Katie Herson

Implementation strategies for educational intranet resources

Recent events in UK Higher Education have caused university schools to look toward alternative means of enhancing and monitoring the quality of the service they provide. One approach utilises networked learning and teaching resources, in particular intranets. Two Schools at the University of Brighton commenced independent implementation of intranets at similar times. The subjects of the case studies are the School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences Intranet (SPI) and the Business School Intranet (BSI). This paper describes the two alternative strategies for intranet implementation, demonstrates the differing degrees of staff and student utilisation of these learning and teaching assets, identifies barriers to success within each and proposes solutions to address them. The paper proposes a unified strategy for effective intranet implementation and suggests measures to manage organisational resistance to change.

Intranet-Based Learning: A One-Year Study of Student Utilisation.

In Higher Education in the UK, there have been marked developments of network technologies and increased demand for assessed quality in teaching and learning. At the School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences, University of Brighton, an Intranet learning resource has been implemented to meet the quality of service requirements and exploit these technologies. This paper reports on the undergraduate utilisation and evaluation of this resource over a one-year induction period. Staff- and student-based hurdles are identified; these include confidentiality, peer-scrutiny, indolence and IT competence issues. Solutions to these problems, many of which are training-based, are proposed.

Overcoming Resistance to Networked Learning and Teaching Modalities—A Longitudinal Comparison of Changing Teaching Staff Attitudes Towards Learning Technologies

This article considers a comparison of questionnaire survey results from teaching staff in the 1998 Department of Pharmacy teaching staff cohort with the same School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences cohort four years later (2002) at the University of Brighton. The effective- ness of solutions—proposed in previous work—seeking to overcome staff resistance to using computer-based learning and teaching methods is evaluated. It is reported that all staff now use e-mail, with half regularly doing so to communicate with or in response to communication from students. There is a shift to staff using more Computer Aided Learning (CAL) packages in their teaching, with a much wider range of teaching media in use. Conclusions are drawn that identified an increased awareness among staff as to what computer-based learning and teaching methods can do and how they can be integrated into existing teaching. A move away from technical and hardware barriers towards more pedagogical issues of learning technology use is identified. Suggestions, such as increased one-to-one support and training and good-practice dissemination, are proposed to enable the school to achieve its aim of allowing all staff to make appropriate choices regarding the use of learning technologies within their teaching.

Enhancing learning and teaching quality: Intranet hierarchy optimisation and application of stereochemical molecular representations

This article deals with the ongoing use and development of Intranet-based technologies within the School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences, University of Brighton. The course used as a test model is the M.Pharm. degree, a 4-year course with approximately 120 students per level. The student subjects of this study are the then Level 2 students. In this article we examine the continued optimisation of a School Intranet learning resource with regard to optimisation of the hierarchical structure. In response to a requirement previously identified, this work then focuses on the use of manipulatable molecular representations to enhance the learning and teaching of stereochemistry.