SIMPLE - Simulations for Professional Learning

Abstract

The SIMPLE project is part of JISC's E-Learning Innovation programme. The project will create the second iteration of an environment for professional learning – an open-source, open-standards transactional learning environment – and will engage in large-scale evaluation of this environment. Professional and vocational courses are taken by well over 50% of the full-time undergraduate population in UK Higher Education: SIMPLE has the potential to enhance such courses, and deepen the professional experience of students through the use of simulations based on authentic professional transactions. Our project will design and specify the open-source, open-standards version of an already-existing environment currently in use in the Glasgow Graduate School of Law (involving a fictional Scottish town on the web called Ardcalloch); implement it across several disciplines within the University of Strathclyde (Architecture, Social Work, Law), and across five law schools (at the universities of Glamorgan, Glasgow, Stirling, Warwick, and West of England); evaluate student learning and staff experience within the transactions and environments created by staff, and disseminate the results of the evaluations.