MyKnowledgeMap News

Discover how to add the personal touch to your e-learning at Learning Technologies 2010

Michael Stuart — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Learning Technologies 2010 will feature a brand new seminar hosted by MyKnowledgeMap entitled ‘How to add the personal touch to your off-the-shelf training’.

The seminar will explain how MyKnowledgeMap’s authoring tool, Compendle, can be used to personalise and modify a range of training content from prestigious organisations like Video Arts and CMI. The seminar will also share tips and tricks about how you can create, manage and deliver effective e-learning courses. It will be lead by Tom Holland, MyKnowledgeMap’s Director of Marketing and Communications.

The Learning Technologies Exhibition and Conference is Europe's leading showcase of the technology used to support learning at work. Learning Technologies 2010 will be open on Wednesday and Thursday this week at London's Olympia 2 Conference and Exhibition Centre.

This year’s event has attracted 130 exhibitors, with over 4,000 visitors and 400 conference delegates expected to attend. There will be 120 free seminars across eight theatres on the exhibition floors.

Mark Penton, the event organiser, said: "2010 will be an important year for the learning industry. Businesses know that they need to invest in learning and look for ways to improve it and, now that there is potentially an improving economic outlook, the L&D community is keen to keep pace with change."

MyKnowledgeMap will be exhibiting at stand 70 at Learning Technologies 2010.

MyKnowledgeMap secures funding from JISC for e-portfolio system

Michael Stuart — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

MyKnowledgeMap has recently received funding from JISC to build LEAP2A import and export functionality into our e-portfolio system Multi-Port.

The functionality will be added to the ALPS (Assessment and Learning in Practice Settings) implementation of Multi-Port. ALPS is an award-winning mobile assessment system which allows tutors to create and send structured assessments to mobile devices of students on work-based practice.

The LEAP2A specification has been developed to support interoperability and portability of information between e-portfolio tools and similar systems. The functionality will allow students on the ALPS system to export and import their e-portfolio content for use in other LEAP2A compatible systems, encouraging lifelong learning for students.

Becky Mallett, MyKnowledgeMap’s Technical Services Director, said: “We are really excited to have secured this funding from JISC. This will give us the chance to fully embrace open standards for Multi-Port.”

MyKnowledgeMap plans to extend this LEAP2A work and roll it out to existing implementations of the Multi-Port system, including:

Foundation Degree in Retail installation of Multi-Port
Leeds University Medical School
FE colleges using Multi-Port through a MoleNET project
European Initiative for the Promotion of Informal Learning

Multi-Port grew out of work-based and competency-based assessment systems for qualifications developed by MyKnowledgeMap. These were created with partners such as Foundation Degree Forward, leading Higher Education institutions, Edexcel and other awarding bodies, and sector skills bodies developing NVQs.

JISC supports UK post-16 and higher education & research by providing leadership in the use of Information and Communications Technology in support of learning, teaching, research and administration. JISC is funded by all the UK post-16 and higher education funding councils.

MyKnowledgeMap launches new iPhone application

Michael Stuart — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT

MyKnowledgeMap has launched its first iPhone application - a skills assessment tool for managers on the go.

MySkills offers managers a quick and easy way to identify their strengths and weaknesses. It contains skill areas based on UK government management standards which can be tailored to different kinds of management jobs. Users take assessments relevant to their job role and the application creates reports showing their skills gaps.

“Even though we've been involved in a number of high profile projects involving mobile technologies, iPhone applications are a brand new area for MyKnowledgeMap,” said Dave Waller, MyKnowledgeMap's Product Manager. “We are very excited to be moving into this emerging, innovative market and already working on our next app so watch this space.”

MySkills is based on Capability Matrix, a fully customisable capability management system which helps organisations identify skills gaps and target training to the people and departments who need it most. Capability Matrix is currently being used for a range of innovative solutions for clients such as NHS and CIPD.

MyKnowledgeMap has also launched a new website, mkmapps, which will feature all of MyKnowledgeMap’s upcoming iPhone applications. MySkills costs £1.19 and is available through mkmapps or directly from the iTunes store.

Mobile learning project wins at Handheld Learning Awards

Michael Stuart — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 23:00:00 GMT

Assessment and Learning in Practice Settings (ALPS), a collaborative programme between five Yorkshire Universities, has won the 'Innovation Award' in the Tertiary, FE & HE category at the 2009 Handheld Learning Awards. The award was given for a ALPS’ work on a mobile assessment and e-portfolio system to support Health and Social Care students on work-based practice.

This year’s theme was ‘Creativity, Innovation, Inclusion & Transformation’ recognising that 2009 is the European year of creativity and innovation. Winners were announced at the evening awards party on Monday 5th October.

Now in its fifth year, the event has become the largest of its kind. It brings together thought leaders, innovators, practitioners, developers, policy and decision makers from the education, technology and entertainment sectors.

MyKnowledgeMap worked with T-Mobile and mobile software specialist ecommnet to create the mobile assessment and e-portfolio system for ALPS. The system supports the creation, distribution and storing of assessment tools on mobile devices. It allows tutors to create assessments based around core health and social care competencies and send them to the devices of students on work-based practice.

The ALPS project has also recently been nominated for the 'Best use of mobile learning' award at the e-Learning Awards 2009.

Vote for the ALPS project to win at Handheld Learning Awards 2009

Michael Stuart — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 23:00:00 GMT

The ALPS project has been nominated for the 'Innovation Award' in the Tertiary, FE & HE category at the 2009 Handheld Learning Awards. This follows the recent nomination for the ALPS project for the 'Best use of mobile learning' award at the e-Learning Awards 2009.

There are five categories at the 2009 Handheld Learning Awards plus a special award:

Primary
Secondary
Further and Tertiary
Training and Business
Special Needs

Votes can be sent by SMS by texting ALPS to +44 7786 205 637. SMS charges vary according to operator but this is a non-premium rate service so your contract may include free SMS. The deadline for voting is midnight UK time on Monday 28th September.

Winners will be announced at the now legendary evening awards party on Monday 5th October. This year's Awards will be hosted by Jason Bradbury.

The ALPS project is a service platform allowing tutors at five Yorkshire Universities to send assessments and supporting materials to the mobile devices of Health and Social Care students on work-based practice.

The ALPS mobile devices encourage reflective learning, as students are required to gather feedback from practice assessors, peers, service users and carers. When an assessment is uploaded to a student’s e-portfolio, the competency frameworks within the ALPS Assessment Suite allow the tutor to map the skills the student has demonstrated against interprofessional and profession-specific performance criteria.

The project has already been of benefit to hundreds of students, and there is huge scope to improve work-based learning and assessment for much greater numbers if ALPS processes and outputs are embedded when the programme comes to an end in September 2010.

For more information about the awards visit http://www.handheldlearning2009.com/awards.

MyKnowledgeMap and ALPS nominated for ‘Best use of mobile learning’ award at e-Learning Awards 2009

Michael Stuart — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 23:00:00 GMT

MyKnowledgeMap and Assessment and Learning in Practice Settings (ALPS) have been shortlisted for the national 2009 e-Learning Awards for their joint submission in the ‘Best use of mobile learning’ category.

We have been shortlisted for the ALPS system, a service platform allowing tutors at five Yorkshire Universities to send assessments and supporting materials to the mobile devices of Health and Social Care students on work-based practice.

The e-Learning Awards are organised annually by e.learning age, the national magazine for learning organisations and the eLearning network, the UK’s foremost professional association for users and developers of e-learning. This is the first year that the ‘Best use of mobile learning’ category has appeared at the Awards.

The awards ceremony is to be held in London in November and looks set to be the learning industry’s most glitzy and glamorous event of the year, celebrating the best that the industry has to offer.

We are delighted to have been shortlisted for this prestigious e-learning award which serves as welcome recognition of our innovation and excellence within the field of e-learning.

MyKnowledgeMap partner with Video Arts to create exciting new digital training offering

Michael Stuart — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:00:00 GMT

MyKnowledgeMap are teaming up with Video Arts to offer exciting new training opportunities.

The offering involves incorporating Video Arts’ rich library of training videos into MyKnowledgeMap’s rapid e-learning tool Compendle. This offers benefits both to customers of Compendle and Video Arts. Compendle customers will be able to enrich their e-learning topics with Video Arts training videos at the click of a button. Video Arts customers will have much more flexibility in how they use the videos by utilising Compendle’s user-friendly e-learning authoring functionality.

Rob Arntsen, CEO of MyKnowledgeMap, said:

“We are delighted to be working with Video Arts to offer brand new training opportunities. By offering Compendle with Video Arts’ library of cutting edge training videos, we build on both our respective strengths and can offer rapid e-learning functionality which is truly unique.”

The Video Arts library contains topics covering all areas of business – everything from customer service to managing tasks to attitude and motivation. Each video is provided as a bite-size learning chapter which Compendle customers will be able to use and reuse as much as they want.

This is the first offering of its kind involving Video Arts materials – they have not been integrated previously with any other rapid e-learning tools. Initially, these special Compendle accounts will be offered to FE institutions and delivered as a site licence.

MyKnowledgeMap and Video Arts previously worked together in 2001 when MyKnowledgeMap repurposed Video Arts e-learning for CD-ROM.

MyKnowledgeMap e-portfolio chosen for European informal learning initiative

Michael Stuart — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:00:00 GMT

The members of a European initiative to accredit informal learning in the workplace have agreed to use MyKnowledgeMap's e-portfolio solution to support it.

This week, MyKnowledgeMap attended a meeting in Athens with the other EIPIL-PAN partners to discuss the proposed e-portfolio solution. MyKnowledgeMap’s e-portfolio was accepted by all partners.

MyKnowledgeMap's e-portfolio will support the implementation of a single framework to accredit informal learning in the retail, hospitality and IT sectors.

The EIPIL partners are MRS Consultancy, K.Kampanis and CO LP, Asset Technology, Cluster of Multimedia and Information Systems Association, Economic and Social Training Institute, The Retail Academy, MyKnowledgeMap, European Institute for E-Learning (EIfEL) and European Institute for Technology in Education.

The EIPIL-PAN project is funded under the European Commission's Lifelong Learning Programme from October 2008 to September 2010.

The European Initiative for the Promotion of Informal Learning (EIPIL) has been created from the Leonardo Da Vinci Pilot Project INFLOW – Informal Learning Opportunities in the workplace. The overall co-ordinator of post-project activities under EIPIL is The MRS Consultancy Ltd UK.

To learn more please visit the EIPIL-PAN website.

MyKnowledgeMap supply tools for “biggest reform of Scotland’s education system in a generation”

Michael Stuart — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 23:00:00 GMT

Today saw the launch of Scotland’s National Assessment Resource by Keith Brown, Minister for Schools and Skills. MyKnowledgeMap, in conjunction with Intrallect, a Scottish based learning digital repository provider, has been selected to supply the suite of tools for Scotland’s National Assessment Resource by Learning and Teaching Scotland and the Scottish Qualifications Authority. Mr Brown described the National Assessment Resource as “a vital contribution to the biggest reform of Scotland’s education system in a generation”.

The National Assessment Resource is a system to support teachers by providing a store of assessment resources and a suite of tools for the development of new resources. MyKnowledgeMap and Intrallect have worked together on several major projects including similar national resources for the NHS.

Rob Arntsen, CEO of MyKnowledgeMap, said:

"This will be an exciting joint development between Intrallect and MyKnowledgeMap that builds on our respective strengths. The outcome will be world leading solution that will have wide relevance in a global market".

Charles Duncan, CEO of Intrallect, said:

“We are excited to be able to apply our vast experience in providing education communities with tools to support teachers in creating, reviewing, enhancing and, most of all, sharing digital resources. We recognise the importance of this system as part of a coherent infrastructure for assessment within the Curriculum for Excellence and look forward to having a positive impact on the education of our young people.

In technology terms, the National Assessment Resource will be using the most modern web-based approaches that build flexibility for the future and, through our use of internationally recognised standards, an ability to work with many other technologies as they evolve.”

MyKnowledgeMap discuss using e-portfolios to support work-based degrees at ePortfolio conference 2009

Michael Stuart — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 23:00:00 GMT

MyKnowledgeMap ran a workshop at ePortfolio conference 2009 aimed at discussing how e-portfolios can support large, multi-partner learning programmes delivered nationally.

The workshop, entitled 'An e-Portfolio to Support Work-Based Degrees: the UK Experience', presented a practical exploration of the technical challenges that MyKnowledgeMap faced in creating an infrastructure to support the cross-institution, employer-focused Foundation Degree in Retail.

It included hands on demonstrations of some of the technologies we used and developed for the course, and took participants through the process of authoring new assessment materials. It also covered how mobile technologies are now supporting the work-based e-portfolio.

The workshop was presented by MyKnowledgeMap's CEO, Rob Arntsen, and Director of Marketing and Communications, Tom Holland.

The Learning Forum London and ePortfolio 2009 event brings together policy-makers, researchers, teachers, trainers, human resource managers and technologists. As a thematic event it allows an in-depth and broad exploration of the issues and results in real outcomes.

MyKnowledgeMap sponsor Learning Forum ePortfolio conference 2009

Michael Stuart — Tue, 19 May 2009 23:00:00 GMT

MyKnowledgeMap is a platinum sponsor of the Learning Forum ePortfolio conference 2009 covering ‘Innovation, Creativity and Accountability’.

The conference, now in its 7th year, takes place as part of a larger Learning Forum event at City University in London. The event runs from 22nd to 24th June and contains three conferences:

ePortfolio 2009
Key Competencies—Skills for Life 2009
Learning Networks and Communities

Past events have resulted in the creation of national and international networks, contribution to policies, contribution to standardisation bodies, and numerous publications.

MyKnowledgeMap will exhibit a number of e-portfolio systems at the conference, including:

The passport and upskilling platform that records personal learning and development for the National Skills Academy for Nuclear and the National Skills Academy Process Industries.
The e-portfolio and cohort management solution for the Foundation Degree in Retail which has been rolled out on a national scale after a successful pilot by Tesco.
Multi-Port, which is currently being given to all FE colleges on the MoLeNET system. MoLeNET is the UK’s, and probably the world’s, largest and most diverse implementation of mobile learning.

A number of MyKnowledgeMap’s partners will also be exhibiting at the conference.

Gareth Frith, Technology Enhanced Learning Manager, of Leeds University will be running a session regarding the £1m government-funded ALPS project. The project uses mobile assessment technologies to support the skills of healthcare students from five Yorkshire universities out on practice. MyKnowledgeMap built the full mobile deployment infrastructure including cohort management and e-portfolio system.

Learn more about the Learning Forum ePortfolio conference 2009.

MyKnowledgeMap paper published in Journal of Workplace Learning

Michael Stuart — Mon, 04 May 2009 23:00:00 GMT

Dave Waller, MyKnowledgeMap’s Operations Director, and Tom Holland, Communications Director, have had a paper published in the most recent Journal of Workplace Learning.

The paper, entitled 'Managing skills and knowledge using online tools', draws on MyKnowledgeMap's experience working with a range of organisations across the private and public sectors. It explores the structured approach to measuring skills and knowledge and how such an approach can be beneficial for improving performance.

The paper also examines how online tools can help with measuring skills and the wider implications for the UK and European skills development environments. It concludes that, by developing online tools to guide organisations through the process of mapping and measuring skills and targeting skills gaps, organisations will be able to better support their strategic aims.

The Journal of Workplace Learning aims to provide an avenue for the presentation and discussion of research related to the workplace as a site for learning. Its scope encompasses formal, informal and incidental learning in the workplace for individuals, groups and teams, as well as work-based learning, and off-the-job learning for the workplace.

The paper can be viewed online at Emerald Insight.

National Skills Academy Process Industries to launch online members’ area at National Skills Conference

Michael Stuart — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 23:00:00 GMT

The new members’ area of the National Skills Academy Process Industries website will be launched at the National Skills Conference on 30th April.

The conference, which takes place at York Racecourse, aims to address the skills issues facing the UK process industries and will include a range of high profile speakers, keynote speeches, and workshop sessions.

The new members’ area was created by MyKnowledgeMap as part of the ongoing development of the Academy website. It features a range of free benefits for both employers and employees working in process industries:

Access to relevant industry resources
The Good Small Business Guide e-book
Discussion forums
A free Skills Passport

The members’ area also features a section for training providers to add process industry related courses so members can be directed to appropriate training in their area.

MyKnowledgeMap will be exhibiting at the National Skills Conference and helping to show delegates the new features and functionality of the site.

The National Skills Academy Process Industries is an employer-led centre of excellence launched to tackle skills issues throughout the chemical, polymer, pharmaceutical manufacturing sectors.

MyKnowledgeMap discuss how best to use resources at repository conference

Michael Stuart — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT

MyKnowledgeMap discussed the creation and reusability of resources in repositories at the ‘Open educational repositories: share, improve, reuse’ conference, held in Edinburgh.

Our presentation, entitled ‘Integrating Creation Tools’ was made by Tom Holland, MyKnowledgeMap’s Marketing and Communications Director, and Jonny Burton, Compendle Product Manager.

The presentation covered using tools specifically designed to take advantage of a repository-focused workflow and the potential “re-usability” of existing resources.

The conference was organised by Intrallect and attended by educational organisations such as JISC, the National Digital Library Repository, and Kennisnet, the Dutch equivalent of Becta.

Jonny Burton said: "This year’s conference gave us a good opportunity to present our National Library for Health solution and sparked some interesting debate over the two days."

MyKnowledgeMap have worked with Intrallect to transform the National Library for Health (NLH) into a powerful and flexible solution, powered by Intrallect’s repository system IntraLibrary.

By integrating Compendle with the underlying IntraLibrary system, the NLH it is now able to offer people a quick and easy way to seek health-related knowledge and find the information they need.

MyKnowledgeMap announce company restructure

Michael Stuart — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT

MyKnowledgeMap is restructuring as part of a new business strategy to reposition ourselves as a more powerful learning technology company. The new strategy will see MyKnowledgeMap focusing on:

Ensuring essential support to partners and clients is provided
Seeking out and nurturing new business opportunities
Optimising our day-to-day operations

Dave Waller, MyKnowledgeMap’s Director of Operations, said: “Given the scale of some of the national projects we're working on, we believe it is more important than ever to ensure our products are developed in line with our partners’ and clients’ strategic requirements. The new company restructure will give us an opportunity to focus our attention where it’s needed most.”

The company has been divided into three teams: Technical Services, Operations, and Marketing and Communications.

Technical Services, led by Becky Mallett, will be responsible for managing the development of MyKnowledgeMap’s products and services.

The Operations team, led by Dave Waller, will be responsible for overall management of all MyKnowledgeMap products, design, and project support.

Marketing and Communications, led by Tom Holland, will be responsible for MyKnowledgeMap’s product marketing strategy and developing partner relationships.

New National Skills Academy for Process Industries website launched

Michael Stuart — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT

The new National Skills Academy for Process Industries (NSAPI) website, designed by MyKnowledgeMap, has been launched. MyKnowledgeMap completely redesigned the site to create a more intuitive and user-friendly experience.

The new NSAPI site is based on our bespoke academy infrastructure and tailored specifically to the needs of the process industries. The new structure includes a new conference website, RSS feeds, animated PDF brochures, and the ability for NSAPI staff to update content quickly and easily.

MyKnowledgeMap have become the first port of call for people who need to provide learning and skills support to entire sectors. Our previous work includes designing the Food and Drink Academy website.

NSAPI is an employer-led centre of excellence launched to address skills and training needs throughout the chemical, polymer, pharmaceutical manufacturing sectors.

The National Skills Academy network is a unique structure of employer-led centres of excellence for skills training. It provides an avenue for hands-on involvement by employers in the design and delivery of learning, so that training is tailored to the specific needs, and the prosperity, of their sector.

Website: http://process.nsacademy.co.uk/

MyKnowledgeMap discuss 'how to break free of the LMS' at Learning Technologies conference 2009

Michael Stuart — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT

This years Learning Technologies conference saw Tom Holland, MyKnowledgeMap's Director of Communications, conducting a popular seminar entitled ‘Really Managing e-Learning: Breaking Free of the LMS’. During the seminar, Dr Holland discussed how to get more flexibility than is currently offered from the “monolithic” learning management system (LMS) platform.

He said: “People increasingly expect to access the same content via mobiles, laptops, print-on-demand, or on takeaway storage media. Learners need to be able to break out of your LMS’s walled garden and learn on the move.”

He moved on to discuss how multi-platform learning could be cost-effective and introduced MyKnowledgeMap’s mobile assessment product Multi-Port Mobile as an example. The award-winning Multi-Port Mobile offers a complete infrastructure for managing online and offline assessments using mobile devices.

The Learning Technologies conference took place between 28th and 29th January 2009 at the Olympia 2 Conference Centre in London. Now in its tenth year, the conference attracts many of the world's leading learning speakers, thinkers, visionaries and practitioners and over 350 conference delegates.

MyKnowledgeMap developing e-portfolio for European informal learning initiative

Michael Stuart — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

MyKnowledgeMap is teaming up with the Retail Academy, MRS Consultancy, and EIfEL (European Institute for E-Learning) to provide the e-portfolio system for a European initiative seeking to promote the recognition, validation and accreditation of informal learning in the workplace.

Most learning in the workplace occurs informally through working with other employees, clients, customers, suppliers and reacting positively to their feedback. Much of this learning goes unrecognised by the employer and also by the individuals themselves.

The European Initiative for the Promotion of Informal Learning (EIPIL-PAN) seeks to help employers recognise the value of informal learning in the workplace and develop a framework within which it can be accredited. MyKnowledgeMap and the Retail Academy are partnering with MRS Consultancy EIfEL to provide the e-portfolio to support the implementation of a single framework which accredits informal learning in the retail and IT sectors.

The first phase of the EIPIL-PAN project was completed in 2007 where a simple framework was developed and trialled with a number of companies across France, Germany, Latvia, Spain, Sweden and the UK as part of a Leonardo da Vinci project. The companies involved, all of which were from the tourism and hospitality sectors, identified the significant impact informal learning had on their business performance as well as other benefits.

This current phase of the project is to adapt and transfer the original model, framework and instruments to new sectors such as retail and IT. This will extend both the concepts and implementation of the validation and accreditation methodologies developed under the first phase and will incorporate managerial competencies as well as those of other workers.

The project is funded under the European Commission's Lifelong Learning Programme from October 2008 to September 2010.

EIfEL is an independent, not-for-profit European professional association whose mission is to support organisations, communities and individuals in building a knowledge economy. It also seeks to create a learning society through innovative and reflective practice, continuing professional development and the use of knowledge, information and learning technologies.

To learn more, please visit the EIPIL-PAN website.

New MyKnowledgeMap website launched

Michael Stuart — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

The MyKnowledgeMap website has undergone a major facelift. The site has been completely redesigned and now offers a much better representation of the broad spectrum of our work in a more dynamic and appealing way.

The site is now structured in a way which makes it easier to navigate and which better directs clients, both current and prospective, to the information they need. The site has also been redesigned to make it more aesthetically pleasing, both in colour and in layout.

We believe the new site will open up even more opportunities for MyKnowledgeMap and give people the chance to see the quality and quantity of our work.

Rapid e-learning functionality now available in Compendle

Michael Stuart — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

MyKnowledgeMap’s flagship product Compendle now includes rapid course authoring functionality. The new component is called Compendle Author and has been designed to allow tutors, trainers, and anyone with an interest in e-learning to create professional-standard e-learning content quickly and easily.

Author uses simple drag-and-drop functionality and an intuitive, user-friendly interface. All it takes to get started is choosing a layout and a number of slides. Text, audio, video and image components can be incorporated instantly to create engaging, interactive and personalised e-learning content.

Any content created in Author can be edited easily at a later date by returning to the editing suite to make alterations and amendments. A preview function allows users to look at the e-learning from the perspective of their learners.

With a Compendle account, users can package their e-learning with custom-made assessments and additional learning resources. Please visit the Compendle website for more information.