This document discusses wrapping institutional resources around the learner by aggregating relevant data from different systems and presenting it to students in a personalized manner. It describes work done so far at Manchester Metropolitan University to transform the curriculum, collect student feedback, and analyze areas for improvement. Next steps discussed are continuous monitoring and a new mobile strategy to provide a more personalized experience for students.

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Wrapping Institutional Resources
around the Learner
Edinburgh | March 2012
Professor Mark Stubbs
Head of Learning & Research Technologies
m.stubbs@mmu.ac.uk | http://twitter.com/thestubbs
http://slideshare.net/markstubbs
Student Experience Challenge | EQAL | Mega-mashup
Tuesday, March 27, 2012 1

2. Student Experience: mixed?
And how do I assure you
you find the parts of it are
student excellent !
experience?
Learning
Learning
Environment
Environment
Corporate Systems
Admin Systems 2

3. Student Experience: varied?
35,000+ students
1,000 + courses
1,500+ tutors
7 sites
3

4. Student Experience: declining?

5. Doing something about it…
In the current climate
Diminishing unit of resource
Everything depends on everything else
We are large and risk averse

6. “Who dares wins”
 In the current climate
?
vc Diminishing unit of resource
θ
Everything depends on everything else
We are large and risk averse

7. EQAL
In the current climate
• A coordinated strike for step change improvement Diminishing unit of resource
New Curriculum Everything depends on everything else
• designing new units, … We are large and risk averse
New Admin Systems & Processes
• personal timetabling, …
New Virtual Learning Environment
• Moodle, Aspire, EQUELLA, myMMU web/mobile, …
New QA & QE Processes
• facilitating curriculum transformation

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Getting the experience back
Learning
Environment
Admin Systems
New Systems,
Processes & VLE
Admin Systems

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Wrapping the institution around the learner
9

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Wrapping the institution around the learner
Student ID
Timetable
10

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Wrapping the institution around the learner
Student ID (+ Unit code)
Hand-in dates / extensions / marks
Personalised submission sheet
11

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Wrapping the institution around the learner
Unit code
Past exam papers
Past exam paper
12

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Wrapping the institution around the learner
Unit code
Resource list
Relevant resource
13

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And making our mega-mashup work …
• Consistent tagging (so relevant data can be aggregated)
• Web services (to power the aggregation)
• Moodle block (to present personalised results)
– Every Moodle course area set up as Code_AcYear_Occurrence
– We know the Moodle authenticated user & course area id so we have
everything we need to query corporate systems for relevant content…
UserID Code AcYear Occurrence
Announcements X X X X
Deadlines X X X X
Timetable X X X X
Reading list X X
Podcasts X X
Past papers X 14

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How it works: Moodle - Talis Aspire
1. Formulate URL http://lists.lib.mmu.ac.uk/units/6g3z3004/lists/1112.rdf
by parsing Moodle
CourseID and load RDF
response into XML DOM
2. Extract URL of CSV …/lists/71AD28C6-826F-1B6F-D461-3A9BAEDA2FB4.csv
representation of list
using XPath & load CSV
response into CSV parser
3. Parse CSV + create
Atom items for each list
item, setting SourceFeed
as either “To Buy”,
“Essential” or “Further”
4 Apply XSLT to Atom to XHTML
create XHTML to return fragment

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So far…
• EQAL – transforming entire UG curriculum
– New 30 credit L3 / L4 modules live Sept 2011
– New 30 credit L5 modules live Sept 2012
– New 30 credit L6 modules live Sept 2013
– Structured reading list mandatory for module approval + Aspire setup
• Student feedback
– Nov 2011: 10,716 left 58,000+ comments on our online survey
– Statistical analysis ranked predictors of overall satisfaction
1. Course organisation
2. Building confidence
3. Teaching quality (explanation, feedback, advice)
4. Learning resources
– GT-style qualitative analysis of L6 suggested improvements
• “More library resources” – interestingly where Aspire list not present

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Where next…
• Continuous Monitoring & Improvement
– Presenting module & prog leaders with BI data & capturing plans
for improvement / modification
• Resource utilisation
• Student engagement
• Student satisfaction
• Student success
– Offering suggestions & recommendations
• Resource rating
• New Mobile Strategy for 2013
– More personalised, more self-service, more location-aware
– Institutional tech which complements personal tech