The APT STAIRS Project

 
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Project Outline


The APT STAIRS project will support the identification, testing, refinement and implementation of new collaborative technologies to create a common space where users (students, teachers, administrators and researchers) with different skills can work online together.   The project will, in particular, focus on the use of Google Docs and other online document creation tools as these are seen to be sufficiently appropriate and practical to ensure uptake and adoption across the six partners in the Bloomsbury Colleges consortium.  

We will use JISC funding to run six demonstrator projects across the six Bloomsbury institutions.   These demonstrator projects will examine how the latest online collaborative tools (Google Docs) can engage all users in supporting and developing learning, teaching, administration and research.

The overall aim of the project is to address how to bridge the technological gap between different user groups experience  in the adoption of Web 2.0 tools.  


For further information please view the APT Project Plan attachment below.

The Bloomsbury Colleges

The Bloomsbury Colleges comprise six internationally renowned HE institutions within the University of London. The Colleges collectively have over 15,000 undergraduate and 14,000 postgraduate students (HESA 2005/05).

The Bloomsbury Colleges established a collaborative initiative called the Bloomsbury Learning Environment (BLE) in 2004. The BLE remit includes sharing expertise, knowledge and technology between the Colleges at both a technical and pedagogic level. This strong partnership has now established a BLE Technology Group which involves technical representatives from all six Colleges and a BLE Pedagogy Group which meets to explore the needs of academics and students. The six colleges also make extensive use of Blackboard as their institutional VLE; five of the six colleges share a Blackboard licence and have a common ASP host.


Objectives


The following 5 objectives are planned to address the aim of this project:

  • Research - Deriving a comprehensive overview of existing practice and the impact of new technologies across all the partner institutions
  • Development - Adapting existing collaborative web technologies to ensure they meet the needs of key project stakeholders
  • Implementation - Introducing and trialling the use of collaborative online tools in a range of different HE scenarios
  • Evaluation - Using established JISC procedures to monitor the impact, benefits and lessons learnt during the project
  • Dissemination - Making the results of the research and development available both internally and to the wider external audience.

Outputs & Outcomes


Outputs

  • Analysis and publication of data on the use of new web technologies
  • Bloomsbury showcases demonstrating the technologies
  • Open work shop to present outcomes to the wider education community

Outcomes

  • Empowering users to work and support each other using appropriate and practical technologies to the bridge the "gap"
  • Institutions moving beyond the PowerPoint and VLE model of e-learning to more progressive technologies, such as Google Apps, Wikis and blogs.
  • To support rapid development of e-learning tools.



Attachments (1)

  • APT_STAIRS_Project_Plan.pdf - on 27 Mar 2009 08:20 by Caroline Bell (version 1)
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