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Last updated: 06 October 2014

Franklin Consulting

Programme and project evaluations

Evaluation of the JISC MLE Programme

This report is a technical evaluation of the JISC Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland Managed Learning Environment (SWaNI) Programme which, building on previous work in England, investigated whether vendors can achieve interoperability between core component systems found in Managed Learning Environments (MLE) by designing and building each component system to agreed specifications.

MLEs are of increasing importance in further and higher education as we move to more individuated learning and teaching, increasing numbers of students and reducing per capita resources.  There are, in theory, three ways in which an institution could achieve a managed learning environment:

• Buy one "off the shelf" - but this is not possible as no such solution exists, nor is likely to exist given the variability between institutions.
• Buy solutions from a small number of vendors who are working together to offer an MLE and provide the necessary interoperability.  This does not exist at the moment, and is unlikely to offer most institutions a satisfactory solution as they cannot move all their systems at once, and so will need to integrate whatever they already have with whatever they are purchasing during the transition, which is likely to last many years.
• Integrate a variety of systems from different sources.  This may be done using systems created by the vendors, where they are working together in strategic alliances, by specific developments for each implementation or through the use of open standards.

The SWaNI programme was investigating the effectiveness of using the last option to achieve interoperability through the use of open standards and specifications.

The projects have each shown some progress, but none has been completely technically successful, with all the projects indicating that further work is needed before they can deliver a robust solution to the colleges' needs.  Further conclusions are in the report.

A review of the technologies application programme – perspectives on teaching and learning

This conference paper reports on a review of the UK Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) funded Technologies Applications Programme (JTAP) and in particular focuses on outcomes of relevance for learning and teaching. The review concentrated on 26 of the 117 projects which the programme funded that were deemed to be of particular relevance to learning and teaching. The projects included investigations into the development of virtual laboratories and associated resources, exploration of innovative applications of cutting edge technologies, new forms of Virtual Learning Environments, development of authoring tools to support learning, teaching and assessment, as well as projects which investigated a host of associated issues such as staff development needs and infrastructural and standards issues. Some of the projects produced tangible ‘products’ which are still in use within the community, one or two have even been commercialised. However the intangible effects of the programme are equally important. There are three key benefits. Firstly the projects helped to raise the profile of learning and teaching within institutions. Secondly, there is now a body of expertise in the development and integration of technologies to support learning and teaching. Thirdly, projects have often acted as catalyst for enabling institutions to secure external funding for related research and development activities, or matched funding within the institutions in terms of embedding the project work and alignment with institutional strategic priorities.

A review of the technologies application programme – perspectives on teaching and learning, Conole C, Smith T, Franklin T, ASCILITE 2002,  Auckland, Dec 2002

Use of National Services in Designing and Delivering E-Learning

This report looks at the impact that national services and programmes have had on teaching and learning, and in particular the factors that have led to nationally provided services having a greater or lesser impact on teaching and learning. 

The report takes JISC funded services and programmes as a starting point looking beyond them, at some of the other funded services which exist, including the LTSN and Ferl, as well as the Use of MANs Initiative and the ScotCIT Initiatives in Scotland.  A study of this size cannot aim to be complete, so examples have been chosen to exemplify some of the key points.

The appendix lists the services reviewed together with nearly 200 attributes.

Business models for Reload

The first report outlines possible models to provide secure funding for the Reload toolset.  These  open source tools have been developed with funding from JISC and the European Union, as open  source tools and a means is needed to keep them up to date and to continue to develop them.  The second report develops one model further.

Synthesis of reference model projects

The JISC reference model projects were six projects funded as part of the e-learning frameworks and tools programme which developed models of some of the common processes found in higher education.  The synthesis project took the results of the projects and looked at both the methods that they had used and the results in order to create a single coherent place for interested users.  There is a an executive summary (available in Word and pdf formats) and the full report (available in Word and pdf formats).