MINUTES
Meeting
Educational Technology Advisory Group
Date
Friday 16 February 2007
Time
9:00am – 10:30am
Location
Library Conference Room
Attendees
Rod van den Akker, Gary Allan, Craig Anderson, Lyn Atkinson, Jim Barber, John
Benwell, Mark Gunther (for Graham Bell), Joyce Kirk, Amgad Louka (Chair),
Warren Nageswaren, Rodney Noble
Visitors
Sean Kelly, Nino Lucci, Tom Kovac
Apologies
Graham Bell, Jim McGovern
Item
Discussion/Outcomes
Confirmation The minutes of the 2 February 2007 meeting were accepted as a
of Minutes
true and accurate record of proceedings.
Business
from
previous
minutes
Action
3.1 E-Learning Initiatives Fund criteria
Representatives met to determine priority areas for e-learning
initiatives fund. Amgad agreed to distribute information to the
committee. Amgad will meet with DVC and Policy and Planning to
discuss this paper.
Amgad
Louka
3.2 Systems installation for 2007
Paper on standardisation tabled and distributed. Item to be held
over to the meeting on 2 March 2007.
3.3 TAFE e-learning networks
An e-learning network has been established to support and assist
the ongoing development of staff who will be required to submit
funding applications. The group will be facilitated by Carole
McCulloch and 2 informal meetings have been held with the first
formal meeting being held next week.
3.5 MOP Update
Issues about obtaining comprehensive, reliable and accurate data
about programs, courses, course coordinators etc., from PeopleSoft
will be raised at the ITS Director’s Advisory Group meeting.
The DVC suggested that eTAG minutes should be forwarded to
Steve Somogyi.
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New
Business
3.1 TAFE Equipment/Infrastructure Funding – Rodney Noble
The Proposal for strategic advice from ETAG on State Funding
Equipment Grant Use, was circulated for information and
consideration at the 2 March meeting of eTAG.
Remaining funds from the State Capital Equipment Grant will be
allocated for IT capital equipment/infrastructure with the priorities
being determined through consultation with eTAG. Funds are to be
used to progress the RMIT Academic Plan objectives in relation to
e-Learning and the use of ICT in VET.
Amgad has discussed with Allan Ballagh the possibility of the funds
being used to support the second rollout of Lectopia. Amgad also
raised the issue that ITS may have plans and resources in place to
undertake some of the work that eTAG members prioritize. It was
agreed that members would put forward their recommendations for
the use of the available funds at the next meeting and Rod would
advise on whether these overlap existing or planned ITS initiatives.
All
3.2 Quicklinks Demonstration
Sean Kelly provided a brief overview of quicklinks followed by a
presentation by Nino Lucci on his experience with the systems.
Considerable discussion ensued with the DVC stating concern
about two distinct and seemingly competing systems with many
similar features operating in the University. He sought advice from
eTAG on how to reconcile the two systems and emphasised the
need for a reliable and consistent university wide approach to the
standardisation of educational technologies. If we are requesting
that staff use Blackboard as a ‘portal’ to their learning environments
and tools, we need to ensure that we actively discourage the use of
other similar tools outside Blackboard.
It was noted that the information design and user interface of
Quicklinks was cluttered and difficult to comprehend.
It was agreed that, where possible, Blackboard Building Blocks
should be used to expand functionality whilst maintaining
Blackboard as a consistent interface between students/staff and
their e-learning toolset. Jim McGovern will be asked to consider the
benefits that Quicklinks has to offer over and above existing
Learning Hub tools, particularly Blackboard. Also, if there are
significant advantages to using Quicklinks, how could it be
integrated within Blackboard. Amgad will ask Jim to report his
findings at the next eTAG meeting.
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3.3 Opportunity to assess the Elluminate Live Product suite –
Garry Allan
A paper on the opportunity to assess Elluminate was circulated to
the committee. Elluminate is a web based collaborative learning
environment which has plug ins available for black board. It’s
currently being used by Deakin University. It was suggested that the
group meet with the International Director of Sales who will be
shortly visiting Australia. Members agreed to view a demonstration
of Elluminate at a future meeting.
3.4 Video Conference Project Status Report – Gary Allan
Gary spoke to the Videoconference Project Status Report. A user
group has been established to support the project’s implementation
and it was agreed that Lyn and John would join this group.
Videoconferencing and Offshore Partnerships – Madeline Reeve to
be brought into discussions. Lyn indicated that videoconferencing to
Hong Kong and Singapore are the priority for Business. Garry
explained that appropriate IT infrastructure would be required at the
end points and between the end points for videoconferencing to be
effective. HK and Singapore are adequately equipped.
3.5 Lectopia Update – Amgad Louka
Rutledge has been commissioned to undertake the AV upgrade
however as a result of limited available access to lecture theatres
during the week, the upgrade needs to occur on the weekends.
This has necessitated an increase in the cost of approximately
$30,000 for after hours labour and Amgad sought approval from the
group to proceed. The increase was agreed to by the group.
3.6 LCMS Update – Amgad Louka
Henric Beiers left RMIT at the end of last year. Negotiations took
place with the School of Computer Science and Information
Technology to secure Henric’s replacement. Simon Wilkinson will
commence as the LCMS Project Leader on 14 February and will
provide a report to eTAG at the next meeting.
3.7 MOP Report
Other
Business
Amgad advised that 16 schools have received communication from
DVC. Emails were sent direct to teachers with a copy to heads of
schools. All courses in the 16 schools are now live and will be
available to enrolled students.
Higher Education Course Guides – Lyn Atkinson
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Lyn described the problem with course guides and the fact that the
Important Information link in part B is out of date and doesn’t reflect
the recent changes approved by Academic Board on special
consideration and supplementary assessment. It was noted that the
page is owned by the Policy Group and Jim agreed to discuss with
Helen the need to update the page urgently.
Joyce suggested approaching Academic Registrar’s group to
determine if they have any part in updating amendments to
academic policy. It was also noted that there is need to look at how
resolutions are communicated to Vietnam.
MOP statistics/usage data reports for PAR
Warren suggested that a number of staff in SET regularly use online
tools in their teaching but that these are not always in Blackboard.
An example is the use of Weblearn for quizzes and grading. Since
the plan is to use the data from Blackboard for reporting on the
extent of online learning used in courses, there will be a distortion
with regard to actual e-learning practice. Discussion took place
around the use of weblearn or gradebook. Currently results from
weblearn is exported to excel and then uploaded to blackboard. It
was noted that a blackboard plug in for weblearn would be the best
solution. Warren suggested that the School of Computer Science
would be able to develop a suitable plug-in, but that ITS/DLS are
the appropriate group to do this. Warren agreed to discuss this with
Jim McGovern and the DLS
Date, Time &
Location of
Next
Meeting
Friday 2 March 2007 at 9:00am in the Library conference room
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