Learning Matrix

Lead Contact: Dr Roger Clark, r.clark@livjmu.ac.uk

JISC Programme: DeL Regional Pilots

Lead Institution and Partners: Liverpool John Moores University (L), Connexions Greater Merseyside, AimHigher Greater Merseyside, Knowsley Community College, St Helens College, West Cheshire College, The University of Liverpool, Liverpool Hope University, Edgehill University, University of Chester, Learning Skills Council, Greater Merseyside Centre for Recording Achievement, Liverpool City of Learning

Project Dates: January 2005 - October 2006

This case study illustrates Widening Participation, Application, Application to Employment, Learner Perspectives, Authentication

Background & Context

What is the background to the e-portfolio initiative?

Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and Further Education Colleges (FECs) in Cheshire and Merseyside have long experience of working together in partnership, and an enviable record of widening participation initiatives including the Liverpool City of Learning initiative, the LUCID project for the development of a personal development planning software and the New Technology Initiative, a consortium that acts as a single gateway to FE and HE across Cheshire and Warrington. Other ICT-related collaborative projects include the Cheshire and Merseyside Modular Scheme (CAMMS), a work-based learning initiative in health and social care areas and the Learning Bites project, attempting to provide unified access to credit-bearing e-learning chunks from the HEIs.

Initiatives like these have identified barriers in several areas including inter-institutional access to resources, maintaining and communicating student records as well as obstacles arising from administrative system incompatibility and funding regimes. In the technological aspects, this project is needed to push at and overcome some of these barriers allowing such initiatives, for which there is a clearly perceived need, to go forward more smoothly.

Solving technological problems is of little interest unless the technology is going to be used to achieve something of value, in this case to promote increased progression to Higher Education by non-traditional categories of learner. A "Higher Education Taster" service would aim to reduce the barriers to progression by giving the learner a better understanding of educational progression options and practical experience of learning at levels beyond their current level.

What were the aims and objectives of the initiative?

The aim of the project was to enable non-traditional students considering progression to Higher Education to access appropriate learning opportunities from a partnership of FE/HE providers via a standards-based electronic interface. The main objectives were:

1. To develop a learner interface that presents a unified view of, and access to, learning opportunities within the sub-region
2. To offer a personal development planning facility via the Learning Matrix that provides advice, diagnostic support and reflective opportunities for participant students, and to consider the integration of e-portfolio tools with the LUSID system to support and enhance the use of the interface
3. To deliver learning opportunities in partner FECs and HEIs that will enhance learner preparedness for HE
4. To develop an interface for institutional staff in the partnership to facilitate the description and publication of course descriptions (metadata), the management of student enrolments and the viewing and updating of learner records
5. To evaluate the systems, tools, information flows, learning experiences from the project to gauge the potential for sustainable future practices.

How was the initiative implemented?

The method of approach to the Learning Matrix flowed from some key decisions on several points:

• A decentralised, distributed approach was adopted because this seemed more likely to meet the broader aims of supporting a variety of different regional services.
• Each institution was in charge of managing its own quality and student management processes with respect to its own offered learning packages.
• The kind of support envisaged was to engage learners in Personal Development Planning activities designed to promote an understanding of their skills and interests, and to assist in the collection and preparation of evidence in support of a progression path.
• Enable the learner to collect together an accurate and up to date record of all their learning episodes, and for institutions who are approached by a candidate to be able to view such a record.
• The organisation of the project was an important factor in the method, because a large number of institutions of different types needed to be fully involved.

The project is broadly divided into two aspects: the creation of an enabling technological base, and the piloting of a service using the technology. The "Higher Education Taster" service aims to reduce the barriers to progression by giving the learner a better understanding of educational progression options and practical experience of learning at levels beyond her current level. The service was developed by identifying 10-15 suitable short learning packages (LPs) and working with the partners involved with the potential client group (Connexions, LSC) and others on a learner recruitment strategy. Given the range of functionality envisaged and a limited budget, proprietary commercially available technological solutions did not seem viable. For interoperability reasons, flexibility and cost the choices were seen to be in open source tools of the kind supported through the JISC. See the Technology section for more information.

The early stages of the project involved extensive gathering of information from IT support and academic departments in the institutions involved. Potential technological solutions were investigated through the JISC project listings. The main conclusions from this were:

• The results of a survey sent to all IT support departments involved showed that some institutions had some staff with expertise in open source java technologies while others (including larger institutions) had none at all
• In the timescale of the project, releasing personnel for significant amounts of time to work on the project was not going to be easy
• The processes and systems for student records, course catalogues, network access etc differed widely between institutions
• There were potential learning packages already in existence, or that could be developed in the timescale
• The ioNode approach developed by Phosphorix Ltd for the SHELL project was an elegant solution well suited to the needs of the Learning Matrix
• There was an overall willingness to engage with the project and an enthusiasm for what it was trying to do

The learning delivery aspect of the project overlapped considerably with phase 1 (technology phase) in that learning packages had to be planned and prepared, and arrangements for recruiting learners needed to be made. The three elements of this project component were identifying and preparing suitable learning packages, agreeing a format for metadata to describe each course offering (this linked into the XCRI project) and planning for the recruitment of learners to the pilot.