Anyone who uses the Internet on a regular basis is only too aware of the problem of finding good quality, reliable information using commercial search engines such as Google and Alta Vista. For students and teachers, short on time to complete assignments or prepare lessons, sifting through thousands of search results to find relevant information can be daunting.
Altis [1] is a free, national information service. It aims to provide a trusted source for selected, high quality Internet information for students and lecturers by providing free access to the best hospitality, leisure, sport and tourism information on the Internet. These are chosen by subject specialists, and listed by subject area and resource type. All sites are regularly checked for currency, and new sites are added every day.
Altis can either be searched, by using keywords, or browsed via a hierarchical list of subject headings. Users can select a heading and then browse through the resource descriptions to locate appropriate resources. It is also possible to refine your search by resource type, for example, to search for books, journals, learning materials, resource guides or statistics.
Examples of the kinds of resources to be found in Altis are:
A-level physical education: online study guide http://www.humankinetics.com/courses/alevelpe/index.cfm
P.E. Centre: resources for teachers, students and educators. http://www.physicaleducation.co.uk/
Academy of Culinary Arts http://www.academyofculinaryarts.org.uk/
Tips for using a knife http://www.onlinechef.com/getstart3.html
Star UK: statistics on tourism and research http://www.staruk.org.uk/
Vitamin Demonstration (interactive game) http://www.ag.uiuc.edu/food-lab/vitamins/
How Food Works http://home.howstuffworks.com/food.htm
In addition to its Internet Resources Catalogue, Altis provides a number of other services that can help users make the most of what they discover on the Web.
Within the Virtual Training Suite [2], a collection of self-paced online tutorials to assist students build up their e-literacy skills, Altis users will find a number of subject-relevant tutorials written by FE practitioners. These are:
These tutorials can be accessed via the Altis Learning Materials page [3].
A series of case studies on how the resources in Altis can be used to develop FE teaching materials is also available [4]. These studies were written in collaboration with FE practitioners. The relevant topics are:
These may provide ideas for teachers who are thinking of incorporating more Web resources into their course materials.
A leaflet advertising Altis is available, in PDF format, at: http://altis.ac.uk/publications/leaflets/altisgeneric.pdf
Ariadne is published every three months by UKOLN. UKOLN is funded by MLA the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the Higher Education Funding Councils, as well as by project funding from the JISC and the European Union. UKOLN also receives support from the University of Bath where it is based. Material referred to on this page is copyright Ariadne (University of Bath) and original authors.
Issue 38 January 2004