JISC programme meeting

Tomorrow, I am at the JISC programme meeting all day. The morning discussion will follow on from the meeting back in October were a lot of the discussion was related to the evaluation plans for the projects and where based around a lot of work completed by Glenaffric. This is followed by the small group discussion. For the following parallel session I will be with the Life long learning group of projects.

This may seem strange for a project who's emphasis is on the assessment of students in Higher Education (HE). As a project we were funded under this strand, but we should not have to limit ourselves to just HE, especially as we are open source and therefore any one in any of the Life-long Learning networked(LLN) and Further Eduction(FE) colleges can also use to tool. Our community also has to be open to these groups of potential users.

We also need to be able to define how we will operate within the Life-long Learning arena. Well to do this the benefits of the tool need to be considered. Some of the benefits of the tool are related to the teaching of key sills that will benefit the students using the system when in the wider world. Other benefits can be linked to the development of skills for employability. However, we must recognise that in developing these, often seen as distinct skills groups, we are also providing the students will skills that will encourage Life-long learning. Some of the more powerful skill that should be developed through the use of the WebPA tool include; self evaluation and reflection, leading to the understanding of the need to improve and learn from mistakes made. These skills are often intangible and over looked.

Anyway the other sessions that I will be attending, is the informal networking. This will give me a chance to find out in greater detail the problems that other projects are facing and see if there is anything that we can learn form them. I also will be on the lookout for people who may be interested in collaborating with the WebPA project, hopefully to help identify others who may pilot the tool as well as people who would just like to be come part of the wider community developing around the project.

Hopefully, I will be able to report back later in the week on the information that I have gathered.