ISSUES IN DEVELOPING A STRATEGY FOR REACHING REMOTE AND ISOLATED COMMUNITIES

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ISSUES IN DEVELOPING A STRATEGY FOR REACHING
REMOTE AND ISOLATED COMMUNITIES

•  Professor Robert Cormack
• Director, UHI Millennium Institute
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• Creating the University of the Highlands and
  Islands

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JANET MAP
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UHI MAP
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UHI Millennium Institute

• Distances
• Diverse communities
• Remote from what?
• Tyranny of geography
• Not a virtual university
• Information, knowledge and student learning

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Learning Centres Management and Technical
Aspects

• Clarity of ownership and responsibilities
• Accessibility
• Good social environment
• Robust connectivity
• Controlled environment where applications are
  configured by UHI
• Remote support requires control of the LC
  environment
• Explicit quality standards, e.g. student email
  response times

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Learning Centres Student Requirements

• Accessibility and better connectivity than at
  home
• Good social environment
• Fully functional MLE with an increasingly
  familiar VLE
• Video-conferencing
• Interactive learning materials
• Integrated technical, academic and pastoral
  support
• Comprehensive induction programme
• Central technical support through a telephone
  help desk

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Learning Centres Staffing Issues

• Multi-skilling to cover academic, technical and
  pastoral support
• Provision of staff development resources with an
  emphasis on the facilitation of online learning
  and interactivity
• Membership of module development team
• Full training in use of MLE/VLE