Recent education policy describes the use of digital and interactive technologies to achieve a more personalised approach to learning crossing all sectors of education. We have completed a cross sector project, funded by the Eduserv Foundation, involving FE, HE and NHS lecturers and practitioners who have worked collaboratively to develop a shared repository of e-learning objects (RLOs) in infection control, medicines and prescribing. The RLOs have been developed using a well established methodology with built in quality assurance processes and standardised techniques for ensuring that the resources are compatible with different learning platforms such as WebCT. Evaluations with different groups of students and end-users have been universally positive, the interactivities, visual media components and self assessments being particularly valued. The evaluations shown below relate to the inflammatory response RLO which, in this example, was introduced into a non-medical prescribing course to support student understanding of the process of inflammation and as a consequence, the action of anti-inflammatory drugs. Results show the RLO integrated well into the module and student comments indicated the RLO provided added value over and above lectures.

I think its useful to supplement lectures with RLOs like this one - Strongly Agree (n=20) Agree (n=24) Neutral (n=8) Disagree (n=0) Strongly Disagree (n=1)

I am confident I will be able to use the knowledge gained from this RLO in future practice Strongly Agree (n=16) Agree (n=20) Neutral (n=0) Disagree (n=0) Strongly Disagree (n=0)

“Helped to explain some things that I didn’t understand from the lecture”

“I didn’t understand the lecture…..This RLO was very easy to follow and understand – very good”

To understand more about the collaborative process and the benefits and barriers of cross sector working, interviews were carried out with the project team half way through and at the end of the 30 month project; these results are currently being analysed and will be reported in the presentation.

(1) Department for Children, School’s and families (2005) The e-strategy- Harnessing technology: Transforming learning and children’s services. http://www.dfes.gov.uk/publications/e-strategy/
(2) Boyle, T et al (2006). An Agile method for developing learning objects. 23rd annual ASCILITE http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/sydney06/proceeding/pdf_papers/p64.pdf