1) Present
University of Edinburgh (JCMB):
Jean Ritchie - UMI Coordinator
Charles Duncan - Remote Sensing
Martin Morrey - Remote Sensing
Antony Maciocia - SUMSMAN
Kim Underwood - UMI Administrator
University of Paisley
Ian Maclaren - Remote Sensing
John McQuillan - Remote Sensing
Patrick Walder - Remote Sensing
Charles Hunter - SMVIDNET
University of Dundee
Peter Bartlett - SMVIDNET
Gwen Bayne - Remote Sensing
University of Glasgow
Margaret Brown - MANTCHI
University of Strathclyde
Dave Whittington - CVU
Lorna Campbell - CVU
David McNicol - CVU
Bruce Rodger - SMVIDNET
Northern College of Education (Aberdeen Campus)
Ted Pridham - SMVIDNET
Napier University (Sighthill)
Tom Scott - SUMSMAN
University of Edinburgh (Appleton Tower)
SMVIDNET person
No UMI people were present at the Northern College of Education (Aberdeen Campus) or University of Edinburgh (Appleton Tower) videoconference rooms. The SMVIDNET people present at these venues, and BR at Strathclyde, did not stay for the whole of the meeting. BR suggested that for each meeting, there needed to be one contact person nominated for each videoconference room.
2. Report from Jean Ritchie
2.1 SHEFC have collated the returns from their consultation process and are forming a strategy. No information will be available until May.
2.2 JR is to advise projects on data needed by SHEFC for evaluation of UMI 2. She will discuss this at the UMI 2 evaluation meeting, scheduled for 30th of April. Everyone involved in any form of evaluation in UMI 2 are invited to attend.
2.3 JR and George Howat of Edinburgh University Computing Services (EUCS) are preparing a paper on research uses of the MANs and how the bandwidth is being used.
2.4 Information about UMI is now in the Learning Technology Dissemination Initiative (LTDI) paper-based Directory. Information about every UMI project is included. The information was taken from the UMI web site. Any comments to improve the web site are welcome; suggestions are welcome for what types of information should be on the web site, eg. what is ATM?, how extensive are the MANs?
2.5 SHEFC are investigating the implications of IPR for UMI projects.
2.6 It has been suggested that future meetings should have a specific focus. For example, each project could talk about how they are using JAVA, computer aided assessment, etc.
Comments: It was hoped that SHEFC would provide guidelines soon on IPR and UMI.
It was pointed out that at the SHEFC presentation, UMI presenters were not introduced to the UMI steering committee, and spent most of the presentation in the dark.
JR promised to report this to SHEFC.
Action JR
3. Reports from UMI 2 projects
3.1. CVU
DW invited LC and DMcN to give a report on CVU’s recent activities.
LC: Two online modules are up and running, Human Resource Management and Design Engineering; a project involving design from a remote site is planned for end of the year. Two further modules are being worked on and are currently making good progress; these are in Social work (three case studies filmed and one more to do which will be converted into QuickTime to form the basis of the module), and Chemistry.
DMcN: has been working on an assessment engine for the past couple
of months, including an authoring system, test wizards and a monitoring
system (to view marks generated from assessments). Has also produced a
specification for a replacement for the CVU "Virtual Cafe"; he promised
to email the spec to the umi-info list and asked for comments on it.
Action DMcN, All
AM asked whether the assessment engine could handle mathematics, DMcN is working on representation of chemical symbols; thereafter he could look at Maths symbols.
CD asked if the modules are cross platform. LC replied that it is hard to produce cross-platform VRML, so at present users must have Netscape and Cosmoplayer.
3.2. Remote Sensing
IM: are evaluating modules using a range of techniques including online
forms that pop up before or after a lesson. Feedback is entered into a
database. Students are asked questions on individual lessons, and about
experiences in using the materials.
The project has been holding interactive videoconference lectures between the Universities of Edinburgh, Paisley, Dundee and Heriot Watt University. NetMeeting was used for these lectures and students were impressed with the Powerpoint applications. For the remaining session of the project, the Remote Sensing team will be focusing on areas such as the provision of virtual laboratories, and the redesigning of certain modules based on feedback.
3.3. MANTCHI
Margaret Brown, the evaluator for the MANTCHI project, spoke about
the MANTCHI ATOMs designed by Experts which are being used to deliver learning
resources and tasks to students via the web. Students submit their solutions
to the Expert and receive feedback (also via the web). Solutions and feedback
are then available to other students. We have also run tutorials by videoconference.
Student evaluation forms have been collected and are soon to be analysed.
Some problems with delivering and integrating ATOMs have been identified.
4. Requests for information.
No requests were made.
5. Discussion of future format of meetings
5.1 It was agreed that future meetings might have a focus.
6. Suggestions for external speakers
JR had received suggestions for topics and external speakers:
IPR
Advanced Java (RMI, Servlets etc.) : outside speaker from SUN
Diana Laurillard from the Open University,
someone from SHEFC on the next stages in their review,
someone from Netscape or Microsoft on support for maths in future browsers,
someone from WC3 on web standards generally.
Brian Kelly (UK web focus) to report on the World Wide Web conference.
Use of CMC
It was thought that external speakers would not charge since they were offered a good audience. They could speak using ISDN videoconference from anywhere in the world; there might be a contribution towards speakers phone bill.
A discussion followed on CMC (Computer Mediated Communications):
The CVU team are currently working on a replacement for Hypernews and requested input on what a discussion mechanism for an educational environment should support.
Problems discussed included:
- maths symbols cannot be used in discussions
- students were shy of asking the first question
It was noted that CVU are writing applets to handle chemistry equations and diagrams
BSCW (Basic Support for Cooperative Work):
CD had used BSCW in preparing documents with collaborators overseas. CVU said that the students liked using BSCW but it has been crashing a lot lately so people are not using it as much as they previously were. Students often forget their password.
7. AOB
Dates were fixed for the next 3 meetings:
Mondays, 11.05 am, 6th April, 27th April and 11th May.
Before each meeting Kim or Jean will email to obtain at least one name
for each studio; any studio that has no name associated with it by the
preceding Friday will not be used in the conference.
Action JR, KU
The focus for the meeting on April 6th will be CMC; CVU will circulate materials for comment shortly. Action CVU
JR agreed to ask Brian Kelly to speak on 27th April.
Action JR
Jean and Kim will email projects who did not attend today and try to
find out whether the time, day, or other factors prevented people attending.
If Mondays at 11 am are not suitable for a lot of people then a different
day and time will be found.
Action JR, KU