Wireless Campus Programme

The Wireless Campus Project aims to address the incorporation of mobile and wireless technology as an integrated form of educational technology to provide access to learning facilities on and off-campus. The deployment of the technology, in the context described in this project, can also be seen as contributing towards widening participation and access. The impetus for the project lies in acknowledging the demands and pressures of the modern Higher Education system and in appreciating the needs of a learner in this environment, particularly where the specific learner groups have difficulties in accessing the educational system. Some of these groups can be classified, in Governmental terms to be under the broad heading of the socially deprived. Examples could include single parents or mature learners who, through financial hardship, are required to support their income through paid employment.

This project aims to incorporate pull and push technology to enable wireless access to institutional systems, student support facilities and learning materials and aims to provide learning support material on low cost handheld/palmtop computers. In doing so, this will demonstrate that mobile and wireless access to learning support facilities improves the educational value for the learner groups described above by exploiting the ‘anytime, anywhere’ concept of information access. Examples of this are enabling access to learning materials or student support facilities from mobile wireless devices off and on-campus, or pushing information to learners irrespective of time and location. These types of services are deemed to add value to the learner’s experience in the achievement of their objectives in Higher Education. Essentially, this allows for a ‘pocket campus’ where the mobile and wireless devices become a portable extension of the campus student support information system. As the delivery of education and training diversifies to include distance learning, learning and e-learning, mobile and wireless technology provides an ideal vehicle for that delivery.