Choice

Online prospectus helps youngsters choose educational opportunities

Project objective

Choice is an online resource for young Londoners, aged 14-19, who are looking to further their education. Prior to the development of 'Choice', young adults in London needed to hunt through individual prospectuses of a variety of different learning providers, a time consuming and often confusing process.

Developed by System Associates, Choice has the potential to be used by up to half a million young adults and will provide a comprehensive service which should make it easier for youngsters to further their education and skills.

The project was funded by the Learning and Skills Council and London Challenge, it was managed by London Connects and was supported by all of London's Local Authorities, Connexions and the Mayor of London.

Initial development

Choice is accessed via www.yourlondon.gov.uk, a pan-London portal which aims to bring together London's public services into one portal. Your London was developed by System Associates in 2005, and was one of the UK's first shared services, well ahead of the 'Transformational Government' agenda. Because of System Associates' proven expertise in developing and delivering integrated online services, its credentials made it stand out from others tendering for the project.

From an early stage, System Associates became involved in developing realistic specifications for the site, taking into account existing processes and systems. The result is a clearly navigable and flexible site for the user and a system which can have content delivered with the minimum of administrator intervention. A content management system was developed, based around the company's g-Serve enterprise content management system, which enables integration with a number of pre-existing applications, as well as the development of many new online services.

A unique easy-to-use secure web interface was developed to allow providers, borough representatives and administrators to update the provider, course and venue details for display on the Choice website.

Innovation

At the time of development, the project was the largest of its kind in the UK, in terms of joining up local authority information, involving the assimilation of information from more than 600 sources, including schools, colleges and work-based learning providers.

From client go-ahead to launch, the project took five months to implement.

Choice contains a geographically searchable directory of courses which is fully integrated with London mapping and Transport for London to enable easy journey planning to course and training venues, including providing directions to the nearest tube, train and bus stations for each location.

Ongoing development

Plans for the future include extending the functions of Choice and offering an online clearing house facility, which will enable young people to also apply for courses online.

Conclusion

With more and more young people using the internet as their primary source of information, having a portal solution which provides information about their learning and career options makes it far easier for them to source the best option for them. Young people can evaluate many different options in one sitting and work out what will fit in best around work, their location or additional responsibilities.

In a speech at the website's 'stakeholder' launch, Lord Adonis, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools said: "This is a very valuable service to all young Londoners who will be able to identify at the touch of a button, the full range of learning opportunities available to them. London has a significant number of young people who are outside both education and employment and the online prospectus will help them to access courses and gain new skills."