About

“Web Services” at Guildford College covers a wide range of activities. On a  day-to-day basis they include

• The GO! Virtual Learning Environment (VLE)
• The Guildford and Farnham web sites
• The Web Portal (Also part of Go!)
• Marketing and promotion of our courses, activities and campuses
• Development of pedagogically informed e-learning tools.
• Liaising and training staff in the  use of learning resources
• Exploring new technologies and their use as supplements to existing teaching and learning.

While the development and implementation of these services all take place via the web, they are not a purely technical exercise. In fact the social aspects of learning technologies are central to everything that web services do. It is for this reason that we take a three-stage approach to using web-based technologies:

1. Evaluate: What works? What doesn’t? What are other HE/FE institutions doing?  How can we make technical improvements that improve the user experience? What technologies are being showcased at conferences and industry events? How could they benefit learning and Teaching at Guildford?

2. Consult: Solicit opinion from users of web services at Guildford. Focus groups, surveys, marketing exercises, training seminars, and use of web technologies to encourage an ongoing conversations between the groups comprising web services and our ‘clients’ – teachers and learners on and off our campuses. Consultation helps define both our technical requirements, and how we communicate through marketing and training.

3. Implement: Select and deploy technology that is stable, reliable and intuitive. Document it through short videos and 1-2 page user guides. The focus is not on using every feature of the technology, but on finding what works best and adapting it to the educational culture of Guildford College.

Web Services at Guildford are the produce of the combined efforts of several teams. They include

• The marketing team
• The e-learning team
• The web services team
• The IT services team

These teams are responsible for the physical hardware Guildford’s web services run on, the planning and development of services that take into account the needs of teaching and learning staff, and the marketing and public relations functions that take place through the available web services

You can learn more about each team by visiting the individual sections.