2.1 Operational Issues: Constraints & Benefits of Different Technology

Internet technologies

The Nesta Futurelab publication on Personalisation and Digital Technologies (2005), argues that there is a high degree of personalisation in the experience of lifewide learners, however in the formal context this is still largely unrecognised.

Downes (2006) observes that despite the rapid increase in educational institutions adoption of Internet technologies, most people who inhabit the online world are in fact elsewhere. He points out that there are a myriad of web2.0 spaces that enable them to generate and share their own content in ways that they chose to amongst their own ‘learning networks’.

Since 2003, Ultraversity has changed how we provide services for learners. This progression (see fig.1) took us from reliance upon purpose built locally hosted software, to the use of tailored OSS locally hosted, and recently the use of OSS ‘libre’ services that are externally hosted. Throughout this transition, choices made were intended to allow learners to take control and personalise their learning experience within the constraints of an accredited formal learning degree prgramme.

Fig.1 Evolution of Internet Technology Provision (Powell and Tindal 2006)

This latest development required the development of strategies to address Quality Assurance issues around submission of work for assessment. Common standards for interoperability between locally hosted and external services, should in the future allow for these issues to be addressed at technical level.

Two examples of the development of this approach are described below.

Plone:  locally hosted, tailored open source software
Technological, pedagogical and operational considerations placed the OSS content management platform Plone as the core learning technology for the project, our realisation of a VLE.

A key benefit of Plone is that it is a ‘multilayered’ technology providing a “low threshold and high ceiling” (Papart, 1980) user interface. This allows Individuals with relatively low levels of technological ability to easily master a rich set of creative online tools and to develop a ‘virtual spaces’.  As individuals’ skills increase, the powerful functions of Zope and programming in Python become accessible to them .

This ’symmetry’ was a key consideration in the selection of Plone; providing all users with a rich set of asynchronous tools so enabling teaching staff and students alike to build online learning environments. A range of individuals with widely differing levels of technical skills were able to develop the Plone environment (appendix 1 ).

A strong open source community supports the Plone development and ensures that it is a robust and likely to be long lived platform.

Gearbox: locally hosted, tailored open source software
The gearbox OSS tool was developed as means of enabling learners to critically reflect upon their abilities against specified competencies. It is easily adaptable and was integrated into the Plone environment. Gearbox involves an interactive graphic representation of competencies as spokes on a set of gear wheels (fig.2). The gearbox framework (a full set of cogs) enables learners to self-construct a competency based profile.

Fig 2. One gear on the BALTR Gearbox portal

Although OSS, it is unlikely that a community will develop to support the Gearbox tool. This illustrates well the importance of understanding that when selecting OSS that there are issues of viability that need careful consideration. Building teaching and learning approaches around particular tools can have significant implications in terms of the student learning experience, staff training, and programme development. If software cannot be relied upon this may not be justifiable approach outside of the research arena.