Meeting in Sofia UK and BG partners
Date of meeting
11th/12th August
Agenda
1. Review the questionnaire
2. Share knowledge for Open Source manual
3. Possible enhancements to support the project
Present:
Andrey Stoycheff, Ian Lynch, Rosemary Lynch
1. The questionnaire has provided a lot of useful information. This has to be seen in the light of what has been learnt in the UK. The key headline is that there is a demand for certification that is related to users of web based and cloud technologies whereas most of the current focus is on certification of users of desktop technologies. Client groups are almost unlimited, from young children who can learn basic computer operations and are motivated by having their learning recognised to adults who need certification to help with employment. One of the priorities needs to be to find which client groups are best suited to individual partners existing networks and local knowledge.
Actions:
AS to use the data to produce individual country reports with overall recommendations.
IL to ensure that partners focus on use of information to achieve sustainable impact in their localities
RL to record meeting details for future reference.
2. The Open Source manual is taking shape. Good balance between information related to current highly used applications and general principles. Discussion followed about the best way to present the information. Agreement reached that it should be in web pages with links to references so it can be extended and up dated easily. Perhaps consider a Lulu published book if it turns out that the content matures and can have a longer life before requiring editing. Some talk at the sector skills council about needing assessment units more specifically on open source - we could build them from here. Another advantage of the web page approach is that it will encourage links to the web site which will further increase its Google rank. Even if we do a paper published copy it will be important to maintain the information in web pages.
Actions:
AS to complete the first draft of the Open Source handbook and notify partners. Liaison with Catalin in Romania to get translations in place.
IL to check technical English and up date as necessary
RL to make sure relevant accounting is done.
3. AS brought up the Open Source application he has acquired that can support scheduling questions to support assessment criteria. This could provide a question bank to support the evidence bank that learners gather for e-portfolios for presentation to assessors. Main snag is that this was not foreseen at the start and no budget was allocated to it. There is the possibility of virement of some of the travel and subsistence budget for this purpose. The T&S budget is likely to be under-spent and now we are underway it is clear that restructuring this could lead to better value for money. It will not affect agreed project deliverables or the current WPs. All we will get is some additional value that goes further than the original project specification.
It would probably be a good idea to publish a second edition of the handbook before the end of the project as things do go out of date. This would be relatively simple compared to originating the new handbook as it would be editing and perhaps adding new unit details to the existing document. It was agreed that having the handbook in web pages would be useful for the same reasons discussed for the Open Source manual. This is really down to the Spanish team and currently there is no budget.
AS indicated that it is clear from the translation accuracy that we need to delegate this to partners rather than do it directly through the Romanian partner. Good translations require more than general technical and pedagogical knowledge.
Actions
RL and IL to work out a restructuring of the T&S budget to enable all original project targets to be met but in addition to provide resources to start establishing a question bank to support the ITQ units.
IL to talk to the Spanish partner about transfer of the handbook to web pages.
AS to talk to Romanian partner about translation procedures and revisions to resolve the issue of technical and pedagogical needs.
Day 2
AS presented the open source applications for managing a question bank. IL and AS went through the technical details to decide on the feasibility of use.
IL went over changes to the web site to incorporate on-line evidence gathering and how this supports free e-portfolios that under-pin certification. RL and AS suggested improvements to the documentation.
Actions
IL to review documentation of on-line systems and consider using screen casts for demonstration.
AS to maintain exploration of IT support for questions.
