Teaching and Learning

JISC CETIS Conference 2007 - Parallel session: Learning Resources in the Ecology of Repositories

2007-11-25T15:18:00.000Z

Thoughts and questions

1. This session appealed to me because I think that it is an interesting research concept.

2. As I read "An ecological approach to repository and service interactions. Draft Version 0.9" from the Repositories Research Team (http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/repositories/digirep/index/Ecology) back in July 2007, I thought that approaching repositories and their wider settings in this way provides us with the potential for prediction. Population ecology confirms this supposition. This possibility was also discussed in the workshop. I also liked the way that ecology seemed to fit with the organic nature of repository development, and the ways in which repositories establish themselves in a wider setting: within institutions; with each other, publisher systems, or teaching and learning arenas. My initial thinking was that ecologies describe entirely natural situations, whereas repositories are situated within managed environments. The report corrected my thinking on this when it referred to managed, as opposed to wild, ecologies (p5). But then again any species that exerts an influence over the things around it could be said to have a role in managing its ecology. As humans we tend to elevate our role in the scheme of things. Are we controlling ecologies or are we fated to fulfill our role to construct and deconstruct our environment.

3. Can the ecology metaphor be used to convey the complex interactions between system and human?

4. Can it be used to describe the interactions and situations that repositories are situated in to a non technical audience?.

5. Do we know what is meant by ecology or do we just think that we do? Many of us remember the typical pictorial representations of ecology that were used in the session and report – cyclical flow of nitrates and water, pond ecology with species that consume, and are consumed. We all recognise animals, trees, rain, and the like. Therefore, as a metaphor ecology works well. But, as you dig a bit deeper you begin to realise that your knowledge of ecology is very superficial, on the surface of the discipline and not that well formed. What are entities, keystone species, environmental factors? How do we map repositories, institutions, people, funding, systems, services, support, etc onto these. Ecologies are complex in terms of the relationships between the entities within them and how they relate to other ecologies. In essence, how much do we have to learn about ecologies before we can understand and explain repositories in this context to others.

6. The images of ecology that we are all familiar follow a hierarchical theme. Successful, but limited in number, carnivore type species at the top, through to the plentiful, but much maligned, lower order species at the bottom. Obviously repositories are just beginning to establish their place in the general scheme of things. During the session we were tasked with a piece of group work where we created an ecology featuring a repository, or repositories. The ecology maps we created did not readily translate the concept of influential entity, but these are evolving ideas. As Morville (2003, p45) states in his book Ambient Findability, “Technology moves fast. Evolution moves slow”. Repositories are setting up in established ecologies, they are finding their niche and balancing their impact on the other entities around them.

7. I for one look forward to reading more about this topic.

JISC CETIS Conference 2007 - Parallel session: Semantic structures for teaching and learning

2007-11-23T13:23:00.000Z

At the JISC CETIS Conference 2007 I attended the parallel session Semantic structures for teaching and learning. The session prompted me to give some thought to the application of semantic technologies in education.

Referencing tools
One tool that came to mind during the semantic structures workshop was RefGrab-It (there did not seem to be an appropriate time to mention it on the day). For those who have not come across it RefGrab-It is a bookmarklet for Fireworks, IE or Netscape and it does exactly what it says – grabs basic bibliographic information from a web page (download it from: http://www.refworks.com/Refworks/BookMarklet.asp). The information captured includes page title, URL, and date accessed. It was developed for use with RefWorks, a web-based bibliography manager. I am not sure exactly how it works but it occurs to me that a tool like RefGrab-It could be much more effective if the data available to it were described more accurately in the first instance, or if gathered all the data needed for citation purposes. The results you get from using it do vary quite considerably. Perhaps the sometimes sketchy data retrieved from some pages could be checked against a richer data source (publisher database for example). This is unlikely to happen without financial exchange. I lie! According to RefWorks, “If an ISBN number, PubMed ID or DOI exist on the web page, RefGrab-It will automatically search various web resources to get supplemental information that may be of interest to you. RefWorks may also locate RSS feeds related to that web page.” However, it still does not provide full reference data for a web page even if that web page is an HTML version of a published paper. For example, author and journal details are not included unless additional information is embedded in the page. So, RefGrab-It is a potentially useful tool that falls somewhat short of expectations, but perhaps only because of the information available to it.

For a look at RefGrab-It and the additional info can capture (DOI, ISBN, RSS) try it on the following blog posting - http://www.scholarsportal.info/spot-news/?p=123. I have included a couple of screen grabs to illustrate.

Figure 1: RefGrab-It's basic bibliographic data

Figure 2: RefGrab-It's more advanced bibliographic data

Potential benefits to an improved RefGrab-It style tool
If we accept that the majority of learners (undergraduates / masters / PhD students, are researchers, academics, practitioners, etc) are using web searches (Google) to locate information (published papers, conference papers, etc) then being able to grab reference data directly form a web page to export into bibliographic software for later creation of a reference list will reduce the effort in the manual creation of such lists (and improve accuracy?). I guess you could argue that if learners are not using the traditional tools for locating papers and other texts then they are unlikely to be using bibliographic software like RefWorks. However, they can easily copy and paste from RefGrab-It into their own document. For teachers it could be used to illustrate best practice in gathering references: in information literacy training, citation, plagiarism, and so on.

This is probably more of a metadata issue but I suppose my question is can semantic technologies do a better job of getting this type of information from webpages and presenting it to learners?

Mapping tools
In his presentation Using Ontologies in eLearning, Michael Gardner introduced us to AUTODISCOVER. This tool can be used to make, and share, a 3D map of the documents on your computer. It struck me that the visual meta search engine Kartoo (http://www.kartoo.com/) does a similar job of bringing together your online documents. It also makes links / connections between your works and those of others (via the individuals you collaborate with). It would be interesting to see how AUTODISCOVER might bring computer and online collections of items and people together.

Creative use of digital archives

2007-06-19T13:55:00.000Z

The Archives Hub (http://www.archiveshub.ac.uk/index.html) provides an access point to descriptions of UK university and college archives.

They also run a Digital Artist in Residence scheme. For the month of June their artist is Aileen Collis. She is manipulating digital images and creating digital collages of items from archive collections. Her Collection of the Month images show how archives can be used to inspire new works.

Why Me? Artists Use of Self Image

2007-06-18T13:36:00.000Z

The Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS) have released details of a new database of artists who use their self image within their work. The database features a list of names and a link to the artists' works. Anne Seagrave has created the database which is available as an Excel spreadsheet or plain text file. Copyright in the database resides with Seagrave but it can be used for research and study purposes.

For more information on the "Why Me? Artists Use of Self Image" project and the resulting database of artists go to: http://www.vads.ahds.ac.uk/collections/WMASI.html

DIDET project

2007-06-14T13:35:00.000Z

The DIDTE project sets out to enhance student learning opportunities by enabling students to participate in engineering design team-based projects with a global aspect to them. To achieve this they developed LauLima, a customised wiki based system which includes a learning environment and digital library. They have a formal repository (digital library) which is a bank of completed projects, and informal wiki pages with images embedded (learning environment).

Students use the informal learning environment in a flexible way to record milestones related to their research, concept development and final design. Communication within the system is complementary to email. Tutors are able to assess student performance, to see if milestones are being reached and to provide feedback.

One of the benefits to the project is that it captures tacit design knowledge as part of the process of sharing through the digital library.

TASI advice paper

2007-06-08T14:44:00.000Z

TASI have some excellent advice on using images in teaching and research. Their paper 'Roles and Responsibilities for Staff Using Images for Teaching and Research' covers copyright (clearing copyright, third party licences, Creative Commons etc), using images in e-learning, in lectures and in research. There are links to additional help and information.

TASI have a section of their website dedicated to advice on finding and using digital images, see: http://www.tasi.ac.uk/advice/using/using.html.

Engineering Subject Centre - teaching award

2007-05-31T10:52:00.000Z

Applications are being invited for the Engineering Subject Centre Teaching Award 2008. This award is given to an academic who has received positive feedback from students, whose colleague(s) recognise their contribution to enhancing student learning, or whose teaching methodologies serve this purpose.

Further details and an application form are available from the Engineering Subject Centre's website: http://www.engsc.ac.uk/. Applications must be submitted by Friday 22nd June 2007.

PESL - Promoting Enhanced Student Learning

2007-05-30T08:21:00.000Z

The University of Nottingham have developed a repository of video interviews and case studies. These resources are designed to inform the teaching process and to enhance learning. Topics covered include: plagiarism, student roles in small groups, gaining class attention and educational jargon explained.

PESL can be found at: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/teaching/

Repositories

2007-05-13T14:34:00.000Z

Resources for use in teaching may be located in the repositories listed below.

General
MERLOT - peer reviewed materials arranged by subject category.
JORUM - range of materials arranged by categories (access restricted to UK FE and HE only).

Subject based
INTUTE - science, engineering and technology resources.
Higher Education Academy - Engineering Subject Centre - engineering resources for learning and teaching.
UK Centre for Materials Education - science and materials education resources.

Regional
Yourkshire and Humberside - YH Learning - educational resources for subject specialists (username and password required).
SCRAN - educational material and digital resources from cultural institutions in Scotland. Free access to the database of thumbnails and titles. Teachers in Scotland have full access to a range of copyright cleared resources and learning packs.

Others
British Universities Film and Video Council - Moving Image Gateway - catalogue of moving image websites reviewed by BUFVC's Information Service. Four broad subject areas are covered: Arts & Humanities, Bio-Medical, Social Sciences and Science & Technology.
TRILT - Television and Radio Index for Teaching and Learning - this resource is only available to BUFVC member institutions. A list of these can be found via the TRILT home page. Resources include UK tv and radio data on the web.
BBC Motion Gallery - BBC footage collection, production-ready footage to view and purchase.

Internet Archive

2007-05-04T08:22:00.000Z

If you are look for historical collections in digital format try the Internet Archive. There are collections of images, texts and audio. The archive web page section of the site, The Wayback Machine, (http://www.archive.org/web/web.php) lets you enter the web address of a site, you then have access to any archives, arranged in date order.

TASI resources

2007-04-26T14:38:00.000Z

TASI (Technical Advisory Service for Images) is an excellent resource for information on all aspects of working with images. They have advice sheets on a range of topics from 'Managing digitisation projects' to 'Creating digital images'. They also offer suggestions for finding and using digital images in education.

Wink

2007-04-20T14:41:00.000Z

I have been using this free software to create some online tutorials for PEDESTAL users. It is not as feature rich as Macromedia Flash or Captivate, but it is easy to use. It captures screen shots as you work through software or website, you can record sound to accompany the demo, cursor movements are automatically captured and the path generated in wink, you can add text instructions, customise the callouts and create your own template. The template can be used to apply the same style to a series of tutorials.

Useful links

Wink: http://www.debugmode.com/wink/
How to create a wink tutorial: http://codex.gallery2.org/Codex:How_to_Create_a_Wink_Tutorial
Quick instructions for using wink to create online tutorials: http://people.umass.edu/ealling/wink.pdf
UCL - Wink creating software demos: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/learningtechnology/content/wink/Wink_workbook.doc
Using wink to create software presentations: http://newsletter.alt.ac.uk/e_article000730206.cfm

JORUM repository

2007-04-20T11:21:00.000Z

The JORUM is a free resource for UK higher and further education staff. This repository holds teaching and learning materials contributed by the education community. To contribute, view and use materials in JORUM institutions must first register to use the service. Instructions for checking if you institution is registered, and how to register are available at: http://www.jorum.ac.uk/user/index.html.

Once you have confirmed that your institution has registered you will be able to login with your Athens username and password. You can browse for resources by subjects, or search by keyword or resource creator name.

For information Loughborough University is registered as a contributor and user of the service.

Open-CETL

2006-11-28T14:53:00.000Z

The Open Universities three Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (OU CETLs) have come together to share experience. They have just released their first bulletin (Open CETL Bulletin) that features a short piece on rewarding and developing staff.

The bulletin outlines the opportunities provided by the Personalised Integrated Learning Support Centre (PILSC) to enhance and support the teaching and learning process. Lecturers are encouraged to reflect on their practice and are offered up to 20 days to develop a number of activities or to conduct short action research projects.

JISC Briefing papers

2005-07-04T13:02:00.000Z

JISC have released two briefing papers on Institutional Repositories. They outline the concept of a repository and explain the benefits they can bring to higher education institutions. The papers can be found at: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=pub_repositories

Rights and Rewards project

2005-07-04T12:50:00.000Z

I am working as a Research Assistant for a JISC funded project (Rights and Rewards in Blended Institutional Repositories Project) looking into the rights and rewards associated with Institutional Repositories. The project's focus is on teaching resources and to what extent these can be blended with research resources. The project partners are all based at Loughborough University, they are the Department of Information Science, The Engineering Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (engCETL), and the University Library.

More information about the project and its outputs can be found on the project's website: http://rightsandrewards.lboro.ac.uk