AoC NILTA describes itself as the "voice of the Further Education sector for ICT and e-learning in the UK". With a new team at the top, including Josie Fraser (from Wyggeston & Queen Elizabeth I sixth-form College), and Sally-Anne Saull (from RM plc), AoC NILTA has altered the way it disseminates its views. Gone are the unweildy and infrequent PDF Newsletters, and the rather bizarre web site. In comes a nice simple web site, with a blog as the main communication vehicle. Most importantly some strong thought has gone into recent AoC NILTA statements. Here are two interesing examples, both issued on 13 September 2006:
6 principles for e-Portfolio Development - these include versatility, learner-centredness and control, portability, longevity, verifiability. Personally I would add privacy/data security to this list, and I might take more issue than AoC NILTA does with the realism of the current UK policy emphasis on e-portfolios. But the clarity and simplicity of AoC NILTA's approach is very welcome.
Response to Becta's Learning Platform Specification. This longish piece gives a balanced assessment of the functional and technical requirements specifications which Becta has issued - recognising their strengths, but pulling no punches on Becta's hostility to Open Source:
"The consultation framework excluded Open Source Learning environments and products from consideration because the business processes and models used by the open source community, which radically differ from the practices of commercial companies in terms of development, support, and dissemination, were not recognised as legitimate or sustainable by the Becta framework. Single open-source products or combinations of open source products which deliver the Becta’s functional specification are not eligible for consideration.
AoC NILTA is concerned that while the specification seems to recognise and support the pragmatic and practical ‘small pieces loosely joined’ framework that many institutions work with and around, the criteria and bidding process seems to stymie openness, collaboration and sharing, by tying individual institutions, or at best, local consortiums of institutions, to vendor contracts. By discounting open source solutions from the evaluation process, Becta is ignoring current excellent practice which has worked precisely because of the absence of licensing restrictions."
I have it on good authority that Open Source solutions are being included in the Becta tendering process for Learning Platforms
Posted by: Peter Trethewey | 04/10/2006 at 11:36