Information Scotland
The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland
ISSN 1743-5471
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Information ScotlandThe Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in ScotlandISSN 1743-5471
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Charlie Bennett describes North Lanarkshire's groundbreaking open learning initiative in which interactive talking heads and digital television are used to reach further into the community.
North Lanarkshire Council in common with other Authorities faces many challenges. Educational achievement is below the Scottish average, and falls even lower for those people not engaging in the labour market. Average wages in North Lanarkshire are lower than the average for the rest of Scotland, and the transport infrastructure in some areas is very poor.
The Scottish Employers Skills Survey in 2002 has revealed that 32% of employers in North Lanarkshire have skills gaps in basic IT, whilst 48% report skills gaps in customer care. The claimant count unemployment rate for the authority is higher than the rate for the West of Scotland and significantly higher than the rate for the rest of Scotland.
The Need for Lifelong Learning in North Lanarkshire
The need for lifelong learning has never been greater in North Lanarkshire. It has been identified at all levels through a raft of strategic and policy documents emanating from central and local government. The North Lanarkshire Residents Survey of 2002 also clearly identified that the Council should act on the level of unemployment as one of its major priorities.
Given these social problems, the Council's commitment to lifelong learning, and the Modernising Government Agenda, the Libraries and Information Section took the decision to place access to online learning at the very centre of its open learning strategy, recognising that for very many reasons some people are unable to access our lifelong learning services in our Centres. As a result of this, the decision was taken to adopt a web-based solution to the remote delivery of learning and the first steps in developing an e-learning presence at logintolearn.com were taken.
Logintolearn.com
Libraries and Information secured £50,000 from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to develop an e-learning website primarily to support the learning needs of the Motherwell North Social Inclusion Partnership. Logintolearn.com was developed and proved an effective delivery mechanism for lifelong learning, achieving 1.75 million hits in its first year. Over a period of a year the content of the site was extended to provide access to a wide range of remote databases, and additional learning materials were developed and made available through the site.
However, much of the content was static and whilst the site did provide meaningful learning materials, and acted as a ‘shop window' to lifelong learning in Lanarkshire much of the learning materials required an overhaul and a greater degree of interactivity introduced.
Objective3
It was very apparent that the learning content on the site needed upgrading, and assessment material provided for users to gauge their progress. In addition we also needed to develop support resources for the user to help them learn more quickly and efficiently. From our user feedback we were also able to identify that many people who required access to our learning resources did not have access to a computer.
The European Social Fund Objective 3 Programme Priority 3 – Lifelong Learning provides funding to projects that can demonstrate they create and enhance learning materials through the development of new online content to facilitate lifelong learning and provide learning support through the development and enhancement both of resource centres for online learning and best practice.
This identified Objective3 as the best source of significant money to develop Logintolearn and a submission was made under Priority 3. The development of the submission, however, was a torturous and difficult process involving a great deal of research, and we in the Libraries and Information Service are very grateful for the help of the Council's European Team in developing the bid.
The bid, however, was successful and through Objective3, other Partnership agreements, and a financial input from North Lanarkshire Council, £378,000 was sourced to redevelop Logintolearn to include:
Online interactive learning modules
The Project will allow us to develop 14 interactive learning materials that will be geared specifically towards increasing the employability of local people and addressing the skills gaps identified by local businesses. Through this the Project will contribute to a flexible labour market in North Lanarkshire and to reducing the numbers and proportion of people excluded from the labour market. All materials will be fully interactive, and freely available through Logintolearn and in some cases through an interactive digital television presence that will also be developed as part of the Project. Each module will carry its own assessment material, and interactive talking heads will be available to provide support.
Eight modules will be developed to encompass the outcomes required by the European Computer Driving Licence and PC Passport – a new IT qualification developed by the Scottish Qualification Authority. These will include:
In addition, courses covering a wide range of soft skills will be developed. These include:
Interactive digital television
Although there has been a rapid increase in home ownership of PCs many people in Scotland and North Lanarkshire live without access to the Internet and the benefits it can accrue. There are a number of reasons for this: the perceived or actual costs of computers and other equipment; the lack of literacy and numeracy skills; lack of ICT skills; cultural barriers; lack of confidence – fear of technology; and even a feeling that it is too late in life to start learning about computers. Without intervention this digital divide is expected to worsen, particularly as universal access to online services is likely to become more essential. For example the Scottish Household Survey reveals that a graduate is four times more likely to use the Internet than someone with no formal qualifications.
In an attempt to alleviate the digital divide in North Lanarkshire, the project will develop an interactive digital television presence to deliver lifelong learning services to those people who cant or wont engage with the Internet.
Detailed research by a number of government agencies has demonstrated the potential of delivering vital services over an iDTV platform. By 2005 it is estimated just over 16 million homes within the United Kingdom will have access to interactive Digital TV compared to just 14 million with an internet connection. The use of interactive digital television to deliver lifelong learning within the North Lanarkshire community will mean we will be able to target elusive, hard to reach audiences that do not have a computer at home and who do not normally engage with lifelong learning.
The use of iDTV, however, offers a wide range of technical challenges. A TV audience is not an Internet audience so many viewers will be unfamiliar with some or all of the conventions used. Similarly most viewers watch television from a distance of just over two metres. As a result each screen can only hold a maximum of 150 characters. TV screens are not really designed to display a lot of text and graphics, and the browser does not provide the functionality expected in modern web browsers. This means much of our content will need to be re-purposed. In addition most users will access and navigate the site using a remote control, this will require careful examination of information flow. It must also be noted that viewing the television is often seen as a family event, as opposed to the one-to-one relationship a user has with their personal computer, mobile phone or PDA.
The iDTV site will provide access to a range of online courses that users will be able to navigate using their remote control. The functionality of the courses will not be as sophisticated as those available through our website but the content will be significant and interaction will be available to the user. Feedback forms will be available for users to contact our Open Learning Officers and we are investigating the suitability of providing knowledge bases, and forums that are suitable for an iDTV platform.
In addition users will be able to book a PC in any of our libraries through their digital television set, as well as support sessions with open learners. At the moment we will be unable to provide multimedia content through the iDTV site, however, we are again investigating the possibility of providing the facility for multimedia clips to be downloaded from the iDTV site to 3G mobile phones.
Interactive Support Characters
One of the major problems facing the project is supporting remote learners. Although we already have an online help facility it is only available during library opening hours. We feel the answer to this is to deploy engaging, interactive characters on our website that will supplement our live help facilities.
According to a study conducted by the Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University, "characters can express social roles, emotions, and organised personalities that match learning goals, company brands, and transaction needs. Characters can increase the trust that users place in online experiences, in part because they make online experiences easier."
We further researched this topic and contacted a supplier of interactive talking heads. We found the software very friendly to use and have identified three major areas in which we will employ them.
In-house research has shown that the same questions crop up on a recurrent basis. The [V]Host FAQ Maker (trademark) will allow us to easily deploy and maintain, a dynamic, character- driven online Frequently Asked Questions module. This product generates a speaking online question and answer interface that can be embedded into any web page. As part of the project we intend to create several unique FAQ interfaces, each with its own custom design layout to provide answers to recurrent questions. Content is easily published and maintained through a user-friendly interface. A real-time reporting tool provides a window to the effectiveness of the content and the usage levels.
The [V]Host Quiz Maker (trademark) module will allow us to develop assessment material for our online courses in engaging quiz formats that let users test their knowledge on a certain subject area or expertise. Conversational characters ask questions and provide feedback to users. A ticking clock challenges the quiz taker to respond within an allotted time frame. Users are provided a score and feedback on how they did. Again [V]Host Quiz Maker (trademark) requires no programming skill and is easy to update and deploy. It comes with robust real-time reporting features.
The VHost Studio (trademark) is an easy-to-use authoring tool that the project will use to create and embed customized animated characters within HTML pages, ad banners, emails and Flash movies. Any non-technical user can create and update characters, backgrounds and audio messages effortlessly, without touching the underlying code. Basic HTML and JavaScript programmers can utilize the VHost Studio's (trademark) APIs to create advanced interactions with users based on their rollovers, clicks, and browser cookies. We intend to develop back end knowledge bases to act as a support mechanisn for learners and the VHost Studio (trademark) will also allow us to publish characters that read text to create dynamic speech. This will mean the users will type in a question, and an engaging character will speak the answer to them. This product will also allow us to develop a wide range of marketing material for the project that can be distributed through email, and promotional CD-Roms.
Working in partnership
Logintolearn could not have developed in the way it has without the support of many partnership including Scottish Libraries and Information Council, Scottish Enterprise Lanarkshire, Careers Scotland, MediaCorp, Gordonlang.Com, and Telewest. These partnerships have secured additional funding to develop and increase the functionality of the site, as well as provide important content.
Our latest partnership, however, has proved to be particularly exciting. During last season the Libraries and Information Service, through Logintolearn, sponsored Phil O'Donnell of Motherwell Football Club. This has proven to be very successful. Phil attended a number of library events throughout last year and this has succeeded in raising the profile of Logintolearn. In addition we ran a competition at the end of the season where the lucky winner received Phil's match worn shirt.
We have extended our partnership working with the Club and again for this season to include sponsorship of Phil O'Donnell and as part of this have secured an advertising hoarding for Logintolearn behind one of the goals. This has guaranteed Logintolearn TV exposure every time a goal has been scored at that end of the ground. In addition the Project will be officially launched at Fir Park Stadium in March 2005 as part of a match sponsorship agreement that will allow us access to corporate hospitality areas at the ground to promote the Project to local business in addition to increasing awareness of the Project to fans entering the three home stands.
Logintolearn has proved tremendously successful. It has extended access to lifelong learning within the North Lanarkshire community, and this will be extended further as our modules come on stream, the talking heads support systems are developed, and the interactive digital television presence goes live.
Just as importantly, however, it has raised the profile of the Libraries and Information Section throughout the Council and the lifelong learning community and confirmed that libraries and information services are well placed to help improve the local economy, improve peoples' employability and contribute to active democracy.
Charlie Bennett is Information Services Manager, North Lanarkshire.
Information Scotland Vol. 2 (5) October 2004
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