SumTotal Systems, the industry’s largest provider of learning and business performance technologies, services and processes, today announced that a new online learning environment from the National College for School Leadership (NCSL) — powered by the SumTotal’s Learning Management System — has won a prestigious national award in the United Kingdom. The NCSL Learning Gateway, which allows participants on NCSL programs to carry out much of their study online, recently won an award of excellence at Britain’s e-Government National Awards in the strategic plan/achievement category.

The NCSL Learning Gateway is revolutionizing professional development for England’s school leaders, and is currently being used by 18,000 headteachers, deputies, middle leaders and business managers. The platform gives participants the power to personalize their learning as never before. It provides them with a single access point to all of NCSL’s online learning technologies and allows them to create their own “learning pathway” to fit around their individual circumstances. They can access learning when it is convenient to them, choose activities and content to suit their own learning styles, specific needs and experiences, as well as track and evaluate their progress.

Tony Richardson, Director of Online Learning at NCSL, believes this is a groundbreaking example of blended learning in action — combining online, private and face-to-face study in one program. “The NCSL Learning Gateway is more than a technical solution. It’s about empowering program participants to take responsibility for accessing their learning,” Richardson said. “The result is that they can save time, fit learning around their working lives and get even more out of NCSL programs. It’s also about helping school leaders to learn to be online learners themselves — something that they will be asking their students to do in schools as ICT and online learning become commonplace features of learning both inside and outside the classroom.”

Judges at the e-government awards were particularly impressed with the way the NCSL Learning Gateway has gone from strength to strength since its launch a year ago.

Jonathan Dale, who has led the Learning Gateway development at NCSL, said: “The number of users has almost quadrupled since we launched the Gateway and we’ve had a constant stream of positive feedback. A recent survey of 700 Gateway users found a large proportion felt their perceptions of online learning had changed for the better since using the environment. Many of them said flexibility of where and when to learn was one of the chief benefits. Over two-thirds also said they had come to the conclusion online learning was as good as or better than traditional delivery methods.”

“We’ve also achieved huge cost savings through the introduction of the Gateway,” Dale added. “Traditionally a program would require five or more face-to face days. Now, just three are required for our ‘Leading from the Middle’ program — the remainder of the learning takes place online. This two-day saving equates to approx GBP 3.6 million in the cost of providing supply teachers.”

Learning Gateway is accessible through the College’s website (www.ncsl.org.uk) and is currently being used by participants across four NCSL programs: Leading from the Middle (for subject heads and pastoral leaders), National Professional Qualification for Headship, Leadership Program for Serving Headteachers, the Certificate in School Business Management and the Diploma for School Business Management. The system has the potential to scale up to 250,000 learners.

Liz Storey, Bursar at Feversham College in Bradford, was one of the first NCSL program participants to graduate after using the Gateway on the CSBM qualification.

“The Learning Gateway has been a really useful tool for me. I found it a helpful aid to my learning in a range of ways,” Storey observed. “For example, it was really helpful to be able to see immediate results from tests, and it was easy to plot my learning because the system allows you to save progress in course workbooks.”

Another Gateway user said: “It enables me to continue learning with a full–time job, two children and a husband who works long hours. The impact is significant. The flexibility is invaluable.”

Other users have said the Gateway has given them greater confidence using online resources and has meant they now feel more comfortable using ICT resources in their teaching.

“On behalf of all SumTotal employees, I’d like to congratulate NCSL on winning this prestigious award. Learning Gateway is a great example of the value of a blended learning approach, and we’re proud that SumTotal is powering the underlying platform for this important initiative,” said Andy Eckert, SumTotal CEO. “Thanks to great partners like BT and our direct sales force, our international business is clearly picking up, particularly in the UK and northern Europe. We anticipate this to be a growth area for us in the future, and having success stories like NCSL’s Learning Gateway certainly will help us to expand our reach.”

The contract to develop and implement this was awarded to a joint bid from SumTotal partner BT, along with SumTotal Systems and FM Systems.