Pilot Case Study Template

The main pilot exercises are due to begin in the new year and a case study template has been designed to capture the outcomes of these exercises in a consistent way. The draft template is shown below:

PotsPan case study template from Tony Toole

Second Electronic Signature Pilot Exercise

Having established the viability of combining the open source document creation and editing application Open Office with the freely available Certification Authority services provided by CAcert, the next phase of the pilot exercise was to trial the system with University assessment documents.

 

The standard assessment frontsheet used by the Faculty of Applied Design and Engineering at Swansea Met was chosen. It was imported into Open Office Writer and, after some appropriate formatting changes suitable for export as an OpenDocument Text file, the document was digitally signed using the authentication certificate set up in exercise 1. After confirming the validity of the signature, the file was then sent as an email attachment and, on receipt, the file was saved and opened using Open Office.

 

The received document can be seen below, along with images demonstrating that the digital signature was valid and verifiable on receipt. 

 

Assignment frontsheet received file from Tony Toole



Signature Validity Confirmation

Email File Attachment 

The Electronic Signature pilot will now continue with the registration of other stakeholders as authorised signatories and further experimentation with the online sharing of digitally signed documents. The obvious advantage of this strategy is that all stakeholders: staff, students and administrators; can download the document creation software and register as an authenticated signatory at no cost and at whatever location they choose. The system is therefore a very attractive option for use in online distance learning assessment authentication.

 

First Electronic Signature Pilot Exercise

The first electronic signature pilot exercise explored the feasibility of creating a workable system using freely available resources. As noted in the Workpackage planning document, cost is a serious issue both for institutions and their students. The report below shows how pilot exercise 1 provided very encouraging evidence that such systems are achievable.

Pots pan workpackage 3 pilot 1 from Tony Toole

Electronic Signatures Pilot at Swansea Met

In addition to the piloting of the SWANI project outcomes by partners in the SAWSW WBL partnership, the PotsPan project also has the objective of exploring the benefits of using electronic signatures more generally in institutional management documentation. Project Workpackage 3 addresses this objective and the work is being carried out at Swansea Metropolitan, recently merged with University of Wales Trinity St David.

This evaluation exercise was not constrained by the EU requirement for 'wet signatures' and was therefore able to explore the use of electronic signatures applied directly to digitised documents, rather than using a digital pen. The pilot is currently under way at Swansea Met and has a specific focus on the potential benefits for online assessment authentication for work submitted by distance learners.

The pilot plan is outlined in the document below:

Pots pan workpackage 3 from Tony Toole

Preparations for the Digitised WBL System Pilot

The main preparation activity for the PotsPan project WBL system pilot exercise has been the updating and refinement of the Joomla document management system. Tony Toole has been working with Lewis Jones at CSG to identify where improvements can be made and to implement those improvements.
To a great extent these have been editing and format issues relating to the website and the forms it contains. However, it has also been an opportunity to re-examine the administrative and management workflows and how these can be made more efficient and better support the work of the training advisors in particular.
The main piloting activities will be carried out at Coleg Sir Gar and Pembrokeshire College and the digital pens to be used in the exercise have been purchased and distributed. The period before the end of 2012 will enable the system to be trialled by those participating in the pilot at the institutions: for them to become familiar with the structure of the Joomla system and the use of the digital pens.
The full pilot exercise will begin in the new year with cohorts of work-based learners chosen by the partners.
A further pilot exercise will be carried out at Swansea Metropolitan University with an online distance learning development involving WBL delivery to the armed forces deployed in Germany and elsewhere. Included in this exercise will be a mapping to the JISC work-based learning toolkit.

The Digital Pen System

The Swani project and now the Potspan project are continuing to explore different ways of achieving the objective of establishing an electronic signature system that is acceptable to the EU for audit purposes and hence also acceptable to the Welsh Government.
The recent presentations have shown how applications like Adobe Acrobat can create PDF documents that meet the EU requirements, but that it was unrealistic to expect an agreement to be in place before the end of the projects.
Hence the 'quick and dirty' solution of using a digital pen remains at the centre of the Potspan pilot project and will be in action later this month.

The Destiny pen, together with Fastdox software are being used and the whole system is explained below:

Fastdox user manual from Tony Toole

JISC Online Conference 2012

The Jisc Innovating e-Learning Online Conference 2012 is a week long event from the 19th to the 23rd November and the programme can be viewed at: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearningpedagogy/elpconference12/programme.aspx.

Prior to the conference is an activity week and a range of interesting initiatives are being presented over four days beginning on 13th November. full details can be seen at: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearningpedagogy/elpconference12/activityweek.aspx

The Swani/Potspan project outcomes will be presented on the 13th November and the slides (based on the ALT-C presentation, but now with soundtrack!) are shown below:

Jisc online conference 2012 from Tony Toole

Project Team Meeting and Updated Project Plan

The project team met at Coleg Sir Gar today and agreed plans for the next phase of the digitised WBL system development. Following the data mapping exercise and the evaluation of system functionality, plans were agreed for updating and refinement of the JOOMLA content management system and associated database. Lewis Jones will be implementing the technical changes in collaboration with Tony Toole who carried out the evaluation and continues to liaise with the system stakeholders, particularly the WBL Training Advisors. The aim will be to have the whole system complete and tested by mid-November when the piloting by partners can begin. The intention is to have a practical workshop at that time, possibly 16th November though this has yet to be confirmed, for partners who will be engaged in the pilot exercise. The project plan has been updated to reflect how the progress of the project is unfolding in practice. The changes are relatively minor and can be viewed in V2 of the project plan shown below. There is no change in either project deliverables or overall timescale. PotsPan Project Plan v2

Data Field Mapping and Workflow Optimisation

Current project activity is concentrating on the mapping of core data fields across the various WBL forms that use them in order to optimise workflows. One of the objectives of the digitisation of the WBL administrative system was to eliminate the repetitive input of the same data on different forms (a major frustration and inefficiency of the paper based system). The main source of this repetition is with core data relating to the three main stakeholders in the system: the learner, the employer and the training provider. The plan is to maintain a database core record for each of these which can then be used to populate all the forms that use that data. Simple yes? Not in practice! Each of the 25 or more forms that are part of the system were created at different times for different purposes by different people. Hence the structure of the data fields and their interpretation vary from one form to another. The current exercise involves an alignment of the interpretation of core data fields and a change in the way the information is reported on the forms so that the anticipated efficiencies can be achieved. This is being carried out in consultation with the stakeholders to ensure that the resulting system meets their administrative needs.

PotsPan Dissemination: ALT-C 2012

The outcomes of the JISC SWANI Project and the subsequent PotsPan Piloting are being presented at the ALT-C conference in Manchester next month. It will be an opportunity to network with others addressing similar issues and will hopefully contribute to project planning and dissemination. The draft presentation is shown below:

Digitised Form Data Mapping Exercise

As part of the process of preparing the SAWSW digitised WBL administration system for piloting, an exercise has been completed that evaluates the data entry, sharing and management across all the digitised administration documents. The mapping document is shown below and includes a number of issues arising from the exercise that will be discussed by the project team as it plans for system piloting in the Autumn. The main objective of the exercise is to optimise the usability of the online forms and to improve time efficiency through the sharing of common data fields. As will be seen from the document, it is very much work in progress. However, it shows how Enterprise Architecture modelling of administrative processes, together with detailed system analysis is being used as the basis for system and usability improvement. SAWSW Data Mapping

SAWSW Website Design

Work is going well on the SAWSW website design with the mock-up of website pages, as well as the population of a selection of WBL forms for testing. Activity has also included the evaluation of WBL system workflows with a view to making processes more efficient, speedier and more cost effective.

Website page mockups:
Skills Academy Wales Website Design.docx
Workflows:
SAW Workflows
These development documents will be shared with all stakeholders and refined with their feedback. The project remains on track for the launch of piloting by SAWSW partners in September.

Linking of Embedding Benefits Projects

The Embedding Benefits PotsPan project being led by Coleg Sir Gar on behalf of the Skills Academy Wales WBL partnership in South West Wales is being aligned with the work of the TEL-WFD project led by Cardiff Metropolitan University. There are clear synergies between the WBL management digitisation objectives of PotsPan and the exploitation of the WBL maturity toolkit planned by TEL-WFD. Swansea Metropolitan University is a partner in both projects and Prof Tony Toole, who will be project managing both contributions, will aim to maximise the benefits to both projects.

SMU will also be exploring digital pen and digital signature systems as part of their contribution. The intention is to move beyond the specific audit trail objective of digital pen usage required by the EU/WG funding system. The aim is to draw conclusions about the benefits of digital pen systems in the efficient management of documents in multi campus institutions and multi institutional collaborations. It is expected that this will be of interest to other collaborative groups across the community of practice.

WBL Website Development Planning Meeting

The CSG project team met today to discuss plans to develop the Skills Academy Wales website in preparation for the piloting of the SWANI project outcomes with partners in the Autumn of 2012. It was agreed that the website was substantially complete and fit for purpose. The main thing that needed to be done was to update all the web pages with operational and guidance information that would enable all users to navigate and use the resources in an intuitive way.

It was agreed that the initial work would be carried out by Tony Toole who would create mock-ups of all the site pages that contained outline information. These would then be shared with the WBL teams at both CSG and Pembrokeshire to refine the information they contained. Once agreed the information would be uploaded to the WBL site by Lewis Jones.

Caroline Peek at Coleg Sir Gar and Wendy Webber at Pembrokeshire College would be consulted throughout the development process to ensure that the system addressed all of their institutional WBL management and administration needs. PRP Training and the Prince's Trust would be similarly involved. It was agreed that Tony Toole would contact all partners to begin the consultation process.

Key Issues from the Steering Group

The first key issue for me is to make sure that in future the room number given for the meeting is correct! Apologies for that, but glad you all made it!
The minutes of the meeting  are available on the project Wiki and can be accessed by clicking here. The key issues that emerged from the discussion were:

• All partners need to become familiar with the JOOMLA based WBL document management system in order to assess its value and plan their pilot activities. This will be facilitated by Lewis as System Developer and he will provide user support during that period.
• There was an immediate focus in the meeting discussion on potential WBL system management benefits (as opposed to administrative WBL document management efficiencies) which reinforced the benefits of a digitised system compared with the present paper based system.
• It was agreed that the project plan will probably evolve during the early stages of the project as detailed actions by the partners are agreed. It was also recognised that some changes in the balance of the budget might accompany this. All proposed changes will be communicated to both the Project Steering Group and the JISC Programme Team for approval before implementation.
• The role of SMU in the project will be to evaluate the use of the system in a different context and will focus on different digital pen technologies. This will provide valuable information for the WBL partners in terms of cost effectiveness and sustainability, as well as assisting SMU in its document management planning.

The final issue discussed was the links between the PotsPan project and other existing and potential initiatives in the partnership funded from a range of sources. The development, interlinking and potential benefits will be reported here as they evolve.

First Steering Group Meeting

The first steering group meeting for the PotsPan project is now confirmed as being on 29th May 2012 at 11am in Room G27 on the Coleg Sir Gar Graig campus. The meeting will discuss the project plan which has now been uploaded to the project Wiki and can be viewed by clicking here. On the same page is the final report for the SWANI project, the outputs of which are to be piloted by the PotsPan partners.

PotsPan Project Plan

The PotsPan project plan has now been finalised and submitted for approval by the programme team. The first phase will be a project setup period when the project team is set up, partnership agreements put in place, and an initial workshop organised for all partners to gain experience of the digitised document management system and digital pen usage. A project steering group meeting is planned for the 29th May and the workshop on the 27th June 2012.

Welcome to the PotsPan Project Blog

The JISC funded PotsPan Project, which began this week, has the aim of trialling the use of the SWANI digitised management and administrative system for work based learning in the other institutions and organisations delivering work-based learning in the South West Wales region.

The JISC SWANI Project successfully created a digitised administrative and management documentation system for Work Based Learning in Wales that included a digital signature system which satisfied the audit requirements of the EU and the Wales Government.

The proposed PotsPan project will enable the system to be piloted by the other three partners in the Skills Academy Wales WBL consortium (a second FE institution, a private training provider and a national charity) as well as being evaluated by a University for use in their general information management systems.

The outputs and outcomes of the PotsPan project are expected to confirm that the successful SWANI project system is scalable across the region, delivers significant operational and financial benefits, meets all EU and WG audit requirements, and is transferable to any institution or region with similar administrative and management requirements.