Don't know how I missed this one. Even if I am more interested in informal learning than in institutionally driven courses, and even if I am expecting Personal Learning Environments to take over form institutionally driven portal and VLEs it is important to know what is going on in the real world.

VLE Surveys : A longitudinal perspective between March 2001, March 2003 and March 2005 for Higher Education in the United Kingdom is written by Martin Jenkins, Tom Browne and Richard Walker was released in December.

It is a wonderfully detailed piece of work with much in depth analysis. (For those of you unfamiliar with UK education-speak pre 92 institutions are the 'old' universities with post 92 institutions being the old Polytechnics and Higher Education colleges that were upgraded to university status.)

The main conclusions are:

1. Uptake of VLEs has continued to increase, with HE colleges now on a par with pre- and
post-92 institutions.

2. The number of VLEs in use at a given institution is beginning to decrease, but with pre-92
universities still displaying the greatest diversity.

3. Blackboard and WebCT continue to dominate. Other proprietary software is declining but
there is an increase in in-house and open source approaches.

4. Post-92 universities demonstrate the biggest increases in use by both students and staff.

5. Access to course material continues to account for the greatest VLE usage, but particularly in post-92 universities, there is increasing usage that is not merely supplementary (i.e. optional for students). Usage is conspicuous across a very wide range of subjects.

6. Central IT continues to dominate technical support. Elsewhere, dedicated VLE units appear to be absorbing the support previously provided more diversely.

7. The integration of VLEs with MLEs has increased both in range of activities and in depth. In particular, there is a substantial increase in the creation of student account files for transfer to a VLE. But there is limited progress in integration with portal development and e-portfolios.

8. Strategy and decision making are becoming ever more consolidated centrally and are being substantially informed by external agencies. But there is also an increase in local
consultation. E-learning and VLEs are increasingly being cited in strategy documents.

9. Learning and teaching activities are consolidated as the primary drivers for considering
using a VLE. Specialised support such as that required for distance learners and students
with special needs are identified as significant factors but have as yet had little impact on the
character of resource provision.

10. Availability of funding is now the primary stimulant to VLE development, and a small
percentage of this is still as project funding, though assured institutional funding now
dominates.

11. Perceptions regarding the use of career enhancement as a means of encouraging VLE usage are very low, but there is an increase in expectation that VLEs will be used by staff.

12. Standards are neither seen as supportive nor as barriers, indeed, they have negligible
influence.

13. Most institutions are not yet using innovative technologies such as wireless and mobile
phones, though post-92 universities are most active in this area.

14. The requirement to implement Personal Development Planning is beginning to have a small but noticeable impact on VLE usage. The development of e-portfolio capabilities is an
emerging concern for HEIs.

I must say I am quite surprised and heartened by the increase in institutions reporting in-house development and deployment of VLEs. It seems to me that this is what could really drive innovation. Also interesting to see the number of institutions citing student expectations as a major stimulus to development. And very interesting that VLEs now seem to be well integrated within institutional strategies although I am less sure that the centralisation of decision making and planning is such a good thing.

OH and very heartening to see Boddington and Moodle making an impression