Month: March 2016

March 18, 2016

looking, learning, lecturing online

Image from the British Library who have generously digitised the archive of Spare Rib. http://www.bl.uk/spare-rib. Some of it even as OER. This is the cover of Issue 72 . Please contact copyright@bl.uk

I find myself writing papers to support the institution-wide roll out of lecture capture again. You’d think I would have nailed this by now.

I always find it interesting to note that on the one hand colleagues are concerned to see evidence that lecture capture will not affect lecture attendance and on the other that it should be proven to bring about new ways of teaching. So it should bring no change and yet bring change. Which is a big ask for any tech.

At University of Edinburgh we talk a lot about ‘digital shift’. That the digital should transform and offer new ways of learning rather than just replicate the old ways. So my challenge is to show how students will learn in new ways using the digital version of a lecture while still valuing the analogue lecture above all.

I have been looking for information about how students attend lectures, and about how they use online materials. Recorded lectures are the digital version of the lecture and are available online as resources.

It seems like in general, the universities are on the right track. 59 UK Universities replied to the UCISA TEL survey saying they have lecture capture systems to create digital recordings, and students replied to the Student Lifestyle survey to say that they rarely miss lectures. They also want even more online materials.

61% of students said they never missed a lecture, up from 52% who said the same thing in our 2010 survey. But 38% of respondents admit they do miss the occasional lecture, with students failing to turnup for around one teaching engagement a week on average (0.9). Those doing medicine or a health-related subject are most likely to have a 100% attendance record (74%), despite their relatively high number of lectures. Those doing arts and humanities subjects are also more conscientious than most (68% never missed a lecture), while maths, computing and technology students are most inclined to miss lecture (52% regularly skipped a class). The majority of students (55%) state that they use online resources over traditional text documents (23% favoured these), with 21% stating they use a mix.

Those who most heavily relied on online study resources were, unsurprisingly, those doing maths, computing and technology (48% used online resources for most of their study) compared to 22% of trainee medics and 26% of law students. Men are slightly more likely to rely heavily on online materials (57% said they used more online resources) than women (52% did), while second and third year students (55%) were also greater users of online resources than first-years (52%).

Only 8% of students used standard textbooks, journals and photocopied hand-outs for most of their study, though this rose to 10% for those reading business and management or a social science subject. The survey indicates 43% of students said they would prefer to use online study resources – slightly fewer than the 55% who actually use this method – compared to 26% of respondents who said they wanted to use paper-based resources in general, with 38% stating a preference to use both.

The Sodexo University Lifestyle Survey, 2016

March 11, 2016

my week as an international open education woman

Issue 26 p. 1 front cover
Illustration of hanging a sheet on a washing line
Usage terms: We have been unable to locate the copyright holder for Hanging a sheet on a washing line. Please contact copyright@bl.uk with any information you have regarding this item. – See more at: http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/spare-rib-magazine-issue-026#sthash.qZnKW0Db.dpuf

It is a source of great pleasure for me that in recent years the celebrations of International Women’s Day have co-incided nicely with Open Education Week. This makes it easy for me to find authentic and useful things to do as my contribution.

This time last year I was visiting a number of tech partners in California and the theme was #makingithappen This year the theme is #pledgeforparity and I’ve stayed at home.

I don’t find it difficult to see connections between feminism and open education movements. Both seek to give equality of access, challenge traditional structures and ways of doing things; and involve a diverse community of people in thinking about the greater good. Both also have outspoken advocates with strong opinions and sometimes end up arguing amongst themselves. Nonethless it’s been a fun week.

Saturday: A lovely day doing pleasant writing tasks at the Modern Scottish Women wikipedia editathon #artandfeminism. Working towards parity of coverage and parity of esteem with Jo, Gill, Sara and Mary.

Monday: I ate retro sweets with Charlie and Susie near our #OpenEducationWk display stand and attended the launch of Jo and Peta’s Dangerous Women Project to which I have contributed a blog post to be published later in the year.

Tuesday: On IWD2016 I spent some enjoyable time searching the digital archive of Spare Rib at the British Library to find images to use in my OER16 keynote. I was surprised to find that Spare Rib itself is not particularly well described in Wikipedia, so I spent some time on that too. I added a section on design to continue the #artandfeminism theme.

It seems to me that the big libraries are missing a trick if they are spending time making digitised collections open to the public and not taking a moment more to get a good article on the topic in Wikipedia. They probably need a Wikimedian in Residence.

Wednesday: While my teams were launching our new University of Edinburgh Open Educational Resources policy to #OEPS in Stirling, I was presenting online in Croatia for Sandra. Our policy is largely based on one crafted by Rebecca for Leeds.

Thursday: I worked with Dominique, our ISG gender equality intern to refine once more our ISG gender equality plan and with Sonia, Yujia, Susan and Lauren to edit the ’embracing openness’ double page spread for our upcoming BITS magazine.

Friday: Today I am working from home, fortified by jam by Anne-Marie and coffee warmed by Maggie’s bespoke knitwear. I see that all but one of the women artists we were editing on Saturday now have their own wikipedia page, and Lorna, Viv and Catherine are giving it a bit of welly in an ALT OER-SIG webinar to promote our April conference.

A good week’s work all.

March 9, 2016

learning analytics (LAMARR)

By MGM / Clarence Bull [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons As well as being a Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr also invented wifi and bluetooth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedy_Lamarr

Edinburgh University is investing in the use of learning analytics for course design, attainment, and improving the student experience.

We think learning analytics and student data analysis hold great potential to address the challenges confronting educational institutions. By merging technical methods for data mining and with educational theory research and practice, learning analytics offer novel and real-time approaches to assessing critical issues such as student progression and retention, 21st century skills acquisition, as well as personalised learning.

The University of Edinburgh has a wide range of activities in the field of learning analytics. As shown in the diagram below, these activities cross many disciplinary, organisational, practice, and research boundaries.

The projects offer a heady mix of acronyms, names and aims. Just to prove that anything worth doing can be mapped across a 2×2 matrix, we have developed one to show the spread of our activity and projects.

Learning Analytics Map of Activities, Research and Roll-out (LAMARR*)

You can read more about each of them on the IS Learning Analytics Web pages

Led by the Vice-Principal Digital Education, Centre for Research in Digital Education, School of Informatics, Information Services, Student Systems, and the Institute for Academic Development, activities in learning analytics include University leaders, researchers, and practitioners from support, research, and academic units of the University collaborating on a variety of projects funded through both internal and external sources.

*As well as being a Hollywood actress, Hedy Lamarr also invented wifi and bluetooth #womenintech

March 4, 2016

pledge for parity

Image from the British Library who have generously digitised the archive of Spare Rib. http://www.bl.uk/spare-rib. Some of it even as OER. This is the cover of Issue 199. Please contact copyright@bl.uk

March 8th is International Women’s Day. We are encouraged to make a #pledgeforparity.

Without wishing to sound parroty and go on about the same things all the time, the parity I’ll be championing is parity of coverage and parity of esteem in Wikipedia.

Modern Scottish Women is an exhibition of work by Scottish women artists and concentrates on painters and sculptors. It covers the period from 1885, when Fra Newbery became Director of Glasgow School of Art, until 1965, the year of Anne Redpath’s death. The exhibition is on now and will be there until my birthday in June.

In a 2011 survey, the Wikimedia Foundation found that less than 15% of its contributors identify as female and less than 20% of the English language Wikipedia’s biographies are about women. As a result, content is skewed by the lack of female participation.

On Saturday 5 March 2016, 12:00 pm – 4:45 pm there’s an editathon at the Portrait Gallery to improve and include the information about those artists in Wikipedia.* There’s a follow up event on the 8th at the University to continue the good work.

People are always telling me that the reason women don’t edit wikipedia is because they’ve got better things to do. This seems like a good thing to do. Lets make sure an international audience can find information about our cracking Scottish artists.

*we created 6 new articles, and improved 8.

March 2, 2016

would you work with us?

Photo taken by me at Summerhall hacklab. No rights reserved by me.

We are recruiting a Digital Recruitment and Marketing intern. If you are an Edinburgh University student check out our advert on employ.ed.

Information Services Group at University of Edinburgh is one of the largest IT employers in Scotland. We are looking for a digital marketing intern to work with us to enhance our online presence, and specifically our ‘company profile’ on LinkedIn to ensure that we attract the best candidates and showcase our organisation as a great place to work. You will work closely with managers across our organisation to provide advice to us on how best to use online recruitment tools and strategies and to develop content and stories for our LinkedIn profile.

Use your digital marketing expertise and copy-writing skills to design and populate our LinkedIn company profile which will:

Be effective in recruiting the best IT and Library staff for our organisation.
Showcase ISG as a great place to work and a good project partner.
Showcase the career paths and profiles on offer in our organisation.
Promote our family friendly, inclusivity and flexible working policies.
Report on metrics to monitor success.
Be easy for our recruiting managers to continue to use after your internship has finished.

You will gain real life experience of working with a large employer to enhance our business through effective use of digital marketing and recruitment tools.

Essential:

Excellent copy-writing and editorial skills.
A well designed and effective profile on LinkedIn.
Good social media nous and understanding of how the internet works for companies and organisations.
Evidence of being able to identify examples of good practice in digital recruitment and advertising.
An up to date knowledge of good practice in HR and marketing strategies.
A keen eye for detail.

Desirable:

Graphic design or journalism skills.
Experience of writing ‘how to’ guides or workplace training.