The LSE Training Portal: a really simple solution

1
The LSE Training Portal a really simple solution?

• Jane Secker, Jeni Brown Chris Fryer
• London School of Economics and Political Science
• 17th March 2008
• LILAC 2008, Liverpool John Moores University

2
Overview and summary

• Overview of training portal project
• Use of RSS technology to enhance access to
  training information for staff and students at
  LSE
• Development of a portal or one-stop shop
• Development of a re-usable RSS feed for inclusion
  in the institutional portal and the VLE
• Consider information literacy implications of RSS
  technology

3
Training Portal project goals

• To improve access to training information for
  staff and students by providing a single
  information point.
• To improve communication and cooperation between
  training providers throughout the university.
• To improve the visibility of training events and
  to foster the development of LSE as a learning
  community.
• To establish an easy to use and flexible system
  which could be re-used throughout the
  universitys existing systems.
• To explore the use of RSS technology as a means
  of providing timely and relevant information to
  users.

4
Project partners
5
Project initiation and background

• Awareness of problem but no obvious solution
• Endnote training caused confusion
• Potential overlap in course content between IT
  training and CLT
• New members of staff new skills

6
Training at LSE before the project
7
The Training Portal
8
How it works
Events booking databases
Perl
PHP
ASP
ASP
RSS-generating scripts
RSS
RSS
RSS
RSS
RSS aggregator sorts all events chronologically
and outputs to other formats
PHP Script
Re use the same material in multiple contexts,
with each event linked to the relevant providers
booking system.
HTML Page
Plasma Screen
RSS
9
Staff training in the institutional portal
10
Student training in the VLE
11
The plasma screen display
12
Project launch and follow up

• Soft launch April 2007
• In Moodle, student portal and on plasma screens
• Formal Launch in October 2007
• Credit card pocket fliers and limited supply of
  promotional bags
• Publicity in online staff newsletter
• Additional publicity in January 2008 (leaflets)
• Awarded funding by School for eco-friendly bag
  joint project with Library to promote learning

13
Evaluation and feedback

• Gathering feedback using the following methods
• Monitoring of feedback through evaluation forms
• Monitoring of attendance at all training events
  as compared to previous years
• Feedback and data will be collected as part of
  annual user surveys and focus groups
• Page hit data will be collected on the training
  portal and the provider sites
• Feedback from staff administering the programmes.

14
Impact to date

• How did trainees hear of IT Training Courses?
• From 8/10/2007 to 03/03/2008

15
Key successes

• Project was a finalist for the Institute of IT
  Training Internal Project of the Year Award
• Feedback suggests it has raised profile of
  training
• We think this system is unique in HE
• Demonstrates the importance of collaboration and
  cooperation between training providers
• Delivered with a minimal investment of resources
• Requires no additional user training
• Highly flexible use in VLE, portal, plasma
  screens
• Innovative and highly practical use of Web 2.0
  technology

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Information literacy implications

• Portal makes things easier for students and makes
  training more visible
• True value of the portal relies on understanding
  how to use RSS as a personal information
  management tool
• Now run a class for staff and researchers on
  Keeping up to Date using Google Reader extend
  to students?
• Most attendees see the benefit but are unfamiliar
  with using RSS in this way

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The future

• Aim to get all training providers on board
• Evaluation
• measuring the impact on attendance at classes
  across the School
• measuring impact on awareness of training
• Assumes that non-attendance is due to poor
  visibility which may not be the case
• Training providers are continuing to meet with
  other ideas in the pipeline such as
• A single booking system?
• More coordinated approach to training JISC
  i-skills framework?
• E-portfolios for training records

18
Thanks for listeningAny questions?

• References
• Secker, Jane and Fryer Christopher. Information
  Literacy and RSS feeds at LSE in Godwin, P. and
  Parker, J. (eds) (2008) Information Literacy
  meets Library 2.0. London Facet. ISBN
  978-1-85604-637-4
• Training Portal documentation available at
  http//training.lse.ac.uk/docs
• Contact details
• Jeni Brown j.l.brown_at_lse.ac.uk
• Jane Secker j.secker_at_lse.ac.uk
• Chris Fryer c.j.fryer_at_lse.ac.uk (Technical
  queries)