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Emerald InTouch – Learn. Share. Network. Collaborate

Emerald InTouch is a Web space and hosting service designed to support learning and collaboration.

By bringing together technologies such as blogs, wikis and RSS into one place, Emerald InTouch enables users to create and join communities of practice, engage in reflective learning and collaborate with peers online.

The rise in popularity of Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, wikis, RSS and community-building tools has created new opportunities for students and teachers to communicate, share ideas and engage in the learning process. Emerald InTouch is a learning networking site that allows users to take advantage of Web 2.0 tools to support learning within a safe and secure environment.

Audience

• Distance learning departments in business schools and universities
• Heads of department and faculty who require students to capture evidence of informal learning
• Corporate learning providers wishing to connect with attendees before, during and after courses
• Organizations wishing to encourage communication amongst stakeholders at all levels, particularly with those overseas
• Alumni officers to facilitate networking and retain connections with former students
  

Features

Users can:

• Create and join communities – based around courses, projects, research interests or modules. Anyone can create a community so students can participate in inter-departmental or inter-course work;
• Work simultaneously on projects/reports online – using the wiki or file-share functionality users can collaborate on documents from dispersed locations;
• Store and share multimedia files – the filestore and community blogs allow users to share files relating to their course or research area;
• Capture and retain information – InTouch allows communities to build up a "collective memory" by capturing discussion threads, snippets of information and wiki documents;
• Record personal reflections – the personal learning tools on the website allow users to create personal learning logs, store important pieces of work and record career aspirations and goals;
• Access course materials – teachers can store course lectures, notes and links to recommended reading on the InTouch platform;
• Continue to use InTouch after graduation – because InTouch does not rely on student registration numbers, users can stay connected to their institution after they have left.
  

Benefits

• Control over registered users provides secure environment for learning and reflection;
• Student centred, not course led;
• Communities can capture and retain shared knowledge/learning;
• Reduces isolation for distance learners;
• Hosted service frees up institutional IT resources;
• Comprehensive access controls – content can be as private or as public as you wish;
• Provides opportunity for institutions to maintain links with former students and connect with future students.

How is Emerald InTouch being used?

• Kentz Construction
  Emerald InTouch supports the mentoring and executive MBA programme at Kentz to encourage communication between newly-employed graduates in dispersed locations. Users also access Emerald journal articles through InTouch, saving valuable research time.
• Middlesex Centre for Excellence in Work Based Learning
  Students taking part in the distance learning courses use Emerald InTouch to record personal and group reflections on their blogs. They also use the wiki tool to work collaboratively with peers and develop a "joint statement of knowledge" about key concepts within their courses.
• The Dubai School of Government
  Here Emerald InTouch is the communication tool which encourages knowledge sharing across the organization.
  

Join now for free!

• Visit the Emerald InTouch site and join for free.

Further information

• To find out how your institution can benefit from an Emerald hosted and customized version of this service, e-mail us at intouch@emeraldinsight.com