Biz/ed: Built for FE?

This summer sees the completion of 'Building Biz/ed for FE', a JISC-funded project aimed at boosting the relevance, structure and accessibility of our service to the FE community. There were several strands to this project, including:

* the site re-design, completed in October 2002, details of which were reported in the Winter 2002 journal;

* setting up an FE Focus Group to advise on improving the service still further;

* enhanced relevance through re-purposing existing content;

* developing an AVCE support section, with advice and resources developed by FE practitioners for teachers and learners of business, leisure and recreation, and travel and tourism.

Regular Biz/ed users will already be familiar with our new site. The introduction of highly detailed tagging to each page of Biz/ed allows 'mass customisation' of the service to the individual needs of our users. Our 'Quickjump' box is the most visible outcome of this work and can be accessed from our home page.

Our FE Focus

Group was set up in 2002. It met over the course of the year to advise on maximising the relevance of what we do for FE teachers and learners. The group brainstormed ideas for worksheets to be put into a set of new resources giving AVCE guidance to students and lecturers.

Group members were then commissioned to create some of these new resources. Among the materials created are:

* tips for dealing with Unit tests;

* a company research checklist;

* a guide to Unit-specific Web sites;

* advice on how to cross-reference between Units.

The materials address parts of the Leisure and Recreation, Travel and Tourism, and Business curriculum and will be appearing live on Biz/ed this Summer.

http://www.bized.ac.uk/stafsup/options/avce/fefocus.htm

COMPANY PROFILES AND DATA

In March 2003 Biz/ed launched an interactive data service that allows students to access financial data from a range of UK and International companies. The data are supported by a comprehensive suite of learning materials aimed at developing skills in financial ratio analysis.

Learners' skills can be honed by accessing information from the profit and loss accounts and balance sheets of 34 well-known business organisations. At present, two full years of data have been gathered, allowing comparisons to be made within the firm, across its industry and over the economy as a whole.

The objective of this service is to leaven the learning experience in a traditionally turgid and difficult to understand area of the business syllabus. Biz/ed are pleased to be able to enhance this great resource with profiles of some of the 34 companies on which we have gathered financial data.

Featured companies include some of the best known business organisations in the UK: easyJet, Sainsbury's, Carphone Warehouse and Domino's Pizza are among those selected.

Watch this fantastic resource grow as more business profiles are added and the financial data are updated.

http://www.bized.ac.uk/cgi-bin/ratios/ratiodata.pl

Written by Andy Margrave,

Biz/ed Research Officer

Copyright Economics and Business Education Association Summer 2003
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