Working together

This week has me reading a number of blogs from our partner colleges, this has made for some interesting reading. Mainly they pick up on the same issues that we have already noted but every now and again a real gem of an issue appears, two examples include:

• If validation can't occur before Sept 2010 college is looking at having to wait a year to deliver - is this because of the university? because the college doesn't like "mid" year starts, or don't the learners?
• Awards are running but access to the VLE across partners is difficult or can be delayed by a year - again why?

With these issues (and others) I am feeling a bit like the kid in school who likes to pick at scabs! As part of this scab picking process we are organising meetings with the UK Partnership office to put a model together of how they deal with CDD with the partners and to see how processes etc help/ hinder or have gaps that need to be filled. This will be my first attempt at modelling although I will have Sam there to help me. I am also planning to try out the new CETIS Archi tool as my laptop with BizzDesign on it has been taken in for another repair.
We are also starting work on the "mini project" which is our pilot on testing not simply technology solutions to issues around External Examiners but Programme Management and Enterprise Architecture also get in on the deal. We have our first set of interviews around this work at the start of May, before that our Technical Manager is sorting out the technical issues around this "mini project".

The end of this week we have a cluster meeting in Bolton which will be very interesting, this will be a one day event with a focus on the use of technology to support CDD - including what I am hoping will be useful discussions and demonstrations around using Wookies, Widgets and using XCRI. I am sure this will result in another blog post!