The Distance Education Initiative (DEI) project will develop high quality Online Distance Leaning (ODL) postgraduate programmes for a significant student cohort, and provide a high quality and flexible approach to study off campus.

In order to capture requirements for such a service, project DEI003 has established a community site for staff involved with Online Distance Learning (http://www.odl-community.is.ed.ac.uk). This live site, although viewed as a ‘pilot’ for the purposes of exploring a particular technology and set of requirements, is used by staff in IS as one of the main mechanisms for communicating with and supporting people working on both DEI funded programmes and other ODL programmes. The evaluation has confirmed that WordPress/BuddyPress is the preferred platform going forward. 

This follow up DEI008 project is to create a small number of Social Hub spaces using the same technology, for each identified ODL programme. The ‘Social Hub’ concept is about providing a programme level space, separated from the spaces where teaching happens, where students, staff and alumni can discuss programme level topics, create special interest groups, network professionally, and generally socialise online as a cohesive community. It provides an opportunity for those studying at a distance to interact with students at all stages in the programme, across all courses within the programmes and to leverage an amount of peer support. If a programme chooses to have the hub publically available, then the Social Hub can also form part of the marketing of a programme, showing a lively community around a programme.

This project will deliver a Social Hub sites for each of the following programmes:

  • MSc in Creative Writing (Dilys Rose) LLC
  • MSc Health and Social Care (Karen Watchman) HiSS
  • MSc in Global Challenges (Sam Spiegel) SPS (25/6/12: Not required anymore)
  • PG Cert in Research-Informed Science Education (RISE) (Karon McBride) Physics

 

Note there will also be a follow up project to build a scalable ‘farm’ solution in 2012/13 to cope with the expected increased numbers of new ODL programmes. All participants this year are aware that they will be expected to move to the farm solution in 2012/13 (with assistance from IS). If they choose not to, IS will not support their standalone site any longer and full responsibility will pass to them.

This project is carried over from 2011/12. All project documentation prior to 6th August can be found at http://www.projects.ed.ac.uk/areas/learn/dei/DEI008/index_table.shtml

Current project status

Report Date RAG Budget Effort Completed Effort to complete
September 2012 BLUE 0.0 days 0.0 days 0.0

Project Info

Project
Distance Education Social Hub
Code
DEI008
Programme
Z. Distance Education Initiative (DEI) (closed 2012/13)
Project Manager
Franck Bergeret
Project Sponsor
Bryan MacGregor
Current Stage
Close
Status
Closed
Start Date
23-Apr-2012
Planning Date
n/a
Delivery Date
n/a
Close Date
13-Aug-2012
Programme Priority
1

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