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Project PILOT - The Application of Telematics <strong>in</strong> Co-Operative Education<br />

Introduction<br />

Andy Stone<br />

Institute of Educational Technology<br />

Open University<br />

UK<br />

Andy.Stone@open.ac.uk<br />

Project PILOT [PILOT 1996] is a jo<strong>in</strong>t project with two other universities which will deliver a prototype of a<br />

support system and match<strong>in</strong>g service for all parties <strong>in</strong>volved <strong>in</strong> 'co-operative education' (known as 'student<br />

projects' and 'placements' <strong>in</strong> the UK).<br />

This support system <strong>in</strong>cludes a number of strands which meet the needs of the dist<strong>in</strong>ct user groups identified<br />

(which are students, placement units, and bus<strong>in</strong>esses). The ma<strong>in</strong> strand is a clear<strong>in</strong>g house system, us<strong>in</strong>g a<br />

distributed database of candidates and vacancies for work placements. The database eng<strong>in</strong>e has been developed<br />

<strong>in</strong> MS Access.<br />

For students, other strands of the PILOT system <strong>in</strong>clude a repository of support materials for reference (i.e.<br />

deliver<strong>in</strong>g "learn<strong>in</strong>g to learn" through telematics, elaborated upon <strong>in</strong> [Karran & Lefrere 1996]), plus l<strong>in</strong>ks to<br />

more general support resources on the web. An example is the web-based guides to British towns and cities<br />

[Knowhere 1996], which are useful s<strong>in</strong>ce many placements <strong>in</strong>volve work<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> a different town to the one <strong>in</strong><br />

which a student is at college.<br />

A "best practice" repository system will be set up for placement units and companies, with copies of and/or<br />

po<strong>in</strong>ters to case studies and other material that is relevant to placements. This will be supported by email-based<br />

discussion groups which will facilitate communication with<strong>in</strong> the group and a source of feedback for the<br />

PILOT development team.<br />

The features of this system were identified and are be<strong>in</strong>g ref<strong>in</strong>ed through surveys and test<strong>in</strong>g with placement<br />

officers and tutors, as well as managers and mentors <strong>in</strong> <strong>in</strong>dustry and commerce. As mentioned above, this<br />

process of ref<strong>in</strong>ement will be ongo<strong>in</strong>g, via the email groups. This ongo<strong>in</strong>g research will help to achieve a<br />

cont<strong>in</strong>ual state of competitive advantage for all players, by realis<strong>in</strong>g Nouwens and Bouwman’s [Nouwens &<br />

Bouwman 1994] second-order effects (i.e. <strong>in</strong>novative uses of telematics) <strong>in</strong> order to facilitate their first-order<br />

benefits of <strong>in</strong>creased effectiveness and efficiency.<br />

For example, the manner <strong>in</strong> which PILOT <strong>in</strong>tegrates with the exist<strong>in</strong>g placement unit function had to reflect<br />

the heterogeneous nature of the placement system; through the <strong>in</strong>terviews, our research found that there is no<br />

national standardisation of this process. Complement<strong>in</strong>g this, support for the <strong>format</strong>ion of a discussion group<br />

to address this issue and to dissem<strong>in</strong>ate best practice was also identified <strong>in</strong> these <strong>in</strong>terviews. With<strong>in</strong> the same<br />

<strong>in</strong>terviews, methods to facilitate improv<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>efficiencies were be<strong>in</strong>g requested for <strong>in</strong>clusion <strong>in</strong> a telematics<br />

<strong>in</strong>tegrated application.<br />

PILOT'S User Base & Access<strong>in</strong>g PILOT<br />

Students and placement units will be access<strong>in</strong>g PILOT from academic sites, traditionally with high bandwidth<br />

(2-140 Megabit/sec on JANET/SUPERJANET respectively [JANET 1995]); on the other hand, bus<strong>in</strong>esses may<br />

have anyth<strong>in</strong>g from a dial-up account (up to 28.8kbps) to a leased l<strong>in</strong>e (ISDN-T3), and also might not want a<br />

full web browser on a staff members' desktop (<strong>in</strong> some <strong>in</strong>terviews, we discovered that <strong>in</strong> some companies,<br />

runn<strong>in</strong>g a web browser from a desktop can be a dismissable<br />

offence).

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