Outlook Live Single Sign On

Once again we have Single Sign On (SSO) working again for our students. This means that once students are logged into college systems, they can access their Outlook Live email inbox without having to enter a second username and password, thus upholding our ‘log-in-once, access-everything’ principle. Continuously having to enter usernames and passwords to navigate from one resource to another is a serious hindrance to the learning experience, and we’re committed to making resources as accessible and highly available to students as possible.

Students also have available to them:

• 25gb of free, online storage via skydrive


• access to Microsoft Office Web Apps

South Essex College: Learner voice – a 360-degree approach

The Excellence Gateway has just published a case study on South Essex College’s use of ILT and students use of communication tools on C_Space, the College's online environment.

Commissioned by JISC the case study is a report on how the College is making effective use of ILT to improve teaching and learning. One of the main findings of the report is that students are using C_Space to find new ways to promote the learner voice.

"The online tools and increased learner voice are making an impact on the whole college, as tutors and senior management can keep abreast of what is going on and what is wanted by reading students' comments."

You can view the report here.

Heads down!

Whew! It's been a busy time, with requests for work coming from everywhere!

The last few weeks have been full on e-portfolio building. It seems the word is spreading and more and more HE tutors are interested in their students using the e-portfolio pages we've developed to support their students' professional development planning.

It's quite a time consuming process to design templates, add resources and documentation and then build individual pages for whole groups of learners...but we're getting there! Thankfully Sharepoint makes life a little easier and is relatively quick to get the basics in place...alas, my organisational skills (or lack of them) make getting all the e-portfolios finished and in place all at the same time to the tutors' satisfaction a logistical nightmare!

So far we've built new e-portfolios for first year Sports Science students, first year Fashion and Marketing students, first year Photography students and added additional pages to the second year Fashion and marketing students exisitng pages. We've also desingned new templates for the Animation Degree students and the Business Degree students which are almost ready to go into production. After this we have interest in e-portfolios from the Televsion Production and the Engineering degree courses...

...ooooppppsss, sorry, got to keep my head down and get back to work!

College Sports

The College Sports site has been fully upgraded on the College's intranet. It now features a full Content Management System, which allows tutors and staff to keep the site up to date.

Summer of Change

This summer sees the start of some major developments at all 3 campuses (Basildon, Thurrock and Southend). As well as an all round tidy up and fresh coat of paint, we've rethought the way we deliver our services in ILT and multimedia. At the forefront of these changes, and the places where they will be most visible, are the libraries.

At each campus we're building a C Space centre, which will be the contact point for all ILT and Multimedia queries, the flagship location for all ILT training, and also a useful help point for IT Helpdesk queries.

This brings ILT team members closer to both teaching staff and students and gives us the opportunity to transform the library into a hub of support for teaching and learning - whether it's through the use of technology, the development of tailored resources, or sharing good practice.

All systems full ahead!!

Got alot on at the moment. Course plan system, av equipment and inventory system, my_skills training system, and rolling out a comprehensive range of training from bitesized to advanced levels for pretty much all staff.All of it is top priority, urgent and will result in widescale change. Difficult, challenging, interesting and stressful times !!

Increase in the number of users of online services

South Essex College now has up to 20,000 students and up to 2,000 members of staff. The represents a large increase in the number of users who can now access the College's online environment.

Usage stats don't normally mean a great deal but it's interesting to note that since 28 January of this year the student homepage of the College's intranet (C_Space) has been accessed 1066054 times.

In order to ensure that teaching staff are familiar with C_Space we will be running training sessions each week on C_Space resources and services.