Briefing Paper Supporting Learners Across the Educational Landscape: What JISC is doing

The further development of tools, applications, systems and infrastructure to support learner transition and lifelong learning across a wide educational landscape is a major theme of the JISC e-Learning Programme.

A number of funded projects are exploring how multi-institutional collaborations within a region can use technology to support lifelong learners and facilitate progression into HE. Many are investigating issues around the use of e-portfolios and PDP to support lifelong learning, looking especially at the issues around transition. Others are concentrating on sharing and reusing learning resources across a region to help raise the quality and range of resources available to local students.

Work is also going on to help students find appropriate local courses, and to support their skills development once they start in HE. Many of these projects are implementing and further developing technologies and applications that were instigated or developed through the MLEs for Lifelong Learning Programme. These include the ioNodes agent, portal technologies for personalising access to information for learners, and the use of IMS specifications for interoperable data transfer.

JISC is leading, with international partners including the Australian Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST), an initiative to build 'the e-Framework for Education and Research'. This is a common, service-oriented approach to the development and integration of computer systems in the sphere of learning, research and education administration. The Framework is the result of a shared conviction that it is better to expose networked functions, such as user/group data or learning content, as simple services rather than as features locked up inside monolithic systems. This approach offers institutions more flexibility, more scope for pedagogic innovation and better return on present and future investment.

The JISC e-Learning Programme website (www.jisc.ac.uk/programme_elearning.html) is regularly updated with links to developments, outputs and resources, including reviews of systems and products, issues papers, legal studies and FAQs on cross-institutional collaboration, data protection and learner information exchange.

This briefing paper has been produced by Glenaffric Ltd e-learning consultants with support from project representatives from the MLEs for Lifelong Learning Programme and members of the JISC Development Team.

Alternative formats of the briefing paper can be found at: www.jisc.ac.uk/publications