The University of Bristol DataHub-a prerequisite for an integrated learning environment?

Virtual or Managed Learning Environments (VMLEs) cannot be fully effective unless well-integrated with existing campus information systems. Institutional planning for the UK Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) has provided an unexpected impetus at the University of Bristol. The DataHub, a reporting database created initially to back-end a locally developed Web application (IRIS) to support the RAE submission, has been extended to include undergraduate and curriculum information drawn from the corporate student information system. The same authentication framework used by IRIS has also been used in developing a faculty based staff and student intranet which is itself underpinned by information drawn from the DataHub. The university now wishes to develop this model further to provide a generalised learning and teaching portal that could be offered to all academic departments