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NLN Tool
The NLN ILT self-assessment tool (NLN Tool for short) was developed from the FENTO ILT standards by the Learning and Skills Development Agency (LSDA, now no more) as part of the NLN initiative. It was designed to enable institutions to measure the extent to which they had embedded ILT into teaching and learning and to identify priorities for development. It linked to the NLN staff development events database so that appropriate staff development opportunities could be identified. Use of the tool was also designed to also support a sector benchmarking exercise to obtain baseline data on the embedding of ILT into teaching and learning. Thus the current FE surveys are a descendant of this approach.
The NLN Tool used the five levels taken from Venkatraman's work on the MIT90s scheme but named them to DfES guidelines rather than the original MIT90s names. Unusually they used 1 to reprent the highest level (innovative) with 5 for the lowest (localised). All schemes in HE and FE after this used the reverse order.
Details
Many files from this era are no more. The following material is taken from a report "NLN ILT Self assessment tool: FAQs" which was public on the web until at least 2005.
The NLN Tool used 5 scoring levels:
5 Localised
4 Co-ordinated
3 Transformative
2 Embedded
1 Innovative
It had 14 criteria as follows:
- Strategic management
- ILT management
- Learning resources management
- ILT strategy
- Staff development
- Integration of curriculum and administration data
- Teaching and learning styles
- Learner IT skills
- Technical support
- Funding
- Physical resources
- External links
- Record keeping
- Evaluation and assessment
It was probably the earliest scheme to focus on a few broad criteria with each criterion having crisp scoring statements. For example, criterion 2 on ILT management had the following for its levels:
| 5 | Takes place mainly in isolation with little co-ordination of ILT across the institution. |
| 4 | Central IT management function identified. Management involved in curriculum development to co-ordinate ILT practice across the institution. Contributes to planning of staff development. |
| 3 | Acts as a catalyst for change. Management takes account of current applications of ILT in education. Supports the development of differentiated learning programmes through ILT. |
| 2 | Monitors and supports ILT integration across the curriculum. Able to advise on models of good practice and innovation. |
| 1 | Significant strategic commitment to use of ILT in learning. |
It had an interesting foible in that the scoring statements for level 1 (the top) were often generic across several criteria - and several look rather forced. Also, like many illustrious successors, it has some criteria that look suspiciously composite - "double-headed" in the jargon.
Where used
A consortium of four FE colleges and five Northamptonshire schools used the NLN Tool in a project ending (apparently) in September 2004. Surprisingly, given all the changes in NLN and its organisation, the Report - or at least the Interim Report - is still available.
There is no public evidence that it was used anywhere from 2005 onwards.
However, as noted above Pick&Mix drew extensively on it - and it is likely that eLPS also drew on it - but note that eLPS has slightly renamed the scoring levels.
Relevance to UK HE
The NLN Tools is of historical interest only. However, Pick&Mix drew substantially on the NLN Tool including on its feature of having less than 20 criteria. In addition, a workshop on benchmarking tools at the ALT-C conference in 2005 considered the merits of the tool. A report available after the conference stated, in terms of its relevance to higher education (page 3):
- The comments from the subgroup that looked at the NLN tool were on the whole not very positive towards the idea of using it in HE. Individuals had questions as to the value of the criterion on “learner IT skills” – this and some others were felt to be not specific enough to e-learning – and there was a feeling that there needed to be some priority ordering in the criteria (some being more important for “success” than others). There were some reservations about the underlying MIT model (it is 14 years old). There was a feeling that the tool was too oriented to top-down approaches. (This is likely to be the case because NLN is or was a much more top-down programme than the HEFCE e-learning strategy.)
Further reading
- NLN (2004), NLN Project: Transformation Across Northamptonshire: Interim Report, September 2004, http://www.learningtechnologies.ac.uk/transformation/files/Interim_Report.doc.
- Bacsich (2005), Benchmarking e-Learning: An Overview for UK HE, report produced after ALT-C, http://www.alt.ac.uk/altc2005/timetable/files/527/Benchmark_overview.doc.
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