First Meeting of the Course Planning Committee - Friday 23rd November

Clive had good news from his meeting with AHS (Arts and Human Sciences) and we're hoping that there will be collaboration between us. We examined the bench marking statements which Clive had chosen for us to look at. Clive had 'raided' Computing. Library and Information Services and Business in order to make his suggestions and we wondered whether some sociology and arts bench marks might have been interesting.

It was decided that there should be a meeting between a few of us to discuss the aims of the course. Although we'd already suggested these and thought about what they might consist of it was thought we needed to have these firmly written down before we could move on. Clive, Jeff and Xristine agreed to have these sorted by next week's meeting.

We discussed combined honours and were told that these would need to be specified as part of the proposal so at some stage we are going to have to list what will be made available. This will be the opportunity for those of the committee who want the course to have a particular 'flavour' to perhaps see that this happens.

We also discussed distance learning and again, as we want this to be an aspect of the course we will need to specify it early on.

Nigel is hoping to set up a social evening for those interested in the course - this will be an opportunity for those outside the university to meet us and to tell us the kinds of skills they would like to see in a course like this. We want to do this as soon as possible so that we give people already working in the field the opportunity to make their views clear. We don't want to get the course designed and then find we've overlooked some skill that could be useful.

Drupal

Martin decided on a content management platform called Drupal which we played with over the weekend and quickly decided was perfect for our needs. It is a powerful platform and it should allow us to do all of the things we want to do. The package is described here if anyone is interested.
http://drupal.org/

We hope to have Drupal up and running for the CPC (Course Planning Committee) in the very near future. I have to say I've been very impressed by it's flexibility and what it can offer us. Many, many thanks to Martin of course for finding it and providing it!!!

Forums, wikis, blogs and what have yous!

Martin mailed this morning to show me the new area he'd set up to support the course. We had some fun playing with it and quickly decided it was just what we wanted. So, he's in the process of fixing it up so that the Course Planning Committee (CPC from now on) will be able to communicate more easily and share documents. The more of these applications I see the more excited I get about the future of the web and therefore of social technologies.

Anyway, we should have a working space very soon which will combine the forum like activities with the ability to share and comment on documents. The blog will continue of course and will act as the front door to the course so that we have a way of showing guests in without their having to look at the kitchen :-)

Supporting the Committee

I met with Martin today to discuss how we could support the committee using social technology type spaces. Martin suggested using a wiki type space and we looked at those for a bit. They seem to do what we want, that is let us display documents and discuss them but we have to decide just how these will be managed. Martin very kindly said he'd 'play' with the various possibilities over the weekend and we'd talk again next week. I'm intending to 'play' with wikispace. I've done some editing for wikis before so I'm familiar with them but I don't think they're particularly easy or 'natural' to use and I'm aware that people might not want to spend time learning how to use them.

We've decided to continue the blog though and I agreed I'd keep it as a diary of what the Course is going through - as a sort of 'Our Baby year by year' and we'll give it to the course when she's grown up :-)

First Course Planning Committee Meeting

The first meeting for the planning of the new course is for Friday 23rd November at 10am. The meeting is planned for an hour. Location has yet to be announced.

Curriculum and Collaborations Committee

The course proposal was considered at the CCC on Tuesday 13th November. Clive was asked to be there to present the proposal. The committee asked that the Course Planning Committee consulted with AHS about possible collaboration between them and BCIM. Clive subsequently arranged meeting with members of AHS and we have some new units to consider for the course. We are hoping that collaboration can be arranged. However, this is still very much in the discussion stage.

FASC Approval Sought

The new course was presented at FASC and was returned to the Course Planning Committee (CPC) for clarification of a couple of points. This was done and the course then received FASC approval. This means that it can now go into the planning stages.

Planning stages

This blog is intending to act as a record of where we are so far in the planning stages of the new Social Technology course. Hopefully, as the course gathers speed there will be more details of our thinking and where we are heading in the course development. This is just the first steps on the journey!