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!