Why Create COSE?

Why did we create COSE?

Imperatives:

put the learner at the centre of activity
expand the reach of FE & HE and widen access
meet the challenges of globalisation
meet the needs of life-long learning
provide environments in which study by greater numbers can be effectively and affordably supported and managed
provide environments based on sound educational practice
enable the reuse and repurposing of content
work towards interoperability with other systems needed to construct a Managed Learning Environment

HE Constraints:

many HE and FE teaching staff lack the course design skills required for such study environments
staff often fail to recognise the weaknesses in transposing existing traditional teaching material into a VLE
failure to address the context in which study will take place as opposed to merely the delivery mechanism
tendancy to choose VLEs and other tools by "feature tick list" rather than by identifying requirements and then choosing the right tool

The development of COSE was funded from September 1996 to August 1999 by the JISC Technology Applications Programme (JTAP) . COSE has continued to gain support from the JISC in its work on interoperability.

The COSE Goal:

To provide a Virtual Learning Environment aimed at the creation of Study Environments rather than just the delivery of "material" and to encourage development to take place in the context of coherent pedagogy which promotes good practice.

To allow the creation of study environments which can exploit material in a wide range of media and allow easy provision of mechanisms for support, feedback, collaboration and self-assessment without recourse by staff to skills such as scripting and mark-up languages.

To provide a Virtual Learning Environment which promotes good practice, is effective, and which has low ownership costs