is a user's perspective. I can complement the technical expertise by being independent, by providing the user-oriented expertise, and by sounding out the opinions of those who support us and those who need us. JI: JISC also has a remit to the further education sector. What do you feel you can bring to this important area of our work? RC: There are similarities between colleges and universities, so I can bring the knowledge of an ordinary vice-chancellor, of someone who was responsible for the running of an educational institution, to further education. But there are also of course significant differences between colleges and universities, and this means I have to climb a steep learning curve. My induction tour of colleges and universities is teaching me a great deal, and I'm learning a lot about the concerns and the views of a wide range of people in both FE and HE. JI: What are you learning on your induction tour about how JISC is perceived by the community? RC: People perceive JISC to be a good and successful organisation, doing things in the national interest that no one else can do or can afford to do better. If JISC didn't exist someone would have to invent it, is Towards new horizons: Delivering solutions for learning, teaching and research through technology | Page 4 JISC Inform 6 Issue 6, Summer 2004 the general view. The key thing about JISC's relationship to the institutions it's here to serve is that it is funded through top-sliced funding. This means it receives money that would otherwise go directly to institutions. This has enormous implications for its costeffectiveness, its responsiveness and its accountability. Funding councils too are inevitably under pressure to review top-sliced funding, so that more per capita spending goes directly to institutions. So there are strong and vital lines of accountability both ways. All this means that perhaps the most important criterion determining all that JISC does is for its pursuits to bring UK-wide benefits and to add value beyond what can be achieved by institutions acting individually or collectively. JI: In your speech to the JISC conference in March you said that one of the challenges for JISC was its "invisibility". How do you think we can answer this particular challenge? RC: A key issue for JISC is how well it serves its practitioners, and many practitioners are by and large not aware of what we do. In some areas, such as the network, our success is inversely proportionate to our visibility - that is to say, the better the network, the less we notice it. But this isn't true of all areas of our work: the use of online content, for example. We do need therefore to get through to our practitioners who can be difficult to engage, however, because they are often already overburdened. But what we do can make a great difference to them. We need to think of new ways of better engaging with practitioners, perhaps by having institutional agents within colleges and universities, or by tackling some of the barriers within institutions, barriers which take various forms - cultural, departmental, individual, and so on. We need to address these institutional realities so that what we do focuses more on the "real life" within colleges and universities. For example, we need to think of what drives an academic or teacher. It's often their subject that motivates them, the disciplinary context. We probably need to focus more on these and other "institutional realities." We have an increasingly rare advantage in our collegial way of working, through our Committees made up of representatives of the community: it drives the work that we do. So the community is directly plugged in to our work through the Committees. I think we should consider how our Committee members can act more effectively as ambassadors, reinforcing this collegiality. JI: The new JISC strategy puts forward a vision in which technology can meet the ends of users in new educational and working environments. How will we know if we have succeeded in this or not? RC: Our success will be measured by how much what we provide is actually used, and how effectively we can engage with our "customers". We have a problem with the impenetrability of what we do. Acronyms are a problem, but they are really the symptom rather than a cause. People need to see the relevance of technology for them in their work, and so technology should be developed only where it does something better for them. This will be an important mark of our success. If we can succeed in this way, that will be widely welcomed. A far-reaching vision... Realising the potential of the web The rapid growth and development of electronic content offers enormous possibilities for all citizens in the UK. But in order to realise the full potential of the Web, this content needs to be available to all, quickly, easily and in a form appropriate to individuals' needs. A new initiative - the Common Information Page 5 | Towards new horizons: Delivering solutions for learning, teaching and research through technology JISC Inform 6 Issue 6, Summer 2004 Environment - seeks to address these challenges. The CIE's new Director, Paul Miller, here writes about these challenges, and overleaf offers a scenario of what the CIE might offer in the future. A wealth of broadly educational content exists today in digital form. Estimates suggest more than £2 billion has been spent on its creation in the UK's public sector alone, and more goes online every day. Much of this content - text, pictures, video, sound, maps, richly structured 'learning objects' - is of high quality, and well regarded by those who make use of it in their learning, teaching, research, or lifelong acquisition of new knowledge and skills. However, the manner in which content is acquired, described, stored and disseminated throws up obstacles to its discovery and use; obstacles that we need to overcome if we are to realise the full potential of the content and its usefulness to us all. While continuing to meet the current needs of their core communities, a group of influential public sector stakeholders have come together, united by the vision of a Common Information Environment (CIE); a vision in which artificial barriers to the creation, discovery and use of content across domains can be removed. Powerful though they undeniably are, Google and the other search engines do not give us full access to the structured databases and repositories of high quality, authoritative content that universities, museums, libraries and the like create. In the CIE vision, the individual with a desire to find answers isn't reduced to discovering and visiting a large number of these in turn, each with a different interface and each home to a body of compelling, highquality content that is essentially invisible to current Internet search engines. The questioner doesn't need to know in advance whether to turn to a commercial provider, an archive, a museum, a library, a Government department, or a higher education institution for enlightenment. The administrative realities of budgets and funding calls encourage rather than hinder cooperation and collaboration between universities and museums, between e-Research and public libraries, between medical archives and the NHS. Contributing to a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts is more highly regarded - and better rewarded - than building yet another web site that merely provides access to its own small collection of content. The vision is broad and, when realised, will act as a driver for the Knowledge Economy. It fundamentally alters the information-seeking opportunities of every citizen in the UK, and plays a vital role in empowering every one of us to access high-quality, authoritative content to assist us in learning, teaching, researching and playing our full part within 21st-century society in the UK. The vision appears expensive and, indeed, it will cost. However, much of the money that would be required already exists within the budgets of cooperating organisations. What is required is the political will to redirect those funds, and the targeted injection of new money in order to remove impediments to progress and to assist everyone in exploiting the unparalleled body of knowledge and services that such a common environment would represent. Those currently working to shape the Common Information Environment include: Becta, The British Library, Culture Online, the e-Science Core Programme, JISC, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA, formerly Resource), The National Archives, the National Electronic Library for Health (NeLH) of the NHS, the Office of the e-Envoy, and UKOLN. Towards new horizons: Delivering solutions for learning, teaching and research through technology | Page 6 JISC Inform 6 Issue 6, Summer 2004 From vision to reality: a scenario Rosemary, a GP in her late 40s, is due to give her regular presentation about breastfeeding to the local maternity class. A medical student will accompany her, and she is concerned to make sure she has the latest facts at her fingertips. She logs on to the web from home, and searches the Common Information Environment from her web based personal knowledge manager. This gives her access to all the resources in the NHS National Knowledge Service, a component of the Common Information Environment, including: research databases; eLearning resources; an online question-answering service; online discussions; bulletin boards; and the expertise and experience of patients and health professionals through their web logs. A quick search on breastfeeding looks promising. Among the hits are a PowerPoint slideshow about the benefits of breastfeeding based on the summary of evidence in Clinical Evidence. There is also a commentary on a recent newspaper item which questioned the value of breastfeeding; a leaflet on the benefits of breastfeeding; and several Cochrane Reviews on effective ways to promote breastfeeding. There is also a CME-accredited online course on breastfeeding, based on an Effectiveness Bulletin from the NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination. She sees that a health visitor in Durham has been keeping a diary about how she developed a teaching pack on breastfeeding for teenagers in her area. She chooses to download the resources to her personal knowledge manager to view off-line. She updates her presentation using some of the slides from Clinical Evidence, and prints off 10 copies of the leaflet. Later that evening she reviews the Effectiveness Bulletin and earns a one-hour CME credit by taking the online course. She looks at the diary and downloads some more leaflets on breastfeeding. Needless to say the presentation goes well, the leaflets are a success and the student goes away quietly impressed that a GP out in the sticks seems to be more up to date than he is. Many of Rosemary's audience have access to the Web. They use the URLs she has given them. They also search the Common Information Environment and find a variety of information on breastfeeding, including other local agencies, books and leaflets, and the experiences of other mothers. Paul Miller Director, Common Information Environment Piloting e-books The Academic Library Recently added to the JISC Collections portfolio, The Academic Library of e-books has already been in use for some time at the London School of Economics (LSE). Indeed, it is largely as a result of the piloting and evaluation of The Academic Library at LSE, in addition to the JISC consultation, that it can now be offered in its current form. The Academic Library contains over 250 titles in the social sciences, including anthropology, media, cultural studies, development studies, political science and political economy. Back in 2000 we were interested in developing our e-book services, but none of the deals on offer from the bigger publishers at that time seemed to offer the content we needed under affordable terms. Given that we already held Page 7 | Towards new horizons: Delivering solutions for learning, teaching and research through technology JISC Inform 6 Issue 6, Summer 2004 many of Pluto Press' books, we were very happy to work with Pluto to try to reach a working model for ebooks. From an early stage both Pluto and ourselves were keen that electronic access should be to the whole Pluto catalogue, not just to selected titles. In that way LSE was able to increase the content available to its users, and at the same time Pluto achieved greater exposure of their titles. It also made the pricing model simpler, since LSE would pay a single annual subscription which was completely unrelated to our print holdings, thus avoiding some of the complexities that libraries can encounter with some e-journal agreements. On-campus use is authenticated by IP address range, and the integrity of the PDF files for each book is maintained by software which prevents the files being copied or downloaded in full, while remote access is controlled via Athens. Our users are directed towards The Academic Library both from our online list of electronic resources (the 'Electronic Library') and via links from individual titles in the library catalogue. Statistics, supplied by the Electronic Book Company, show a steady growth in the use of the service, with thousands of pages now viewed every month. We are pleased that it is now available as a very useful source of social science and humanities e-books. Glyn Price Technical Services Manager, London School of Economics Library What is Open Access publishing? Traditionally researchers and authors give papers they have written to publishers free of charge. These authors in turn have usually been funded to undertake their research through public funding. Publishers will then use these papers to help populate the journals they publish, whether electronically or on paper. The irony, as some see it, is that the publishers then sell subscriptions to their journals back to universities, who are also funded through Government. Thus it can be argued that the traditional models have the potential to hinder access to research which has been publicly funded in the first place. This anomaly is exacerbated by the fact that subscription charges to journals, which institutions must pay, have consistently risen above the cost of inflation. Open Access Publishing, on the other hand, which JISC is endorsing (through its Open Access Programme), means that researchers pay the publishers a fee when their papers are accepted for publication. This money comes out of their research grants, which can usually be sourced from public funds. The agreement is that publishers then make their journals available to everybody, without payment, over the Internet. In June 2003, JISC secured a deal with Open Access publishers BioMed Central which saw the waiving of author fees for over 90 biomedical journals. A year later, JISC inform invited Jan Velterop of BioMed Central, and Professor Dario Alessi of the University of Dundee, one of those to have benefited from JISC's deal with BioMed Central, to give their views on the benefits the deal has brought and what Open Access can bring to the research and higher education communities. Towards new horizons: Delivering solutions for learning, teaching and research through technology | Page 8 JISC Inform 6 Issue 6, Summer 2004 'All use is fair use' Enriching the world's knowledge The reason we as publishers started looking into the potential of free open access for scientific and medical research literature was twofold. The amazing possibilities offered by the Internet were just not being exploited by the old system, even though they could bring great benefits to the scientific community. But trends in traditional publishing were clearly leading to an unsustainable economic bubble, a drastic reduction in access to research information, a widening knowledge gap, and a waste of precious research money. If only we could build a practicable and economically viable model that would open up access to everyone, the trend might be reversed. It is possible to do just that, we were - and are - convinced. All that is necessary is to redefine publishing and get away from acquiring copyrights from authors, and subsequently selling access to their articles (restricting circulation in the process), to providing the service of publishing their articles to those very authors, letting them keep all their rights, and making sure their publications reach the widest possible audience without any restrictions. After all, their interests, as well as the interests of research funders, the scientific community, and society as a whole, are served by attaining the widest possible circulation of research results. That is what scientific and medical research is for, particularly when paid out of the public coffers: enriching the world's knowledge. There was, of course, a slight problem. Selling access via subscriptions to the journals in which the research is published is very different from 'selling' a service. First of all, when you sell subscriptions, the money comes from the readers, and when you sell a service to the authors, the money would have to come from them. Or does it? Researchers rarely pay for subscriptions, which are normally paid for by their institutional libraries. The scientific and medical research world is one where authors and readers are the same crowd. Would it not be logical then that their institutions, instead of paying for subscriptions, pay for the service of publishing? If that transition could be made, we would indeed have a situation in which we could have free and open access to research for anybody. And there is more good news. Because of the absence of access control, the absence of middlemen in the sales process, the absence of monopolies that traditional journals represent, and consequently the presence of more competition between publishers, the total cost of the system can be dramatically lower. We at BioMed Central started building a professional, sophisticated publishing house based on the principle of free and open access to the research literature for anybody, anywhere, at any time. As one of the largest 'early adopters', JISC understood what we were trying to do, and their support in making the transition from the old subscription based model to the new open access service model is not only invaluable but an example and inspiration for others. Jan Velterop BioMed Central Page 9 | Towards new horizons: Delivering solutions for learning, teaching and research through technology JISC Inform 6 Issue 6, Summer 2004 Opening up access An author's perspective I strongly believe in open or semi-open access publications in which all manuscripts can be freely accessed immediately or within a year by all readers of the scientific community. My collaborator Grahame Hardie and I were of the opinion that we had a sufficiently interesting story that could be published in any journal and would be of interest to the scientific community wherever it was published. Journals not based on open access models do not release the majority of their papers to the scientific community, even after a year, in order to maximise their profits. In my view these journals, by forcing authors to condense their papers to fit into the minimum amount of space (again to maximise profits, as each extra page published results in a loss of earning), frequently end up spoiling many studies by making them impenetrable to the general reader. The Journal of Biology offers a refreshing alternative to these 'highimpact journals' as it not only offers open access publication but does not have a limit to the overall length and number of necessary figures and text of manuscripts. This enabled us to write a detailed paper with plenty of figures, which I think does justice to the work carried out in our paper. Moreover, as the University of Dundee subscribes to BioMed Central (like all universities and colleges in the UK through the JISC deal), there was actually no cost for us at all to publish our paper in the Journal of Biology. We did not even have to pay anything for having all our figures in colour or for the several hundred reprints we received. Currently we are spending an average of over £1,000 for papers we have recently published in other journals. Any ways in which we can reduce publication costs will leave us with additional resources for our core scientific activities. It is extremely satisfying that anybody anywhere can access and read our study without any restrictions. Indeed, many patients affected with Peutz-Jeghers Syndrome have read our paper and the associated commentaries and have been in touch with Grahame Hardie and myself regarding the implications that this study has for their condition and treatment. Surely in this day and age anyone should be able to find a relevant paper on the Web using appropriate keywords. It is not necessary for a study to be published in a long established journal which can only be found as a hard copy in a library. I have never understood and am frustrated by many scientists who tend to assess the quality of a paper mainly from the journal in which it is published, rather than the quality of the paper itself. Is this not irrational and small-minded? I hope open access publication may force the people who judge our work to focus more on the scientific content of a paper. I also hope that, in the future, universities and funding bodies will encourage or even insist that their researchers only publish in journals that release their papers freely, either immediately or within a one-year period, to the scientific community. Towards new horizons: Delivering solutions for learning, teaching and research through technology | Page 10 JISC Inform 6 Issue 6, Summer 2004 One effect of this might be to reduce the profits of some of the big publishing companies. However, this will not harm the pursuit of science at all and will actually benefit relatively small universities such as the University of Dundee which have relatively modest budgets to spend on journal subscriptions. This will not only enable my colleagues and I to access the scientific literature, but the money saved can then be better spent on other important scientific activities. Professor Dario Alessi University of Dundee Open Source: The right solution for us We at Goldsmiths College, University of London, recently went through a process of exploring a range of virtual learning environments (VLEs). Having examined a range of systems coming from both the commercial and open source sectors, the institution decided to recommend unanimously the adoption of moodle, an open source VLE developed by Martin Dougiamas in Australia. Moodle15 has been used since the start of the academic year to support learning and teaching across a range of courses in all departments at Goldsmiths. The system is robust and very easy to use. Staff and students can access resources and communicate both on and off campus via a web browser, without the need for client software or any specialist plug-ins. It has proved popular with staff and students alike and is used 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The technical structure of moodle fits well with other systems and services that are used across the institution. Since it is open source, we know we have access to the code behind the system. We were also aware of the highly active community of moodle users, who are contributing to the development and use of moodle in their own contexts. Getting moodle up and running was straightforward: maintenance is simple and the level of staff development required in introducing it to academic staff is manageable. We continue to see the benefits of using moodle; the cost to the institution in supporting it has been less than we could have expected using a commercial VLE, which has meant that we have been able to do more with our resources. John Phelps, Centre for Excellence in Learning Technology Goldsmiths College, University of London Open source software Freedom to choose Open source software16 (OSS) is much in the news these days. From the Linux operating system to OpenOffice, from the Bodington Virtual Learning Environment to the Mozilla web browser, OSS impacts on both the students' desktops and the budget lines in the vice-chancellor's office. But what is it? And how will it affect the way we work, asks Randolph Metcalfe of the new JISC-funded OSS Watch service. Without doubt, the most common association people make with open source software is that it is supposedly free, in contrast with proprietary software for which we traditionally pay a licence fee. It is Page 11 | Towards new horizons: Delivering solutions for learning, teaching and research through technology JISC Inform 6 Issue 6, Summer 2004 true that much open source software is indeed freely available without the need to pay a licence fee. But that is not the sense of 'free' for which OSS rightly wins renown. Open source software is free in the following senses. It provides the user with:  the freedom to run the program, for any purpose  the freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs  the freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbour  the freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits Open source software is released with an accompanying licence that commits users to preserving the above freedoms. But is there any other reason to bother with open source software? Yes. You may, for example, not wish to be tied to a single software vendor. You may be concerned about interoperability - the ability of one program to interact with another. OSS tends to employ internationally recognised open standards that facilitate interoperability. You may be concerned to explore all relevant options, both proprietary and open source, before committing your institution's precious resources to any software solution. And, in the end, you may consider it a bonus that all of your students, including distance learners, and faculty can freely and legally use the same software packages. Randolph Metcalfe OSS Watch, University of Oxford Taking centre stage - HE support from the JISC Regional Support Centres The Regional Support Centres have successfully supported the work of further education colleges for over three years. Recently their remit has been widened to cater for the needs of higher education colleges. Here, a member of RSC London and a representative from a college supported by that RSC write about what this new area of work means both for the RSCs and the HE colleges they now serve. 'An HE Adviser at the Regional Support Centre (RSC)' Surely the RSCs support the FE sector? Yes, they do, but at the start of the 2003-4 academic year, the RSCs were granted additional funding to support small higher education colleges in their regions. Under their new HE remit, the RSCs now provide technical support with JANET connections, advice about learning resources, and managerial support on strategic issues. The support consists of site visits, opportunities to join RSC forums, training and awareness-raising events, and access to other relevant RSC services such as the helpdesk, web site and newsletters. In the London region there are 25 small HE colleges whose work I support. I am lucky enough to be advising some of the most prestigious music and drama colleges in the UK: for example, the Royal Academy of Music, the Royal College of Art and the Central School of Speech and Drama. Part of my Towards new horizons: Delivering solutions for learning, teaching and research through technology | Page 12 JISC Inform 6 Issue 6, Summer 2004 responsibility is to visit these institutions to let them know more about the role of the RSC and how we might be able to help and support them. Although keen and interested, many of the HE colleges I support use traditional forms of teaching and have not had the opportunity to discover how new technologies can be embedded into the delivery of their curriculum. A major part of my role is to organise events and workshops to raise awareness and demonstrate how practitioners can get the best use out of technology in learning and teaching. For example, the use of interactive whiteboards in teaching and wireless networking for mobile classrooms have been highlighted as areas where small HE institutions would benefit from RSC advice and guidance. The Conservatoire of Dance and Drama expressed a great deal of enthusiasm when I described interactive whiteboards and have started thinking about how they could be used in their dance studios. Our events provide a great opportunity for the FE and HE sectors to come together and discuss experiences and share good practice - something the RSCs are very good at! Sarah Sherman, HE Adviser JISC RSC for London Small is beautiful Drawing on the expertise of the RSCs As a small HE college, St Mary's needs to draw upon other people's expertise and examples of good practice. But it also means we have our own perspective and can therefore make a distinct contribution to the wider HE community too. Our relationship with the RSC for London provides us with opportunities for both. Key to the RSC's work is the strength of its integrated approach to information provision, delivery and infrastructure. It is a service fronted by individuals who make it easy to put names to faces, and who have the value of 'local' knowledge (in our case, the London region). It makes for a very strong position in supporting HE Institutions (HEIs), not just as a service provider, but also as a vehicle for networking, sharing good practice and drawing on the expertise within the education community, the RSC and JISC itself. Like many HEIs, we use the JISC digital library collections and negotiated services (eg Oxford English Dictionary, Britannica Online) and Resource Guides as well as attending RSC events. Particularly invaluable to us has been their help with our development of an institutional portal which will provide our users with immediate access to e-information. Small can be beautiful, and in the case of St Mary's this means we operate in a very 'can-do' organisational climate. The bureaucracies and hierarchies which perhaps characterise some universities are leaner and less frustrating here. Although our level of resources may not match some of our neighbouring HEIs, we are nevertheless well positioned to be innovative and are often early adopters of new ways of using ICT. Page 13 | Towards new horizons: Delivering solutions for learning, teaching and research through technology JISC Inform 6 Issue 6, Summer 2004 So we greatly value this new relationship and, as an institution, we have been able to develop with the RSC's support. We look forward to making progress on a number of projects, drawing on their expertise and networks. Maire Lanigan, Director of Information Services and Systems St Mary's College, Twickenham PLANEX Green light for planning resource As a school providing education and undertaking research in town and country planning and related disciplines, we have subscribed to PLANEX for many years. Over this time access to it has evolved to take advantage of developing information technology. Like most literature resources it comes in two modes: search and alert. In the former mode it's a good first port of call for an initial literature search. I include it in my own search for report literature reviews, and also often direct undergraduate or postgraduate dissertation students there to kick-start their searches. If you cannot access an item in your local library, you can request a loan by snailmail, or receive a photocopy to keep if it's a short article. Now this is increasingly being replaced by email attachments or electronic access to full text from your desktop. In the alert mode the useful email update service comes in two forms: a weekly update broken down into a number of major topics, and updates on a larger number of specific topics of your choice, which you can select simply by clicking the relevant box on a list on the web site. One feature of the weekly update that's especially handy is the week's list of Government publications. This is particularly useful for me in my teaching, as I need to keep up with the welter of policy material. PLANEX is not especially strong on academic literature, but that's fine - it's a case of horses for courses. Its strength is access to 'grey literature'. In my field of town and country planning, a lot of the documents sought do not appear in academic refereed journals, nor even in a professional periodical, and thus will fall through the usual academic search engines and abstracting services. Jeremy Raemaekers, Co-director Urban Studies programme School of the Built Environment, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh ISSN 1476-7619 You can order a print version (subject to availability) by emailing publications@jisc.ac.uk JISC inform is produced by the JISC to raise awareness of the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to support further and higher education in the UK. Contributing authors include members of the JISC family of services and initiatives, JISC’s partners and staff working in the FE and HE sectors. The views expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of JISC. Towards new horizons: Delivering solutions for learning, teaching and research through technology | Page 14