Innovacion

Croydon and Gatwick: Competitive Opportunities and Risk

For Croydon Council Innovacion is considering the strategic options and issues in developing the functional relationship between Croydon and Gatwick including its economic hinterland. Risks to Croydon’s attraction and retention of firms were considered along with its sectoral strengths and the required supporting infrastructure.

How Manchester halved the number of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) in four years

Manchester has halved the number of young people not in employment, education or training (NEET) in just four years through detailed geographical research of the incidence and nature of the NEET group, by recruiting a dedicated NEET co-ordinator and developing a multi-agency NEET programme as part of their Children's Board.  By aligning funding from a number of sources and through joint commissioning a range of NEET engagement and aspiration raising activities has been undertaken with young people and specifically the five secondary schools that produce the highest number of NEET pupils.

Read more in Innovacion's case study in IDeA's Partnership and Places library

How Waltham Forest's Worknet Partnership is integrating the delivery of employment and skill interventions

Worklessness remains a major issue in Waltham Forest and a focus for action by the LSP and in the LAA.  Local services were fragmented and the response was unstrategic.  The Worknet Partnership concept was developed in 2005/6 but was only able to be taken forward following an independent review of LSP in 2006 and with the availability of City Strategy funding from Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Worknet provides advice, training and job brokerage support.  Worknet involves the development of 32 single access points across the Borough staffed by Worknet Advisers from six different organisations and backed by a customised web-based software system.  An innovative pilot project with Registered Social Landlords has also been started.  While it is still early days procurement has already become more coherent, the delivery structure has become more joined up and some initial value for money improvements have been achieved.

Read more in Innovacion's case study in IDeA's Partnership and Places library

Atkins and Innovacion secure £5.9 million from LSC for Olympic Construction Training Centre

Since March 2007 Atkins and Innovacion have been retained to provide a wide range of advisory and professional services to bring forward and develop a Construction Training Centre on a site in Leyton funded by Waltham Forest Council and the London Development Agency with support from the Olympic Delivery Authority, Learning and Skills Council and Construction Skills.  Ths work culminated with the LSC approving an in principle application for £5.9 million in capital funds to develop the construction training centre.  Services have included:

• Detailed appraisal of four options and five year business plan including funding review
• Project management and flexible client support
• Market review and specification development including consultations with over 20 partners
• Prospectus development and procurement support through three stage Competitive Dialogue
• Design work and all aspects of planning applications for both initial temporary training facility and 3,600 sq m of permanent facilities
• Successful Olympic National Skills Academy for Construction bid which secured £6 million in LSC capital funding for development of training centre.

Innovacion to advise London Development Agency on the Integration of Train to Gain and Business Support services

Innovacion were appointed to advise the London Development Agency on the development and selection of a preferred model for an integrated brokerage system for business and skills that will be operational from April 2009.  The study involved market analysis, performance review, consultation with the Business Support Simplification Programme team (BSSP) at BERR/DIUS, options analysis and detailed analysis of preferred option.

Is E-Learning Delivering?

Electronic provision of education.
E-learning involves the provision of education via interactive, electronic means. It usually involves the delivery of training material via a computer and over. An e-learning system will typically consist of: a learner management system (LMS) which replicates the administration role; learning content or courseware within a Learning Content Management System (LCMS) which guides students through the material; monitoring tools that allows tutor to provide feedback and undertake marking; and tools for developing courseware. A range of benefits are suggested:
• Training can be tailored to meet a range of learning needs
• E-learning is cheaper than classroom learning
• Employees are able to learn faster
• Greater customer retention where employees learn improved support skills
• Flexible study time for individuals
• Self-paced learning
• Effective monitoring of student performance

Despite high growth forecasts success has been patchy. The e-learning market includes learner management systems, course content suppliers and software companies’ online guides. Forrester estimate the learner management system market will grow at annual rate of 22% from $450 million in 2003 to reach $1 billion in 2007. Datamonitor predict that the global e-learning market for higher education will grow by 12% per annum to reach $1.9 billion by 2008.  However, while Forrester found that only 15% of respondents who had implemented an e-learning system were satisfied with it, 75% still planned to invest in the technology.

About to turn the corner?
While early e-learning systems were first developed in the 1970s, the explosion of the Internet in the 1990s created huge interest and huge hype. Universities developed electronic courseware (e.g. Open University) and companies re-engineered their training departments (e.g. Unipart). However, “irrational exuberance” resulted in some spectacular failures. The UK’s public funded e-learning university (UKeU) which aimed to attract foreign students to online courses at UK universities was scrapped in May 2004 at a cost to the public purse of £62 million.  After one year the UKeU had attracted just 900 students at a cost of £44,000/student.  The Commons Committee enquiry into the failure has noted a lack of market research, inadequate marketing activity, too much expenditure on technology (£14 million) rather than on content and a failure to learn lessons from similar failed experiments in the US.  But the increasing availability of higher bandwidth internet connections is reinvigorating the e-learning sector. The main suppliers are universities and business schools, specialist e-learning vendors and mainstream technology companies who have added LMS to their products.

Future directions.
In the future E-learning is predicted to provide:
• Varied teaching styles. Teaching methods will vary to suit an individual’s preference for visual (e.g. diagrams) or auditory learning (e.g. spoken word).
• Student centred learning.  Individuals will be able to design their own syllabus.
• Contextual learning.  The leaner is profiled in relation to their work context and progression.  Further learning is based on their individual requirements.