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The National Grid for Learning Progress Report Three
Chapter 6: Progress with Infrastructure
6.1 Schools
The Scottish Executive commissioned a feasibility study into the provision of broadband communications to Scottish schools from PricewaterhouseCoopers in May 2000. The study concluded that it was possible to create a broadband network providing connection speeds of at least 2Mbps to all Scottish schools. The report recommended that this be achieved within the context of a Scottish Schools Digital Network (SSDN). The Scottish Executive, however, decided to pursue an aggregated procurement route through the Pathfinder Projects in the Highlands and Islands and in the South of Scotland. Technical and procurement lessons learned from these projects will inform Executive decisions in the future about roll-out of public sector broadband across the rest of the country.
SSDN will provide a range of intranet features delivered via the national broadband interconnect. The SSDN intranet will enable new ways for teachers, learners, parents and school managers to work and collaborate together, helping to enhance the school environment and introducing exciting new ways of teaching and learning. Procurement of the interconnect was completed in October 2003. Procurement of the national schools' intranet began in November 2003, with roll-out planned throughout 2005.
6.2 Further Education
The Scottish Further Education Funding Council (SFEFC) reviewed its strategy for ICT investment in July 2002. The Council recognised the major advances in infrastructure, content and staff development which had been achieved in the FE sector through the previous three years earmarked funding for ICT. However, the Council felt that the time was now right to devolve more of the responsibility for ICT investment to individual colleges, in order to ensure that development took account of the distinctive context and mission of each college. The Council therefore decided to reduce the amount of top-sliced funding for ICT to 5 million per annum for the next three years, and to focus its investment on a small number of key strategic areas where there was most to gain from central spending.
The Council identified its specific priorities for 2002/2003 as the following.
- Exploitation of the existing technical infrastructure through the provision of subsidised staff development opportunities.
- Support for online assessment through commissioning of a bank of exemplar assessments in a wide range of subjects, and collaborative work with the Scottish Qualification Authority (SQA) on guidelines for good practice in the use of online assessment.
- The promotion of e-business activities as a means of generating efficiency gains through ICT; (Four major collaborative projects on e-procurement have subsequently been launched as the first stage in this strand.)
- Updating college ICT strategies to take account of changes in the planning context since strategies were last produced in 2000.
- Jointly with the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council, to set up a working group on e-learning in order to identify key strategic issues likely to arise over the next two or three years.
- Continued membership of the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), which provides IT networks and a range of support services to the FE sector.
Looking at the sector as a whole, there is evidence that ICT is being used increasingly to support learning and teaching; however, practice is still patchy and varies among subjects and colleges.
In the summer of 2002, the network connections linking all Scottish FE colleges (and all HE institutions) were re-procured. SFEFC had provided additional funding for this re-procurement aimed at ensuring that all colleges would have their connections upgraded to at least 8Mbps. In the event, it proved possible to procure significantly better connectivity so that the majority of colleges are now connected at either 34Mpbs or 100Mbps, on contracts that run for at least three years. This provides ample scope for expanding the use of the internet without limitations on bandwidth or the speed of response.
6.3 The People's Network
The New Opportunities Fund has provided 11.5 million to establish the infrastructure and provide equipment for the People's Network in public libraries (www.peoplesnetwork.gov.uk). All 557 public libraries are now connected to the Internet, with over 85% of libraries offering broadband access at 2Mbps or higher.
Libraries are able to provide mouse and keyboard alternatives, screen magnification, speech recognition software, text to speech software and large screens to assist people with disabilities to use ICT.
People's Network PCs provide 8.5 million hours of free access to the Internet and ICT which are available to all members of the community. There is evidence that use is especially high in rural areas. In Highland, PCs are occupied over 80% of opening hours and in one of the most rural libraries, Port William in Dumfries and Galloway, PCs are often used 100% of the time available.
The Tavistock Institute has been commissioned to undertake the evaluation of the People's Network on a United Kingdom basis. The evaluation will focus on the impact of the programme on:
- developing library services;
- library users; and
- meeting broader policy and organisational objectives, including promoting social inclusion.
The Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC) will be carrying out the evaluation of the training associated with this project in Scotland. This will involve six authorities chosen from a variety of backgrounds including urban, rural, island, and one with an exemplar NOF training plan.
The evaluation will look at 3 areas:
- management of training;
- the learning experience; and
- impact on the library service.
SLIC works with authorities to identify best practice and disseminates this information in a variety of ways. A number of Learning Centres based in public libraries have achieved Scottish University for Industry (SUfI) status.
6.4 Communities
The NGfL Scotland Communities team, (www.ltscotland.org.uk/communities//ngfl_communities_background.asp), is supporting the development of ICT use in the communities sector in a variety of ways. A lot of work has gone into setting up partnerships to develop the role of ICT in the community sector of education, supporting the use of ICT in all aspects of lifelong learning, inclusive education and non-formal learning.
The NGfL Communities Working Group continues to liaise with the key agencies and organisations to advance the promotion of ICT in communities. The development of the SSDN provides a unique opportunity for the integration of community learning within the structure of the formal Scottish education sector and there is also the potential to utilise the community access which some individual Further Education and Higher Education establishments have already facilitated via their infrastructure.
In partnership with the Digital Inclusion Champions' teams (www.ltscotland.org.uk/communities/digital_champions_contacts.asp), the NGfL Scotland Communities team works continually to develop and improve the Communities website content to best serve the needs of community education practitioners across Scotland.
The NGfL Scotland Communities team is supporting the Scottish Executive Bellsmyre Digital Community initiative, which aims to connect around 2,000 homes in disadvantaged areas to the Internet and create a pilot 'digital community'. Building on pilot work, the NGfL Scotland will fund and deliver an ICT-based unit within the school Personal and Social Education (PSE) programme which will be cascaded by the pupils to their families, offering a unique opportunity to develop family learning and family support for pupil learning. The project will produce a training programme for pupils from two schools in the area. The purpose of this training is to help engage the pupils and their families with the Wired Communities initiative and allow them to exploit the opportunities offered.
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