Biz/ed update - Autumn 2002

ICT ON LINE

The summer has been a very busy time for Biz/ed with the first major redesign of the site for nearly five years. This has been a two-part process. The first part has been an overhaul of the look and feel of the site. We hope you will agree that the new design (see http://www.bized.ac.uk/) is much more vibrant, lively and easier to access information from. The front page now links to a lot more material and is updated daily with new news items and new web sites that may be of interest to those studying economics and business.

However, the second part of the redesign process is the one that may perhaps interest teachers the most. After a lot of discussion with teachers and lecturers we have stood back and looked at what both teachers and students want from the site, and as a result have fundamentally redesigned the underlying navigation for the site

Every single page on the site has been checked, some have been deleted and each one has been `tagged' with information about the subjects, levels and topics that the page is relevant for. From these tags we can now generate listings relevant for the individual user. So, for example, students studying AVCE Business can now go directly to a listing of all the resources relevant for Unit 2 -The Competitive Business Environment or students studying Economics can now go directly to a listing of all resources for development economics and so on. You can jump to these lists straight from the front page or from the main learning materials pages.

For every page we have also added keywords relevant to that page. So, for example, if students are looking at a page about income tax policy, they will also be able to search the Biz/ed glossary for definitions of terms related to income tax (income tax, progressive tax, fiscal policy and so on). They will be able to search our catalogue using predetermined keywords to see what related web sites there are for the topic. Finally they will also be able to search our In the News section for related news articles to update themselves on what has been happening recently on this topic. These news articles have been written and targeted at economics and business students, so that they also incorporate the theory related to the article.

The impact of all these changes should be a site that is much more user-friendly and with much greater functionality. We haven't changed the overall structure of the site a great deal so you should still be able to find all the resources you have used in the past in exactly the same way, but let us know if you have any problems. The new site structure should help you to find a whole load of resources you perhaps didn't even know were there.

We have also added a new section to the site called `Current Topics'. You should find this invaluable for keeping students up to date with recent developments. The section will incorporate our free weekly newsletter (these look at economics and business theory in the context of recent events), up to the minute newsfeeds and also our own news section where we take one or two key news items a day and look at the economics and business theory behind them. There will also be regular sample exam questions in the section to help students see what examiners expect from them.

We hope you find all these changes valuable, but do let us know through the Biz/ed feedback email or through the EBEA. Best wishes for the new academic year.

Copyright Economics and Business Education Association Autumn 2002
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