Best Practice in Education Portals

Consultant's report

Best Practice in Education Portals

A research document prepared for the Commonwealth of Learning
and SchoolNet Africa
by Neil Butcher,
South African Institute for Distance Education (SAIDE),
Braamfontein, South Africa

October 2002

A key feature of the ongoing growth of the World Wide Web over the past five years has been a proliferation of web portals that focus on supporting school education. While many such sites require subscription and registration, there are large numbers that deliver services free of charge to anyone with Internet access. This research project has focused on identifying a representative sample of these sites, describing the services that they offer, and distilling an understanding of emerging best practice. In completing the latter task, we have not constrained ourselves to data gathered during this research project, although all of that data is attached as an annexure to this report. Thus, summary of the best ideas we have found - which is also informed by several prior years of research and experimentation by the South African Institute for Distance Education (SAIDE) - is presented in this report.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

A Note On Terminology

REVIEWING EDUCATION PORTALS ON THE INTERNET

GENERAL FINDINGS

Design and Navigation

Search

Support

Credibility and Authenticity

Currency

Target Audience

RANGE OF FACILITIES

Organisational Portals

Networking Portals

Resource-based Portals

ROLES FOR INTERNET TECHNOLOGIES IN EDUCATION

CONTENT

Delivery of Educational Resources

The Need for Strategic Choice

The Issue of Language

CONTENT SERVICES

Building and Exploiting Information Bases

CONTENT MANAGEMENT

COMMUNICATION

Facilitating Communication

Communication Services

COLLABORATION

Facilitating Interaction in Resources

Facilitating work-based Collaboration

PERSONALISATION

A FRAMEWORK FOR GOOD PRACTICE

Structure

Technical Set-up and Maintenance

Portal Details

Continual Content Intervention and Maintenance

CONCLUSION

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APPENDIX A - Evaluating Education Portals

APPENDIX B - Managing Curriculum Resources in an Education Portal

APPENDIX C - Criteria for Evaluating Educational Software

APPENDIX D - Content Production Process Flow