Excellence Gateway
This case study was produced by JISC RSC (Regional Support Centres) Northwest on behalf of the Excellence Gateway
Sector relevance: Work-based learning
Keywords: Management of resources, staff communciation, evaluation of own practice, staff development, improving teaching and learning, improving institutional effectiveness, curriculum development, entry to employment, teaching, training, coaching and learning,
Sefton Enterprises Ltd. (SEL) was introduced to ‘Protopage' as a solution to managing and sharing information and documents across a consortium of work-based learning (WBL) providers putting a funding bid together. The free, web-based ‘start page' did not take-off for the funding bid, but its potential in helping staff at the organisation become more effective and efficient internally, and in the provision of information and resources for their students, was realised.
Sefton Enterprises Ltd. (SEL) is a Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) approved professional training organisation, providing a range of programmes to young people in a variety of occupational areas, such as Entry to Employment (e2e) construction programmes for 16-18 year-olds and courses for 14-16 year-olds from local schools.
The organisation has also developed partnership agreements with various agencies to deliver training programmes that are specifically designed to support individual progression.
SEL had established internal systems for managing its administration, including course information and documentation. However, keeping course information up to date (requiring direct communication between staff who were often remote from the office) and ensuring that staff knew which information and documents were current was problematic, impacting on both efficiency and effectiveness.
When Ian Parry, Project Manager at SEL was planning the submission of a Learning Innovation Grant (LIG) 3 funding bid with a number of other WBL Providers spread across the Merseyside region, he wanted to find a way in which the consortium could share information and documents effectively other than via email. At a start-up meeting John Dalziel, e-Learning Adviser at RSC Northwest, suggested and demonstrated ‘Protopage', a free web-based ‘start page', as the interface through which they might share in this way.
Ian was enthusiastic about using Protopage and set up a start page, but his enthusiasm wasn't shared to the same extent by colleagues in the consortium and, coupled with the time constraints for the bid, they resorted to ‘traditional' email methods.
However, the planning of some new adult courses, coupled with the experience of exploring and setting up Protopage, prompted Ian to see its potential for managing and sharing information and resources at SEL. Traditionally, for example, details of people interested in enrolling were passed on to course co-ordinators by Receptionist Lorna Plumpton, but the system was reliant on co-ordinators being available in person or on the phone (with the risk that information would not get passed on) and on current emailed lists being accessed rather than older ones. Protopage enabled Lorna to update course enrolment lists online knowing that the co-ordinators could reference the current, definitive list.
Ian arranged a training session to introduce Protopage to eight staff (including five full-time tutor/assessors and Lorna). Knowing that some of the staff were not particularly competent in their use of IT or necessarily interested in using it, Ian's introduction was intentionally simple, concentrating on the ‘Sticky notes' widget, an easy way to add information to the start page.
The general reaction from staff was that they could understand what Ian was trying to do and could see the benefits of Protopage, but uptake after the session was patchy. Ian persevered, however, recognising that it was likely to take time for some of them to engage and, based on previous experience, that there would be a tendency for some to want to leave it to others to add information rather than do it themselves. He also knew there would be less interest from tutor/assessors at pre-course administration stages, but that they would become more involved when courses were underway and they needed to access documents and resources.
To encourage engagement, Ian made sure that there was information and resources in Protopage relevant to all staff, such as adding a widget containing the most widely used job search websites which tutor/assessors used with students, making it easy for them to access the sites whether at SEL or in one of the local schools.
A key development that Ian made was to provide links in Protopage to the administration and course documentation which staff needed to access on a regular basis. Until Protopage was introduced these documents, located in a central storage area on the SEL server, could be difficult to find due to an ever expanding file/folder structure and, despite a numbering system for ‘official' documents, staff could easily mistake an archived version of a document for the current one. The links to these documents, currently managed by Ian to ensure consistency, give access to one definitive list. The only downsides are ensuring the files and folders are not moved around as this breaks their links in Protopage, and the fact that staff can only access them on site at SEL and not, for example, from home or when out in local schools.
When developing Protopage for the staff, Ian also saw potential for their students, who can now get access to sets of resources, ranging from weekly course timetables through to online practice tests. These can be accessed from anywhere as they link to open documents and web resources rather requiring password protected access to internally stored documents. The Protopage start page is set as the default homepage when students log into the PCs in the IT suites at SEL, providing immediate access to the resources and information.
Image 1: Screenshots of the Protopage user interface
All staff at SEL have engaged with the Protopage development to some degree and, although he acknowledges that there could have been greater use, Ian is pleased with the start made, and the way it has simplified and centralised access to information and resources. Protopage has been very reliable, with occasional problems in accessing documents due to their server, not Protopage.
Ian recognises that the move to full engagement is gradual, viewing the development to date as ‘work in progress'. One or two staff still have a tendency to ask him where information is, in the hope that he will locate and print it for them, but he responds by telling them “It's on Protopage”, and so they are getting used to having to find the information for themselves.
Through Protopage, resources that staff can currently access include:
The tutor/assessors often teach in local schools for three days each week, but they can still get easy access to the open ‘student' area, or the protected area (except the centrally stored documents) when in these locations.
Resources that students can currently access include:
Whilst Ian has taken responsibility for adding the majority of the information and resources, he is keen to run another staff development session with greater contributions from the other staff who he feels are now in a position, through experience, to suggest new developments and resources. The main challenge is getting everyone together at the same time, and being able to allocate more time to Protopage knowing that there are many other important topics to cover at staff development days.
Ian not only sees the current Protopage developments as meeting an immediate need; in the longer-term he sees them as helping to inform other future developments. For example, he is currently testing out links from Protopage to photographs stored as evidence, for external verifiers to view when they come in to assess student portfolios, and sees this as simple, cost effective first step to informing how they might utilise an e-portfolio system.
Also important for Ian is the gradual IT skills development of the staff through their use of Protopage, and how this will help to support any future IT developments they might make.
Ian has some sound advice for anyone thinking of introducing Protopage (or other web-based systems which are very easy to set up and use) which is to plan for such developments, rather than simply letting them evolve. "I was learning by doing" he says, "which is fine, but it meant I didn't do much overall planning”, and whilst he still thinks that he would have had all the same elements in place at the end, with hindsight he is convinced they could have been structured and presented better.
Disclaimer: The Regional Support Centres (RSC) and the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) support the development of educational e-learning. We may refer to specific products, processes or services. Such references are examples and are not endorsements or recommendations and should not be used for product endorsement purposes.
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