Welcome to ed-serve ...
These public web pages describe some of the background and scope of using Decision Support Tools in teaching using a 'thin client' system we have called 'ed-serve'.
UNE students and staff wanting to access Decision Support Tools which have been nominated by academic staff for particular units at UNE can do so at their MyUNE link on the University's home page.
Decision Support Tools have been used systematically in our teaching at UNE since 1999 as an effective way of enhancing learning within agricultural and natural resources courses. These computer packages can provide predictive outcomes (both biological and economic) for agricultural systems in a wide diversity of environments. This approach grew out of the GrassGro Teaching Project at UNE.
UNE, in conjunction with CSIRO, and with the support of Horizon Agriculture, as well as other developers of software have made a number of Decision Support Tools available to enhance teaching and learning within Rural Science, Economics and Natural Resources degrees. It is planned to expand this approach into other disciplines as different tools are made available within appropriate parts of curricula.
From 2001 to 2005, a project supported by Australian Wool Innovation encouraged participation by 6 universities who delivered relevant Decision Support Tools to their agricultural science students via the ed-serve thin-client system.
The aim of this approach has been to:
- Facilitate learning about important but complex interactions within ecosystems
- Offer students an opportunity to develop work-ready professional skills using computer aided decision support tools
- Facilitate students adopting a deeper, problem-solving approach to learning and
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Ensure that the decision support experiences are linked clearly to the broader curriculum.
In 2009, a national ALTC grant has been awarded to the University of New England and the University of Tasmania titled "eDST: Decision support tools for multi-disciplinary applications in higher education". This project will seek to invite a number of Australian universities to become involved in developing a long-term sustainable solution to enable a wide array of Decision Support Tools to be accessible to students and academics across a broad range of disciplines. For more information, contact Prof. David Cottle at UNE.
New learning environments ... should provide opportunities for students "to apply and test what they are learning in real and meaningful settings ... They should require analysis of what is known, and adaptation and application of what is known ...
The learning environment should involve collaborative learning activities, be largely multi-disciplinary and accommodate different learning styles, and if possible to extend outside the normal classroom setting".
Terenzini (2000)
