Technology Used

What technologies and/or e-tools were available to you or did you seek to develop?

The project provided all partner organisations the opportunity to implement ePET at their institution. ePET was managed and maintained by the School of Medical Education Development (MEDEV) at Newcastle University for the duration of the project. This would allow further development of ePET to allow the specific pedagogical requirements of the partners to be met. ePET was not expected to be the only portfolio used by EPICS partners, but was offered to ensure that those partners who did not have a portfolio system of their own could participate fully in the technical aspects of the project.

It was initially anticipated that the ioNodes system, described as 'a black box interoperability solution for collaboration networks and lifelong learning network infrastructure' would be used, as at that time the project was expecting to use several types of learner profiles and transcript data. IoNodes was also being used and tested in the SHELL project, where its advanced messaging system facilitated the transport of learner data between the initial 5 partner sites, as well as converting that data between the institutions. However, it became apparent after the development of user requirements and ioNodes testing that it would not be appropriate to employ this system for the purposes of the project.