project in a previous post at the Inter- national Institute for Strategic Studies, where it had been invaluable to survey customers of different catalogue suppliers to get a view of the facilities on the databases and the service they received from the supplier. Hillcroft has also used Sur-
veyMonkey.com for surveying teachers’ feedback on subscriptions to different journals. As more than 50 per cent of Hillcroft students have dyslexia, it has expertise in making materials accessible through electronic resources and direct in-house links with additional learning support experts in dyslexia and other accessibility needs.
Morley
On the other hand, Morley has extensive supplier-side experience of online design within the context of digital marketing for corporate clients. The college had recently outsourced its website design and devel- opment to an external agency, which de- veloped its practice in assessing suppliers as a customer. One output of the tender- ing process was a comprehensive Request for Proposal document, which meant that Hillcroft could readily adapt the documentation to suit the needs of a VLE hosting service and expand it to cover a redesign and Single Sign On (SSO).
52 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL
Morley also has broad experience in educational project management, includ- ing both in-house and external projects. Externally-based projects included an investigation into electronic Individu- al Learning Plan (eILP) design with a consortium of five London-based adult education providers. This developed the college’s experience of project monitor- ing documentation, which is generally more challenging for externally-funded projects.
The FE sector area reviews which started in April 2016 finished with a recommendation that Specially Designated Institutes (SDIs) like our two institutions need to partner more and this type of cooperation highlights the advantage of doing exactly that.
Managing projects
eLearning and Enrolment team mem- bers at Morley had taken the PRINCE2® Practitioner qualification and so were able to apply this methodology to project planning. They kept documentation light and followed a model recommended for small-scale PRINCE2® projects. In practice, once the project was underway the team also used an approach closer to Agile project management methodologies. The team members shared documentation
via email or Google Drive and kept it under change control throughout the project. They identified having trans- parent processes as important early on and kept both teams at the same level of understanding. Face-to-face conversations are key to Agile projects and colleagues met at regular intervals to discuss important developments or transitions.
Procurement processes Collaboration around procurement was a new experience for both colleges and we learnt some important lessons in the process. The team approached the procurement process systemati- cally, sharing actions out equally. We compared hosting providers against the same criteria but this was quite difficult to do precisely. Due to the nature of the digital technology, we were able to consider suppliers from around the UK, including Scotland and Northern Ireland. We assessed suppliers on a range of requirements, with experience of integrating VLEs and enrolment sys- tems being a key one for both colleges. We also evaluated the option to provide ePortfolios / eILPs.
By the end of the summer, we had finished holding virtual and face-to-face
December-January 2017/18
VLE Collaboration
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