UKTP.net

The NVQs in learning and development will not be available beyond March 2011.

Lifelong Learning UK is working with partners across all sectors to propose new qualifications for the learning and development workforce.

There is an urgent need to consult on what would be appropriate qualifications to replace the NVQs - Lifelong Learning UK is now conducting a review of the proposed qualifications in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and would love to hear your views.

Please note that the consultation is only open for a short period and will close at 1700 on Friday, 10 September.

Further information, including the qualification review proposal and the online consultation questionnaire can be accessed at www.lluk.org/learning-and-development.htm

JISC Digital Media has published a basic guide to accessibility in relation to audio, still images and moving images.

The topic is introduced and defined, and the term ‘reasonable adjustment’ is explained. The advantages of digital media for accessibility are discussed, followed by sets of guidelines and a basic accessibility check that can be performed on existing documents.

The guide can be accessed at www.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk/crossmedia/advice/basic-guide-to-accessibility/

LSIS has announced the opening of the fourth round of funding for Flexibility and Innovation Fund projects.

The fourth funding round opened on Wednesday 1 September 2010 and closes on Friday 29 October 2010.

Bids, for up to a maximum of £50,000, will be invited from consortia of provider organisations for projects which are genuinely innovative and which have the potential to significantly enhance the practice and performance of the learning and skills sector.

The LSIS Flexibility and Innovation Fund aims to promote and support innovative projects that have the potential to yield significant improvements in sector practice or performance. The fund represents LSIS's commitment to directing funding into the learning and skills sector and using provider expertise to build the sector's capacity to innovate and improve.

Further information can be accessed at www.excellencegateway.org.uk/fif

Thanks to JISC funding, learners worldwide will be able to benefit from a wide range of openly available vocational learning materials via http://www.hairdressing.ac.uk/ from September. Previously available behind authentication only for use by the Further Education community, from September 2010 these resources will be available under an open licence and therefore available to all.

Helping to develop skills, Hairdressing Training provides exemplary step-by-step guidance videos, self-evaluation tests, worksheets and guides relating to an expanding collection of hairdressing styles and techniques; the service is also mapped to the NVQ Hairdressing curriculum.

There are many benefits in using these highly visual and interactive resources, and they can be used by learners and teachers in a range of ways, such as embedding into a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), sharing on the open web, incorporating into learning portfolios and assessments.

"Work based learners will be able to benefit from unfettered access to improve their hairdressing and barbering skills outside of conventional learning environments" Lorraine Estelle, Chief Executive Officer of JISC Collections, says: "Work based learners will be able to benefit from unfettered access to improve their hairdressing and barbering skills outside of conventional learning environments."

Teachers and learners can also access resources on their mobile devices via the award-winning Hairdressing Training for Mobiles service. Users can also view videos via a dedicated YouTube channel, which has received some very positive reviews:

"Your videos are fantastic! Some of the best on YouTube and I’ve watched a lot!! So easy to follow and understand. You make it so simple. Please keep up the good work! :)"

"Thanks for sharing the incredible content and for providing inspiration to others."

Launched in 2004, Hairdressing Training was one of the first JISC initiatives to provide vocational e-learning resources to the further education community. The service has proved extremely popular with teachers and students alike, with over 200 colleges subscribing to the resource.

Jackie Carter, manager of the Hairdressing Training Service at Mimas, based at The University of Manchester, says: "We are delighted that this innovative service is now openly available, and as a result can be used to support and enhance the skills of prospective hairdressers worldwide."

Hairdressing Training: http://www.hairdressing.ac.uk/
Hairdressing Training for Mobiles: http://htmob.mobi/
Press Release: http://www.jisc-collections.ac.uk/News/hairdressing-training-open-to-all/

JISC future calls for funding - August 10 to July 11

JISC has recently updated the 'Future Calls for Funding' section of its website to highlight planned Grant Calls and Invitations To Tender from August 2010 to July 2011.

Details of the calls can be accessed at www.jisc.ac.uk/fundingopportunities/futurecalls.aspx

Improving quality of audio on digital files - new advice document from JISC Digital Media

JISC Digital Media has just published a new advice document on Audio Post-Production Techniques for Spoken Word.

Post-production covers the treatment of digital files once a recording has been done to help improve the audible quality and cover up any flaws from the recording stage.

This advice document introduces the concept of post-production and discusses some of the most common techniques used to improve spoken word audio with screen casting tutorials and audio examples to help you get the most out of your recordings.

You can access the advice document at www.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk/audio/advice/audio-post-production-techniques-for-spoken-word/

Details of NIACE conferences, training and events

Details of NIACE conferences, training and events through to around January 2011 are available on the NIACE website.

Many of these take place at locations in the North of England and Midlands, and so are within easy reach for North West learning providers.

Events in the North West include:

• The Learning Revolution: The journey ahead - Wigan, 4 Oct 2010
• Beyond Online basics - Manchester, 5 Oct 2010

You can access the details at www.niace.org.uk/campaigns-events - scroll down towards the bottom of the page for the options:

• Conferences, Seminars and Training Courses
• Training & Professional Development
• Online Events

Public Purse Scoops Half Million Pound Jackpot

JISC Regional Support Centres are passionate about learning technology. They help colleges, universities, and other training providers to innovate, to advance, and to realise the benefits that the smart deployment of technology can bring.

Innovation need not carry a hefty price tag and RSCs are on the constant look-out for solutions that are low cost or even free. One initiative developed by the RSC in Scotland North & East region has hit the jackpot – not for the RSC, but for supported organisations in terms of money saved.

This initiative – MyStudyBar – consists of a collection of freeware and open source software which is specially selected to help students with literacy difficulties (planning, reading, writing, vision and voice). For learners who need such help, MyStudyBar can make the difference between participation and exclusion, even between achievement and failure.  

Many thousands of individuals and organisations have downloaded MyStudyBar from the website of the Regional Support Centre Scotland North & East, since its launch in March 2010. As the commercially equivalent price of the apps on a single MyStudyBar download is around £120, the maths is simple: total number of downloads multiplied by commercial price tag is now more than half a million pounds saved. That is, half a million pounds saved for the public purse.

The big secret – that the RSC is pleased to share – is that MyStudyBar offers tools that are functionally no different to the best paid-for products. In these economically-difficult times, this is very good news indeed.

What they say:

Andrew Edis, ILT Co-ordinator, New College Nottingham
We have already distributed 16,000 USB sticks containing free and open source software from the RSC Scotland North & East, right across the college. I must say I’m impressed with this - in times of financial squeeze the fact that MyStudyBar is open source is a major plus.

Lorraine Cochrane, Additional Support Lecturer, South Lanarkshire College
I am continuing to promote MyStudyBar in my job as Additional Support Lecturer at South Lanarkshire College and as a trainer for teachers for AOK Learning Ltd. I think the software is excellent, with tremendous potential for supporting learning across the school and college curriculums.

Anona Scott, Lecturer, Carnegie College, Fife
I think MyStudyBar is fantastic. This tool really empowers our learners with literacy difficulties, particularly those students who don’t receive extra funding. We are rolling out MyStudyBar throughout the college.

Alan Gurburt, Dyslexia Lincoln
I test drove MyStudyBar and it’s brilliant! MyStudyBar will provide a real solution for our dyslexic e2e students (there’s no funding available from the council). I can visualise having it installed on every computer in our learning centre. A USB version is great for students’ personal computers.

Gerry Kennedy, Inclusive Technology Consultant, Melbourne, Australia
Congratulations on releasing MyStudyBar. I've been experimenting with it today - both the XP version and the Vista7 version with Speech Recognition. They both work like a charm! There is already a buzz in Australia about this exciting new literacy toolbar - and well deserved. It will assist such a wide range of users.

Garth Ritchie, Ministry of Education, New Zealand
Just my positive feedback on what you have achieved in the MyStudyBar application. I think that this will make it easier to get assistive technology to the students in schools for whom it would not be considered otherwise. Your work has direct spinoffs for inclusive education around the world. Many thanks from the New Zealanders who will benefit.

Felipe Betancur Posada, Fundacion Todos Podemos Ayudar, Colombia
Hello my name is Felipe Betancur. I am the director from the foundation Todos Podemos Ayudar, translated is something like   "We all can help" and we are working hard helping people with disabilities like blind users for libraries. We loved the MyStudyBar, is so great and simple to use. I am writing to tell you a lot of schools and universities are interested in installing it, is so great so simple to use.

The MyStudyBar tool can be accessed at www.rsc-ne-scotland.ac.uk/eduapps/index.php

News release
19 August 2010

Commuters, residents and shoppers who regularly tread one of London’s most famous streets are now being asked to contribute to a new online resource.

The aim is to use social networking and mobile technologies to foster a sense of community in the Strand area of central London through a technique known as life-writing.

Life-writing is a broad and creative field which explores personal life stories, and how they intersect with accounts of the lives of others.  Residents, business owners and employees working in the area will all be visited by researchers from the JISC project, Strandlines Digital Community based at King’s College London, and asked to share their stories.

The researchers will also visit local community centres and events, digitise materials from the King’s archives, interview staff at King’s and launch a website in the autumn to generate contributions.

Ben Showers, programme manager at JISC, said: “We urgently need to engage communities with the research going on in universities and colleges to ensure that we really maximise these publicly funded resources and findings.  But the benefits go both ways - so the training provided by Strandlines and similar projects is helping to create a more technology savvy population who are more confident in contributing to the web.

“While the Strandlines project is engaging a community in the heart of London, the approach it uses will form a valuable model for similar work across the UK,” he concluded.

The project will create an online interactive resource documenting life and work on the Strand over the past 200 years, through stories, audio and photographs for use in teaching, learning and research.

It will combine material taken from the College’s own archive, Westminster City Archives and elsewhere with people’s own photographs and memories, captured through a grassroots digitisation project.

Professor Clare Brant, project director working at the centre for life-writing research, said: “One aim of the project is to investigate the significance of the Strand in people’s life stories. Life-writing is a little different from oral history: while both value information about the past, life-writing also encourages awareness of literary and creative characteristics in the present, and how these may shape accounts of the past. At the Centre for Life-Writing Research, we look forward to learning about the Strand from others who live and work here; and to helping people explore new ways and new media in which to share their impressions of life on the Strand.”

Lorna Hughes, project manager at the centre for e-research at King’s, said: "Web 2.0 technologies have created new and easy ways of bringing together communities and allowing them to engage with each other. We are excited about the chance to explore how these approaches can make the Strand come alive in the digital world."

The project has been organised by the Centre for Life-Writing Research, the Centre for e-Research, the Department of Geography and the King's College London Archives and will initially run as an 11 month pilot.  Partner organisations include the City of Westminster Archives Centre and the charity Age UK Westminster.

Benn Keaveney, chief executive at Age UK Westminster, said: "The concept of memory, storytelling and making use of new technology being made available for our service users is something we are already investigating, and so we are keen to see what further work could arise out of this local project in the Strand area of Westminster."

For further information or to contribute material for the project, please contact Lorna Hughes, email lorna.hughes@kcl.ac.uk or telephone 0207 8482426.

Find out more about the community collections JISC is running at <http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/digitisation/communitycontent>

Download a booklet about crowd sourcing and how it works at <http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/programmerelated/2010/communitycollections>

Published by JISC Advance

 Director of ProcureWeb   The Role  Could you help shape the development of a key JISC Advance Service for the Higher and Further Education sectors which is hosted by a Russell Group university? JISC Procureweb is a JISC Advance procurement support service that is hosted by Cardiff University within the Information Services Directorate. We are looking for a talented, enthusiastic and committed Director to drive forward the JISC Procureweb strategy and development of this service. JISC Advance is a not-for-profit company financed by grants from the UK funding councils for further and higher education. Consisting of eight advisory and complementary services, JISC Advance coordinates and develops upon the provision of excellence within the education and learning sectors, providing inspiration and advice to support the innovative use of technology. JISC Procureweb is a procurement support service, for the UK Higher and Further Education sectors. JISC Procureweb provides a wide range of procurement related tools, information, systems and support to anyone who participates in the procurement process. Cardiff University is one of the top 20 research universities in the UK, with a growing international reputation. With over 27,000 students and around 6,000 members of staff, the University is based on two main campuses in the heart of Cardiff, one of the most dynamic cities in the UK. As Europe’s youngest capital, Cardiff is a vibrant, growing and friendly place, home to many national institutions, and international sporting and cultural amenities. The city’s rail and road links, providing easy access to the rest of the country, ensure that University staff build and maintain links across the UK.   The Candidate The Director will play a key role in leading the development of this Service supporting JISC Advance to achieve its strategic ambitions. You will have a vision of the factors that will influence the future development of such a Service, and a practical understanding of how these opportunities can be best exploited to meet the evolving needs of the Sector. You will also be the daily leader of the operational Procureweb services and team. A more detailed job description can be found here Further details about Information Services are available on our website at www.cardiff.ac.uk/insrv.

Read more...