It’s been a very busy couple of months. We implemented significant changes to the Pineapple Core, process and documents based on the feedback and our experiences from the piloting. We are really pleased with the way the this has all come together. We have been able to reduce the number and complexity of our process and documentation without sacrificing quality or clarity.

The tool has also undergone much development. Lots of improvements to the interface as a result of the usability testing in the piloting stage. We have also added in new features. A few of these are listed below

• grouping of claims by year and status (live, completed, archived)
• claim overview page providing information about when it was created, last accessed etc
• claim summary / print version of summary
• add private notes and files to a claim
• share the claim with users in and outside of your institution
• view all steps completed so far and use them to navigate
• access all resources used by the process when working through a claim
• users now create and add module / programme information
• progress information added e.g. you are on section 2 of 5
• many bug fixes, prompts and usability improvements

I hope to write these changes up in more detail over the coming weeks and provide some more screenshots and alternative views of this.

Apologies for the lack of news from us but we’ve been busy working away on the last few aspects of the project. One additional part of this is the benefits realisation work we have been funded to do by JISC in collaboration with Staffordshire University. We have been looking at their APEL policy, drawing it up into a process and then implementing this within our Pineapple Core tool.

Well after many months of work we have an alpha version of the Pineapple Core ready. We have a bit more work to do on it before we look to trial it in September.

I have put together 3 short videos showing the administration, process management/design and the user end of the system. There are still bugs and things to work on but we feel the system is at a suitable level of development to be able to demonstrate it.

The team recently met up with the University of Plymouth registry to discuss the finer detail of their APEL regulations.

The last few days I have been creating various screenshots of how the system may look and function.

I have now compiled these in flash to produce an interactive version so we are able to mock up how the system may function before making it all and get feedback from potential users.

This will be evolving over the coming months and can be seen here.

As you will know from the previous posts we are currently gethering as much information as we can about APEL.In the last week Harriet and I have been focusing in on UPC and what is already going in terms APEL and APCL. Our meeting in Bradford was extreemly useful and I must thank the other projects for their useful input and insights provided both through their presentations and coversations.

I am taking time to think from a systems / user perspective too and what information is available, where it is stored, what is required and many other questions. I am hoping that by Jan/Feb we will have the process completed and I will begin developing the software.

There will be variations between colleges but I am moving away from a model which supports massive variation in how an APEL process can be undertaken. I think with close collaboration and support from UPC Faculty it will be more successful approach to have as much standardisation as possible.

As with everything this still could all change

To lighten up the post here are some early system screenshots which I am using to aid system design and usability.

Still early days but it may look like this