Runaway Objects: ALT-C 2007 - Recently Updated Pages

Mapping of Dublin Core Metadata to Sakai Resources Tool

catherinehowell — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 11:58:51 CDT

Dublin Core Metadata Elements	Definition (Source here)	Sakai Resources - 'Edit Details' Fields	Sakai Behaviour - Auto-Capture or Manual Edit	Sample Content
4.14. Identifier	An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context.	Name	Automatic. Sakai auto-detects the file identifier and records it - but as the default resource *Name*. The field can be manually edited. (See also: 4.1. Title.)	llp_final_report_ec_v03.pdf
4.1. Title	Lists the name given to the resource.	Name	Automatic. Sakai auto-detects the file identifier and records it as the default resource *Name*. The field can be manually edited.	Final Report of the Learning Landscape Project
4.8. Creator	An entity primarily responsible for making the content of the resource.	Creator	Manual edit.	Learning Landscape Project
4.10. Contributor	An entity responsible for making contributions to the content of the resource.	Contributor	Manual edit.	Project Team
4.3. Description	An account of the content of the resource.	Description *AND / OR* Abstract	Manual edit.	Final report of the Learning Landscape Project to the University of Cambridge. It was reviewed by the Project Steering Group and the Project Board in June 2008.
4.12. Date	A date associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource.	Date Created *AND / OR* Date Issued	Date Created: Automatic. Sakai auto-detects the date of upload and uses this as the primary reference date for a resource. Date Issued: Manual edit.	23/06/2008
4.13. Format	The physical or digital manifestation of the resource.	File Type	Automatic. Sakai auto-detects the resource format. The field can be manually edited.	application/pdf
4.11. Rights Manager	A person or organisation owning or managing rights over the resource.	Copyright Status	Automatic. Cambridge's Sakai instance (CamTools) is set to default this setting to "I hold copyright". Field can be manually edited: a drop-down menu offers a choice of options, or alternately, can link to a separate rights description.	University of Cambridge
4.16. Audience	A class of entity for whom the resource is intended or useful.	Audience	Manual edit.	FOIO Closed
4.2. Subject	The topic of the content of the resource.	Subject and Keywords	Manual edit.	Findings, Reports, Outcomes, Learning Landscape Project
4.9. Publisher	The entity responsible for making the resource available.	Publisher	Manual edit.	Learning Landscape Project
4.13. Format	The physical or digital manifestation of the resource. (When more than one category of format information is included in a single record, they should go in separate iterations of the element).	File Size	Automatic. Auto-detected by Sakai on upload.	6.1 MB

About this table

The table maps selected 'standard' metadata elements (taken from the Dublin Core metadata elements) to the metadata fields currently available in Sakai, via the Sakai Resources Tool.

Metadata in Sakai

Individual digital resources in Sakai are associated with a mix of automatically extracted metadata and 'optional' metadata fields. The values of some automatically detected fields, and all 'optional' fields, can be edited manually. Sakai splits the display of its metadata fields; those considered less important are 'hidden' in an expandable table in the Resources -- 'Edit Details' area, under the label 'Optional properties.'

As the table shows, Sakai's metadata fields generally align with Dublin Core metadata elements.

About the Learning Landscape Project

The Learning Landscape Project was an educational research project at the University of Cambridge, supported by the Higher Education Academy under its Pathfinder Programme.

The examples given in the table above show how the project has adapted Dublin Core metadata categories for use in archiving project outputs and primary data. Learning Landscape work will be archived in DSpace@Cambridge, Cambridge's institutional digital repository. Project data is serving as pilot data for the JISC / CTREP project, which aims to integrate Cambridge's Sakai instance, CamTools, with DSpace.

CETIS MDR SIG, 012/02/2008

catherinehowell — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 06:33:24 CST

Notes from the CETIS MDR SIG meeting at Birkbeck, London

12 February 2008

Slides and delegate list are available at the meeting wiki: http://wiki.cetis.ac.uk/12th_February_2008%2C_Birkbeck

Please note, this Wetpaint wiki contains my personal notes from the day - see the CETIS wiki for the 'official' slides!

Project showcase notes:

ORE Data Model
Becta VMS
ENTAG
SWORD implementation: Easy Desktop Deposit
FeedForward
SOURCE

CETIS MDR SIG: SOURCE

catherinehowell — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 06:20:41 CST

SOURCE – Sharing Objects Under Repository Control with Everyone

Presenter: David Flanders, Birkbeck
Feb-12-08, Birkbeck, London

SOURCE: A (repository) Bulk Migration Service
Common Repository Interface Group (CRIG)

NB: BBK now part of the ‘Bloomsbury Colleges’ at U of London

Opening question: what happens when we have an open content marketplace?
(US context: inquiry into options for replacing textbooks for students)
Idea that content containers have objects within them – we should be in a world where we can place these where we choose
Approached various systems/vendors and asked how could the SOURCE team enable push/pull

Generic user case: problem with APIs is they are usually programming-language specific. Did not want to create burden of having to maintain those APIs
Borrowing from OpenContent at MIT – wrapper around API to enable interoperability (cf. developer debate on ‘Jersey style’ vs ‘MIT style’)
Migration service sits behind – ideally, want to plug that into other services (metadata transformation, object transformation etc)

Repository or other content-based store made up of ‘search, get, put’
The SOURCE world view is that metadata and asset are parts of an object (both are datastreams)

First iteration: Alpha client tool (built in Java Swing)
Interface built for repository managers

Looking for use cases as to what types of migration people might want.
Can create ‘profiles’ to reflect these and can save them
(check out OKI’s ‘wrapper search’)

The team wants someone else to create a ‘crosswalk service’ that SOURCE can use.

Asset transformation – e.g. taking movie file and pushing it into a Flash file

Being able to move between IMS CPs and Atom

Second iteration: Beta build (current build).
Team threw away most of Java Swing client – they are now using Ruby
9 months left. Will do user testing.

Sample workflow:

Lecturer uploads digital object (PDF etc) to VLE. (for academics, this is a familiar workflow!) Tool then comes into play: migrating data to archive repository (not an institutional repository). From there, can invoke some workflow processes, potentially involving an institutional librarian (e.g. adding metadata to valuable content; discarding some content; stripping images from PPTs and sending to Flickr, etc).

Real world testing:

IR able to act as primary deposit with guarantee to deposit in multiple places

Whole migration from one system to another

Migration with metadata transformation service being invoked (eg LOM to DC)

Migration with object transformation invoked, eg IMS CP – APP

Migration with datastream transformation, eg .mov to .fla

Discussion

100s of migration issues: which ones are the key ones…?

Scott Wilson suggests a potential (plausible, but sensitive) use case scenario: VLE migration (i.e. end-of-licence, managing data export)

Audience question: Has the project looked at national research councils, which have mandated data deposit. There are dataset archiving issues as well. A: yes, the project has looked at “1 to N” migration scenarios and preservation issues (e.g. those associated with the British Library’s “e-theses” project).

CETIS MDR SIG: FeedForward

catherinehowell — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 06:20:29 CST

FeedForward

Presenter: Scott Wilson (CETIS)
Feb-12-08, Birkbeck, London
http://legolas.cetis.ac.uk

Funded by JISC Innovation part of the repositories programme

Comes from work on personal learning – PLEX

Information mgt, personal inf mgt strategies

Information search – not explicitly looking for particular info items; more that info is constantly being delivered to us. We do delivery before we do work. We put up antennae to pull in relevant content. [CH comment: Can this be characterised as expert behaviour - what are the limitations to this description with respect to the majority of users?]

Personal info flows are v complicated and go in both directions

Things are starting to converge that makes this easier to manage – ATOM, RSS

Configuring these services is still difficult and users need support

What’s changed since origin architecture plan? SWORD, TiCToCs, OAI-ORE?, OAI-PMH?, XSPF (shareable playlist for audio), Intute?

Desktop app.
LH bar – aggregator-like thing (cf. Dave Winer – ‘river of news’)
Group feeds into input categories – equaliser-inspired. Easily configurable! To reflect mood, work focus etc. Can save settings as presets (as with an audio app).
When offline, it remembers things looked at recently (does not cache the whole internet!)
Different styles – ‘visual’ view, iPhoto style
Can drag and drop items to work on them– caches items so they are avail offline
Works with many feed types (inc. Connotea), configurable by little wizards

Demo: sending an RSS feed cache to IntraLibrary repository by dragging/dropping onto SWORD protocol, generating IMS content package on the fly, throw at Intralibrary!

Can push info OUT as well as pull IN:

Send feeds to a blog…
Share via Connotea…
Send to a Fedora repository…

Advantage – user does not need to worry about underlying protocols/standards
Still quite tricky configuring some services – auto-discovery not fully implemented yet (SWORD still developing)
Thinking about developing visualisation capability / storyboarding information/organising info in visual ways

Next release due end April.

Tech specs:

Written in Eclipse/SWT. Uses Rome, Rome Propono, Nebula widgets, leftover bits of PLEX, RELOAD etc. Heavy use of Eclipse async job API. SVN with MIT style license
Deals with rights issues by posting references, not content – caches a little bit of content for local use, but deals essentially with references. Detects when item on desktop is a file transfer (when transferring own data object).

CH comment: FeedForward’s view (or visualisation) of information flow has aspects that are clearly “portfolio-like”, or that point to aspects of data curation / personal information management that have been addressed differently in the e-portfolio context (select, organise, pull, review etc) – and the reflective aspects of this. The difference is that FeedForward is designed to be dynamic; it is designed to enable individuals to filter their content continuously (‘filtering’ or adjusting the sources that content comes from, the ways it can be viewed/managed; and the destinations to which content is ultimately ‘pushed’)

CETIS MDR SIG: SWORD

catherinehowell — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 06:20:17 CST

Easy Desktop Deposit - SWORD implementation

Presenter: Sarah Currier (Intrallect)
Feb-12-08, Birkbeck, London

IntraLibrary Connect (Intrallect) – suite of services/tools
Use range of standards: for storing, SWORD, Atom Publishing Protocol
SWORD Desktop deposit tool – allows users to drag and drop straight into repository. Any file type; allows IMS content packaging; with or without metadata
Allows immediate publication on deposit
Configuration of which collections to allow deposit to
Still do all the normal things with IntraLibrary
Also has a bulk upload feature where you can import from a file system (not working in beta)

CETIS MDR SIG: ENTAG

catherinehowell — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 06:19:59 CST

ENTAG

Presenter: Kora Golub, UKOLN
Feb-12-08, Birkbeck, London
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/projects/enhanced-tagging/

ENTAG is about enhancing user-generated vocabularies with controlled vocabularies.

Objectives (managed to note 2 of 3 main project objectives):
- investigate indexing aspects when using only social tagging versus when using social tagging in combination with a controlled vocabulary
- Investigate the above in 2 different contexts: tagging by users/readers and tagging by authors.
- 2 demonstrators: Intute (reader tagging) and STFC – Science and Technology Facilities Council digital repository (author tagging)

Next step: evaluate and compare “basic” system vs “advanced” system, attending to factors including:
- Indexing: perspective, exhaustivity, specificity
- Linguistics etc

Proposed user sample for testing: 50 graduate students in political sciences
Students will be asked to tag 100 documents, covering 4 topics of relevance
Data collection: logging, pre and post-questionnaire
Results by: August 2008

Expectations: precision and recall to be improved when controlled vocab used to enhance tagging.

Users would be advised on what the team thinks would be the best way to discover resources. Not yet decided how to instruct users on what to search for. At the same time, don’t want instructional burden to be too heavy – team is wary of asking too much of testbed users.

The hope is that answers might ‘fall out’ through observing user behaviours.
Team will be logging series of ‘required’ searches – not just observing users’ normal behaviour.

Discussion

Discussion focused on battling problems of controlled context and learned expertise versus observation of behaviour ‘in the wild’ – on a time-limited project

CH comment: It would be interesting to compare the results of this study with analysis of information search/resource discovery behaviours in VLEs (as ‘closed systems’ with clearly defined user communities). There is clear potential to use VLE log analysis to observe user behaviour in multiple group / subgroup contexts (and to use these observations, in turn, to inform future use case development). Another parallel exists with TRAILS and similar projects looking at social dimensions/drivers of information/resource discovery (e. g. looking at the implications of making ‘hot spots’ visible / transparent to users - what happens when you make it transparent what other people are looking at/searching for; how does this influence information resource consumption).

CETIS MDR SIG: Becta VMS

catherinehowell — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 06:19:46 CST

Presentation: Becta Vocabulary Management System (VMS)

Presenter: Mike Taylor, Becta/IndexData
Feb-12-08, Birkbeck, London
http://bank.vocman.com/

Project begins from the following observations:

Creating vocabularies is a pain;
Tools used to create vocabularies are expensive.

Initial motivation: BECTA needed to facilitate vocabulary creation for its Curriculum Online project.

Project outputs:

BECTA Vocab Management System

Studio (not available without training)

Bank: http://bank.vocman.com/

Spine – not yet available – provides means of searching one vocab/thesaurus using another

Uses the Zthes spec (open, freely available): http://zthes.z3950.org/

Started life as a Z39.50 profile (ANSI/NISO Z39.50 – search/retrieval standard)

Not strictly REST-conformant, but REST-like (requests are REST-like URLs)

XML-extended

BVS searches for records related by BT (broader term); returns first 10
Query contains a CQL query
Brings ‘web advantage’ of loose coupling

CH comment: The idea of researchers looking at multiple vocabularies inevitably raises the question of how such formal vocabularies might map onto one another. Hence I was very interested in the concept of Spine – a separate but related project, which (if I understood Mark correctly), promises to deliver a way to search one vocabulary using another, making it a ‘thesaurus of thesauri’).

CETIS MDR SIG: ORE Data Model

catherinehowell — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 06:19:33 CST

ORE Data Model

Feb-12-08, Birkbeck, London
http://www.openarchives.org/ore/

Builds on: web architecture, RDF, named graphs
Web arch: resource-oriented view of problem space
Use of URIs
Uniform interface
Exhange of info about resource state (representations)
Hypermedia – representations provided

Named graph: RDF graph is resource which can be named by URI
Must express relationship between resource map and aggregation
Relationships between aggregation and aggregated resources
Basic metadata about resource map

May express:

Additional metadata about an individual resource

Metadata about aggregation, relationship with other resources

Metadata about aggregated resources and relationship with other resources

Small RDF vocabulary defined by ORE resource map
Aggregation graph as formally defined resource map

Minimal DC fields used in ORE: DC:creator / DCterms:lastmodified

Other ORE Docs

1. Resource map profile of Atom

profile of Atom syndication format

supports subset of resource map features

GRDDL-able i.e. mapping to RDF/XML via XSLT

Currently only serialisation format specified by alpha specs

Beta specs will probably include guidelines for RDF syntaxes

2. Resource map discovery (representations of collections):

conventions for disclosure

OAI-PMH, sitemaps

Links from representations of aggregated resources to resource maps etc

Current / upcoming events and activities

ORE TC is currently preparing beta versions of specs

USA open meeting – 3 March, Johns Hopkins University

European Open meeting – 4 April, University of Southampton (post-OR2008)

Mellon Foundation funding for exploratory work (currently funded projects: Michael Nelson, Old Dominion; Tim Cole, U of Illinois; JISC – tbc)

ORE TC response to comments

Version 1 specs by Sept 2008

ORE in short:

a ‘webby’ approach to compound objects
built on a resource-oriented perspective
simple but extensible
Open questions:
Relationship with IMS, DIDL etc?
Seed of a more resource-oriented approach to ‘repository’?

Discussion

Audience member commented: Some other approaches, e.g. METS http://www.loc.gov/standards/mets/, are not good at expressing relationships, which ORE is very good at. ORE allows you to associate arbitrary objects – it is extensible – potentially, it provides a way to combine the best of both worlds.

Sarah Currier asked: Why doesn’t ORE include sequencing? A: Interesting issue: the decision was made to produce a minimal spec (but it is extensible).

Scott Wilson added a follow-up comment: Potentially, a ‘sequence’ is a different sort of thing from a ‘map’. A resource map is itself a different sort of resource. You can’t make a hierarchy in ORE – it has to work via recursion. In IMS Content package, the manifest describes everything from top to bottom –ORE is not hierarchical. ORE identifies components via enumeration (‘this’ is a component, ‘this’ is a component, etc).

Proposed Research Projects

andy475uk — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 03:51:25 CDT

Workshop participants came up with the following list of proposed projects to carry out in the context of their home institutions / workplaces.

Proposed projects were drawn from the fields of health and social care,higher education, and further education. Research themes and questions focused on the support needs of students and staff, exploring (and exploding!) myths about student's "digital lives", and exploring cross-cultural contexts for ICT use.

** Contacts and Attribution: If you participated in the workshop, and if you would like readers of this wiki to contact you, please add your name and contact details to your project listing below. Please note, only registered users of Wetpaint can edit this wiki.

Theme: Support Needs of HE Teaching Staff

Methods/Approach: Using paper-based methods to identify the support needs of staff, as pertaining to instructional and pastoral roles
Context: HE environment, where there is a low staff awareness / use of technology

Theme: Online Social Spaces in Healthcare

Methods/Approach: Investigating the use of Wikis as an online social space/environment for patients who wish to share personal experiences of healthcare and medical treatment as they embark or have embarked on their “patient journey”.

Context: Health and Social Care

Patient Journey Wiki: http://patientjourneys.wetpaint.com/ - a place to document existing patient journeys already existing on the web

PEXH Wiki: http://pexh.wikispaces.com/ - a place for people to document their patient journey

Contact: Andy Pulman

Theme: Uncovering Student Use of ICTs

Methods/Approach: Finding out how students are using ICTs to engage in new kinds of learning opportunities
Context: HEI with an emphasis on teaching

Theme: Technology, Authenticity, and the Natural World

Methods/Approach: How does technology allow people to engage with the natural environment, and how does it allow them to “construct” (or reconstruct) aspects of the natural environment online? The project will use screen captures, accompanied by explanatory commentary from participants
Context: UK research university in the Midlands

Theme: Avatars: Mask or Mirror?

Methods/Approach: Investigating the use of avatars in relation to construction of online identities. The project will focus on the extent to which creation of an “authentic” avatar, i.e. an avatar that is clearly linked to an individual’s “offline” (or “Real Life”/RL) persona, may be linked to confidence/experience levels in use of
ICTs. The project will address questions of individual motivation, and will investigate the social construction of conceptions such as “natural”/”artificial”
Context: HEI where online and blended approaches are an integral part of pedagogy

Theme: Cross-Cultural Social Networking

Methods/Approach: Comparing use of Facebook in the UK with use of Xiaonei, China’s premier social networking site. Employing a mix of online “observation” of user behaviour, interviews with site users, and screen capture and user commentary (using Camtasia)
Context: Cross-cultural studies of technology, communication, and identity

Theme: Students’ Information-Sharing Practices

Methods/Approach: Researching students’ information-sharing behaviours and socially-shared conceptions of identity, privacy, and data protection. The project will look at what students share, how they share it, and their perceptions / constructions of “risk” in relation to information-sharing and privacy online.
Context: New entrants to HE in the Netherlands

Home

catherinehowell — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 10:41:21 CDT

Hello, and welcome to the Runaway Objects Wiki! This is the place to find information and resources from the ALT-C 2007 Confererence Workshop on "Runaway Objects: Preserving Our Digital Belongings", held at the EMCC at the University of Nottingham, on 5 September 2007.

The aim of the workshop was to empower learning technology practitioners and staff working in the Higher/Further Education contexts to undertake their own innovative research projects concerning social dimensions of ICT use in education. Topics of particular interest include:

Digital belongings: dealing with personally meaningful digital objects / artefacts
Information overload
Privacy, ethics, and data protection
Training, mentoring and staff development

Workshop slides are attached at the bottom of this page (PPT format).

Thanks to everyone who participated on the day, and helped to make it an interesting and fruitful session!

Catherine Howell
Workshop Convenor
Centre for Applied Research in Educational Technologies
University of Cambridge

Workshop abstract

catherinehowell — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 10:37:26 CDT

Runaway Objects: Preserving Our Digital Belongings

Convenor: Catherine Howell, CARET, University of Cambridge

Overview

As digital and networked technologies increasingly permeate every dimension of social and personal life, we acquire more and more personal ‘digital belongings’, or artifacts. Such digital belongings may operate as part of our identity in complex ways. They can include discrete digital objects or content (such as images or audio), networked objects (such as online profiles, avatars, and blogs), and identity management tools (such as account names and passwords).

This workshop will invite participants to consider key questions pertaining to personal digital belongings and personal archiving practices, and their relationship to wider technological, cultural, and social issues.

How do we manage our digital belongings, on- and offline? What are the stakes involved? How do we balance the practice of ‘risky’ behaviours with factors such as convenience and ease of use?

Participants will be introduced to a repertoire of relevant research techniques and will develop scalable research plans to further investigate this area.

Aims and Objectives

This workshop is aimed particularly at new researchers. Participants will be introduced to a set of advanced research techniques, and will be invited to consider how they might apply these to the conduct of a small-scale action research project within their own institution. The wider intended outcome is to contribute towards research capacity building within the professional community.

Workshop participants will gain:

An overview of issues pertaining to personal digital belongings and personal archiving practices;
Understanding of relevant technological developments and issues, including password management systems, user authentication, and OpenID;
Hands-on experience with innovative research instruments and tools designed to elicit user requirements in this area;
Feedback on how to develop their ideas into concrete action research projects.

Structure

1. Welcome
Informal welcome and brief ice-breaker activity.

2. Introduction
The workshop will commence with a brief overview of the field and relevant issues. This will lead directly to an introduction to relevant research techniques, including think-alouds, photo elicitation, and time analysis.

3. Discussion
Participants will be invited to form small groups (of approx. 4 – 8), choose a topic for discussion, and then to consider how they might start to investigate their area of interest using one or more of the research techniques described.

Topics will include:

- ‘De-Flickring’: When, and how, do individuals decide to restrict access to their personal digital belongings?
- Online Identities and Proprietary Spaces: What are some of the implications of institutions choosing to outsource key systems for the management of personal information?
- Public Discourse and Moral Panic: How does the media (including online media) impact on our perceptions of risk?

4. Reporting and Feedback
Each group will then report on their findings, with opportunities to give and receive feedback. Collectively, the reports will form a set of informal outlines or guidelines for a series of complementary, innovative action research projects. This resource will subsequently be made available online to all conference participants.

5. Summary and Close
After a brief summary from the convenor, the workshop will close, with thanks to all participants.

Research Approaches and Themes

catherinehowell — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 10:32:36 CDT

Workshop participantsidentified the following themes as being of special interest and relevance:

Theme: Uncovering Students’ ICT Use

The Need for Research: Workshop participants identified a need to go beyond stereotypes of students’ ICT use by gathering a rich evidence base encompassing behaviours, confidence levels, and motivations/attitudes.

Appropriate Research Methods: Surveys were identified as a particularly appropriate research method for deriving “broad-brush”, reasonably reliable information about student populations on a medium-large scale (e.g. at departmental or institutional level). For in-depth information, particularly of the role of ICTs in students’ daily lives, researchers prefer to use methods such as video diaries, photo elicitation, and online methods such as blogs. These methods can supply rich qualitative data, but are time- and resource-intensive to use.

Issues and Questions: Practitioners shared their knowledge of students based on on-the-ground experience, and in several cases, queried the depth of students’ understanding of how ICTs work. Students may be “fluent users” of ICTs, but many students are also “strategic”, “just-in-time” users. For some, “digital literacy” can run as deep as brand awareness, but no deeper! Students often rely on one another for ad hoc ICT support. This can result in embedding or mutual reinforcement of inefficient and time-consuming behaviours (poor information search strategies, etc) and may even result in students’ self-exposure to risk, for example in terms of exposing personal information in insecure environments. Institutional support arrangements and cultures around ICT use vary widely. The overall message is that we should not pre-judge students as “tech savvy” users of ICTs.

Theme: Understanding the Needs and Experiences of Staff

The Need for Research: Participants agree that much more research is needed about the experiences and expectations of staff, particularly, academic teaching staff. Staff may be very interested in how their students are using ICTs, but they may not have the time or skills necessary to engage fully.

Appropriate Research Methods: Focus groups, and paper-based methods such as diaries and log-books were identified as appropriate research methods to use with staff, as they are less “invasive” than many qualitative methods, while still providing rich qualitative data. Paper-based methods can be implemented online readily for staff who are ICT literate.

Issues and Questions: Participants agree that staff are, in many cases, ill-prepared and under-resourced when it comes to integrating ICTs in teaching or supporting students to incorporate ICTs in their preferred learning approaches. It is a common experience for workshop participants that staff are time-poor, and that they are often reluctant to set aside time to attend staff training workshops. In this context, alternative strategies to engage staff are especially useful: workshop participants suggested introducing “masterclasses” and “briefings” as some staff may consider these to be more attractive options. It is sometimes difficult for staff to be open about their support needs, as there is a perception that personal “exposure” (e.g. of lack of competencies) carries a degree of reputational risk.

In campus environments where ICT use is not yet well understood and embedded, it is essential to put in place strategies to engage and support staff, encompassing support staff, managers, and academic teaching/research staff. If we want to see and encourage particular ICT-related behaviours in students, we should put in place strategies to enable staff to adopt / “model” those behaviours. Staff can play a crucial mentoring role, and this needs to be recognised and rewarded at institutional level.

Promoting Technology Enhanced Learning: Benefits, Risks, and Opportunities

The learning technology community, as a community of experts, is able to discuss issues of learning design and pedagogy at a high level. Staff within institutions may not possess (or have direct access) to such expertise;
What ICTs are "really" being used for learning? By whom? What are people learning as a result?
We need to find out what tools are appropriate for different types of learners;
For some staff and students, technology is threatening. People need help navigating jargon. "Expert" language / discourse can seem exclusive or elitist, and we must take care to avoid being seen to impose particular tools or methods on individuals. Empowering students and staff to take control of their own learning is critical.

Interesting Projects

catherinehowell — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 10:20:56 CDT

Please add your suggestions to the list below!

VIA : Video Intervention / Prevention Assessment
Description: "VIA allows children and adolescents to teach clinicians about the realities of their illness experiences and needs, empowering patients to partner in their care."
Project Owner / Lead: Center on Media and Child Health, Children's Hospital Boston.
Methods: Specialises in use of video diaries

73urbanjourneys
Study of the No.73 bus exploring its route, passengers, history and iconic place in the urban landscape.
Project Owner / Lead: Part of Urban Mobilities; Locating Consumption of Ubiquitous Content, a larger research project originally conceived by Dr Nina Wakeford (INCITE) for a collaboration with INTEL Research Council.
Methods: Qualitative ethnographic and observational study, including a website with user-generated content, and a weblog

References and Resources

catherinehowell — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 10:09:48 CDT

Summary information for three key research methods is highlighted on these pages:

1. Attitudinal and Self-Efficacy Measures
2. Measures of ICT Awareness and Use
3. Photo Elicitation

Attitudinal and Self-Efficacy Measures

When to use this: Consider using (or adapting) one of the following survey instruments if you want to investigate students’ attitudes to learning and study at University.

Sample research questions: How do my students like to learn? How confident do my students feel about their ability to complete the course/module/assignment?

Instrument	Created By	Research Warrant	Notes
SETLQ / ASSIST	ETL Project, University of Edinburgh (Enhancing Teaching -Learning Environments in Undergraduate Courses)	Noel Entwistle’s work on student approaches to learning (deep, surface, strategic)	The project has produced various measurement instruments, so check out the different versions to see which one is the best fit for your needs.
PALS	PALS Study (Patterns of Adaptive Learning), University of Michigan	Albert Bandura’s work on self-efficacy	Created for a North American audience – check wording of individual items carefully as they may be culture-specific

Measures of ICT Awareness and Use

When to use this: Consider using (or adapting) one of the following survey instruments if you want to investigate students’ experience levels, and capacity to use, ICTs.

Sample research questions: Are my students really “digital natives”? How many students at my institution own a laptop?

Instrument	Created By	Research Warrant	Notes
A Typology of Information and Communication Technology Users	Pew Internet and American Life Project	Pew / Internet empirical research base	Especially useful for tracking Internet-based and “Web 2.0” activities and behaviours (e.g. online photo sharing).
SEUSISS	Survey of European Universities Skills of ICT in Students and Staff (multinational European survey, funded by the European Commission)	Not Stated – but based on Edinburgh’s 10+ years of experience collecting student feedback	Questionnaires are available in multiple languages (for the English versions, see the questionnaires used by the UK project partner, University of Edinburgh)

Photo Elicitation

When to use this: Consider using photo elicitation if you want to gain insight into the daily lives of staff/students, and especially if you are interested in exploring issues of space and (self-) organisation.

Sample research questions: Who uses the computer at home? Where / in what kinds of spaces do my students undertake private study?

Banks, Marcus (1995). “Visual Research Methods”. Issue 11. Social Research Update. Department of Sociology, University of Surrey.

Clark-Ibánez, Marisol (2004). “Framing the social world with photo-elicitation interviews”. American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 47, No. 12, 1507-1527

Collier, John Jn and Malcolm Collier (1986) Visual anthropology: photography as a research method. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

Harper, D. (2002). “Talking about pictures: a case for photo elicitation”. Visual Studies, Volume 17, Number 1, 13-26