Nationally Procured Content on Glow
Education Scotland Briefing
10 August 2015
BACKGROUND
Education Scotland is responsible for the provision and signposting to relevant
curriculum and assessment materials.
Through Glow, local authorities and schools can access core content, (including eportfolios, support material for the broad general education and new national
qualifications, blogs, wikis and broadcasting), subject or sector specific content (for
example modern languages, Gaelic, Scottish history, programming), and user
produced content generated by teachers or learners through networks such as the
science network and other national sites.
Schools and local authorities are also currently able to access some nationally
procured resources, in particular, Twig, Tigtag, Scran and Scholar.
PROCURING DIGITAL CONTENT
An internal review, conducted last year, highlighted that nationally procured material
has not been universally used which does not represent good value for public
money.
We are currently consulting on the possible development of a national collaborative
agreement which could be used by local authorities to purchase digital resources of
their choice and opt in to contracts accordingly. This would allow schools and local
authorities to have greater choice and increase personalisation through the selection
of those resources which are most relevant for their learners.
Individual schools and local authorities will continue to have the ability to make local
procurement decisions.
Further information about a national collaborative agreement will be made available
following the consultation period.
UPDATE ON NATIONALLY AVAILABLE DIGITAL CONTENT
Twig and Tigtag
These resources have been nationally procured by Education Scotland for a further
12 months from July 2015 and will be nationally available until July 2016.
Scran
Scran is nationally available via the Glow service to 31 March 2016. Education
Scotland will fund the Scran Service to Schools until September 2015. The period
from October onwards will solely be funded and provided by the Scran Trust which
is a registered charity in Scotland. The Scran Trust is also actively investigating how
to fund the service on a continuing basis.
Scholar
Education Scotland are currently funding Scholar to update all their Advanced Higher
materials in line with new national qualifications.