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Vet E-learning and Web Services

The Faculty of Veterinary Science has extensive e-learning resources to help students achieve their learning objectives in an enriching and stimulating environment. We provide flexible and high quality resources for independent and blended learning situations. The Faculty extensively uses the WebCT/Blackboard e-learning platform to deliver content and activities, and supplements this with links to advanced online resources including:

VIP: Veterinary Information Portal

VIP is an electronic gateway to information services for students and staff in Veterinary Science and Animal and Veterinary Biosciences. A partnership project of the Library and the Faculty, VIP provides:

  • access to high quality readings and website links organised into Units of Study, and into topics within these
  • a place where students can build their own collections of reading material
  • a quick and easy way for staff to bring together material relevant to their teaching
  • links to a range of library material and services to support and enrich student learning.

Academic staff in the Faculty are working to build rich electronic collections of excellent materials to support learning and teaching. Course materials are linked to VIP, and VIP unit of study pages are linked to online courses via WebCT, providing an accessible integrated learning environment.

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OLIVER: Online Library of Images for Veterinary Education and Research

In order to improve and integrate web based learning, case studies and didactic presentations for veterinary and animal science students, an online library of images and other learning objects for use by academics in the Faculties of Veterinary Science and Agriculture was established.

OLIVER contains images and videos relating to many facets of Veterinary Science that are annotated and supported by search engines which allow the rapid access of both images and relevant information. There are currently over 10,000 images online.

Key Features of OLIVER include:

  • A database to maximise the use of the Faculty’s teaching resources by providing a stable archiving facility for graphic images and other multimedia learning objects.
  • A database structure that allows flexible and precise searching, integrating indexing standards, thesauri, pull down lists of preferred terms and linking of objects within cases.
  • A portable and expandable web based shell that facilitates ongoing storage of learning objects in a range of mediums.
  • Archive learning objects in common standardised formats so that they can be easily imported for use in a range of applications including Microsoft Powerpoint, WebCT and Microsoft Word.
  • A user–friendly interface with a professional appearance that enables users with a range of technical abilities to easily search for, and make use of, the learning objects for teaching purposes.
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Resource Builder

Resource Builder was developed in our Faculty to address a need for a user-friendly tool for creating a range of resources for interactive online learning. Staff at all levels can easily build case-based activities using a number of models. Using a choice of five different templates, staff can cut and paste their material into Resource Builder and quickly build cases that are linked via the WebCT/Blackboard sites.

Key features of the system include:

  • an educationally designed template that provide a ‘best practice’ model for online case-based resources
  • fill-in forms that enable you to easily add and modify case content
  • A ‘what you see is what you get’ approach to case development that lets you see how your case will appear as you are designing it. You also have access to a view of exactly what students will see at any time
  • the ability to add a variety of content (e.g. videos, images, pdf files and word documents)
  • integration with the OLIVER learning object repository so you can use the thousands of images and videos available
  • a flexible way of accessing developed cases so they can be viewed on their own or easily linked from a Learner Management System (LMS) such as WebCT or Blackboard.
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Research and collaboration

The Faculty has become research active in the area of Information and Communication Technology in Learning and Teaching (ICT L&T) and has published several papers and presented a number of conferences. In recent years, the Faculty has held showcases with presentations on the projects it has developed. Currently, the focus has been on the use of case-based learning with a focus on the evaluation of its impact and effectiveness with regard to student learning. The Faculty is continually working on advancing its designs through research, student feedback and the experiences of staff in delivery.

Increasingly, the Faculty is collaborating with Faculties within and external to the University to both share and broaden its expertise in ICT L&T resource design and development, as well as research. These collaborations are assisting the Faculty to become an increasing contributor to peer reviewed journals and conferences that forward online ICT L&T and its application across a range of disciplines.

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