Phase Two Terms of Reference

Document Sign Off

Overview

Background

In 2018, as part of the University’s strategy to be a world leader in digital education, Phase One of the Learn Foundations project was undertaken.  The project was set up to provide students with courses on Learn that meet their needs and provide the staff who design courses with the relevant skills, knowledge and guidance to do so.

Our vision is that: “Courses in Learn are accessible, and relevant information is easy to find by students.  Staff find Learn easy to use, and are well supported to make and deliver rich courses online.”

Phase One of the Learn Foundations project ended in August 2019 with Phase Two commencing September 2019 where we will continue to focus on:

• Enhancement of Learn courses for both staff and students via structure improvements and automation;
• The support of staff via the structure checklist and programme of training;
• Embedding of consistent terminology;
• Evaluation of Phase One;
• Continued communications and engagement with all Schools within the University;

Within Phase Two, the Learn Foundations project will continue to contribute towards the improvement of student experien­­ce and is closely aligned with the University Learning and Teaching Strategy particularly:

 “Pursuing the aspiration that every educator is a digital educator, and that all teaching staff are supported in the appropriate use of the full breadth of learning technologies”.

This project also supports the mainstreaming adjustments detailed in the University Accessible and Inclusive Learning Policy and will support the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018 which became law in September 2018 and came into force in September 2019.

Principles

The core principles identified when TEL057 was initiated are the principles that we will still adhere to within Phase Two:

• Remove unnecessary complexity;
• Bring together all the information needed to do a task;
• Use simple language, without jargon and acronyms;
• Use task-based navigation (the same model used by GOV.UK);
• Show students what they need, when they need it;
• Show ‘Just in time’ contextual help, reminders or prompts;
• Integrate existing data sources to present information that is useful to each individual student;
• Allow students to use whatever device they want;
• Use accessible design from the ground up.

Scope

As the project has evolved, the scope has remained unchanged with the exception of one addition identified as part of the User Experience work undertaken within Phase One.

In Scope

• All campus based courses on Learn;
• Design and implementation of a solution that provides students with courses on Learn that meets their needs;
• Design and implementation of training/support that will provide staff who upload course content with the relevant skills, knowledge and guidance to do so;
• Improved integration of existing tools/systems into course design;
• Review of the Own Work Declaration process within the assessment workflows;
• Communications and Engagement as a means to support adoption of the Learn Foundations project.

Out of Scope

• Online only courses;
• Moodle and other Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) although, as much as possible, solutions will be designed so that they are agnostic to any platform;
• Redesign of the Blackboard Learn user interface;
• Changes to existing 3^rd party systems which are integrated;
• Changes to integrations for 3^rd party functionality/systems;
• Development of new tools/systems that could be integrated with Learn with the exclusion of Eesysoft.

Objectives/Deliverables

Benefits

As with Phase One, Learn Foundations will continue to develop a deeper understanding of our user requirements and priorities with regards to their use of Learn.

This will be achieved via the continuation of user consultation (both staff and students) across all Schools/Colleges within the University.

Benefits will be measured via the Evaluation work steam (Objective 9) which will demonstrate an increased uptake of training/support materials, courses and positive feedback from staff.

Success Criteria

Methods of evaluation are currently being established and baselines.  Once this has been completed (Currently scheduled for 25^th October – The below success criteria may be updated:

• User satisfaction is improved in courses that adopt the improvements recommended – this will be measured in a variety of ways (surveys, focus groups etc.) and measured against a baseline (quantitative and qualitative);
• Delivery of key functionality required by the end users which will be measured against requirements gathered at the outset (quantitative);
• Schools feel supported to effectively engage with their academic community to promote the benefits of an institution-wide approach and reduce concerns surrounding practice change so that online pedagogic barriers to learning are lessened.
• Adoption of the templates aim is to achieve 90% of adoption of templates within 3 years (Quantitative):
  • 1st year delivering 25%,
  • 2nd year 75% and;
  • Remaining 15% delivered through service in the final year;
• Adoption of the templates should be measured by (Qualitative):
  • School engagement within the continuous process of improvement.
  • The instances of template change reduces over the lifetime of the project leading to no alterations occurring at all.
  • Teaching Offices fully engaged with the project and committed to its successful delivery.
  • Increased uptake in training.
  • Evidence of academic ownership through proactive peer to peer encouragement/support.
• Improved connections within Learn User Group and other Learning Technology initiatives for sharing focussed interests in course development (qualitative).

Project Milestones

The Phase Two project milestones have been identified using knowledge obtained via the completion of Phase One and the experiences of those team members currently working with or supporting the Learn service:

Impact

Priority and Funding

Learn Foundations increased to a HIGH priority project on 13^th November 2018 due to this project being part of an institutional response to the National Student Survey 2018 results with the purpose of improving the student experience.

This project is a sponsor funded, discretionary project with IS Learning and Teaching Web (LTW) division supplying all required funding.

Impact and Dependencies

Learn Foundations is at the forefront of improving the student experience, particularly within the online teaching spaces within the University of Edinburgh.

Learn Foundations currently has a dependency on the communications mechanisms and workflows to support with School engagement, specifically: reach, adoption, awareness and buy in.  All other potential dependencies will continued to be monitored across the duration of the project and managed accordingly.

Project Risks

All risks are managed in line with the project risk management approach and can be located on the TEL057 projects website.

Organisation

Work/Task Breakdown

For the work/Task breakdown, a RACI has been created which has been shared with the project team and can be located on the TEL057 projects website.

Resources, Skills and Costs

No updates to the original 3 point estimate submitted for the initiation of Learn Foundations.

Project Governance

Governance will be provided via the project team and project board with additional quality assurance being provided via WIS (Weekly Intersection Meeting) who will also be notified of all major issues or changes to the project.

Project Stakeholders

All project stakeholders can be located on the TEL057 projects website.

Project Estimations

All project estimations can be located on the TEL057 projects website.