REPOSITORY PROJECT

Access to some or all full items is controlled. Copies of full items generally can be: a. reproduced, and displayed or performed b. for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge provided: i. the authors, title and full bibliographic details are given ii. the content is not changed in any way Full items must not be sold commercially in any format or medium without formal permission of the copyright holders. This repository is not the publisher; it is merely the online archive. Mention of UPlaCe – The UPC Repository is appreciated but not mandatory.

Data Policy

The UPC Repository Project

The University of Plymouth operates one of the largest and longest established HE in FE partnerships in the country. It brings together the strengths of an increasingly research-informed University with the local and vocational focus provided by FE colleges across the South West. The Partnership currently has some 8,500 students undertaking 230 HE programmes at 18 college sites across the South West region. Over the last fifteen years, it has developed a genuinely collaborative approach to ensuring high quality learning for all HE students.

The University has introduced a unique organisational structure for its partnership, built around a new Faculty, University of Plymouth Colleges (UPC). Formed in 2003, it has quickly established policies, a management structure and quality processes that recognise the importance of shared responsibility and open relationships between the Partners.

The UPC Repository project will assist UPC in achieving the twin aims of providing learners with access to the best possible learning experience and supporting over 1,000 staff based in FE colleges teaching on HE programmes. There is a requirement for sharing good practice and making learning materials available to students in a manner which places students’ needs at the heart of their learning experience in both the college and work based learning environments.

The UPC Repository will allow the sharing of learning materials across partner colleges and allow staff access to a range of support materials. The lessons learned in delivering and using the UPC Repository across a network of institutions would be easily transferable to other partnerships within the HE and HE in FE sector.

UPC has a need to develop a repository which will meet the needs of a regional partnership and is capable of storing a range of materials including:

  • teaching materials that can be used with a range of VLEs in use across the partnership;
  • research outputs that can be used in a research informed teaching context;
  • administrative documentation used to support a range of programmes;
  • documentation to assist with Integrated Quality and Enhancement Reviews (IQERs).

For the full potential of such a repository to be realised it will be necessary for partner colleges to embed its use into practice and as such the UPC Repository project has sought funding to:

  • conduct a needs assessment survey of the partnership;
  • develop use cases;
  • develop a service model, including a service definition;
  • develop a set of priorities for repository content;
  • produce a model of content organisation;
  • develop a detailed project implementation plan and service and technical models;
  • implement an repository based on user needs;
  • develop a strategy to extend the repository beyond the start-up phase.