PAPERS

About Centre for Academic Practice Educational Technology

The CAP-ET provides information, advice, support and facilities for the appropriate use, production, implementation and evaluation of technology-based teaching and learning methods and materials via two main categories of activity, namely "service" and "focused", described below.

Service activities

The CAP-ET provides:

Information dissemination

• Extensive information provided via the CAP-ET Web site: http://www.warwick.ac.uk/CAP-ET/

- usage statistics indicate between 2000 and 5000 accesses per week over the last year of which nearly one quarter to one half are local (Warwick)

• Production of a web-based journal called Interactions, published each term. Each issue follows a theme and includes articles by Warwick staff and external authors as well as items of news, interesting web sites, resources at Warwick. A useful Innovation section documents recent new methods and media in learning technology being adopted by departments.

• Contribution of an Educational Technology section in the Staff & Educational Development newsletter Forum and the Computing Services newsletter.

• Production and maintenance of the Staff & Educational Development web pages, as well as on behalf of several academic departments.

Advice and consultancy

• Covers a wide range of enquiries from general first contact regarding the potential, needs and applicability of computer-assisted learning, resource based learning, computer mediated communication, the world wide web for teaching and learning, computer based assessment. This is followed through to project design, implementation, evaluation, proposal writing, to specific technological issues. A comprehensive list of support areas offered to date is presented at the end of this document.

• Availability and demonstration of examples of good practice, case studies and other visible results alleviate much resistance to the adoption of learning technology.

• Supervision of students projects involving multimedia

Support for authoring development

• Management of the Multimedia Centre facilities for digitisation and editing of images, text, sound and video material, authoring and evaluation of courseware, preparation of data for CD-ROM, and CD-writing.
• Publication of documents on specific issues of CAL, such as getting started with CAL, digitising and manipulating images, video capture, copyright, creating electronic presentations.
• Design and production of interactive multimedia training and promotional materials on a consultancy basis for businesses is being investigated as an income-generating scheme to fund additional multimedia and CAL posts. The CAP-ET receives many enquiries from external organisations and from the industry partners of departments such as Engineering, the Warwick Manufacturing Group and the Business School.
• Supervision of student projects involving multimedia development

Staff development

• Development of a programme of seminars and courses complimentary to existing training provided by Staff Development, Computing Services and the Library.
• CAP-ET training materials made available on the web where appropriate.
• Department liaison for the purpose of strategy forming for the adoption of educational technology methods and media and course design
• Departmental seminars on specific issues or general awareness raising of the potential benefit of pedagogically-sound implementation of IT in teaching, learning and assessment.
• One-to-one and group training for specific project requirements.

Liaison

• Development and steering of the Educational Technology User Group, including an electronic discussion list and a series of seminars and Warwick case study presentations to promote exchange of ideas and experiences and encourage collaboration.
• Liaison with other teaching support units, particularly Academic Staff Development, the Library and academic departments at Warwick.
• Liaison with other institutions and national learning technology programmes, initiatives and support networks.
• Maintain overseas contacts for the purpose of potential collaboration.

Focused

These activities comprise support for a number of defined educational technology projects which include evaluation of learning needs, acquisition of courseware and authoring tools, digitisation of images and video, and the production of learning materials and web-based delivery. Such projects are carried out in collaboration with academic departments to increase the quality and efficiency of courses or modules. In addition to the knock-on effect such pump-priming activities have on other departments, it also paves the way for academic research, sponsorship and publication as a potential output. Greater benefit from such focused support would be feasible by the procurement of additional CAP-ET staff with appropriate expertise in production and implementation of technology-based teaching and learning materials.

Evaluation of the impact of the service

Under its current implementation, a positive evaluation of how the CAP-ET affects teaching and learning at Warwick is reflected by increases in:

• number of enquiries and user satisfaction
• demand for use of facilities, training & support
• accesses to the CAP-ET web-based information
• number of departments & staff using educational technology or investigating projects
• bids to teaching innovation funds with a technology bias
• numbers joining and attending meetings for the Educational Technology User Group
• demand for, and attendance at, learning technology related seminars and courses
• enquiries from external institutions and companies on the basis of the reputation being established for Warwick in educational technology by the existence of the CAP-ET
• informed contribution to the Teaching and Learning Sub-Committee and the Teaching Quality Assurance (TQA) process.

The CAP-ET maintains close contacts with national initiatives, such as the CTI (Computers in Teaching Initiative), the TLTP (Teaching and Learning Technology Programme), the TLTSN (Teaching and Learning Technology Support Network), the ALT (Association for Learning Technology, of which Dr Dempster is a member of the Executive Committee), the NCET (National Council for Educational Technology), and a continued awareness and collaboration with a great many others. Expertise within an CAP-ET is constantly updated by visits to learning technology project teams, other departments and institutions and attendance at key seminars, workshops and conferences.

Dr Jacqueline A Dempster

Assistant Academic Staff Development Officer
(Head of the Educational Technology Service)

Centre for Academic Practice - Room 3.14 Ramphal. University of Warwick

January 1997

Range of advice given by the CAP-ET