18 years developing educational technology at Loughborough University and beyond

http://cede.lboro.ac.uk

Melanie KingHead, The Centre for Engineering & Design Education

18 Years developing educational technology for Loughborough University and beyond

INSPIRE: International conference for Process Improvement, Research and EducationMarch 2015, Loughborough University

The Centre for Engineering and Design Education

• History of the Centre for Engineering and Design Education

• A technical evolution: from XLS to Software as a Service (SaaS)

• A management evolution: from Project Management to Product Management

• A process evolution: from user requirements and sole developer to co-designing services and enterprise architectures

• Can academia based edtech development compete with industry?

Outline


The Centre’s History 1997 - 2000

The Faculty of Engineering Teaching and Learning Support Centre

Funding: Internal – Faculty of EngineeringStaff: 2 core, 3 fixed funded, 1 Faculty officerTechnologies: Microsoft Office etc., Authorware, ASP.


1997Jonny Mnemonic


A CAL package on Floppys for Distance Learners

Visual Basic in Excel for a Lab Assistant application.

CAL packages on the University CAL Launcher

An ASP web-based Peer Assessment System



Funding: Internal – Faculty of EngineeringStaff: 3 core, 5 fixed funded, 1 Uni online learning officerTechnologies: Microsoft Office etc., Authorware, ASP > PHP, Video / Audio, open source.


2001AI


HTML course material for Lboro’sfirst VLE

Authorware application to automate template layout for VLE.

Online tutorial for staff to creating digital video

PHP / MySQL web application to create and mark registers

Tailored existing open source PHP software ‘Claroline’ for Engineering

Authorware applications for distance learners – virtual laboratories



Funding: HEFCE CETL FundingStaff: ~10 core, ~4 fixed fundedTechnologies: Microsoft Office etc. PHP, Video / Audio, open source.

The Engineering Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning


2005I Robot


Created more PHP /MySQL systems for academics: PROJECTLIST final year projects, WebPA and Co-Tutor

CO-TUTOR: fourth iteration of the personal tutoring system

Utilised more commercial software: Venture Strategy – online Business Simulation game (8 weeks)

Co-opted existing open course CMS ‘Exponent’ for learning resource repositories


The Centre for Engineering and Design Education 2011 -

Funding: 4 Engineering Schools and the Loughborough Design SchoolStaff: 3.7FTE core, ~6FTE externally fundedTechnologies: HTML5, PHP /MySQL, Jquery, Bootstrap, Cloud etc.

CEDE’s team of specialists work closely with the Engineering and Design Schools at Loughborough University to encourage effective practice and innovation in teaching and learning.


2011The Social Network


Placements / graduate opportunities database

www.kit-catalogue.com

www.webpaproject.comwww.co-tutor.co.uk

Using commercial hosted systems where we can and its value for money

CASPA: MySQL / PHP Assessment Management system

Commercialisation

Now developing for range of devices

CASPA: PHP / MySQL system for assessment management

http://www.kit-catalogue.com



A technical evolution

from XLS to Software as a

Service (SaaS)


History of Development June 1999

Tutorial Support Database (MS Excel)

Version 1

Version 1 was a Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet with Visual Basic Macros to help enter all the data and organise

the content for pastoral care and monitoring. The spreadsheet was located on each tutor’s local PC.

1 developer

~ 10 days


Tutorial Record System October 1999

Tutorial Record System

Version 2 was a web based ASP application with a Microsoft Access Database. All student data had to be

manually entered in to the database. The database and application was located on a department server.

1 developer

~ 20 days


Co-Tutor September 2003

Version 3 was a web based PHP application with a MySQL Database. All student data was automatically read in

from a Central database using nightly CRON routines. The database and application was located on a Faculty

server.

1 developer

~ 40 days


Co-Tutor January 2005

Version 4 was a web based PHP application with a MySQL Database. All student data was automatically

read in from a Central database using nightly CRON routines.

1 developer

~ 20 days


Co-Tutor July 2009

Version 5 is a web based PHP application with a MySQL Database. It utitises nightly CRON’s and an API

infrastructure to pass information between central and sister systems. The database and application is located

on a Faculty server.

2 developers

~ 80 days


Commercial Co-Tutor September 2014

Version 5 is a web based PHP application with a MySQL Database. It utitises nightly CRON’s and an API

infrastructure to pass information between central and sister systems. It uses PHP Frameworks to make it

responsive and Jquery to add finesse.

~3 developers

~150 days


A management evolution

from Project Management to

Product Management


The Product tree K I TCATALOGUE

®


The infrastructure / underlying

database etc.

The core / essence of the

application

Product areas

The individual features

What is a product vision? K I TCATALOGUE

®


WHAT: Our product is the only __________________

HOW: that _________________________________

WHO: for __________________________________

WHERE: in _________________________________

WHY: who _________________________________

WHEN: in an era of __________________________

Feature / Problem cards K I TCATALOGUE

®


Prioritisation versus Effort K I TCATALOGUE

®


Quick Wins Major projects

Fill ins Hard slogs

HIGH

LOW

LOW HIGH


A process evolution

From user requirements

and sole developer to co-

designing services and

enterprise architectures



Can academia based edtech development

compete with industry?

2014 marked a record year for global investment in Edtech companies Src: http://www.geekwire.com/2015/can-count-2-billion-education-technology-investment-hits-new-record/

$1.87 billion

24% of all global investment

is made to companies in China“there’s a global trend [called] Retail Education“ (Adkins of Ambient Insight)

Sep’12 Desire2Learn received another $80 million of investment Src: http://www.informationweek.com/software/education-tech-investments-surpassed-$1-billion-in-2012/d/d-id/1108366?

Co-Tutor ~£250k (HEIF & Jisc) over three years to create a product to be used across HE & FE


What impact will global ‘me too’

products have on higher

education in the UK?


Steve Jobs, in an interview about the release of the Macintosh, 24th January 1984 stated

“We're gambling on our vision, and we would

rather do that than make ‘me too’ products. Let

some other companies do that. For us, it's always

the next dream.”

Src: http://www.forbes.com/sites/amitchowdhry/2013/10/05/lessons-learned-from-4-steve-jobs-quotes/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/amitchowdhry/2013/10/05/lessons-learned-from-4-steve-jobs-quotes/

http://cede.lboro.ac.uk

Melanie KingHead, The Centre for Engineering & Design Education

[email protected]

INSPIRE: International conference for Process Improvement, Research and EducationMarch 2015, Loughborough University