Bournemouth & Poole College chooses CoSector – UOL for its new digital platform

Bournemouth & Poole College, Further Education (FE) and Apprenticeship provider have appointed CoSector – University of London (UOL) to implement and support the hosting of a platform that manages data for students, teachers, and other college staff.

The partnership between the college and CoSector – University of London (UOL)’s and its digital learning team was formed to implement and support the hosting of Moodle, a virtual learning environment (VLE) platform.

This new platform will support individual learning plans for students and staff at the college.

The platform was designed with the individual user-type in mind and Moodle is able to support the integration of individual learning plans for the college’s student record system.

The new platform will feature a modern interface that will enable efficient virtual communication between students and staff. It will also provide a hassle-free teaching and learning experience for all users.

Students now have simplified access to important research materials from the learning resources centre and campus facilities, such as Box of Broadcasts (BOB), which allows students to watch and record television programmes suggested by their lecturer, that are relevant to the course for research purposes.

In order to encourage adoption among students, teaching staff is encouraged to upload various types and formats of content such as video, images and course quizzes.

Besides hosting course material on the platform, the system allows students to upload and edit assignments, as well as submit assignments for grading within a specified timeframe.

Teaching staff will have remote access to uploaded assignments through the system.

Moodle also provides access to the library service, student support functions, career planning guidance and updates on student union activities and services.

ILT Technical Officer, Keith Ball, commented that the college chose to partner with CoSector – UOL, as the digital learning team that manages the Moodle platform has a wealth of experience that was needed to effectively manage, support and provide consulting to the college.

Ball adds that the digital learning team at CoSector – UOL has improved the learning experience for the students and made it easier for academics, and administrators to carry out their jobs.

He adds that the team is always available on hand for ongoing support via the customer desk and has helped the college by providing updates on the most recent plug-ins to develop the platform even further.

The team also provides support on analysis and reporting, system and data integrations, as well as by providing training for staff.

“Having CoSector – UOL manage and host the Moodle platform is better for the college than managing it internally as this would require more staff resource, and therefore budget. It is, therefore, more cost-effective and more efficient to have the hosting outsourced to an experienced third party like CoSector – UOL as they are digital learning experts.” Ball said.

The new system comes with a wide range of plug-ins and add-ons to conform to the college’s wider digital strategy.