Choice is rapidly taking prime place in the IAG market as the must-go-to site for young people planning their way forward.
We’re pleased that the site and the information it contains
have improved so vastly in the last 6 months – beyond
recognition to provide nifty navigation and extremely high
accuracy.
You have helped by telling us what needs changing and
have raised loads of issues, queries, suggestions and feedback with
the Choice Helpdesk. We have acted on every suggestion.
There’s a summary below, with delivery dates highlighted on the
right:
| Choice feature | You said | We have | Delivery |
|---|---|---|---|
| Search function |
The course and career searching needs some fine tuning |
|
Completed
November 08
|
| Admin site | Need to make it easy for consortia to upload their data and to be able to quickly find a provider |
|
November 08
Completed
|
| Course data | Need to improve providers course data on the site |
|
Ongoing |
| Site look & feel plus language | The language and design could be improved, more young person friendly |
|
November 08 and ongoing |
| Progression Planner | Too complex for young people to use right now |
|
February 09 |
| CV Builder | It needs to be easier and more intuitive to use; There should be more than one CV template |
|
February 09 |
| Quiz | Too many questions, include appropriate Young Person language |
|
February 09 |
As part of the continuous improvement of Choice we are already well underway with work on the fourth version of the site. We see this very much as a phase to build and improve existing functionality with testing and delivery in February 2009 as follows:
- Choice Jobs absorbing the Connexions LOIS (Local Opportunities Information System)
- What’s hot? - Front page Dialogue box, highlighting critical courses / events in the year
- Improvements to the Career Assessment Quiz, Pathways tool, CV Builder, Action planner and HE data information
- View courses outside of London - Allowing young people to view the provision in the areas surrounding London and vice versa
- Improved Provision intelligence and reporting at borough/sub-regional/regional levels
- Enable providers to search their own data on Choice via their own website
Common Application Process (CAP)
Preparatory work continues with the pilots, scheduled to go live to
young people in the autumn of 2009. If you would like to be
involved with CAP and or would like further information, please
contact Peter Williams on 07710 835 457 or peter.williams@londonconnects.gov.uk.
With all the time and effort going into Choice, the question we all need to ask is are young people actually using the site? Well the answer is an emphatic - YES! Here is a snapshot of the overall performance of all this years’ activity.
Yearly comparison of Site Usage from May to October
| 2007 | 2008 | |
| Absolute Unique Visitors | 25,996 | 42,738 |
| Average time on site | 5:29 | 12:08 |
| Users that leave having only viewed a single page | 33.01% | 19.62% |
Additional useful information can also be found from www.choicefriends.org
- Site performance - some changes have been made to speed up the site. But we need more. Please bear with us whilst we work hard with our developers to try and improve this
- LLDD provision - better differentiated information
- HE courses in London with progression agreements
- General HE course/progression information
- Labour Market Information
- Foundation Learning Tier and awaited new Qualifications and
Credit Framework (QCF) http://www.qca.org.uk/qca_8150.aspx
ChoiceSupport@rbkc.gov.uk
T: 020 7938 8028