University
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VLE support staff
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Student support
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VLE development staff
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Staff development
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Faculty / school support
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VLE
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Lund (Sweden)
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1/2 time person on
our computer centre does
the general server maintainence,
supervision, and backup
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Student support on LUVIT
issues is integrated as a smal
fraction in a general student
helpdesk. Two older students
4- 5 hours a day provides
this service. Let us estimate
that LUVIT issues make up
for less than 1 hour a day.
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One fulltime person
(shared between myself
and one collegue) does the:
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application service and administration
of our VLE (called LUVIT)
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teacher heldesk for LUVIT
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course design consulting for LUVIT
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staff training on LUVIT
(in addition we do
staff training on web
pedagogics in F2F and
online courses)
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We run now 2
LUVIT servers with 6.287 and 5.654
participants respectivelly.
They contain about 550
courses.
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UCL
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Two of our technical
staff are responsible for the
technical running of the WebCT
server, but not full time
by any means - it's
one of the many servers they
administer.
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2
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There are also four
"FISOs", allocated to one
faculty each, such as myself
- and one of the things we
do is train/support staff in
their use of the VLE as well
as other e- learning things.
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WebCT
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FE college - Anon
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we have 'me'
to do most of what you
suggest And I'm seconded elsewhere
for half my time! Of
course we have the IT Services
Manager who is rebuilding
our Intranet and trying to
make it work with Moodle
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Moodle
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HE College
(8000 students, 300 staff)
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3 staff who provide
support for learning technology
This is not totally their main
function so would not be
3 FTE's
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0
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The real number in
terms of FTE is
probably zero. One of
the systems people
does it as a 'hobby',
they upgrade and
patch for us as is
necessary (with very
minor customisation). Probably about 3-5
days a year in total.
(Though we also have
a support contract with moodle.com)
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This is the same three
people who support learning technology
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Harper Adams
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1 at present, soon to
become 3.5 following CETL bid.
this is a central team,
serving the whole college.
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Pre-1992 university
18,000 students
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have 5 staff:
LT Manager
VLE Systems Co- ordinator
Learning Technologists x 2
Clerical Assistant x 1
Blackboard isn’t, of
course,
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All of the above play a part:
– the VLE Systems Co-
ordinator has a specific
role to both develop the
VLE within the broader
systems and to provide
technical user support
- the Learning
Technologists support
Bb users as an when
required as well as
developing content intended to be
delivered, where possible, through the
VLE
- The LT Fellows
support their own
constituents with day-
to-day issues and
provide a local context
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EDU (Education
Development Unit –
separate to our Division)
provide the formal training
through an external
trainer. This is technical
in orientation, and I am
increasingly concerned
that it misses the point
somewhat by failing to
focus directly on the
issues of online pedagogy.
The reason for this split
between training and
support /development is
political. We must move
towards developing a
better staff awareness of
the issues related to the
use of online learning and
not simply show them
how to ‘do’ things in
Blackboard – if we move
to WebCT or MOODLE in the
future many of our staff
would be lost – they are
being specifically skilled in Bb
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The University has
appointed four Learning
Technologies Fellows (0.5WTE, 2-year
appointments initially, one
per Faculty) to ‘connect’
the Centre to the Schools
and Faculties. The current
Fellows consist of two
‘academics’ and two colleagues
from a more
technical/curriculum support background. This
was purely by chance
following an open call and
interviews.
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Blackboard
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Post- 1992 University
25,000 students
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In house VLE at
present; about to
recruit for 5 staff
involved in curriculum
design and content
creation, with at least
two of the new recruits
will be involved in
academic professional
development as part of
their design positions
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Small team of in-house
developers (but this is
changing from a
dedicated team to an
institutional development capability)
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Varies across faculties; no
common approach
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In house VLE
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University of the Arts
London
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Primary support,
research and development related to
the University's VLE is handled
through the IT Research and
Development Unit and employs 12
FT and 2 PT staff
At any one time there
are usually 2 ITRDU FTEs directly
involved with VLE support
for staff.
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Most colleges handle VLE
student support through IT
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In the ITRDU we have
about 4 FTEs who are
directly involved with e-
learning software
developments, this includes software
extensions to our VLE
(Blackboard) - Building
Block development.
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Some staff support
through colleges is
handled by local e-
learning staff - about one
person per college.
college staff are
coordinated through the
ITRDU's Technology in
the Learning Environment
(TILE) group That is 4
FTEs but they are also
involved with other e-
learning activities.
We have 2 or 3 staff
within the ITRDU who are
involved with staff
development related to e-
learning. We run central
VLE training, workshops
and demonstrations of
good practice, online
courses and conferences.
Our provision of e-learning
related staff developments
partly overlaps with
central IT and HR training courses.
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Loughborough University
Our VLE isn't
ringfenced as far as content
providers are concerned, so the
content comes from academics,
departmental support staff, faculty
support staff and central support
staff, with Computing Services looking
after the operations side and
developments. These staff may also
contribute to other online
sites and services, unconnected with
the VLE.
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1.3 FTE
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0.3 FTE, but in
practice other non-
dedicated staff both
within and outside Computing Services
are called on, esp. for
testing and trialing new developments.
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4 FTE in Professional
Development, but all
Learning Technologists
contribute to the staff
development programme
one way or another
(includes Distance Learning support).
We are pretty certain that
our support provision is
below average, and is
complicated by the
decentralized nature of
the university. And of
course what constitutes
the "appropriate level of
support" depends on a
whole load of factors.
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Faculties: We have just
appointed 5 FTE Online
Development Officers on 2-
year contracts, to add to
the 4 already in post.
tends to be the largest
departments. 2 FTE + 2 *
Schools / Departments: 0.5
FTE dedicated staff.
It is not uncommon for
existing IT support staff in
the departments to assist
academics with content
provision on an ad hoc
basis. This is rarely part of
their job description, but
may take up 0.15 FTE of
their time.
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The VLE itself
is a home- brew based
on an Apache server running
on Linux, with added open
source tools for discussion
boards, blogs etc. The CAA
system (QM Perception 3.4) is
separate from the VLE, but
accessed via it.
We constantly examine the
VLE marketplace, but haven't
found a pre- packaged
solution which offers us more
than we have already got.
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York St John
5000 students
240 Academic staff
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One full-time e-learning
adviser
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The e-learning adviser
does this, with support
from IT services. We use WebCT
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This is the main role of
our e-learning adviser
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none
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University of Stirling
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1 Manager/System admin
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1 CPD specialist
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1 individual for each faculty
(there are 4)
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Waterloo University, Canada
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1.5 FTE (one full time
position, and one half)
who provide faculty and student
technology support (documentation, hands-on
courses, help response, support for
pedagogical staff,
announcements, etc.).
1.0 FTE (two half
positions) as the systems
persons in charge of planning the
technology path (upgrades, hardware
systems, local infrastructure connections,
expert knowledge on VLE workings
and database)
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Regarding the first
answer above, part of
the central staff time
(the 1.0 FTE) goes
towards integration and
some development and customization
associated with integration and local
tools development (our VLE, ANGEL,
facilitates adding local
tools quite nicely).
Perhaps 0.3 of that 1.0
FTE may go to this task.
There is also about
another 0.7 FTE from
the LT centre based on
a person who looks at
developing new ideas
for the VLE, thus far
devoted to migrating
from the old mostly
homegrown system,
and looking at an e-
portfolio system. This
0.7 is in addition to the
1.0 FTE in the IT
department mentioned earlier.
We have decided that
for the initial stages, at
least, we will contract
with our vendor to
develop significant functionality we see
missing, and for which
we are willing to pay.
We may decide to do
some of our own functionality
development later.
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That number does not
include:
- computer platform
support including
operating system support,
system builds, student
information systems used
for classlists, central
authentication, etc.,
which are done by other
components of the central
computing support group.
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Approximately 4.0 FTE in
"official" support,
comprised of 4 half-time
positions and two full-time.
(The Faculty of Arts has a
full-time person because of
higher uptake in that area;
similarly Accountancy
within Arts has a half-time
person.) These are staff
members from a learning
technology (LT) centre on
campus and they work in
the six Faculties.
They provide the first point
of contact for faculty
members, and provide
course and instructional
design support along with
some technical assistance
during course development
(backed up by the 1.5 FTE
IT support mentioned above).
We have seen an
emergence of support from
the Faculty computer
consulting offices. In two
Faculties (of the 6) the
computing directors have
designated support staff
who participate in the
support of instructors
wanting to get started in
the VLE, while in others it
is more informal support emergence.
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FE College
7,000 students
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2 staff who do
everything, but due to cuts in
funding from LSC this is
likely to fall to 1.
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