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