Banff and Buchan College and learndirect scotland have developed an effective and seamless managed learning environment, which enables college outreach centres to engage more effectively with small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and other business groups in Aberdeenshire.
This development provides interoperability between the college’s Management Information System, B-Net (the college intranet system), and learndirect scotland’s Skillnet learning management environment.
The solution leverages work originally undertaken as part of a pilot project run under the SWaNI (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) programme, which aimed to establish the concepts of interoperability within managed learning environments in the further education sectors of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
learndirect scotland provided application development expertise and resources to the project and was the primary architect in the design of the solution.
learndirect scotland’s director of learning technologies, Kirk Ramsay, explained: “We have combined the emerging IMS Learner Information Package specification with the latest web services deployment model to deliver a highly innovative approach to interoperability with Banff & Buchan, recognising the importance of learner information and realising that no one solution has all the answers.”
As well as providing innovative technical consultancy on this pilot project, learndirect scotland offered a package of learning through Skillnet.
Banff and Buchan College is the first Scottish college to implement Skillnet. Benefiting from advantageous supplier relationships in the Scottish learning marketplace, learndirect scotland was able to source online learning materials from leading industry partners at significantly lower rates than could be achieved by the college independently.
These include European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL) modules and online testing, PLATO literacy software, and a range of technical courses.