Portsmouth Business School Learning Support

1. PBS Learning News Achieving the right blend! Technology Enhanced Learning from DCQE 1 12 Issue 9 – Autumn 2010 Will YOU be ready for the year 2012? Developments at DCQE Changes at DCQE have led to the creation of the Technology Enhanced Learning team based at St. Andrews Court. A new Virtual Learning Centre is available in Victory. The new team is led by Mrs. Carolyne Jacobs (Projects), and Dr. Stephen Webb (Operations). You can still obtain information and assistance via the normal email address. Find the Virtual Learning Centre in your ‘MyVictory’ page. A full events programme is planned. The London Olympics in 2012 will allow athletes from all over the world to compete for medals in the spirit of the Olympic ideal. A new campus environment is being specially created for the games, turning waste ground into imposing stadia and the Olympic village. Athletes are already training hard to be ready to compete and succeed in 2012. The University of Portsmouth is itself preparing for 2012, when the new academic year comes into operation. Course teams are altering the units that make up their courses to suit the full year, which brings with it the opportunities for better learning that formative assessment over an extended period can offer. At the same time, we look forward to the availability of a new virtual campus environment truly worthy of our students. The PBS Learning Support Team is ready to help academic colleagues to create virtual learning environments suitable for our academic Olympians, no matter where they come from. If you would like us to help you build learning objects or websites, give us a ring! Portsmouth Business School Learning Support Contact the team: eteam@port.ac.uk http://pedagoria.blogspot.com/ http://www.twitter.com/eteamnews

2. Learning Support for Your Teaching in PBS Procedure for Initiating PBS Learning Support Projects 11 2 The Learning Support Team Process Flow for VLE/Training Projects Rachel Short: Educational Technologist Rachel leads the Learning Support team based in the Drop In Centre, RB1.07. She allocates work to our developer team via Zoho Projects, and manages eLearning development and training at PBS. She is also the Project Manager for our adoption of Second Life, which this year will see us start work on a Virtual Recruitment Centre. Mandy McCartney: Online Course Developer Mandy deputises for Rachel when she is occupied elsewhere, and she is the friendly face that academic colleagues will often see if they visit the Drop In Centre. Mandy can discuss a new VLE design or training project with you, and helps Rachel allocate that work to the developers in RB3.09. Mandy currently has a new car – so we’d best look out! Ankur Shah: Online Course Developer Ankur has worked with us before, but is now based in RB3.09.Hegraduated last year with a BSc (Hons) 2.1 degree in Computer Animation from the University of Portsmouth, and has good knowledge of HTML, Photoshop, CSS, Flash, Dreamweaver and other 3D Modelling applications. Outside work, he plays badminton and cricket, and keep himself active with different activities at the weekend. David Starkey: Learning & Teaching Coordinator David can advise you on ways to use technology to enhance your teaching, without over reliance on it. For example, Camtasia Relay is being introduced to allow you to provide lectures as pre-briefings, so that face to face teaching could be more interactive. Want to learn about project-based learning and how to introduce it? David can help! Sarah Gilmore: Learning & Teaching Coordinator Sarah is research active, and can advise you on new pedagogical ideas and techniques. If you’d like to adopt a new way of teaching, or see a need to form a coordinated group showcasing educational research in an area that interests you, then Sarah can facilitate that.

3. Adobe Acrobat VLE/Training Request Form Learning Support for your Teaching in PBS http://www.twitter.com/eteamnews 7 3 10 Recording VLE Project Requirements New Members of PBS Learning Support The HEFCE University Modernisation Fund During the summer, the university managed to win money from HEFCE to modernise its systems, and some of this money was used to expand the eTeam. After training during late summer, Michael, Dean and Kevin are already active supporting VLE development. Requesting VLE design or Training Services We will soon be using Adobe Acrobat forms to record what academic clients want from the course portals, unit site designs, learning objects or training sessions they request from the eLearning Team. A sample of the forms we are going to use is shown below. We want to be able to better serve academic clients in PBS, and will be initiating all new projects using forms like this one. The idea is that the client completes the form electronically, and clicks a submit button to send it back to the website Acrobat.com. Rachel or Mandy will monitor these forms on that site, and action a project if all the required details have been provided by the client. It is hoped that this will ensure that we capture all requirements, and so enhance the quality of the sites produced. When this system goes live, all projects that are not pure site replications or of small scale will need to be initiated via Adobe LiveCycle forms. Michael Betts: Assistant OLCD I’m from Northampton originally, and came to Portsmouth in the autumn of 2006 to study E-Business at the University of Portsmouth. After 4 years of study including a year’s work placement at Fender Musical Instruments, I graduated in the class of 2010. I decided that I enjoyed living in Southsea so much that I didn’t want to leave, and by chance I’ve ended up working in the very same building that I’ve spent most of the last 4 years in! In my spare time I play electric and bass guitar. Dean Chimezie: Assistant OLCD I recently graduated from the University of Portsmouth with a BSc (Hons) in Computing. For the past five years, I have been actively involved both professionally and academically in software development and programming (both web and stand-alone) and I am conversant with such programming languages as C#, Java and PHP and Database Systems such as Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle and MySQL. I am skilled in the use of Microsoft Visual Studio, Adobe Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and a bit of Flash. Kevin Ebuehi: Assistant OLCD I am currently working as an Assistant Online Course Developer at the Portsmouth Business School. Providing support to staff and students through the use of the Victory Portal as a means of enhancing the learning experience for students and a forum for lecturers to share knowledge to each individual student. I was previously a student and part time Service Delivery Adviser catering to the Information Technology demand of the students here in the UoP.

4. Use of Simulations in Teaching Accounting & Finance PBS eLearning Team Developments 9 4 New Recruitment & Option Choice Sites The SimVenture Business Simulation SimVenture Screenshots: Scenario/Running the Month Rachel Short: Educational Technologist The design and deployment of the test platform for the PBS ‘Virtual Student Placements Centre’ within Second Life (SL) has proven to be fairly successful. This became our first key project within SL and my area of focus for the next few weeks will also encompass the potential for a Virtual Recruitment Centre (VRC) within the virtual world. Elements of the VRC will be developed by a postgraduate student with resources and land management/ real estate being sourced and allocated from the Faculty of Technology via the existing UoP Island in SL. • SimVenture allows the user to make monthly decisions on a range off issues. • The game is then run to see the impact that these choices have on outputs such as: • Sales • Enquiries • Cash Flow • Profits. There will be a Victory presence with a number of screencasts and podcasts to support the Faculty Preview and Open Days. The VRC will be designed subsequent to a client needs analysis and with collaboration from staff working directly in this area. Initial materials and the creation of learning objects will focus on HRMM and SBS. Virtual Open Days will make use of MS PowerPoint with Camtasia Studio and/or Relay to illustrate guidance on video presentations detailing the nature of the student experience within PBS. The intention is to embed all of these resources within a virtual building to be created within SL. The main aim is to complete the project cycle for a presence across all five departments by the end of June 2011. For further information concerning this major project for 2012, please contact the team directly: eteam@port.ac.uk. Mandy McCartney: Online Course Developer The start of this academic session has proven to be particularly busy for staff and student requests related to the VLE. One of my main projects has been to create an Online Options Fayre site for the department of Human Resource and Marketing Management. Poor attendance at physical options fayres in past years was the driver for the creation of a virtual Options Fayre, where students can learn about their options via a VLE site from any location. I am working closely with Becky Quew-Jones to make the site as attractive and user friendly as possible - our main aim being to encourage the students to engage with the site and to feel that they are able to make the right option choices. The VLE site pages are being designed using Adobe Dreamweaver, and by utilising CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). This improves the design, structure and functionality of the site from a standard Victory template, and creates more of a ‘web page’ feel. It is currently a work in progress and will be ready to ‘go-live’ by the end of October.

5. Use of Simulations in Teaching Accounting & Finance Mobile Learning and Virtual Learning Environments 5 8 PBS Learning Support Plan The SimVenture Business Simulation Screenshots of SimVenture David Starkey: LTC (Operations) The Learning Support Team has gained four new staff members and lost one since the last issue. Many of you will know that Anthony Harrison has left the faculty to work for DCQE. We wish Ant well as an Online Course Developer over at St. Andrews Court. A replacement Media Producer will be sought. Happily, the team can now congratulate our Educational Technologist Rachel Short on completing her MSc in Creative Technologies and Enterprise with a distinction – very well done! • PBS Learning Support Operational Plan • Our new developer team will be working on a range of projects over the next year, along with some day-to-day site development. Additionally, Rachel and Mandy will be involved in other projects. All projects are being managed, and work allocated, via the Zoho Projects service. New projects, such as course portal requests, will be actioned via a new Adobe LiveCycle process. For more on this, see page 10. • Projects for PBS Learning Support Team (2010–2011) • Major projects will include: • Victory Portals for a range of (often DL) courses requested by departments • Virtual option fayres for Accounting & Finance & Economics • A Virtual Recruitment Centre in both the VLE and Second Life • The Introduction of Xerte for the authoring of distance learning courses • Introduction of QuestionMark Perception into PBS (starting with training) • Roll out of Camtasia Relay and the Camtasia Studio 7 & Snagit 10 Bundle. • A New Portal for PBS Learning Support so staff can find information easily. • A project plan has been created for Victory development that matches the completion of the portals to the planned 2012 revalidation events. The new development team will be available during the slot allocated to your portal or course-based unit sites. They will be available to help you turn your learning materials into learning objects that can as easily be displayed in a future VLE as they can be in Victory. We hope this slot allocation system will maximise the effectiveness of the new development team, and give you a professional service.

6. Simulating a Real World Learning Experience Simulating a Real World Learning Experience 7 6 Educating Executives By Playing Games! The ‘SimVenture’ Business Game ‘SimVenture’: A Business Simulation Game You play the role of an individual who has a full time job, but has decided to manufacture and sell computers in his/her part-time. As the business expands it is necessary to give up the ‘full time’ job and to acquire new premises. It is possible to choose to operate in one from a number of markets and it is important to identify the value propositions that are of key importance for the market segments that you choose to compete in. This then informs the design of the product and the development of the marketing strategy. After a relatively short period of time, particularly if you start producing and are not generating sales, it is likely that the player will find that cash is draining away from the company. The teams will realise that it is now time to raise finance, but they may find banks and others unwilling to lend or invest unless proper financial controls are in place. In the Department of Accounting and Finance, we are going to use this simulation on one of our MSc courses in the first semester of the coming year. The idea is to use it as a means to integrate material taught on three of the four taught units and as an icebreaker during induction. Each business will be run by a group of 4 or 5 students. The game can be used on four levels, easy, medium, difficult and fiendish and we will run the simulation on the ‘easy’ or ‘medium’ levels. The suppliers of SimVenture consider that ‘difficult’ very accurately reflects true market conditions, while ‘fiendish’ provides hours of entertainment for true SimVenture enthusiasts from across the world. We anticipate using SimVenture on the undergraduate accounting degree, though possibly next year as a key integrative part of the first year. For information, pages eight and nine include some screenshots of SimVenture with the main decision areas that can be considered for each month of trading. The game is available on the PBS network, so if you want to have a go at the game, go to: start/academic applications/PBS/Simventure. If you want more information then refer to: Bruce Bowhill: Principal Lecturer (ACCFIN) In this article I will briefly discuss why you might want to use a business game, and introduce two new business games/ simulations that have been acquired by PBS. Why Use a Business Game? “What I hear, I forget. What I see, I remember. What I do, I understand”....Confucius (circa 4th century BC) ‘SimVenture’ is I think a pretty impressive bit of software. With this simulation, there is no competition between teams, however surviving a year without bankruptcy is probably challenging enough! The business is a start up company making computers. As many of you will know from experience, when a traditional lecture plus seminar approach has been followed, and you ask students to explain what has been covered in previous weeks, the response can sometimes be underwhelming! As an alternative or supplement, provide the students with the results of their last decision in a business game and ask a question such as ‘why has your team generated the lowest profit of any of the teams and run out of stock’ and my own experience is that you can be pleasantly surprised. A business game or simulation can provide a laboratory in which students can actually apply theory to practice and learn from mistakes and successes in a way that traditional approaches may fail to achieve. New Business Games/Simulations PBS has recently acquired or used two new business simulations software packages. The first is called ‘SimVenture,’ which has been purchased with a licence for 30 users, and the second is ‘Executive’ which was first used by the MBA programme last year, and is on licence for one more year. The ‘Executive’ Motor Industry Simulation ‘Executive’ was used on the MBA programme last year and will be used again this year. This game involves teams of students competing against each other in a simulation of the car industry. Over a five year period (five sets of decisions must be made) teams will make decisions on strategic, marketing, operational and financial decisions for a company in the UK car industry. For accounting and finance issues, the game is useful in underpinning the necessity for planning and budgeting, as a lack of such activity will lead to teams making annual decisions that could have long term financial implications. The game is not available for use outside the MBA programme at present. http://www.simventure.co.uk/?q=lz&page=resources