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Speaking of ICT ...

 

March 2008 

education.au, through the inspirED project (www.inspired.edu.au), has been working with the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER: www.acer.edu.au) to identify terms used in education to describe information and communications technologies (ICT).

inspirED is a collaborative cross-sectoral project based on the successful Futurelab (www.futurelab.org.uk) project in the UK. education.au has a Memorandum of Understanding with Futurelab and provided seed funding to initiate the inspirED project. inspirED's focus is on research into technologies that engage students, transform teaching and enhance learning. It monitors relevant research and makes it available through information feeds and on the website. Accurate and appropriate terminology is required to make the research discoverable.

The Australian Thesaurus of Education Descriptors (ATED), managed by ACER, was identified as an appropriate cross-sectoral thesaurus to describe inspirED's resources. As part of their review, education.au staff identified the need for a comprehensive set of current ICT terms to cover the breadth of inspirED's resources, and worked with ACER staff to incorporate appropriate terminology within ATED. ACER has been involved in inspirED since its founding, and provided in-kind support by undertaking the necessary work on the thesaurus.

education.au CEO Greg Black sees the joint work on the ATED thesaurus as a good example of the benefits of collaboration. "Through both the edna project (www.edna.edu.au) and inspirED, education.au has extensive experience in cataloguing ICT-based resources, so our expert librarians identified about 80 terms for consideration by ACER. ACER staff reviewed the terms, looked for literary warrant, approving most of the terms and debated others. It was a valuable experience for both organisations, and has resulted in a more comprehensive set of thesaurus terms. I think that the list of terms is an interesting snapshot of the priority areas in educational technology."

"This work is an excellent example of the way education.au establishes alliances with Australian education-related organisations to leverage benefits for the Australian education and training community".

The agreed set terms has now been included in the ATED hierarchy. Search ATED online: http://cunningham.acer.edu.au/mulcgi/index.htm

For further information contact:

education.au limited
182 Fullarton Road
Dulwich SA 5065
www.educationau.edu.au
Phone: 08 8334 3210
Email: inform@educationau.edu.au
 

About education.au limited

education.au is a not-for-profit information and communications technology company owned by Australia's Ministers for Education and Training. education.au collaborates with numerous stakeholders in education and training communities working across the early childhood, schooling, vocational education and training, adult and community education, and university sectors. Its business is to develop and manage online services that are of benefit to the education and training sector and are national in scope.