At the crossroads: Progression Routes

We looked at the course descriptions in our College prospectuses, and talked to the learning services staff for information on progression routes. Our updated propsectus details some information about possible progression routes from Foundation Degrees. The learning services staff give individual help for learners as required and use a variety of methods to give help and advice, but nothing is documented or given out as standard for all learners.

Capturing Attendance

At the last project meeting we discussed the possibility of capturing attendance data from the relevant partner Colleges and adding this to the data stored in the Support Point.

I have just spoken with the MIS person at Shrewsbury College and he says that this is possible to save this data as a CSV file so we can upload the data regularly into the Support Point so that Mentors and Managers can see the specific data on their learners/employees with regards their attendance.

Some points to mention:

The attendance data is stored on our MIS at Shrewsbury, but it is stored as week numbers rather than dates. We are moving to a new version of Eclipse (MIS system), and we are hoping that it may then be stored by date. The attendance field is captured information direct from the online web registers and this could then be transfered into the Support Point. We are not sure how up to date the register attendance information will be as we are behind on some of our registers and the attendance records may not be as up date as we may need.

The Bloggers are back in Town!

Following last week's meeting we have been catching up with some actions.

We have rated both the Manager and Mentor sections of the Support Point and given explanations to our rated scores. I made contact with the MIS department to see if we could obtain attendance records for the Foundation Degree in Construction at the College. The person I need to speak to is away on holiday so I have set up a meeting to see if this is possible. We are confident that this is achievable.

We tried to set up another meeting for the learner's to evaluate the forum area of the Support Point but unfortunately they finished in early May and will not be returning for the next academic year until September. We have arranged a meeting with the tutor on the Foundation Degree course to discuss his common pattern of targetting groups. This is set for this week and we will summarise the outcomes of this meeting in the next blog.

We looked at the delivery of course information at Shrewsbury College and have provide the relevant URL for the FD course in Construction. I am not sure if the link will change when updates are made to the site, but for the time being it seems to be consistent.

Testing the system with the learners

Today we introduced the support point to 5 of the 6 Construction FD learners and got them to access the support point and sign in using their Staffs Uni username and password details.

On the whole it worked fine and the learners managed to log in to the system and updated their user details and worked through all the areas of the system. They all sent the learner registration number to their employer so he can check their progress on their FD course.

We asked the learners to go through the system and feedback their comments to their tutor so we can see what they like or what they would like to see added as support for WBLs on FD courses.

We will repeat the process for the missing learner and report back any progress on the next blog post!

Pinning down the Employer!

On Thursday 20th March, we visited the Employer (a local architect with learners on the Construction Foundation Degree) to register and use the Support Point. The tutor on the FD course came along to observe the process with Fleur.

We gave the employer an introduction to the project and a project leaflet of what we are trying to achieve. We asked what support he was getting at present and he mentioned that over the last couple of years he has gained more communication with Shrewsbury College. He is keen to be involved with the College and the progress that his employees are making and is very happy to assist in any way he can. He gains regular feedback via the course tutor (a combination of face-to-face, emails and phone

There is a mentor system in place for all junior employees at the company. This is not a formal process.

To save some time in advance of the meeting we had already created a Life Ray account, just needing the employer to register on the Support Point. The process went well and the employer seemed interested in what was available and welcomed what the project was trying to achieve.

Next steps are to register the learners on the FD Award to the Support Point and evaluate the process. This is to be set up with the tutor after the Easter break.

Blogging any minute now

More ratings and rantings

Just finished rating the tutor bit of Wetpaint. We think we're reasonably consistent with other views but we are being much gentler with priority 1's in an attempt to not overload the technical team. It does seem that there are far too many 1's coming through from others that might not get the chance to be developed.

Rating the Ratings!

Dave and I went to Wetpaint to go through the different features of the learner area and what sections would be useful for the learners to see.

This needed a scale from 1-5, (1 being high priority and 5 being low).

Problems with feedback back on the forum: I added all the responses in 1 forum post, but could not set it up in a pretty fashion. We wanted to lay it out in a table and add bold tags, etc, but could not achieve this.

In the end we just listed the features, gave a score and a brief summary of what we thought. Some areas are essential and fit in nicely with the scope of the project and the need for the development of the portal/access point, others are not so essential and that information could be found and accessed elsewhere.

It will be interesting to see the other project partners responses on this area.

Deflated but not dismayed!

On Friday 23rd November Dave, Mike and Max met at Burton College to do another run through with the nursery manager. The experience left us deflated in more ways than one. Max's car had been abandoned in Tesco car park because of a puncture and LifeRay fell flat as well. We created a new account for Ruth which fell over (something temporarily unavailable) then registered her and it fell over (page not found). On both occasions a refresh or a logout/login appeared to get us over the two problems. Then we tried logging in as one of Ruth's students and picked up the ID to allow the employer (Ruth) to see her details. But when we then logged back in as Ruth the system for sharing the student ID was also temporarily unavailable.

So then we went and helped Max to get his puncture sorted - we probably spent more time doing that than using the access point. With that success behind us we went back to work, but what now for the pilot? - Well watch this space.

Planning for another evaluation!

Dave and I met Max, the new person appointed at Stoke for the project and we had an informal chat about the project and progress made to date.

We detailed our work so far and as Max is a student at Staffs Uni doing a degree course and an employee at Stoke, we thought it would be great if he registered on the system as part of evaluation. The process worked well and Max was impressed that he could see his completed modules and work to date.

We have set a meeting for Friday 23rd November at Burton College for Dave, Max, Mike and I to evaluate the system again with the Nursery Manager (as employer) and Nursery Assistant (as employee and student) to complete registration and see what happens next!

Computer Say No!

Dave and I met with Fleur (Programme Manager for the SURF-WBL Way project), today to go through the testing of LifeRay and the portal undertaken yesterday, and to document what worked well and what needs tweaking in advance of more work on the pilot.

We also discussed the forthcoming meeting with the tutor and Employer for the Construction FD and the evaluation of the pilot to be undertaken over the next couple of weeks.!!

Watch this space for more developments!

'Take me to the Pilot.. Take me to the Chamber!'

Dave and I met with Mike Parker at Burton to go through the process of creating an account on LifeRay and using the portal process. We expected that certain aspects of the system would not be in place, and wanted to test and detail.

It seems to be some problem with completing the portal details form to register as a manager. It kept delivering a blank page on submitting the completed details page..

We also had the good fortune to meet the manager of the Nursery who went through the process as well as one of the nursery assistants (who is a learner on the classroom assistant foundation degree course at Staffs Uni). They too experienced the same problems. The learner's Staffs Uni student number was identified and detailed some of the module and course details, but would not let us register the learner!

Dave and I have a meeting with the WBL-Way Project Manager tomorrow to go through this in more detail and hopefully iron out any problems before the pilot continues!

Preparing to light the pilot

We are filling the gas bottles as we write and preparing to light the blue touch paper!

In preparation for the pilot we have done the following:

• Arranged for Fleur to give us a detailed demo of LifeRay here at the College
• Arranged to do a joint test and evaluation with Mike at Burton
• Asked our pilot tutor to arrange a meeting with the pilot employer
• Asked our data team at the College if the HE students sign the same data protection forms as other learners, or if a separate form is used

We look forward to the results of the fire!

Shipshape and Bristol fashion

Well here we are blogging again!

Our recent aim has been to try and tie up the loose ends, work out what was outstanding and try and get ourselves up to date with any actions. So we went through meeting actions, notes from meetings and nags from the Project Manager. We knocked off a few of the actions and questioned some of the others.

All we can do now is wait!

Dug for more gold...found a diamond!

Just spoke with Nick diMarco (Construction FD tutor) and the identified employer who we wanted for the project has agreed to be involved in the pilot with their learner! The Architect company who have a learner on the FD course are happy to take part in evaluating the pilot for us from September!

We have a point of contact and will be following this up and introducing them to the project, the proposed pilot and the simple evaluation of the portal that we would be looking for.

The employer is very proactive in finding out what the College are doing for them from an educational point of view for their employees who may undertake any courses.

Great news and a good week of activities for the project!

...We struck Gold!

Dave and I had a meeting with Chas Warren (the new Director of Business) and Sandra Harris regarding the Goldmine system and what has been done to capture employer data.

The system is there, but not being used fully as it is at present only available on one computer! It is on the network and staff involved in collating employer data will soon be able to input data from their own computers!

Sandra and her team have made a start at collating employer data and adding it to the Goldmine system. It basically contains the name of the employer, address and phone number. Additional details and fields can be added but not utilised at present.

We had a discussion regarding the project and outlined what we are hoping to achieve with the pilot from September. I demonstrated the Liferay portal with the different logins for employer, learner, etc and they seemed impressed.

I emailed Chas the questions which I asked Phil Bentley on Tuesday (see last blog entry for details), and included the scoping questionnaire if Chas could add any further comments or views which would help. Dave and I feel we have made some good progress this week with the project and finding out the information stored at the College regarding employers and happy that we now have found some!

Digging for employers!

Today, I met with Phil Bentley who is in charge of Quality and Curriculum and discussed the pilot of the project from September.

Phil is very keen to attend one of the next project management meetings and get involved in supporting us on the project. We discussed the area of employer engagement and who deals with and communicates with them. On the whole Chas Warren who is the new Director of Business is the person who has responsiblity for employers, specifically for marketing the FDs to employers and employer data. Dave and I have a meeting with Chas and Sandra from that area to discuss employer data and we can raise further questions in this area at the meeting tomorrow.

Phil also mentioned that tutors for specific FDs would communicate with employers directly so we can do follow up meetings with tutors for any outstanding questions that need answers!

I left a copy of the last scoping questionnaire and answers already collated. Phil is to go through these and add any additional comments and answers where appropriate.

The final part of the meeting was for a tour through Liferay so that Phil understands what we are trying to achieve as a project and how things will progress for the pilot and beyond.

Going underground!

This week we are concentrating on the data mining bit of the project, and particuarly the storage of employer data at the College.

Dave and I met with Brian Hollis, the MIS Manager to find out what information is stored on Eclipse. We discovered that the only information is a an account code, the employer name and a post code if you are lucky! This information is added to the system by one of the finance team when an employer is paying for one of their employees to attend a course. There is no link between the MIS and the finance system, in fact the employer even has a different code on each system (numeric in the finance system and alphanumeric in the MIS).

Brian has pointed us in the direction of the Marketing and Business Development departments who supposedly use a CRM system called Goldmine. We are awaiting confirmation of a meeting later this week.

Brian has left us with a priceless gem - Apparently some employers give their employees the money to be on the course, so the employees pay the money and attend the course in their own time. So in these instances we would never have contact with the employers at all!

Pilot - We almost washed our hands of it

Or another possible title (Pilot - we're cooking on gas!)

It's been a seesaw of emotions today as we tried to find possible volunteers for the pilot. At the last meeting we mentioned that the numbers on the Foundation Degrees have been dropping (from 45 at the beginning of the year to 36 now!), and today we discovered that our pet student/employer were going the same way. We had been relying on the MIS data to tell us which students were paid for by their employers and we could only find one. We talked to the FD tutor today to ask if this employer might pilot for us only to find out, to our horror, that the student is likely to fail and be withdrawn!

But then we were told by the tutor not to rely on the data (so I take back everything I said at the last meeting about the state of our data). Our tutor Nick keeps records in an Excel spreadsheet of all of the students whose employer pays for their course. And then, bless him, he named the perfect candidate and his local architect employer, and he's going to see them next week, and he's going to ask them if they would be willing to take part in the pilot. So right now we are hoping for 1 pilot learner, 1 pilot tutor, and 1 pilot employer. We asked Nick to ask the employer if they would accept in principle and to reassure them that it would not be onerous. We told him that the pilot would run for a year and he reminded us that it will be a very short year since the semesters are only 12 weeks each.

Today we also started the data mining operation. We have meetings planned for Monday and Tuesday next week with the MIS data manager and with the Head of Quality & Curriculum who has overall responsibility for HE in FE. We are very hopeful that he will attend the next project meeting with us.

More answers to questions !!

With the questions sent out to the tutors yesterday regarding information about employers and mentors, I have received a reply from the tutor for the Arts FDs.

The FDs for the Creative Industries specify that all students should have a mentor and there is a Mentor's handbook issued by Surf. The Mentor should be someone related to their area of interest. As regards real employers the courses are part-time, most will have a real employer NOT necessarily related to the creative industries or may well be self-employed.

More replies and information will be disseminated as we get them in!