EGCRF Site Comments

Lucy and I undertook a workshop at the ICG  conference in November 2006.  We has seven participants who were very interested in the EGCRF and the range of resources already available on the website.  I have included a summary of the feedback we recieved on the both the strucutre and UK content of the website. We asked...

If you were part of the UK focus group – what would you have wanted on/of the EGCRF website?

• Not IT background so something that is user friendly and easy to navigate
• Practical activities answering questions such as: so what? and now what am I supposed to do?
• Standard examples of good practice
• What are the problems?
• Context specific problems
• Short description of what careers service/education is in the different countries
• Case studies
• Ability to be able to share good practice

It would interesting to find out what other feedback people have received on the website so far? 

Ufi/learndirect advice offers a range of Information, Advice and Guidance services on behalf of partners. These include government agencies, national broadcasters and Sector Skills Councils.

 

The European Guidance Council Research Forum would be a useful research tool for understanding what European counterparts are doing in the area of information, advice and guidance. It also enables UK practitioners to share best practice and information regarding projects in progress or evaluation reports about work on equal opportunities in the UK.

 

In my role as Partnerships Project Manager, a UK Project and Practice section on the website would be particularly beneficial. Areas of interest include:

·        how to reach new audiences;

·        utilising new technologies to reach particular groups;

·        widening participation; and

·        learning lessons from existing projects/ avoiding duplication

 

The development of resources is also of interest in order to compare and understand what tools and diagnostics are developed for European IAG practitioners. This information would be useful to share with colleagues in the National Resource Service.

On several different machines, both at the University of Derby and at home, the text of the home page appears to be "bunched up" into a long narrow column with lots of space at the side. I think I can hear Mike groaning already that it might be either the wretched Microsoft Internet Explorer browser I`m using, or maybe something to do with the pixel/doxel/sqixel setting of my monitor! Any thoughts...?

The structure of the site is very straight forward and very accessible, though, I was a bit confused by one item in the "Focus groups by country section". The entries from Finland, Denmark, Slovenia and Greece made very interesting reading, given their respective national contexts and issues. However, I couldn`t "place" the "Equal opportunities - underpinning effective practice" item. I thought at first it might have been the UK perspective, but as I read on it appeared to be more of a summary of issues relevant to the whole of the EU, without a particular national focus. Excellent though this item is, does it properly fit under the "Focus groups by country" heading? (Mike please note! I found my way to the various weblogs with no trouble!) Deirdre