project

The EdReNe thematic network held their 4th strategic seminar on repositories of learning resources in Barcelona from 24-26 March. EdReNe brings together people responsible for European webbased repositories with content owners and other stakeholders within education. This seminar explored EdReNe’s overall themes: which repository strategies work, how do we engage users and producers, which are the relevant standards to ensure interoperability, and how do members address the complex handling of intellectual property rights.

It also provided an opportunity to launch the next stage of EdReNe's life as an independent network and about 80 people attended including many of the associated members of which ATiT is one. For more information about the interesting work EdReNe is doing including their recently published series of synthesis reports, visit the EdReNe website.

The November edition of the Re.ViCa newsletter is now available.

Highlights this month include:

• a presentation of the Re.ViCa Handbook which is about to be published and a sneak preview of its contents
• an overview of the collaborative work carried out by the Re.ViCa International Advisory Committee and the growing network of experts contributing to the virtual campus wiki
• a summary of the current status of the Open University of Japan by International Expert Dr. Kumiko Aoki
• introductions to several experts in the field; David Porter (BCcampus, Canada), Em. Prof. Terry Mayes (Glasgow Caledonian University, UK) and Em. Prof. Gajaraj Dhanarajan (Wawasan Open University, Malaysia)
• a round-up of announcements, reports and publications in the field of e-learning and the virtual campus

For more information visit the Re.ViCa web site or the virtual campus wiki and inventory set up and managed by the project team. 

The October edition of the Re.ViCa Newsletter was published this week and is being distributed to almost 500 subscribers all over the world who are interested in the virtual campus phenomenon.

In this edition you will find an article on postsecondary educational accreditation in the United States, an article about multilingualism in the Virtual Campus wiki and introductions to new people in the Re.ViCa network from New Zealand, UK and Palestine.

The newsletter also gives information on several recent reports including a Commonwealth of Learning report on ICTs for Higher Education and a Study into Global Activity published by JISC in the UK as well as a progress report on the Virtual Campus wiki.

This month's edition of the Re.ViCa Newsletter is now available and has been sent to an extended mailing list of researchers, stakeholders and others interested in the Virtual Campus phenomenon.

The lead article deals with the question as to whether European Virtual Campuses are intrinsically different to Virtual Campuses in other parts of the world and describes some of the conditions that appear to have had an influence on the set-up and operation of Virtual Campuses in Europe. In the rest of the newsletter you will find information about relevant forthcoming events, summaries of articles on related topics and information about project activities and events.

For more information about Re.ViCa, visit the Virtual Campus wiki.

The Web-Sat DVB S2 development project has now been concluded successfully. ATiT staff supported Web-Sat in the management of this project which begun in June 2006, testing and piloting with the service have been on-going since July 2007 and were completed at the end of February 2008.

As a result of this development project, the forward link has been upgraded to the DVB-S2 standard, leading to an immediate increase in capacity and the potential for future increases using the ACM (Advanced Code Modulation) option. Suitable DVB-S2 data receive cards have been sourced and satellite trials performed successfully to date using 8PSK modulation. The return link has also been upgraded with the development of a new transmit card. The new transmit card employs a digital signal processor (DSP) and provides greater flexibility in terms of the supported modulation schemes (BPSK, QPSK, 8PSK etc..). It has been designed so that software/firmware upgrades can be easily applied when new features are required.

One of the key advantages of the development is that the new transmit card’s firmware can be upgraded remotely in a matter of seconds to add new features such as SCPC (single carrier per channel) mode.

These developments have been integrated into the overall service chain to include all the necessary software services necessary to operate a full end-to-end service. Further information, contact info@web-sat.com

The final workshop for the Health Informatics Project BEANISH took place in Gabarone on 13-14 March and brought together representatives from health authorities, ministries and universities in Ethiopia, Malawi, Botswana, Tanzania, South Africa, Mozambique and Norway to review the progress of this EU supported project and to discuss plans for the future. The purpose of BEANISH is to strengthen and extend an existing Europe-Africa collaborative network to support the application and sharing of IST application development so as to support cooperation, learning and innovation in mutually beneficial ways. In its 3 year lifetime, the project has taken significant strides in the right direction and large scale take-up of the applications developed by the network are now taking place in several countries. For more information, visit the BEANISH web site.