This paper focuses on recent developments within learner support and central service delivery at Edge Hill. The paper aims to demonstrate the way in which Edge Hill's strategic planning and support service policies have evolved to facilitate new teaching and learning strategies and technologies. The paper will show how these developments have evolved on a campus where computer support, procurement and infrastructure developments are managed centrally and how Edge Hill's directorate have supported the service areas to facilitate these developments for the entire institution. The paper will focus on the developments within learner support services and on the development of a Learning Innovation Centre due for opening in early 2000. The oral presentation will expand significantly on the background information contained within this paper.
Edge Hill is a medium sized higher education provider in the North West of England.
Edge Hill, and its commercial arm Edge Hill Enterprises, is one of the most substantial and significant providers of higher education in the North West, with over 12,000 students on degree and diploma programmes. Current programmes cover a range of disciplines across the five schools of Education, Health Studies, Humanities and Arts, Management and Social Sciences, and Sports, Sciences and Technology.
As an institution Edge Hill has a strong reputation within the Higher Education sector. The recent HEFCE Internal Audit described Edge Hill as "one of the strongest English HEIs in terms of governance, financial management, strategic planning, operational and IT systems" (HEFCE Internal Audit Service 1999). A recent study also placed Edge Hill as the top HEI in the United Kingdom for graduate employment (Times Higher Education Supplement - 4 December 1998). Recent quality assessments have highlighted evidence that Edge Hill is a high quality provider of teaching and research with particular strengths in vocational education and training.
Edge Hill is committed to achieving continuous improvement in the quality of its provision both for students and staff. Recent years have seen a significant investment in the institutions IT infrastructure. The institution's business and academic activity at all sites is supported by a network of approximately 1350 PCs, used by staff and students running Microsoft Applications and Windows 95 on the desktop, served by 10+ NetWare 4.11 servers, a number of Unix (SUNOS, UnixWare, DRS/NX and Linux) servers and 2 production NT servers. The network is based upon an ATM backbone and structured UTP wiring across the main site, with sites at Aintree and Chorley linked via a 16Mbs microwave link. The college offers dial up facilities for a number of local partner schools and organisations.
Edge Hill is as a founder member of Net NorthWest a consortium of 18 Higher Education Institutions based in the North West of England. Net NorthWest provides and administers a metropolitan area network (MAN) supplying high speed (155 Mbps) connectivity to JANET and the Internet.
Edge Hill's student body is diverse. Within the UK the institution has the second largest percentage of students from underrepresented groups. Edge Hill also has a strong and rapidly developing Widening Access programme one of the major success' being the Fastrack programme. This course gives potential undergraduates, with non standard qualifications, an access route to attain skills and the qualifications they need to enter higher education. Recruitment to this course has increased five fold in the past three years.
Although Edge Hill does attract students from across the UK and abroad, we have a strong regional reputation with a large number of students choosing to study at Edge Hill from the North West. As such we have a student population for whom many are not following a traditional route into higher education, either being late returners to education, mature students, or those managing both full time work and education. Edge Hill has developed its support structures to meet the different educational needs of these students and to ensure that all can benefit from a quality higher education experience.
Edge Hill operates across three main sites at Ormskirk, Chorley and University Hospital Aintree. Edge Hill also has strong links with over 400 partner primary and secondary schools, further education colleges and training and enterprise centres across the region. As a result of these partnerships, and the distributed nature of our course provision, Edge Hill has developed a centralised system of management and student support to adequately meet the needs of both staff and students working at any of our sites or centres.
One of the critical success factors in Edge Hill's strength as an institution comes from its central financial management, in particular that of ICT purchasing. Although service and subject areas have a devolved budget allocation to cover operational expenditure, all purchases of IT equipment and resources are subject to stringent acquisition procedures.
Support for the institution's data and telecommunications infrastructure is managed centrally by Business and Network Systems (BNS). BNS ensure that all ICT purchases are compatible with existing equipment and software, and that all purchases are Year 2000 compliant. BNS centrally record hardware, software and licensing information as well as overseeing the purchase of all ICT equipment and resources.
Although IT access is supported on a central infrastructure across the institution, staff and students have access to different resources. Teaching and support staff have access to the staff network which provides access to central administrative systems, e-mail, Internet and intranet services and various items of office software. Students have access to a range of networked software applications including word processing, spreadsheets, graphics and image manipulation packages, statistics, desktop publishing and a range of subject specific resources. All students have Internet and e-mail access.
Support for staff and students using ICT is also managed centrally. All users of the staff systems have access to a staff help desk, managed by BNS, which offers phone, e-mail and on the spot support. Users of the student systems are supported by staff within Library and Information Services who operate help desk support in the various open access PC areas across the institution on all sites.
In 1993 the four main academic support services joined forces to establish a collaborative learning support service known as ASSIST. ASSIST (Access for Students and Staff to Information Services and Technology) works towards providing an inclusive environment that focuses on the individual learning needs of all students, including those with disabilities. At its formation ASSIST comprised Computer Services, Library Services, MediaTech Services and Teaching and Learning Development. The areas not only worked collaboratively as a whole, but also in smaller sub groups, focusing on key developments or projects.
An internal restructuring in 1998 lead to the dissolution of Computer Services and the formation of two new departments. Business and Network Systems (BNS) formed out of the business and technical support areas of Computer Services and took responsibility for developing and supporting all core business systems, including network systems and infrastructure, telecommunications systems and corporate web activity. Library and Information Services developed from the merger of the academic support and training functions of Computer Services with Library Services. The new department provides the focus for students and teaching staff in their use of and support for technology and information resources and facilities.
In its six year history ASSIST has played a key role in developments across the Institution including
The ASSIST group has provided fluid and responsive services that work with and support formal learning and teaching activity as well as the developing programmes that help students develop personal learning and technology skills.
ASSIST constantly evaluates the services it provides to ensure that they are responsive to the needs of the institution but that they also equip our students with the skills they need to operate in Higher Education and prepare them for employment. As such ASSIST meets regularly to monitor operational matters as well as formulating policy and projects for future developments. Increasingly ASSIST has played a large part in formulating institutional policy regarding learner support and the development of structures to support academic development, particularly through the Teaching, Learning and Assessment Committee of the Academic Board.
The provision of quality teaching and learning support facilities is high on the institution's agenda. An Accommodation Working Party has been charged with the responsibility of examining all projects for the development of the campus, both in terms of new facilities and the refurbishment of existing areas. In the past year Edge Hill was fortunate to be successful in its bids to the HEFCE Poor Estates Initiative and received funding for two building projects at the Ormskirk site. Both buildings are key in the development of an Edge Hill campus for the future. The first was a new Teaching and Learning Block that has provided state of the art lecture and teaching facilities. The block has become the flagship for the institution in terms of its teaching and learning accommodation. The second building is the largest project of it's kind on campus and sets the scene for Edge Hill's commitment to providing a teaching and learning landscape for the new millennium.
The decision to create the LINC was to provide the institution with
Once the approval for funding was received the process of design and development for the building started. The ASSIST managers drew up a detailed vision of the new facility, what should be installed within it and arguably, the most important part, the culture it should create and what it should achieve.
This vision was approved by the directorate and put forward as the basis for an architect's competition. Six designs and concepts were put forward, one of which was chosen as the final building. In addition to the functions and services to be housed within the new facility it had been decided that the design of the building itself should be reflective of our aims and mission. As such the various designs submitted were graded not only on how well they accommodated the services but also on how well the building design reflected those aims. The goal was to create a striking building that stood out on the campus, but one that also complemented the semi rural surroundings.
Discussions commenced relating to the precise layout and design of the facility. All stages of the design process involved the ASSIST team working with the architects. This has ensured that throughout the development of this facility ASSIST has been able to create a space that matches the requirements of the service and the institution.
The development of the LINC on the Ormskirk campus is a great move forward for Edge Hill. It will provide our students and staff with a valuable resource and give them access to a wide range of services. The building will provide a centre for development for Edge Hill's teaching and support staff, its partner schools, and provide a centre for the development of its technology related business activities.
Obviously in any development of this kind there are problems to be faced and resistance to overcome.
Financial restrictions are ever present. Although a proportion of the building was funded externally the remainder of the build and fit out costs must be found internally. Establishing large sums of capital to produce such a resource can only be done within the confines of managing a large business that itself, along with all HEI's, is facing recruitment difficulties and additional financial pressures.
The concept behind the building is very much at the centre of the mission of ASSIST: a mission that isn't yet wholly accepted by all the teaching staff of the institution. ASSIST believes that students are the centre of our activities and that our role is to provide an environment where students and staff have access to the facilities and resources they need to complete their courses and gain the skills they require to operate within higher education and in the workplace. ICT skills are central to this mission. Although the student population is keen to accept new ways and methods of learning and teaching the same cannot always be said of all staff. Part of our mission as an institution is to ensure all staff have the necessary skills to work with and use ICT, but most importantly that our teaching and learning support staff can impart those skills onto the students they work with. To reflect this change the ASSIST services have revisited their recruitment and staffing profile so where posts become vacant, job roles are rewritten to create employment opportunities for people with the range of skills required but also with the commitment to Edge Hill's vision of the future.
The LINC is seen as strategically central to the development of Edge Hill and its business position in the coming millennium. The institution is committed to providing excellent learning resources that are centrally managed to support its courses and students. The LINC was specified and designed by the support professionals who will manage the facility. This has left the focus of the building open to criticism from some that believe it is a method of imposing a new way of working. In many ways the building is providing a framework for the way in which the institution wants to develop. The services within it are providing the support for the institution to use it to its full potential.
The LINC is due for completion by the end of 1999, and ready for use early in 2000. The period leading up to the opening of the facility will not only see the completion of the build and fit out of the LINC, but also a series of events and training opportunities designed to raise awareness about the building across the institution and beyond.
Although the LINC will play a major role in delivering Edge Hill's programme of courses it is more than just a venue for teaching and learning. It is envisaged that through partnership and collaboration with teaching staff the LINC will create an environment conducive to the development of new styles of teaching, learning and use of ICT materials. Central to the success of this aim is creating a partnership between support and teaching staff which seeks to maximise and advance the learning opportunities available to staff and students at Edge Hill.
The ASSIST services have been developing this type of culture since the formation of the service in 1993 and aims to further enhance this relationship through its promotion of and support for activities within the LINC. The implementation of the building will take Edge Hill, its students and staff into an exciting new chapter in the institutions history.
Rachel Robinson
Learning Technology Manager
Edge Hill
http://www.ehche.ac.uk
robinr@staff.ehche.ac.uk