About SONET

SONET started back in the early 1990s as a Special Interest Group (SIG) for educational technology in the School of Nursing (as was) at the University of Nottingham, hence the acronym (School Of Nursing Educational Technology group). It was a loose group of staff within the School interested in the use of e-learning in Nursing education, and held bimonthly meetings and presentations. The group was facilitated by Fred Riley, Learning Technologist, who still runs this website, and supported by a dedicated e-learning team (SONET-ARC) in the School. Following a merger, this team is now part of the Health, E-Learning and Media (HELM) group in the School.

In recent years the School has merged with other Schools, to become the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Physiotherapy. Plainly the acronym no longer works, but it's been retained as it's become a bit of a 'brand' within and outwith the University.

This website

The main purpose of the SONET website is to provide Open Educational Resources (OER) for healthcare education, primarily within the School but also to the wider world. The main component of the site is the repository of multimedia, interactive Reusable Learning Objects (RLOs) which have been developed here through the collaboration of teachers, healthcare practitioners and software developers. All RLOs undergo a 'lifecycle' with two quality assurance peer-reviews, and are licenced under Creative Commons for public, non-commercial, educational use (see copyright and terms of use).

This site also has news on e-learning developments in the School, a blog where interesting tidbits are posted, resources for 'rapid e-learning', and user guides for University e-learning resources.

SONET discussion list

If you'd like to keep track of SONET doings, announcements are posted regularly to the low-volume SONET discussion list which is open to anyone with an interest or experience in any aspect of e-learning applied to the teaching of healthcare, including:

members of the School of Nursing, Midwifery & Physiotherapy (the main, but not exclusive, focus of SONET)
members of the University of Nottingham, and of other universities/colleges where healthcare is taught
NHS staff involved in e-learning and training

Or, indeed, anyone outside these groups with an interest in healthcare and e-learning.

RSS feeds

You can also keep in touch by subscribing to one or more of the RSS feeds on this site. If you don't know RSS from a hole in the ground, have a look at this RSS FAQ. For those techies interested in custom harvesting of RLO repository metadata, there is a rudimentary Application Programming Interface (API) available.

Site contact

For all enquiries relating to SONET and this site, please contact the site administrator, Fred Riley