QLearn roll out enters phase 2
Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 128 No 4, 9 June 2023, page no.16
Phase 2 of the QLearn implementation has now begun. This phase features the creation of additional templates for QLearn courses, including additional multi-age exemplars, and a dedicated QLearn EDTV (the department’s YouTube channel) to create additional video resources, as well as a raft of technical updates around Canvas implementation.
The department and the QTU continue to have an open dialogue in between official QLearn working group monthly meetings. This has allowed for member enquiries and concerns to be raised and addressed as they come to light.
March State Council endorsed a QLearn survey. This survey, which closed on June 2, asked members to outline their current concerns around QLearn implementation, including barriers, enablers, and required additional resourcing. The data from this survey will inform the QTU’s position on additional QLearn resourcing requirements going forward.
Important wins for QTU members
At the most recent Digital Learning Project Business SME working group meeting, the department reported that the arbitrary cost for the retrieval of migrated content would be removed completely, and that the 200 schools who had accessed migration services so far this year had not and would not be charged.
This is an important win for QTU members, as it has only been achieved through consistent and repeated advocacy from QTU Executive members and State and Area Council Delegates.
After QTU advocacy, the department is also creating an extensive collection of resources, which will be available to schools via the dedicated OnePortal page. These resources include updated timelines for the QLearn roll-out, recorded PD sessions, and a new suite of shorter training videos.
As a result of ongoing QTU feedback, the department is also planning to further curate video resources into logical, easily consumable micro-learning online courses, which will be easy to find and targeted towards busy teachers and school staff with limited time.
TurnItIn
The department is expecting the TurnItIn procurement process to be completed this term (Term 2). However, it is still updating the relevant information guide and the QTU has asked to be consulted before it is published on OnePortal.
As a large corporation, TurnItIn has sought to buy up all the smaller plagiarism products that are in the market over the course of the past few years. That’s why the free Learning Place program known as Safe Assign no longer exists as an option, although this was known when the department’s Blackboard contract ended late last year.
With TurnItIn now having the monopoly of the market – and offering no significant subsidies to educational organisations – the department has sought to negotiate prices for the QLearn-compatible “Originality Checker”, but the associated cost remains excessive. As no other suitable or compatible free options are available, there will therefore still be an associated cost for individual schools.
However, the department has adopted as consistent practice that there will be no requirement for parental consent for the use of the “Originality Checker” function, therefore making the process as streamlined as possible.
This is a workload win for the QTU, as the need to manually enter student approvals, along with the associated individual paperwork, was not something we would ever support.
The QTU has also ensured that this is the one and only additional cost to schools associated with the QLearn platform.