On 12th February David and Iain go to the DELOS Conference on Digital Libraries in Tirrenia, a beach resort near Pisa. Benito Mussolini transformed this formerly swampy city into what he called ‘The Pearl of the Mediterranean Sea’. Tirrenia is now a major Italian tourist spot and is popular with young clubbers-so David and Iain are sure to have a good time.

DELOS is a network of excellence on digital libraries and is committed to a vision that digital libraries should ‘enable any citizen to access all human knowledge any time and anywhere, in a friendly, multi-modal, efficient and effective way, by overcoming barriers of distance, language, and culture and by using multiple Internet-connected devices’.

The conference aims to present the latest research and technology in the field of digital libraries and to promote discussion and ‘exchange of ideas’ through various formal and informal satellite meetings.

Clearly this is an ideal conference for promoting and speaking about the Spoken Word, with key figures from around the global digital libraries community in attendance. The Spoken Word’s colleagues, Maureen Lister, from the Universita Di Bologna and Jerry Goldman of Northwestern University in Chicago also have plans to visit the conference, which will be beneficial to continuing and furthering our ties and work with these institutions.

Spoken Word Services and the Academic Liaison Librarians met on Tuesday 16th January to discuss the issue of podcasting. This posting is an update to a previous post by Iain Wallace that outlined the agenda of the meeting and his general thoughts on podcasting in the setting of the library and can be found by clicking here. Iain started off the meeting by giving a brief introduction about what ingredients were needed to make a podcast and gave some examples of the work that other libraries have done with podcasting such as Glasgow University and Glasgow Metropolitan College. However, it was agreed in the meeting that the Caledonian University Library podcasts would steer clear of the irritating electro music that seems to grace the podcasts of other higher educational institutions in Glasgow.

Aidan Johnston and Ewan MacPhee of Spoken Word then showed the group of librarians the set of Hospitality Video Podcasts that they had made on behalf of the Higher Education Academy.

The Academic Liaison Librarians raised many interesting issues and questions regarding podcasting. They are keen to continue with plans to create a podcast based around using journals and finding appropriate articles in the library. It is thought that this will cut the time that staff have to spend showing students how to use library services without being any less informative or helpful.

The librarians seemed to be very positive about creating a podcast and a follow up meeting has been planned to discuss the issue further.

This is the face that lead one attendee of the Nursing E - Learning Seminar to label David’s presentation there as ‘inspiring’.

Just Before Christmas, David Donald, Spoken Word’s aptly named ‘Principal Investigator’, unexpectedly ended up presenting to the Nursing E - Learning Seminar at Glasgow Caledonian University. Iain Wallace was originally supposed to carry out the presentation but had to step out at the last minute on account of a winter illness, although from the feedback it appears that David was a more than worthy replacement.

David spoke generally about the Spoken Word, including the background of the project and services, the work it is currently involved in and the services it provides in the environment of web 2.0.
One attendee of David’s presentation said: ‘This is exciting. I haven’t replied before as I was trying to remember where I got your address. I suddenly remembered this evening. I know because I am taking the Caledonian module in e - Learning and one of our group just heard an inspiring talk from David and put the address on our VLE’

An interesting development delivered by a commercial company leveraging the JANET network to deliver TV directly to campus PCs. The bandwidth usage is limited by the fact that JANET supports IP multicasting - so only one external connection is made per stream. If a university doesn’t already have TV wiring in rooms, this sort of thing is probably a lot more economical than installing the wiring, since it leverages existing infrastructure.

If you are a student on the campuses in Leeds or Liverpool then you should be able to receive the new TV over broadband service from Freewire. The service delivers a variety of channels including the standard five channels, plus E4, CBeebies, Film4 and others. Currently the service only streams onto a PC and uses a 2.5Mbps MPEG4 mulit-cast stream

The student service uses the Janet network to distribute the multi-cast signal down to Ethernet sockets in student accomodation. The eventual aim of the service is to sign deals with other service providers, in particular unbundled providers. Once the BT 21CN roll-out is complete and an IP network available to exchanges around the UK, it may become more economic to provide a multi-cast video stream to large numbers of people in the UK.

Freewire also seems to have plans to roll-out its own broadband service, which if launched as detailed looks almost too good to be true, a rate adaptive up to 8Mbps ADSL service for £19.99 with unlimited usage.

(Via ADSLguide.org.uk)

The Guardian featured our new Saltire Centre in its recent Educational Supplement (published Tuesday the 19th of September). The review is a very positive one and highlights on how the building is changing the way in which students interact with each and how the building is a sign of things to come and is paving the way for other Universities employing such a forward thinking approach to student learning and learning environments.

The Saltire Centre, a futuristic but people-friendly learning space at Scotland’s fourth largest university, has a serious purpose. But its impact on visitors and users, from the talking lifts to the inflatable igloos, is anything but solemn. It lifts their spirits and makes them smile.

Read the full article here.

Lee Knifton, )Senior Health Promotion Officer, Mental Health Partnership, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde,
Dalian House, G3 8YU,
0141 2014790) sent us this interesting piece of information…

NHS GREATER GLASGOW HOSPITALS USE VOICEMAP™ TO PILOT UK TRAINING FIRST

Hospitals in NHS Greater Glasgow are leading the way for the UK in using audio technology to train staff. Glasgow Royal Infirmary and the Princess Royal Maternity are the first hospitals in the UK to implement a new system using a mobile audio system to train new recruits.

Voicemap™ is expected to improve safety and reduce risk for staff and patients. It is now being adopted by hospitals elsewhere in the UK and Europe, following the lead of NHS Greater Glasgow. Each new member of staff is given an audio induction via an audio player and follows a customised tour, which describes the geographical layout of their workplace, and identifies safety issues involving potential risk to staff and patients.

The system is currently up and running in operating theatres in Glasgow Royal Infirmary, in the labour ward and the Neonatal Unit at the Princess Royal Maternity Hospital, and will be introduced shortly at the Western Infirmary’s Accident and Emergency department.

Alastair Kirk, an NHS Greater Glasgow Training and Development manager, believes it will have a direct effect on patient safety: “Using technology means we can make sure all new staff are trained to exactly the same standard, and it’s inevitable that that’s a big improvement on a system that relies on other staff and can therefore be vulnerable to human error.

“What’s fantastic about this is that, as well as working to the same standards, it can also be ‘personalised’ to each department. That means that in the Princess Royal, new workers are given specialist training in security – so they can keep babies safe and protected. At the Western’s A&E the training staff already get in how to cope with violence and aggression will be enhanced. Operating theatre staff have to know about how to apply proper infection control in a certain way, for example, and that’s exactly what this lets us do.”

Key issues such as Healthcare Associated Infections, needlestick injuries, medicine administration, moving and handling of patients are all covered on the audio tour, which is followed by a knowledge test. Alastair Kirk believes being able to prove the programme’s worth is an asset: “Staff find this a very enjoyable way to train and they start their job with more confidence. It’s early days yet, but we’re very pleased with the start we’ve made.

“Voicemap is an Australian system and certainly, over there, it’s shown an improvement in both occupational safety and improved patient care. We hope to see similar results once we have more people going through the system; it saves time and provides a more comprehensive induction than the traditional forms.”

Dr Maggie Haertsch (PhD), the developer of Voicemap™, says: “The willingness of Greater Glasgow to lead the way by embracing this Australian innovation in the UK will see benefits in many areas of health care. Voicemap supports NHS initiatives to improve patient care and system efficiencies. It is the triple AAA of training. It is auditable, advanced and uses auditory messages to help people learn more quickly while enjoying the process”.

The expected benefits to patients include improved safety and less exposure to clinical risk, and the individual systems have been designed with this in mind. Another significant benefit is that the system builds on teamwork and encourages professionals from different disciplines to work together:

“Everyone is getting the same information and learning about each other’s roles. This in turn should lead to improved productivity and consistency in care pathways.”

ENDS

Notes for Editors

Voicemap™ is a product of Voicemap International Ltd and is based in Australia with an office in London. Contact Dr Maggie Haertsch (PhD – Behavioural Science) on 07836 563 346 for interviews. Images are also available on request. www.voicemap.net

Lee Knifton
Senior Health Promotion Officer
Mental Health Partnership
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde
Dalian House, G3 8YU
0141 2014790

An interesting story from Glasgow’s Evening Times about the use of iPods in training new hospital medical staff as part of their induction process.

New staff are given what Personnel Today
calls an “audio induction” into the operating theatres at Glasgow Royal
Infirmary, and the labour ward at the Princess Royal Maternity
Hospital.

The report confirms that other health authorities in the UK and
Europe are looking at the scheme, with Glasgow’s Western Infirmary’s
Accident and Emergency department planning to introduce similar
inductions soon.

Alastair Kirk, training and development manager at NHS Greater
Glasgow, said: “Using technology means we can make sure all new staff
are trained to exactly the same standard.”

Read the full article here.

ESRC and others are finally adopting a convention (which I like) that has been esatblished in the US for some time and moving from using e-learning to TEL. This refects our estabished Spoken Word dictum that “all contemporary learning is e-learning”.

I hope next on the agenda is the discovery that “the university is the learning environment”. We should always use these conventions?

A Google search demostrates how widely TEL is being used… Caledonian should adopt that convention.

…This Call uses the phrase technology enhanced learning≠ to refer to what has recently been termed e-learning≠. The European Commission is currently using the phrase ‘Technology Enhanced Learning’ for Framework VII, and will promote it as a ‘new’ research area. This Call uses the same phrase in order to support that vision, and to ensure alignment with European research groups working in the same field.

This publication is directed at an issue - the constructivist library - which we have long considered. … Alison’s Chapter has special interest given her recent appointment.

Developing the New Learning Environment: the changing role of the academic librarian

edited by

Philippa Levy and Sue Roberts

Chapter 4 Allison Littlejohn

Following on from the broader discussion of pedagogy and pedagogical development in
the networked environment in Chapter 2, this chapter focuses in particular on
pedagogical and learning support issues raised by the fusion of e-learning environment
systems with digital libraries and resources. Taking the position that access to digital
content is not synonymous with e-learning but is an essential element of it, Allison
Littlejohn illustrates the role of information access, sharing and use within the context
of a constructivist model for e-learning design. With reference to three practical
scenarios in e-learning design and delivery, she highlights potential directions for the
learning support contribution of the librarian, with impact on both educational
development and student learning. While these scenarios might not yet be widely
operational, they reflect leading-edge developments in e-learning and open up
intriguing perspectives on likely trends in pedagogical design and on the opportunities
and challenges ahead for librarians in this context. The chapter concludes with the
view held by other contributors to this volume: that new demands in the educational
environment require a new type of practice in academic librarianship, in which
traditional professional expertise is blended with expertise in information and
communication technology and educational design. 4
Key issues in the design and delivery of
technology-enhanced learning