HeLM - HORUS e-Learning Management

 

Lead Contact: Gillian Armitt (Gillian.Arrmitt@manchester.ac.uk)

JISC Programme: JISC e-Learning Programme

Lead Institution and Partners: University of Manchester (Lead institution), Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust, University Hospital South Manchester NHS Foundation Trust, Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

 

Project Dates: October 2006 - September 2008

 

Case study tags: online learning, e-portfolios,university of manchester, e-portfolios for application, e-portfolios for assessment,employer perspectives on e-portfolios, e-portfolios for cpd and pdp

 

Background & Context

 

What is the background to the e-portfolio initiative?

 

Undergraduate learning in health sciences includes substantial periods on placement in the workplace (hospitals, etc) and at postgraduate practitioner level, learning may almost exclusively be work-based, as in Medicine. Workplace learning brings particular challenges as much of the learning is difficult to specify, being dependent on the availability of patients and circumstances being presented. It is therefore essential that students develop strategies for opportunities for self-directed learning to ensure curriculum coverage, and also that workplace teacher development supports this. Administrative processes should support a common learning experience distributed across multiple providers.

 

The HeLM project is founded on the HORUS family of learning management technologies, which focus on e-tools for learner-centred work-based lifelong learning. HORUS is based on a pedagogic model of 'Experience-based learning' whose generalisability increases the likelihood that HORUS will transfer to other fields of study. The HORUS suite has benefitted from previous JISC-funded development. It includes services supporting undergraduate medical education (HORUS-UG), early postgraduate education (HORUS-FP), specialist medical postgraduate education (HORUS-ST), the in-service training of diabetes health care professionals (HORUS-Diabetes) and basic nurse education (ULYSSES).

 

What were the aims and objectives of the initiative?

 

The HORUS e-Learning Management (HeLM) project aimed to extend the earlier JISC-funded HORUS learning management services to a wider range of applications, institutions, and stages in the lifelong learning continuum and link them to other JISC-funded projects. Specifically to:

 

• Support in-depth reflective learning
• Support teachers' learning from students' evaluations of their teaching
• Establish pedagogic and technical means of linking e-learning to assessment
• Support learning management in the workplace
• Extend the implementation of HeLM services within and beyond Medicine

 

Additional objectives were:

 

• deliver a validated formal systems analysis model and service specification comprising new and existing functionality and will contribute services to the e-Framework
• evaluate the technical and human/organisational aspects of the HeLM approach to the software development lifecycle, with a view to making recommendations to the e-learning community concerning transferability to new environments

 

How was the initiative implemented?

 

The overall HeLM approach comprised:

 

• User requirements gathering, encompassing proposed new functionality and existing HORUS functionality, and their capture in a UML model
• Development of an ontology to clarify understanding
• Identification of services
• Validation of the UML model and service specification
• Development of sample services (Topcat and assessment demonstrator)
• Roll-out and change management (Topcat)
• Stakeholder evaluation of new and existing MedLea-HORUS functionality
• Iterative refinement of the systems analysis model and service specification
• Preparation of contributions to the e-Framework
• Evaluation of the HeLM approach

 

Technology Used

 

What technologies and/or e-tools were available to you or did you seek to develop?

 

The following key tools, frameworks and components were used in the development process:

 

• AndroMDA - an MDA tool that can generate code from UML models
• Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2005 - AndroMDA was used to generate code in the C# language. The service implementations and user interface were then written using the Microsoft Visual Studio .NET development environment
• Microsoft SQL Server 2000 - AndroMDA is also capable of generating data definition statements in SQL for any database. The Topcat project used the SQL Server 2000 database to persist the data
• Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) - Microsoft IIS was used to host the live application with the university's central server infrastructure
• The assessment demonstrator used a similar MDA tool named Sculptor which, in turn, was based on openArchitectureWare framework
• Topcat was developed from the start as an enterprise system, being sited in the University's server farm from early in the project, thus benefitting from enterprise sizing of networked resources and server management. Topcat was integrated with enterprise systems. The URL https://topcat.manchester.ac.uk and the support email address topcat@manchester.ac.uk were allocated early on

 

Success Factors

 

What are the key outcomes of the initiative?

 

HeLM systems analysis model and contribution to the e-Framework - this is of great value to the e-learning community as a validated, generalised model that is platform-independent and can be used as a basis for future development in other institutions.

 

HeLM ontology: HeLM produced an ontology of the organisation and management of UK-based medical education. Although subject-related ontologies, such as SNOMED-CT (clinical terms) and TIME-ITEM (medical curriculum) exist, no other ontology of the organisation and management of medical education is known.

 

HeLM design: HeLM proposes integration of the student and teacher portfolio systems, to provide mutual feedback and to share data, to the benefit of both partners. This concept may be influential in the design of future learning systems.

 

The project has evaluated the methodologies used within a complete software lifecycle for a project with high institutional buy-in and wide scale roll-out. It makes recommendations to the community regarding the human/organisational factors that will contribute to the success of the similar endeavours that use a systems analysis approach and/or user-centred design and roll-out. It also identifies that more work needs to be done to achieve buy-in from developers without experience of UML (Unified Modelling Language), SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture), MDA (Model-Driven Architecture) and rapid application development.

 

A set of designs for presenting tabular and graphical summative assessment data to students and teachers has been validated for their utility.

 

The project has undertaken in-depth analyses of stakeholder experiences with the self-directed learning cycle. Recommendations have been made to the sector concerning training, buy-in and organisational issues.

 

The study has identified a methodology for measuring the quality of workplace learning in a way that could be incorporated into a placement quality management system. This approach is generalisable to placements in other subject areas, and provides an important tool for institutions to manage the quality of their placement providers.

Topcat development is in full-scale roll-out in the School of Medicine and Dentistry at Manchester and roll-out to remaining Schools in the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences has been agreed.

 

HeLM has achieved high profile with senior management, committees and staff in the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences through its work on Topcat, presentation of assessment data and the reflective discussions.

The HeLM team has had 10 peer-reviewed papers accepted for presentation and 2 journal papers published.

 

What follow-up activity will be/has been carried out as a result of the project?

 

The Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences is planning full-scale roll-out of Topcat across the Faculty. They are also planning to build on HeLM's work on the use of student feedback for teaching quality management, to build an integrated Topcat teaching loads/teaching quality management system.

 

It would be valuable to track usage of the model and encourage such users to contribute further refinements.

The HeLM ontology is small and UK-based, and its future may lie in amalgamation into one of the major medical ontologies and/or an international collaboration to refine it.

 

The HORUS e-Learning Management Extension for Tutors (HELMET) ran from 1st January 2008 to 31st March 2009 under the JISC Users and Innovation Programme. It aimed to 'use the services and experience gained from HeLM to develop and implement a Social Networking application using Web 2.0 technologies to facilitate the collaboration of tutors and subsequent capture of appropriate pieces of any collaboration for future personal development'.

 

Lessons Learned

 

What are the lessons learned from the project?

 

Early indications are that reflective discussions may be a better way of encouraging work-based learners to reflect on their experiences than the traditional long reflection based on a template.

 

The opportunity to reflect a little or a lot, any time, any place, in a social learning environment is a key benefit to learners who have a busy timetable.

 

The necessity within hospital sectors for tutors and students to operate on two separate networks (the NHS network for clinical work and the University network for education) makes routine access to and use of University based administration system problematic.

 

Although rapid application development works well as an approach to user interface design, the development can take longer than anticipated and it is recommended that paper pilots/demonstrators be incorporated into the requirements analysis.

 

Good project management practice enables a successful project.

 

Further Resources

 

Project Website - http://www.medicine.manchester.ac.uk/helm