MEDEV

School of Medical Sciences Education Development

Introduction

The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) is a strategic advisory body that provides the infrastructure for learning, teaching and research, offers leadership and guidance in the use of ICT, and acts as a national and international leadership body for collaboration across education and research. In all 25 projects have been funded by JISC as part of the X4L programme with a total value of around £4 million over 3 years.

The X4L Programme aims to add towards our knowledge of whether creating and repurposing learning objects can be a popular, relatively easy and sustainable content-generation method for the future. It will achieve this by developing a learning materials repository, prototype tools and some exemplar learning objects and case studies to highlight and explore the issues around repurposing content. The X4L Programme is also increasing the number of staff in institutions with the skills to repurpose learning objects.  

Strand A projects

There are 22 Strand A projects that are developing learning materials. All involve FE/HE partnerships. Some projects are exploring the repurposing and sharing of resources across a range of subject areas. Others are producing learning materials that are specific to a particular course or part of a syllabus. 

Strand B tools

The JISC learning materials repository - JORUM (latin, a drinking bowl: its contents)

• The JORUM has been designed as an advanced tool set, allowing users to locate, preview, access and publish objects. It will also allow for repurposing and sharing content for use in multiple teaching and learning scenarios in a wide variety of educational environments.

Tools for teachers with pedagogic flexibility - RELOAD

• RELOAD is developing an open source content packaging tool that can be used online or offline and will be available on CD-ROM if required. This tool will allow users to break down learning materials into objects and reassemble them into new learning materials.

Tools for flexible assessment methods - TOIA

• The TOIA Project will develop templates and tools for authoring QTI compliant questions and assessments, a web server based assessment delivery system and a results reporting tool.

These tools will become available to the FE and HE community as a whole. 

Communities of practice

Communities of practice at all levels are beginning to develop through X4L. Around 120 institutions are involved in the programme - a considerable pool of expertise, collaborating and sharing good practice and content. Regional cluster groups allow further opportunities for project staff to share experiences and ideas.

At institutional level, partnerships and relationships are developing between FE and HE staff and between Learning Resources Managers and teachers. At project level, subject communities of practice are being formed that seek to effect real change .

Three examples

ACETS: ACETS is investigating the reuse of learning materials covering all areas of healthcare education, from Medicine to Beauty Therapy. Around 30 academics and teachers are being recruited to create exemplars of reusable learning objects. These are then analysed and evaluated in different teaching contexts 

ALBEDA: The Albeda Project is repurposing learning objects for a specific part of the A-Level Biology syllabus - Epidemiological Data. The project is incorporating the learning objects in a VLE to make use of the communication tools to promote greater discussion and interaction in a subject area that is difficult to teach in an engaging manner using traditional methods. 

Learning for a Healthier Nation: This project aims to promote the use of online learning content and resources to Health Care professionals and enhance the delivery of health care education and vocational training across FE and HE in the UK, particularly in the areas of cancer, coronary heart disease, stroke and mental illness. It intends to achieve this by:

• Identifying and evaluating a range of health care learning resources
• Developing and testing approaches to re-purposing learning resources that will meet a range of teaching scenarios
• Developing guidelines for tutors to enable them to create their own learning/teaching packages using online resources.