elearning compendia

Blog moving to bacsich.org "Opening Up Learning"

I am restarting blogging in 2015 but the new blog has moved to bacsich.org - it is also available via blog.matic-media.com and other aliases.

The topics will be rather similar, with more focus on OER and MOOCs but still continuing my long-standing interest in online and distance learning.

Au revoir

Paul

 

Multeversity - prelude to DEANZ

Today (Sunday or Monday - Monday here in New Zealand) seems an auspicious day and this seems an auspicious hemisphere (southern) in which to float a new concept.

This week at the DEANZ conference I shall be talking in a more public forum about the Multeversity - up to now this has only been in some online seminars and presentations to specific institutions and projects over the last few months.

The Multeversity (then called "Multiversity") started off life as an analytic container to bring together a lot of my work on virtual universities, colleges and schools over the last four years, but as I got into a number of related projects (OER, retention, funding, VLEs, etc) my former worries about the long-term health of the university sector began to surface again.

LUOERL project starts up - Learner Use of Online Resources

By Paul Bacsich, 11 May 2011

We are very pleased to have set up a new and fast-moving literature search project melding OER and student experience/learner voice. I am leading the team at Sero  who are conducting a literature search on the topic "Learner Use of Online Resources", with a strong but not exclusive focus on OER, during May-June 2011. The project is funded by the HEA/JISC OER Programme Phase II.

Re.ViCa wiki - recent updates

by Paul Bacsich, 25 October 2010

This regular posting provides information on what is new on the Re.ViCa wiki -  http://www.virtualcampuses.eu - on virtual campuses across the world.

The posting covers the period since 1 July 2010 from all the contributors to the wiki.

A really CAPITAL set of reports is released

by Paul Bacsich, 22 October 2010

(adapted from a posting to the ALT mail list by Ian Chowcat)

The final reports - and many other ones - from the "CAPITAL" project, commissioned by Becta to inform the previous Government's "Harnessing Technology"  strategy, are now released.

In 2008 Becta launched a programme of research to inform the future development of the then government's learning technology strategy, Harnessing Technology. The "Curriculum and Pedagogy" strand of this research, known as CAPITAL, was undertaken jointly by the Learning Sciences Research Institute at the University of Nottingham and Sero Consulting.

Distance Learning Benchmarking Club comes near to the end

by Paul Bacsich, October 2010

I am waiting with interest for the last few results to come in from the Distance Learning Benchmarking Club of dual-mode institutions. We have to start writing the final report soon.

Once that report is in there will be a period of consultation on the next version of Pick&Mix.

New beta version of Pick&Mix benchmarking system released

by Paul Bacsich, 27 May 2009

There is a new release of Pick&Mix available. This is the beta 3 release of the new version 2.5 under development.

The release incorporates early input from the EU Re.ViCa project on Critical Success Factors and also the "headline" feedback from the Gwella phase of benchmarking with institutions in Wales in 2008-09.

We are particularly keen to hear from institutions currently undertaking benchmarking in case there are still gaps in the Supplementary Criteria.

The next beta aims to incorporate the outputs of several new concordance studies including on OBHE and several EU projects.

The release is available  here -  Download PnM-2pt5-beta3 - or in the Matic Media benchmarking repository at http://www.matic-media.co.uk/benchmarking/PnM-2pt5-beta3.xls.

Note that a copy of the latest beta is always available at http://www.matic-media.co.uk/benchmarking/PnM-latest-beta.xls

Happy Benchmarking!

I may be some time, I didn't say

by Paul Bacsich, 18 December 2008

Little did I think when I stepped out of my blog in September 2006 that "I may be some time", to use the inimitable phrase of Captain Oates. By the standards of blogger's rest cures, it has been on the long side. But in addition to the usual excuses of overwork, life, the universe and everything, I had the additional one that I was doing a lot of blogging - and fostering of blogging - just not on my own blog.

I also fell in love in the fallow period (personal-blog-wise) with my second web 2.0 technology, the wiki - and that affair, like many web 2.0 affairs I hear of, is only now cooling - or at least settling into a less passionate relationship. I still like wikis but I am somewhat more critical than in my wiki-youth.

So the period of being "somebody else's blogger" is over and wikis to me are now a tool - not a way of life.

Also given the range of things I do, more and more of which do not fit neatly into the timesheets of projects, there is greater re need for a personal channel.

And last, I am part of a team of midwives bringing to birth a very large and lusty wiki baby in the next  couple of months. Like all babies, it will need nurturing and fostering - and blogs are good for that.

So let's see if my resolve holds.

A particular challenge coming up is to see if I can blog while at a coference - and yet enjoy the socialising. My first test is at the Learning and Technology World Forum in January. To prepare I've even done some entries on the blog they provide for eacme as a delegate.

Maybe I'll see - or "see" - you there. More at http://www.latwf.org.

Paul

Technorati

Not sure why this is here. Probably best if I do not delete it.

Benchmarking e-learning bonanza

By Paul Bacsich, 28 September 2006

Further to the earlier posting on BENVIC, there is now a revised analysis of BENVIC. Some insights from BENVIC were incorporated into the new release of Pick & Mix (2.0) available in beta. 

In related work, a number of other reports on benchmarking are available, thanks to my work for the Higher Education Academy on the Concordance Project. These include:

1. MIT90s, including a literature search
2. Pick&Mix new material including a project report, the version 2.0 beta and a broad version of Pick&Mix 2.0 for learning and teaching (not only e-learning).

The work on ELTI is being urgently corrrelated with other input from pilot sites in order for colleagues to define the next release of ELTI.

The work on adapting eMM to the UK is now not so urgent since eMM is not being used in the Phase 1 round of benchmarking work in the UK (although it continues to be used at the University of Manchester).

Paul Bacsich