 University of Manchester. I retired a few years ago now, a couple of two, three years ago, and since then I've been working in a sort of EL tech type thing, because I like to keep myself busy. So I think Richard has reminded me that we are going to be recording this presentation, so just be aware and hopefully you're happy with that. Obviously as we're joining, we've got some opening screens that was about future events that are coming on, which I'll put at the end as well. So if everyone can give me a thumbs up if they can hear me, and you're seeing my presentation all looking good, so nothing obviously wrong. So as I said, Richard is staying in the background, so I'm just going to carry on. So please, if you have anything that's important, want to say anything, use the chat. I'm monitoring the chat on the right hand side, but I'm sharing my screen at the moment, so I'll switch my camera off so you don't have to look at me all the time. We're now looking at my main screen. Obviously you're at an alt-sig webinar series. This is just the usual advertising that we have at the beginning and the end of the presentations, and a little bit about alt-sig if you want to join check the thing and just check over the background. So obviously watch out for the what's in the chat. There's plenty of announcements and things going on in the chat in the background. Anyway, let me carry on. It was a strange sort of time when I found that I was approached by an organisation called IACL, and essentially it was a website of resources, and they've had this for many years, and they wanted it to be converted a little bit more into a learning platform. So luckily, I knew one of the key people there when I worked at Manchester, and they approached me to say if I could work as a consultant to help develop this particular platform. So a little bit of background about IACL as an organisation. They're a not-for-profit organisation dealing with contact lens educators. So these are all people involved in optometry who do contact lens education. It's about 800 members, or it's about 850 at the moment, in about 78 countries. So it's quite a big organisation in that respect. So I'm dealing with people that are based in Canada, South America, India, China, and my main colleague who helps run this with me, and he's the main person, I'm just the consultant, is a person called Craig Wood, Wood's, who's based in Brisbane in Australia. So I have a weekly meeting every Monday morning with my colleague in Australia. Anyway, this was the website, or roughly the website, that they put all their learning resources into, and it became unwieldy because it was literally just you dump things all the time. You just kept putting things in, free resources, and it was only a repository of resources. So you had to become a member, and you'll see there's an IACL top login, you had to be a member to actually get to the resources, and then you got another window. Whoops, not that one. You got to another window with all the resources. It was very, very confusing. Anyway, the main thing that, overall, we had to choose a learning platform, and I think that was my first task. What do we use for delivering all this material? And we ended up going through with Canvas, basically because they could deal with a small organisation. The other thing that I'd like to introduce at this stage before I go into a lot more detail on things is the types of software I've used to build this whole thing together. It's been great because I've had no sort of people telling me, I must do it this way. I have been given a completely free hand to work out the best way to deliver this content. All the rules about organisations where you might be did not count because we deliver to multiple countries, so it became an absolute dream in some respects because we just did it. I just did it with my colleague in Brisbane. The type of software we used was basically, I used iSpring for creation of scorn packages, which I'll explain a little bit more later. Something that you may never have come across is Swivel Cloud, and it's a swivel robot, which you may well have heard about and sure you have, but there's also a link to that. It's a video storage solution, which is completely free, and we ended up choosing Swivel Cloud purely because we can make sure that the videos that were stored there were then embedded in Canvas and could not be easily downloaded, so it's just made it really difficult. We also used Jitsi Meet for some conference software, I'll explain that a little bit later. I also used Neapod, and coupled with that I used Google Slides and Neapod. I also used Google Slides and AutoCraft to create certificates, and we also used towards the end of the last year Proctorial, and we actually ran a fellowship exam under Procted Conditions. So, I accl, and here's our first lesson and first challenge. We set it up two years ago, 850 members, it was very successful, people were invoing, and then we started opening it up to institutes around the world, and when we started it opening up to institutes around the world, we ended up, by the time we finished at the count, 18 1,800 students, which unfortunately went way over our licence, which caused a little bit of embarrassment when we got a rather large bill from Canvas. So lessons learned, make sure that you read the small print on the number of users that you have on a learning management system, because in Canvas we got caught out by accumulative within the year. So if anyone student clicks it in one year, that class does one of our actual licences. So that was something to bear in mind if you ever do this again. That's one of our big lessons learned. We have sorted it, we're not changing, and we're managing it in a different way now. So this is, we ended up producing this platform and we called it IACLtop, which stands for Teaching Online Platform. In a very simple form, it is a set of areas like members, web lectures, flashcards, ICL 2020 case reports, DLP, student areas, regional hubs and so on, and conferences. That was basically grabbing everything that was off the website and redeveloping it. So one of the first things we had to do was develop a members area so that people can come and visit. So they came into the members area. They got a welcome video and the other thing we had to link into the members area was a calendar. So we put the calendar there and the calendar or might look fairly simple, but we actually used a piece of software called Tokify, which works really well for integrating events. So when you look at the Tokify website that you can see at the moment, you can see Submit Event. So any of the members could submit all the content that they want for an event in the calendar and it automatically populates it. They also have a bit to subscribe. That particular piece of software has really worked really well and it's embedded in the main website as well as in IACL top. So if you go back to the main page again, you can see there the members area and the events. The other thing to bear in mind, we are also multi language, so that's another challenge. We developed all the materials in multiple languages and the challenge on that one would be, how do you get it all translated in the correct way? So one of the quick wins that we did, we used everything in English first, we used Google translate to all the various languages, then those translations went back to the unit coordinators for each of the areas around the world. They then corrected those and then we uploaded those directly into IACL top. So and it worked very well using Google translate. Very handy solution and a big challenge. The other challenge we had, a lot of resources we had were actually images, PDFs and things that way. So we actually used in Canvas, which is something that's really really very useful, is the IACL library and that's called the Canvas Commons and we built that down to just being involved with just our content. Nobody else can see it, just our members. So when you see the Commons like you see now, you'll see results which are fully searchable, we can share complete courses through this, we can share PDFs, videos, everything through this whole system, which works extremely well and when you look at the detail you can get the image there and then the member can actually download it or import it into another course and we also have the ability to put in the detailed descriptions. So we actually got a complete library of resources built into Canvas which made it extremely useful and the other bit that we were trying to, how do we get people together and we did it through what they call regional hubs and regional hubs, we actually created virtual coffee rooms and you can see one there and this is part of Canvas where you allow Canvas to have a group and they have their own areas and this is the English hub, we have a Chinese hub, a Spanish hub, a Chinese Korean hub and in the coffee room, this is where we use Jitsie and Jitsie, anyone can go into that coffee room, it's a unique ID that way, they go into the room and they'll take and chat with someone, it's the rooms always open and it's been that was quite useful and it was the different languages, we can share files with the people so it becomes a community. We also put a very quick guide in and as you can see on here at the moment you can find what you've got in IACL top, I made it fully interactive so that you can click any of these areas, it told you what the area was and you can click it and you go straight to the course rather than having to go through your dashboard so let me just, that was the members area so that's really just a place where people come together but what about the resources? I say I'm happy to take any questions later but I'll get through quite a bit of this at the moment because we're, so I'm sorry if I'm going on quite quickly, there is a big area, it's quite a big area so we've talked about the web lectures, this is where we use swivel cloud, we had a very simple course, the monthly webinars were here and this is a swivel cloud embedded in a page, once the webinars have been embedded within this page they are then added to the commons or the library so all these webinars are then downloadable or viewable or being able to put into different areas so that was quite useful, it's been very simple, minimal maintenance, we also did flash cards, this is still ongoing but the flash cards gain very simple but in multiple languages as you can see we've got English, Chinese, Indonesian, Korean, Spanish and each one of those will go to the separate flash cards and each flash card has also been developed within Neapod as well so they can be used for teaching resources. Going through now onto the ICL 2020, these are the contact lens course, again multiple languages, this was a series of powerpoint files, some of them were 230 slides long so we have the different language versions as you can see, I don't know what they all mean but I'm sure they worked all right and I converted all of these using iSpring to create its own learning pods so you can see at the moment there's a little download on the top corner so you the member can download a powerpoint and a pdf version of the actual content, there was notes so you can tag between the slides and the notes and you can just expand to full screen, this has worked out really well rather than having lots of slide decks and as you can see this one we're looking at at the moment is the basics of contact lenses A1, A2 and there was seven or eight different areas, I'm going on to case reports, case reports as we know with most case reports relatively straightforward they were a multiple choice type questions delivered through a set of modules but we did them in a sequential way so you had to complete all items so as you went through all the various items you got feedback and you couldn't progress until you got 100% when you got to the end of series one which was case report seven and you managed to complete all items you then have an ability to sign up for a certificate of completion so that worked out really well and we've had about two thousand two two and a half thousand downloads of certificates on the system I might add this was series one case report seven there's actually 35 case reports and nine series so it's a lot of material I also created a set of neopods for the same content so it becomes more interactive and then the DLP this is the distance learning program again it was in multiple languages and it was practice for time based exams and the DLP you can see just a different language very simple multiple choice but these are what are used to help our members go into what they call the fellowship exam and the fellowship exam is a very high profile time constrained three hour exam and quite strict rules about how you actually do it which is why we ended up using the fellowship proctored using proctorial so you get an idea and when we went into proctorial that was a whole first time for me using a proctored solution it worked extremely well and that was in different countries we did we ran the exam at different time zones and it was a bit worrying at some points but equally it was an extremely handy and useful way to go through right I'm going to come to the end I've been going on from quick I want to give everyone opportunity to ask any questions because I know it's only meant to be half an hour it's a very much a an in-depth look at what we've been doing and to be fair it was a it has been very interesting and a lot more work is still needs to be done so I'm happy to take any questions at the moment anyone speaking to me yeah we did have we right for people using proctorial we did have that real problem about people may or may not want the privacy issues and all that involved but it was their choice and a lot of the members ended up sometimes having to go and sit this exam in another country which would have cost them maybe up to two to three thousand dollars to travel to go and do this exam in one of our in one of the centres so the resistance we had none because we it was in their interest to do it we weren't forcing them they had to pay to do the exam and so it it worked out really well so I have no problems I understand all the issues with proctorial and things so another question was did we consider any other lms beyond canvas um I we looked at obviously blackboard was not really going to work for us um it's because we're such a small institution we only had a membership of around about 800 members and at the time when we were searching we didn't want to go to an enormous amount of money um the one thing I did look at which is a possibility of future times is talent lms um that would do exactly what we're doing now but would be in theory a slightly more economical one and would work really quite well for expansion without being penalised but the general feeling for most people and the institutions or the other um tutors that have used canvas around the world have found it extremely useful they've we've had very little problems whatsoever you know I'm the admin overall so I am the field admin if anything goes wrong with canvas I think I've had maybe 10 things that have been alerted to me in the last two years so I have no problems about recommending canvas that way but like everything lms and everything you have to work out what you're trying to do and what you're trying to do with the package we also considered had to be careful because we were going to multiple countries as well and obviously canvas does come under the problems with band areas like Iraq is still banned because you can't deliver to our members in Iraq because the US government bans that but those sorts of things that we obviously had to measure but the nice thing about it worked really well in in china and that's one of our main areas and so that all worked quite well so any other questions at the moment so a little bit one thing that you may have the one thing that we did if we go back to the just go back to the area let me just show you something on the members page again one thing that might be of useful or something we have a set of sponsors which you can see which are alcan and cooper vision and johnson and johnson they help to sponsor everything but our problem one of my challenges was how do we get the sponsors on everything we ever do so we have a standard page and the sponsors page is done in the package i'm using at the moment which is called vis me and all i need to do and i is to if we need to change a sponsor i've changed the vis me file and it automatically updates it in all the courses that we have everything but the nice thing about it as well is that the vis me dashboard or vis me analytics can also show you everything or the action every time anyone's viewed any of these logos so i actually have a vis me report that shows like google analytics but it actually does a nice bit of graph to show you how many people have gone to all the various areas around the world where it's coming from so that's also very useful and it saved me an awful lot of time because if you don't have to remember to put it in each course it's automatic so any other questions at the moment i say i'm trying to keep it short precise as i said the the one thing i should mention a little bit about the we do have additional support for this and catheter who works in in india and she does quite a lot of the background information for us and also keeping the supporting the institutions overall so um but we're at the beginning of yet more work that's going to come this way and we're likely to move things around a little bit as we go through the year so that's about me finished richard do you want to join in a minute thanks you um it was very interesting i think it's uh a very complex it is complex to go through in 30 minutes yes i appreciate what i was trying to do it was a trying to explain it's a challenge to bring something from what is a a website into a learning package but the nice thing about it i had a free reign yeah and that's something none of you have it is something i'm very jealous of very hamstrong with some of the things that you've been able to probably for any quickly this complete presentation so it's interactive if if that helps because basically sharing i can share this application with everyone um so that you can look at it again which makes it interactive and you'll see some of the a bit more of the detail rather than just watching the recording