Catching the information Bus

http://www.intuitivebusinessintelligence.com/Harper_Adams_University_College_Improves_Student_Experience

Came across this recently in one of my searches.  My old colleague Roger Greenhalgh had an idea to create an information bus, that sits on top of all the databases, that would allow for easy data reporting and manipulation.

The idea was that data depending on user rights could be accessible to staff, students, service providers and management.  You could cross tally results for research, for example how many students from a certain demographic scored  50% and higher on their exams. Or an easy method for managers to pull up information on student intake etc without having to higher in specialists or task others to develop reports.  It seems the company he has went with provides this service and allows you to create a 'dashboard' where you can easily see the reports that concern you.

Definatly something to think about if  you want to improve services, and not wholly unattainable.

Gripes with the way social networking is done

Havnt posted for a while but thought I would just keep this blog up to date.

Why is it all social networks are standard to deliver to everyone.  Why not as the initiator of a conversation you could bring people in when you needed to.  So you type something all your friends can see it and some people comment on it, could those comments not be hidden until you 'open' them up and bring them into a conversation?

Fixing the financial system

With the advent of technologies and GPS.  It should be possible to track the flow of money through the world.  Especially digital transactions.  Without identifying people we could see how much money is swallowed up and where.  You could see where investment was needed or track how much money goes out of the country from foreign workers.

The downsides of OER

Having recently tried to use some OER in anger, we download a QuestionMark questionset from a well known repository.  On installing the qpack, we noticed that there where questions with graphics missing.  There was a name and an e-mail next to the releaser, so I thought may as well drop them a line to see if they had the graphics handy.  The releaser it seems was not the releaser of the materials but the author of the questionset. So someone else had released the materials without giving it a proper review.  The releaser was very helpful though in getting the images to us, but as they mentioned they are under extreme pressure in the normal work instances.

A lot of people might not be aware of the extra workload and communication involved in OER and really should.  Someone might get in touch and expect an answer, others might be after more information about a specific subject.  Quality control is something that needs to be rigourus especially when releasing materials out into the wild and people need to be aware of the possible extra time after publication.

Creating a Plug n Play framework for OER in HE institutions

As part of the Oxford ripple project we are looking into a kit of software called OERCA.  This kit of software basically makes the copyright clearance process for #OER much easier.  What could be done to further improve the process would be to have an end point where the clearance could say safe for exposure, from where the software automatically uploads it into JORUM or Xpert or some other repository.

In that case an institution could install this software and they almost have a full working process from start to finish.