Destinations ® : The UL Experience
Installing and amending Destinations ®
Mary Sweeney
Dr. Colm Cunniffe
Cooperative Education & Careers Division
University of Limerick
August 2008
Overview
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CCMS Partner Fellowship
UL Project Details
Project Schedule
Project Team
What have we done
Work in Progress
Reflections
IT implications
Q&A
August 2008
CCMS Partner
Fellowship
• Aug 07 - CCMS Partner Fellowship
• Contract between UL and Reading
– Installation of Destinations ®
– Training & IT support
– Community of Practice – 5 partners
– Adaptation and deployment
– Evaluation
– Dissemination
August 2008
UL Project Details
• Customise website for Irish students
– Identify Irish links and resources
• Pilot Destinations® with career module
– Business, Public Admin, Language, Music, HPSS
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Develop as resource for work placements
Promote through careers website
Provide student feedback
Disseminate outcomes to GCI colleagues
August 2008
Project Schedule
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Sep 07:
Oct 07:
Nov-Dec:
Jan-April:
Upload website & training
UL references; video clips
Review contents
Customise text, amend resources, pilot
with students
March-May: Edit and upload video clips
June-Sept: Create new videos, upload on VLE
Aug 08:
Upload new release
Sept ->:
Customise new release
Sept ->:
Use resource with class groups
August 2008
Project Team
• Cross Functional Project Team
– 2 Careers Advisors, Coop Ed Manager,
Placement Officer, IT Coordinator, UL Web
Editor, 2 Academics, Teaching & Learning
representative, Student
• Monthly meetings
• Allocated tasks to small working groups
• Familiarisation, consultation, identification
of changes
August 2008
UL Version
• Minimalist approach to text changes
– Amend, correct, or add value
– Reviewed contents, identified need for amendments
• Units requiring significant amendments
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Careers & Employers
Postgraduate Study
Work Experience
Links and resources throughout
Disability information
Promoted Gradireland throughout
• Video Clips: Editing and transcripts
August 2008
What have we done?
• Installed on server and linked to website
• Filmed video clips of Irish employers
– 7 employers, 38 video clips
• Added, deleted, amended text
– 1229 files of a total 4055 files
– 90 new links created
• Amended teaching resources
• Customised graphics
• Designed posters & flyers
August 2008
What else have we
done?
• Promoted to students
– emails, workshops, fairs, publications, posters
• Piloted with Humanities class groups
• Monitored student usage
– 600 pages, 4400 hits per month
• Commissioned usability
studies
• Surveyed students
– Early reactions
– Reading online survey
August 2008
The Greening of
Destinations®
• Video Clips
– Cross section of employers
• Ericsson, Google, Kerry Group, Kingspan, PWC, Stryker,
Ulster Bank
– Primary focus on selection process:
• Applications, CVs, Interviews, Assessment Centres, Skills,
Personality, Work Experience, Careers & Employers
• Text
– Irish statistics, publications, CVs, Postgrad funding,
Graduate Placement schemes, Employment
legislation, Work Experience, Resources
August 2008
Work in Progress
• New and more professional video clips
– Work Experience & Postgraduate study
– Include Irish interview
• Customise new releases
• Use with new class groups
– Business Studies & Postgrads
• Use on VLE – SAKAI
• Evaluation activities
– Interview students
– Focus groups of academics and careers advisors
• Share output with GCI community
August 2008
What do we think?
• Reflections on our experience
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Think, plan, act, review
Importance of positive & versatile group
IT expertise invaluable
Customising requires time commitment
Overlap between Destinations ® and own website
• Assessment of Destinations ®
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Great careers resource, developed by experts
Flexible, versatile, accessible, relevant
Excellent teaching resources
Low cost – high benefit: win-win solution
August 2008
August 2008
August 2008
IT Implications
• Installing Destinations ®
• Upload Destinations ® folder to server
using FTP or SFTP
• Where?
– In the case of UL
– http://www.ul.ie/careers/destinations
• Time Required
– About 30min – 1 hour
August 2008
IT Implications
• UL Webserver
– Linux webserver
– Apache 2.0
– LDAP support (for authentication)
– If using apache there is more sophisticated LDAP authentication
in Apache 2.2
• Securing Destinations ®
– UL uses Active Directory
– Two domains:- student and staff
– Authenticated using .htaccess file and LDAP protocol
August 2008
IT Implications
• Important points for your IT admin
– Set up server to process SSI (server side includes), this will be default
on most servers
– In our case we replaced <!-- #include file' with '<!--#include virtual
– Server must be set up to recognize FLV file types
– Secure using LDAP and Active Directory
• Amending Destinations ®
– A good start is the technical documentation.
– Editing using Crimson/text editor
– All edits were done manually in order to adhere to the structure of the
Destinations files.
– Topic-breakdown, video log and download logs were amended with
edits
– Menus were updated as new sections were added
August 2008
Home Page
August 2008