Barbara Morris Prize for Learning Support

Les Walczowski, Senior Lecturer, and Mark Ellis, IT Manager, in the Department of Electronics have been awarded the 2008 Barbara Morris Prize for Learning Support.Building on previous work undertaken in this area, Les and Mark have created a new student learning portal based on Microsoft Sharepoint technology. This portal allows customised views for staff and students and provides essential course materials and information. Furthermore, this portal allows students to submit coursework and engage in discussion groups and trawl module blogs and wikis to assist in their studies.
Part of the development cycle has seen the creation of a customised SMS service to relay information to students in a contemporary manner. Some of this code is now used to provide the new central University SMS service. This has been a key part in the Department’s e-learning provision allowing students to get the most from courses regardless of where they choose to study.