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Circular letter number 05/2005
For further information contact Liz Franco tel 0117 931 7335, e-mail l.franco@hefce.ac.uk
Dear Vice-Chancellor or Principal
E-learning strategy and capital investment funding
1. This circular letter announces publication of our e-learning strategy and sets out allocations of £31 million in capital funding to higher education institutions (HEIs) to support investment in e-learning. A further £2 million will be allocated to support e-learning in directly funded further education colleges. No response is required to this letter.
E-learning strategy
2. We publish today our e-learning strategy (HEFCE 2005/12), which sets out our strategy and implementation plan for supporting e-learning in HEIs. The strategy aims to embed e-learning in the higher education sector within the next 10 years, responding to the Government commitment in the 2004 Higher Education White Paper. We will implement the strategy in conjunction with the Higher Education Academy and the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC).
3. We welcome the report of the House of Commons Education and Skills Select Committee on the UK e-University, published on 3 March. This makes a number of recommendations to the Government and HEFCE on approaches to strategic development of e-learning. We intend to keep our strategy under regular review, in conjunction with development of the Government's e-learning strategy for all sectors of education, and will therefore take into account the committee's conclusions in doing so.
4. We will use residual funds from the e-University project to support and further the strategy. The bulk of these funds will be used in a new funding initiative to support e-learning, announced in the strategy. This will help embed e-learning in higher education and provide case studies, and will be jointly run by the Higher Education Academy and JISC. We are also using residual funds to ensure that e-learning developments from the e-University project are preserved and that lessons learnt from the project are disseminated widely.
E-learning capital investment funding
5. In addition to the residual funding from the e-University, we are distributing a total of £33 million in capital funding to invest in e-learning. Of this, £31 million has been allocated to HEIs by formula; Annex A shows the conditional allocations for all HEIs. Allocations have been based on HEFCE 2004-05 standard teaching resource and widening participation allocations, and Teacher Training Agency teacher training resource.
6. These funds are available for 2005-06 only, and will be allocated subject to the following conditions:
They are to be invested in developing e-learning - specifically for equipment, software and course development costs - where such investment has a demonstrable benefit for learning and teaching over more than one year. Institutions should take into account our e-learning strategy in determining the best use of their funding allocation.
Institutions include a statement within their 2006 annual monitoring statement to HEFCE to confirm that the investment has been made, and that this has been in accordance with the purpose stated in paragraph 6a.
Support for e-learning in further education colleges
7. A total of up to £2 million to support e-learning in directly funded further education colleges will be included in their allocations of capital funding for 2004-06, which are to be announced shortly. Funding for e-learning in indirectly funded further education colleges is within the funding shown at Annex A for the lead HEI.
8. No action is required.
Yours sincerely
Sir Howard Newby
Chief Executive
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Annex A
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