The RVC is lead partner in a JISC funded collaboration of Bloomsbury Colleges. This initiative (APT STAIRS) is testing new collaborative technologies to create a common space where users (students, teachers, administrators and researchers) with different skills can work online together. The project is focusing on the use of Google Docs and other online document creation tools to ensure uptake and adoption across the six partners in the Bloomsbury Colleges consortium.
At a "Demonstrator Lunch" last week ten of the pilot projects were presented by colleagues from each of the six Bloomsbury Colleges. All these projects had used Google Apps in different ways to support teaching, research and administration. This included a project at Birkbeck where students were able to contribute research data in a practical class to a Google spreadsheet and graph using Asus laptops. The RVC profiled a project where our library staff had created a common Goggle Doc where they could keep a collective list of books that had been requested by students - a simple application that has saved many hours of work.
More information about the demonstrators can be found here. Information on a cross campus survey of technology use is available here - this shows the different profile of staff and students when it comes to technology use.
