ICOSA Project

This project, known as Inter-Institutional Collaborative Online Self- Access (ICOSA) project was a four- year inter-institutional project for the language centres of five tertiary institutions in Hong Kong (HK Polytechnic University, Lingnan University, Baptist University, City University and the Institute of Education) to create and share a range of English language self-access learning materials online via an online repository. In the first phase the emphasis was on English language proficiency materials, while in the second phase there has been more emphasis on materials for language to support students’ discipline-specific studies. To date over 500 authentic and unique exercise packages were created over the project term and all participating institutions have utilised the materials in a variety of ways: 1. Independent learning via dedicated website 2. Course supplementary materials via LMS 3. Class tasks to help students develop L2 skills 4. Assigned via instructor/tutor to help scaffold weak skill sets This presentation will focus on how these resources can play an effective role in student development either independently or within an existing course setting.

The presentation reports the progress of the Inter-university Collaborative Online Self-Access (ICOSA) project: a project for sharing and developing online self-access English language learning materials. It covers the research-into-practice issue of the needs analysis stage of the project. The project was planned in 2011 and started in early 2012. The five participating Hong Kong tertiary institutions spent the first three months of the project conducting an analysis of the needs of their students for online self-access materials. This was followed by a survey of existing materials to find out what was already available to fulfil these needs, and what materials could be modified in order to do so. Needs which are not met by suitable materials are now being prioritized and materials will be developed. Project materials will be collected and shared in a repository. In addition, a tagging and indexing system will be used in order to help project participants find materials in this repository. In the presentation the results of the needs analysis and the survey of the existing materials will be described, as well as future plans. The presentation should be of interest to academics in need of elearning self-access materials to suggest to their students.