Introduction

Project PILOT [PILOT 1996] is a joint project with two other universities which will deliver a prototype of a support system and matching service for all parties involved in 'co-operative education' (known as 'student projects' and 'placements' in the UK).

This support system includes a number of strands which meet the needs of the distinct user groups identified (which are students, placement units, and businesses). The main strand is a clearing house system, using a distributed database of candidates and vacancies for work placements. The database engine has been developed in MS Access.

For students, other strands of the PILOT system include a repository of support materials for reference (i.e. delivering "learning to learn" through telematics, elaborated upon in [Karran & Lefrere 1996]), plus links to more general support resources on the web. An example is the web-based guides to British towns and cities [Knowhere 1996], which are useful since many placements involve working in a different town to the one in which a student is at college.

A "best practice" repository system will be set up for placement units and companies, with copies of and/or pointers to case studies and other material that is relevant to placements. This will be supported by email-based discussion groups which will facilitate communication within the group and a source of feedback for the PILOT development team.

The features of this system were identified and are being refined through surveys and testing with placement officers and tutors, as well as managers and mentors in industry and commerce. As mentioned above, this process of refinement will be ongoing, via the email groups. This ongoing research will help to achieve a continual state of competitive advantage for all players, by realising Nouwens and Bouwman's [Nouwens & Bouwman 1994] second-order effects (i.e. innovative uses of telematics) in order to facilitate their first-order benefits of increased effectiveness and efficiency.

For example, the manner in which PILOT integrates with the existing placement unit function had to reflect the heterogeneous nature of the placement system; through the interviews, our research found that there is no national standardisation of this process. Complementing this, support for the formation of a discussion group to address this issue and to disseminate best practice was also identified in these interviews. Within the same interviews, methods to facilitate improving inefficiencies were being requested for inclusion in a telematics integrated application.

PILOT'S User Base & Accessing PILOT

Students and placement units will be accessing PILOT from academic sites, traditionally with high bandwidth (2-140 Megabit/sec on JANET/SUPERJANET respectively [JANET 1995]); on the other hand, businesses may have anything from a dial-up account (up to 28.8kbps) to a leased line (ISDN-T3), and also might not want a full web browser on a staff members' desktop (in some interviews, we discovered that in some companies, running a web browser from a desktop can be a dismissable

offence).

In order to cater for the this latter group, a self-contained 'PILOT browser' is being developed. This is being authored in IconAuthor 7.0, which supports HTML as a data type, as well as supporting database connectivity. This will facilitate internet access to the PILOT site only, and also allows scope for releasing a CD of the PILOT database, probably on a subscription basis).

Other interfaces include fax-on-demand, but will not be implemented in the prototype stage due to cost constraints. Similarly, PILOT is being designed so that interactive telephony (through landlines and digital cellular networks, including the exploitation of Short Message Service technology on the latter) can be used as a conduit.

The use of audio-based (as opposed to text-based) resources is being examined as a complementary medium within the PILOT system. For example, as well as having textual case studies for the three groups to examine, there will also be documentary-style audio archive material, probably available as RealAudio files as well as stored for accessing through conventional telephony interfaces.

Conclusions

At the time of writing (August 1996), Project PILOT is still in its initial stage of funding and development (BT's funding is until December 1996). However, the web site [PILOT 1996] is up and running, and has a "visitors book" facility which also has the option of registering on our mailing list (email or fax, former is preferable).

In addition to the plans outlined in this paper, there is also the potential for expanding PILOT to other levels of education (i.e. for placements outside postsecondary education), and perhaps to other sectors where skills matching is needed. It is also intended to explore the development of a more international service (i.e. Europe and worldwide).

Apart from expanding the service, there is considerable scope for further research within the PILOT facility as it stands: desired outcomes include the ability to follow user behaviour and interaction in (and outside of) the main PILOT web site; i.e. which links are followed the most, possibly suggesting areas in which PILOT's own core facilities can be improved. An prototype of how this could be achieved is being developed at the Open University [Stratfold 1996].

References

[PILOT 1996]. http://mcie002.open.ac.uk/PILOT/

[JANET 1995]. http://www.ja.net/superJANET/superJANET.htm

[Karran & Lefrere 1996]. Karran, T.J. & Lefrere, P. (1996). Using Telematics To Support Personal Development in Projects and Work Placements. Paper delivered at ëTechnology Transfer and Innovation 96í conference, 1-3 July 1996, London.

[Nouwens & Bouwman, 1995] Nouwens, J. & Bouwman, H. (1995). Living Apart Together in Electronic Commerce: The Use of Information and Communication Technology to Create Network Organisations. http://shum.huji.ac.il/jcmc/vol1/issue3/nouwens.html

[Knowhere 1996. http://www.state51.co.uk/knowhere/index.htm

[Stratfold 1996]. Stratfold, M.P. (1996) "Tracker", http://trout.open.ac.uk/tracker.html

Acknowledgements

The PILOT project team: Stephen Brown, Patrick Haverty (De Montfort University), Paul Lefrere, Andy Stone (Open University), Christine Doherty, Terence Karran (University of Lincolnshire and Humberside). Project PILOT is funded by British Telecom.

Special thanks to Matthew Stratfold for assistance with preparing this paper.