Collaborative Online tools for Business and Community Engagement Case Study Case Study Title
The Open ICT Tools
Institution(s) involved
Northumbria University
Contact + Email
Erik Bohemia
JISC programme (if applicable)
The Trialling of Collaborative Online Tools for Business and Community Engagement
Project Dates
2009 – 2010
Tags
Online collaborative tools
Headings/Questions
Explanation and further information
0.
The aims and objectives that guided the Open ICT Tools project were generated by academics in collaboration with staff from LTech, the university’s learning technology support team providing technical and pedagogical support for the use of technology in teaching, and IT Services. These aims and objectives were based on previous experience of engaging with external collaborative partners to support novel way of learning & teaching delivery.
Briefly describe your project (abstract)
erik.bohemia@northumbria.ac.uk
Although, Northumbria University was named as the most IT enabled organisation in the UK, the overriding focus by IT Services was on the security of the University IT infrastructure. This resulted in many of the ICT tools which could support interorganisational communication and data exchange such as Instant Messenger, IP Telephony, Wiki pages, Blogs, Social Networking and FTP (File Transfer Protocol), not being embedded and/or prevented from being used within the university IT infrastructure. The key aim of the project was to collaborate with IT Services to trial open source ICT tools that could be used to facilitate engagement with external business and community partners and be incorporated into the university existing IT infrastructure. A secondary aim was to enhance understanding of how ICT tools facilitated secure collaborative learning with external business and community partners in a global context. In order to achieve the above aims the following objectives were identified: •
Collaborate with IT Services and LTech to trial various open source ICT tools that might be incorporated into the university existing IT infrastructure
•
Enable use of a common platform to facilitate secure information exchange between the university and its external community and business partners.
The above objectives guided the implementation and delivery of the Open ICT project.
1.
Why did you use this approach?
The Open ICT Tools project used an action research methodology. The project included two major cycles to trial ICT tools to facilitate business and community
1
Collaborative Online tools for Business and Community Engagement Case Study Approx 250 words
engagement. The first iteration cycle was undertaken within a project titled ‘On the 1 Move 2: Computing Now’ . This project was conducted between Intel Corp. (Portland, Oregon and San Francisco, California; USA) and the School of Design at Northumbria University (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK). The second iteration cycle was undertaken within a project titled ‘Entertainment on the Go’. This second project was conducted between the Motorola Design office located in Seoul, Korea, Hongik University (Korea), Ohio State University (USA) and the School of Design at Northumbria University.
2.
The collaborations included high quality international universities such as Hong-ik University in Korea and Ohio State University in the USA and high profile commercial organisations such as Intel and Motorola. Because of the confidential nature of the projects, one of the requirements was to restrict access to the online project sites so the ICT tools used enabled information to be exchanged securely. In addition, the project aimed to trial Open Source Software and software which was free of cost. The use of this type of software was intended to reduce the ongoing running costs associated with software licensing.
What is the context in which you are using this approach?
Approx 250 words
Two projects were undertaken during this trial with 5 industry staff members, 179 undergraduate students, 1 postgraduate student, and 8 academic staff members being involved. Both projects were internally supported by a cross-institutional 2 3 4 team comprising staff from LTech, CETL, and IT Services .
1
see http://issuu.com/hannahtoes/docs/2010intelbookletjune2 LTech offer a single point of contact for a service to help staff in the use of technology to enhance the student learning experience at Northumbria University. The team provide a range of services that include support on using various technologies for both online activity, e.g. the eLearning Portal (the institutional VLE), PebblePad, and Turnitin, as well as classroom activity, e.g. Smartboards; TurningPoint (an audience response system); help in creating online content; staff training in using various computer programmes; maintenance and development of the eLearning Portal; exploring potential use of new technologies. Recently, LTech become part of the Learning and Teaching Academy. http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/sd/central/ar/academy/ 3 The CETL AfL has promoted a transformation in assessment, building on excellent practice in Education, Childhood Studies, History, English, Psychology and Engineering. Their approach to Assessment for Learning means that students benefit from assessment which does far more than simply test what they know. Students take part in the kinds of activities that are valuable long term, help them to develop, provide them with guidance and feedback and they will learn how to assess themselves as future professionals. Recently, the CETL: AfL was transformed into a Learning and Teaching Academy. http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/sd/central/ar/academy/ 4 IT Services is responsible for the provision, maintenance and development of a wide range of computing facilities for the staff and students of Northumbria. http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/sd/central/its/ 2
2
Collaborative Online tools for Business and Community Engagement Case Study 3.
What collaborative online tools and other technologies were involved?
Approx 250 words
The project was designed to be replicable across other institutions with minimal cost. The project assumes that an existing IT infrastructure is in place that can provide the necessary hardware and network support. All software was to be open source (or at least free to use software) and as the software would be trialled over two iterations we deliberately limited the number of systems we would trial. For the purposes of this project we decided to trial the following systems: •
Plone
•
MediaWiki
•
Joomla
•
WordPress
•
Skype
Each is available as a free download and has varying degrees of assistance available, mainly via online communities. A key aspect of the collaboration involved students working in distributed groups in a Web 2.0 environment sharing information and student produced multimedia files. The shared secure online project websites gave students opportunities to learn from and with fellow students from both their own and participating universities. 4.
How did you design or set up the interactions design?
Approx 150 words
5.
How did you implement and embed this approach?
Approx 350 words
6.
What benefits is this delivery approach producing for stakeholders?
Approx 400 words
Give details here of •
the design of the approach;
•
the process you worked through in order to complete that design;
•
the personnel involved in the design process.
A key achievement of this project was the involvement of IT Services to actively work with the academics and LTech staff to provide technical solutions to enable installation of ICT tools on the university network which would support engagement with external collaborative partners. The key aim was to trial open source ICT tools (or free of cost such as Skype) that could be used to facilitate engagement with external business and community partners and could be incorporated into the existing university IT infrastructure. A secondary aim was to enhance understanding about the use of ICT tools to facilitate secured collaborative learning with external business and community partners in a global context. A key outcome of this collaboration was the commissioning of a new collaborative server launched at the outset of this project. This server was used to trial various ICT tools as outlined earlier in the report. IT Services also enabled VoIP services (such as Skype) on its main wireless network. They also plan to enable these services on the university’s wireless network. The project has facilitated development of closer links between LTech and IT Services. This is having a positive impact as other ICT enabled services are being discussed to support future trials in the area of learning & teaching. Whilst unintended, an important outcome of the Open ICT project was a demonstration of academic initiated innovation which in collaboration with the key services across the university has affected how ICT tools have been used across the institution. For example, Skype has been implemented on the main wireless 3
Collaborative Online tools for Business and Community Engagement Case Study network. This is enabling overseas students to use Skype to keep in touch with their families and friends. Schools within the university are starting to use the technology to keep in contact with staff working overseas. Schools are also starting to use the technology to interview prospective research students and staff based in different countries. IT ‘Out of Hours’ helpline staff are implementing an internal blog site on the University Collaborative server to facilitate knowledge transfer between its members. Furthermore, the engagement with business and community partners undertaken 5 within the Global Studio has been providing a platform for teaching staff to continue their professional development in the areas of e-Learning and practicebased teaching and learning. The Global Studio has already promoted sharing of resources such as teaching strategies and techniques and collaboration in relation to curriculum development across the HE participating partner institutions. For example one academic from a partner university commented: I have developed new approaches to teaching design projects, and an increased appreciation for the value of 'presentation' as a learning activity. The cross-school and cross-institutional collaboration has enabled the intersection of various pedagogical and disciplinary approaches. Evaluation results from the Global Studio suggest that the majority of students from participating universities perceived this innovative initiative facilitates their learning, especially in the intended areas of development of virtual teamwork and communication skills. The vast majority of students also felt the Global Studio provided them with a positive learning experience in comparison to other modules. Students liked being allowed to create their own group project pages. They also commented that this provided them with an opportunity to creatively share their work and project progress amongst the distributed and co-located group members. They appreciated flexible access to information facilitated by the project websites. Many students commented on the usefulness of observing other students’ progress and work on online project pages. Students indicated this allowed them to compare their own work with the work of the other students, facilitating reflective practice:
7.
Did implementation of this approach have any disadvantages or drawbacks?
approx. 250 words
•
You can look at other peoples work and see what they are doing in comparison to yours and it helps improve your skills
•
Seeing the range of work by other students was rewarding
•
It was my first time to work with student across the country so it was great chance to watch how other countries students approach to issues, develop concepts and other processes.
The tools themselves proved to be a varied mix. The risk with open source platforms was always that support could end as the community moved on. For established systems (namely MediaWiki and WordPress) there was generally always a solution to any problems encountered (unless the problem was one of inappropriate tool use). This experience was not found in our use of lesser known systems. In Plone’s case the relatively small installed user base meant there was little or no incentive for developers to update or bug fix their plug-ins and extensions when they could be developing their work for systems with a larger install base.
5
see http://www.adm.heacademy.ac.uk/projects/adm-hea-projects/learning-and-teaching-projects-2008-9/dissemination-ofinnovative-teaching-and-learning-practice-the-global-studio 4
Collaborative Online tools for Business and Community Engagement Case Study 8.
How will this approach be taken further?
approx. 250 words
For future development it would be advisable to look at what the internet community is currently engaged in, rather than systems designed specifically for (in this case) collaborative ventures. Although WordPress may not have been the appropriate choice three years ago; community and user pressure for new features has expanded it into an (almost) fully functioning content management system. In addition to the technical solutions, the inclusion of a variety of technical support staff from the beginning has helped progress the project and overcome potential technological barriers (both resource and security) often found in a large institution. Without the inclusion of the IT Services director we feel that several of the more contentious areas of the project (in particular the use of Skype) would have been impossible to implement. Student surveys indicated that their perceived learning experience have been enhanced during the engagement with external partners. The transferability to other disciplines is evidenced by a number of academics for other schools currently in discussion with LTech staff to incorporate cross-institutional business focused learning activity into their programmes.
9.
Summary and Reflection
approx. 250 words
The Open ICT Tools project explored the use of open source Web 2.0 applications to facilitate collaboration between Northumbria and its international business and university partners. Using the Global Studio as a research site, the project examined the utility of various ICTs for enabling collaboration with community and industry partners. The Open ICT Tools project was a practice-led enquiry that was generated from experiences gained from projects previous undertaken in collaboration with external partners within the Global Studio at Northumbria University. For future development it would be advisable to look at what the internet community is currently engaged in, rather than systems designed specifically for (in this case) collaborative ventures. Although WordPress may not have been the appropriate choice 3 years ago; community and user pressure for new features has expanded it into an (almost) fully functioning content management system. In addition to the technical solutions, the inclusion of a variety of technical support staff from the beginning has helped progress the project and overcome potential technological barriers (both resource and security) that can be found in such a large institution. Without the inclusion of the IT Services director we feel that several of the more contentious areas of the project (in particular the use of Skype) would have been impossible to implement. In addition, the donation of a test bed server from IT services for the purposes of this work has been invaluable. Without a server essentially ‘owned’ by the project team, it would have been impossible to provide rapid installation and testing of new collaborative tools.
5