MyKnowledgeMap

Learn with Leeds

An upgrade to Leeds City Council’s VLE will soon be helping the Council to manage their learning more effectively and offer more bespoke learning solutions to their employees.

The work, being carried out by MyKnowledgeMap, will enable the Council to add more learning, including e-learning of their own, to their VLE as well as providing access to more detailed reporting.

MyKnowledgeMap have worked with Leeds City Council previously in 2004 to assist with the implementation of Office 2003 throughout the organisation. The upgrade from Office 97 to Office 2003 posed a problem for the council—the system needed rolling out across the Council within a period of four months, and with 12,000 users converting from Office 97 to Office 2003, it was a priority to ensure that staff possessed the skills they needed to make a smooth transition and carry on “business as usual”. With such a short timescale, removing staff from the workplace to attend traditional training courses was ruled out on the basis of cost and practicality.

The Council decided that it was an ideal opportunity to exploit cutting edge technology by opting for an e-learning solution. This would allow users to prepare for the change by gaining the new skills they needed, at a time that suited them.

To assist with this aim, MyKnowledgeMap developed a unique e-learning resource and tailored virtual e-learning environment, branded internally within the Council as “e-learnIT”. The e-learning course highlighted the differences between Office 97 and the new Office 2003 due for implementation across the Council and the VLE’s “access control” function helped to control the gradual rollout of training modules to sub-groups across the council, enabling rollouts to be effectively managed and supported.

The transition to a new computer environment provided Leeds City Council with the opportunity to embrace a unique e-learning environment, and a new way of providing training. With the new “Learn with Leeds” system, the Council will also be able to develop their own materials using our innovative authoring tools. Using Question Builder, our question authoring application, they will be able to author, edit and publish a wide variety of questions, quizzes and tests that conform to the global standards defined by IMS QTI for storing and sharing questions and tests. They will also be using our innovative course-planning system Compendle to create their own courses, in which their custom Question Builder tests and quizzes can be loaded, ready to be added to their new and improved VLE.

The Council were “over the moon” with the e-learnIT system. The new “Learn with Leeds” system will provide them with even greater flexibility and customisation within the Leeds City Council VLE.

Read the Leeds City Council Technical Breakthrough Case Study here.