In the WebLearn SLD, the limit for My Workspace was incorrectly specified as 250MB, this has been corrected to be 100MB. Apologies for this error.

It has been authored in the wiki itself.

Specifically, a participant with the audit role may:

• visit all sites managed by the Administration Site (including unpublished sites)
• read announcements
• read assignments and student submissions
• see the site calendar
• read chat transcripts
• see all files in resources including hidden material
• read the email archive
• see all site member details
• read all wiki pages
• see all ’sign-up’ meeting details
• use Site Stats tool
• see site membership (in Site Info)

The admin role can visit and ‘maintain’ all sites that are managed by the Administration Site. A participant with the member role has to be a participant within a site in order to visit it it, and (as usual) has to have the maintain role within a site to be able to configure it. In addition a participant with the member role in the Administration Site is able to create sites from with any site where they have the maintain role.

The maintain role is allowed to change tool permissions and add site participants and create new sites (so long as they are a member of an Administration Site) but otherwise the roles are almost identical. The contribute role is meant for staff members who are expected to author content, modify forum discussions, make announcements and the like but who are not actually site maintainers.

The access role is for student-type access, if ’students’ are required to author content or moderate Forum discussions then the permissions for the access role should be modified in the tool itself.

In general students should never be given the contribute role.

The WebLearn team are happy to help anybody who is thinking of submitting an entry: simply get in touch with us via the usual email address: weblearn@oucs.ox.ac.uk

The announcement

The deadline for the Teaching with Sakai Innovation Award is fast approaching– March 15. Please consider helping your faculty apply for this award. Innovation is broadly defined, some may call it active learning or student-centered learning. Here’s an article from yesterday’s Campus Technology describing one of the past winning courses: http://campustechnology.com/articles/2010/02/03/teaching-with-sakai-innovation-award-call-for-entries-open-thru-march-15.aspx

Call for Entries: 2010 Teaching With Sakai Innovation Award (Deadline: Monday, March 15, 2010)

The Teaching with Sakai Innovation Award publicly honors successful pedagogical innovation and best practices in teaching and learning in a Sakai environment. Winners will receive a trip to the 2010 Sakai Conference, June 14-17, 2010, in Denver, Colorado, USA to give a featured presentation about their teaching with Sakai. All entries will become part of the OpenEdPractices.org repository of best teaching practices. The award is sponsored by IBM, with additional support from rSmart and John Wiley & Sons.

For more information about the award and the submission deadline, go to the Teaching with Sakai Innovation Award web site (http://openedpractices.org/twsia).

Many thanks,

Kate Ellis

Learning Technologies Consultant
Indiana University Bloomington
Teaching and Learning Technologies Center
Wells Library 305 West Tower
812-855-9024
kdellis@indiana.edu

As part of the migration to the new WebLearn, it is our intention to stop allowing the creation of new materials in Old WebLearn’s Test Building from Monday 8 Feb 2010, Wk4 HT2010. This is the first phase of the process of closing the Test Building.

This will only affect you if you wish to create rooms, webpages or other resources, or upload files in the Test Building.

It will not have any impact if you or your students or colleagues merely access material hosted in the Test Building, although you should be aware that the Test Building will be closed on 21 June 2010 (Wk9 TT2010).

What should I do if this affects me?

We suggest creating your material within your Departmental Floor instead. If you do not have permission to do this then you should speak to your Floor Manager. If this proves impossible then you could consider using your personal ‘MyWebLearn’ area instead.

If you have any questions then please contact weblearn@oucs.ox.ac.uk

What will happen when the Test Building closes?

All material in the Test Building become inaccessible on 21 June 2010 (Wk9 TT2010), it is your responsibility to move anything that you want to keep by this date.

We would recommend that you either move the material elsewhere in old WebLearn or into new WebLearn. There is an ITLP training course outlining the process of moving material into new WebLearn, to book a place, visit: http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/itlp/courses/detail/TOVC. You may also download the ‘Migration’ course booklet.

If you have any questions then please contact weblearn@oucs.ox.ac.uk

1. “WebLearn: Migration” ITLP course – 1 Feb 2pm, OUCS
2. Evaluations (survey) tool pilot – call for volunteers
3. Closure of the Test Building
4. Request space in the new WebLearn
5. “WebLearn: Fundamentals” ITLP course – 28 Jan 10, OUCS
6. “WebLearn Drop-in surgery” every Friday morning in OUCS
7. Visit the WebLearn guidance site

1 “WebLearn: Migration” ITLP course 1 Feb 2pm, OUCS

All users must migrate their content from old to new WebLearn over the next year and a half.

OUCS are running a migration course every month to help with this process. There are still places on the next occurrence of the course (on 1st Feb 10). Visit: http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/itlp/courses/detail/TOVC to book a place.

2 Evaluations (survey) tool pilot – call for volunteers

The Evaluations tool allows the creation of on-line surveys which can be delivered to Oxford staff and students or to the general public. Such surveys may be used for course evaluation, obtaining feedback, questionnaires or general data gathering purposes.

If you want to be involved in the pilot of this tool then have a look at: http://blogs.oucs.ox.ac.uk/adamweblearn/2010/01/20/create-on-line-surveys-for-free-using-new-weblearn/ and / or send an email expressing interest to wl-eval@weblearn.ox.ac.uk

3 Closure of the Test Building

As part of the process of moving from the old to new WebLearn system, it is our intention to close the Test Building at the start of this year’s long vac.

We recommend that if you currently use the Test Building you consider either moving your material to the new WebLearn or move it elsewhere in old WebLearn with a view to moving it again to the new WebLearn at a later date.

We will be reminding you about this closure over the coming months but why not act quickly and address the issue early.

4 Request space in new WebLearn

To establish a presence in new WebLearn, each Department or College will need to authorise one or more staff members to become a ‘Local WebLearn Coordinator’ and complete the Request for an Administration Site form. If you are intending to move to the new WebLearn then at some point this form will need to be filled in.

We will be reminding you about filling in this form over the coming months but why not act quickly and address the issue early!

5 “WebLearn: Fundamentals” ITLP course – 28 Jan 10, OUCS

The next instance of this hugely popular course is taking place at 2pm on Thursday 28 Jan in OUCS. There are still a few spaces left, please book a place via: http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/itlp/courses/detail/TOVB

6 “WebLearn Drop-in Surgery” every Friday morning in OUCS

If you have already attended a WebLearn course then extra face-to-face help is available most Friday mornings by booking a place at the “WebLearn drop-in surgery” at Computer8. To book a place please visit:  http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/itlp/courses/detail/TECE

7 Visit the WebLearn Guidance site

This site within new WebLearn contains lots of useful resources including a FAQ, a series of step-by-step guides, case studies, bite-sized “least you need to know guides”, copyright and plagiarism resources and showcase WebLearn sites. Visit http://weblearn.ox.ac.uk/info.

Section 4: Recommendations relating to taught postgraduates

The first part of section 4.2 of the report focuses on learner expectations. The rport highlights that many students find themselves in awe when they arrive and worry greatly as they do not really know what to expect over the coming year.

This University has partially addressed the problem by developing a web gateway  http://www.ox.ac.uk/students but we feel that WebLearn can offer further support at the departmental rather than University level.

The Thema report includes the following:

Ensure that applicants for taught postgraduate courses receive clear information about the pedagogic approach of courses in order to help them to negotiate a fit between their aspirations for the course and the resources and structures available:

The following types of information might be useful additions to descriptions in prospectuses and on course Websites:

• Expectations of the department towards students in terms of their readiness to take on the role of autonomous learner:
  • Detailed descriptions of what it means to be a learner in the department
  • Explication of reading approaches that the student will need to develop
  • Specifications of the expected levels of academic writing and research
  • Expected levels of participation during classroom activities
  • Expected disposition towards learning, such as critique and analysis
• What students can expect from their course:
  • Descriptions of pedagogical approach, including an explication of what terms like “seminar”, “tutorial”, “discussion session” etc., mean in the context of the particular course
  • Details of formative feedback mechanisms both during taught and research-based parts of the course
  • Reasonable assessment of the workload and suggestions for ways to manage it

As mentioned elsewhere in this blog departments can use WebLearn to disseminate information and to allow the peer mentoring of students before they arrive. Information relating to the above list can be stored in a department’s area within WebLearn and existing students can be quizzed on various aspects via a discussion forum or in a chat room.

Now that students receive their Oxford SSO credentials before they arrive, this can all be done in a secure area and not in the public gaze on social networking sites such as Facebook and My Space.

Section 3: student’s use of digital technologies. Recommendations.

Content Provision in WebLearn

In relation to the institutional VLE, WebLearn, lecturers within the same course should:

• Provide students with the same “base level” of service (i.e. in making PowerPoint presentations, lecture notes and so forth available), even if they do not all use the other tools and features provided.

We would wholeheartedly support this recommendation. Remember there’s lots of training available for WebLearn.

Podcasting as a Revision Aid

In relation to the use of digital technologies in lectures and other classes, lecturers are
encouraged to:

• Consider the recording of lectures as podcasts to aid students’ revision, without fear that
  students will cease to attend lectures as a consequence.

There is a ‘Podcast’ tool within WebLearn, this allows podcasts to be uploaded and access restricted to site participants. Alternatively public podcasts can be hosted on the University’s public ‘Oxford Podcasts’ website (and on iTunesU) and re-used in WebLearn via the ‘News’ tool.

Reading Lists

In compiling students’ reading lists, lecturers should:

• Make photocopied study packs of print-based materials available where possible, subject to copyright restrictions and cost implications.

It should be pointed out here that the University’s CLA licence allows material to be scanned and hosted in WebLearn within ‘Resources’ on a course site. This will be more cost effective than producing reams of photocopies each year.

Support for Mobile Phones

The Erewhon project is enhancing WebLearn for use on Smartphones. This technology should be available in the 2010/11 academic year and lectures are encouraged to think how they may use the new functionality.

For Training Providers

When planning the delivery of training through the academic year, providers are encouraged to:

• Be mindful of students’ preference for “just-in-time” training.
• Consider the creation of online “refresher” guides to supplement face-to-face training.

Just-in-time training and refresher guides can be hosted within WebLearn. Think about recording lectures and hosting within WebLearn or on the Oxford Podcasts site.

We are planning a special ’study skills’ area in WebLearn where generic training material can be deposited and used by students. Details to follow.

Links

• WebLearn Training and WebLearn Guidance
• Podcast tool, News Tool
• Oxford Podcasts and iTunesU
• CLA and copyright
• Erewhon project