Construction of the virtual college has been undertaken in partnership with the practice members and a multidisciplinary, multi agency Advisory Group. In 2001 the viability of such a college was assessed using a low cost computing system. The prototype built using The Collaborative Virtual Workspace Technology allowed us to pilot ideas, confirm the potential of IT for the project and to begin to identify the challenges of pioneering an IT based project within the spectrum of NHS environments and Independent Sector Care Homes in Scotland. In 2003, with the support of European Social Fund (EQUAL) we moved over to Blackboard (Bb v5.5). In 2004 we upgraded to Bb v6 and continue to enhance the college through user feedback.
This piece is written for non experts in computing and explores our experiences of using CVW and the lessons learned for the future.