Category Archives: Digital Education

Edinburgh University Piloting “Digital Ambassador” award for students

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I am delighted to see that my University of Edinburgh colleagues in Learning, Teaching and Web Services, working in collaboration with the Careers Service and the Institute for Academic Development, are piloting a new “Edinburgh Award (Digital Ambassadors“, to encourage and recognise the digital best practices of students at the University.

The Edinburgh Award, which recognises student excellence in activities beyond the core curriculum, is part of a University-wide employability initiative. The Awards were piloted back in 2011/12 and are now a mainstream concept at the University, with students able to gain awards for their contribution across a wide variety of activities, from volunteering and student societies through to peer support and mentoring. The new Digital Ambassadors award being piloted this winter will specifically be addressing excellence in digital literacy and practice through evidence of hands on contribution and activities – across areas such as social media, coding, etc., participation in personal development sessions and short form reflective writing on their experience.

I am really excited to see how this pilot goes since the Award builds upon, and works with, Managing Your Digital Footprint (now mainstream across the University). It also addresses a real growing need for broader graduate skills around digital literacy, and the need to evidence those skills properly. As someone who has been involved in recruiting staff I know that it can be complex assessing what a candidate has taken from, e.g. running their own blog: for some people it may be a matter of developing content strategy, monitoring progress towards appropriate goals, developing their writing style, etc., but for others it may be a very basic understanding of how to edit and share a post. The Digital Ambassador Edinburgh Award requires students to present a portfolio evidencing “the student’s contribution to online and technology excellence” which has taken place during the Award process which will, I think, prove to be an invaluable asset to the students themselves when it comes to presenting their skills and experience to employers.

You can find out much more about the award, the work involved, and how contribution is assessed over on the Your Digital Edge: Edinburgh Award page. Current University of Edinburgh students at all levels, whether online distance learners or campus-based for their courses, are invited to register their interest by 3rd November 2015.

The Edinburgh Award is part of the “Your Digital Edge” offering to students: an online hub and community supporting opportunities for, and participation in, digital literacy activities and for academic outcomes, employability and lifelong learning. Lots more on this initiative on the Your Digital Edge website, or you can follow @DigitalEduni on Twitter or Facebook.

 

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Designing for 21st Century Learning – eLearning@ed Conference 2015 LiveBlog

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On this very sunny Thursday I am at the IAD in Bristo Square for the elearning@ed forum’s 2015 conference which is focusing on Designing for 21st Century Learning. I’ll be taking notes throughout the day (though there may be a gap due to other meeting commitments). As usual these are live notes so any corrections, updates, etc. are welcomed.

The speakers for today are:

Welcome - Melissa Highton, Director, Learning Teaching and Web Services, IS.

Thank you all for coming. It’s a full agenda and it’s going to be a great day. Last year Jeff left us with the phrase that it is “exciting times” and that’s reflected by how fast this event filled up, sold out… you are lucky to get a seat! Being part of this community, to this forum, is about a community commitment we will see throughout the day, and we are very lucky and very appreciative of that.

Designing for 21st Century Learning is our theme for today. As someone who did all their formal learning in the 20th century, I started with a bit of Googling for what 21st Century might be – colourful diagrams seems to be the thing! But I also looked for some accounts from the university of what that might mean… some things that came through where that it is about teaching understanding of difficult things in all subjects, do a little to remove the inequalities of life, practical work and making things with one’s hands “the separation of hand and brain is an evil for both”. But these words are from 1905, they are from the University Settlement. But actually many of those remain common values. But there are are also issues of technology, of change…

“It’s not ok not to understand the internet anymore” – Martha Lane-Fox delivering the Dimbleby Lecture at London’s Science Museum, March 2015. That is certainly part of what we are talking about. Most in this room will feel they understand the internet, but we also have to be thinking about the challenges raised, the trends. And I’m going to finish with a graphic from the New Media Consortium (which the university is part of) tracking some of these changes and trends here/coming soon.

Chairs session – Individual short presentations, followed by open panel discussion (chaired by Jessie Paterson)

Designing for 21st Century earning: the view where I sit Prof. Judy Hardy, Physics Education, (Physics and Astronomy) Profile

I was asked to give the view from where I am, in 10 minutes, which is fairly tough! So I will be sharing some of my thoughts, some of what is preoccupying me at the moment.

Like Melissa I saw the concept of 21st Century Learning and thought “gosh, what’s that”. So I tried to think about a student coming here in 2020. That student will probably be just about coming to the end of their first year at secondary school right now. So what will it look like… probably quite a lot like now… lectures, tutorials, workshops etc. But what they will have is even more technology at their fingertips… Whether that is tablets or whatever.

We have been working on a project tracking students use of technology. We didn’t tell them what to use or how. They used cloud based word processor saying it saved times, seeing each others writing styles benefitted the flow of the report they worked on together. They used Facebook and self organised groups to compliment and coordinate activity. They just did it. I think many didn’t mention it as they just took it for granting…

Interactive engagement in learning performs something like double the learning gain (RR Hake 20?). But wht is that? We did research (Hardy et al 2014) on academic staff teaching in UK university physics departments. Many want to teach, many focus as much on teaching as research. So what are the challenges? Well time and time as a proxy for other things… We can’t ignore that if we really want to move from a dedicated few doing great teaching work, to mainsteaming that. Deslauriers, Schelew and Wieman (2011) in Science found that it took 20 hours preparation to teach with a flipped classroom – that reduces after the first run but it is a substantial investment of time. Pedagogically there is also confusion over the best tools or approaches to take..

What is preoccupying me quite a bit at the moment… It is not about the “what” and “how” but about the “why’. There is awareness of what we should or might do. How to do that is very important – you need to know what to do and how to do it. But you also need to understand the principles behind that, why you are doing that, what the purpose is. You need to know what you can modify, and why, and what the consequences of that might be. When we are doing teaching, when we are thinking about teaching, we need to have this in mind. Otherwise we end up using the same formats (e.g. lectures) just surrounded by new technology.

Prof. Sian Bayne, Digital Education, (Education) Profile

It was a bit of a wide brief for this session, so I thought I would talk about something happening this week. Some of you will be aware that the #rhizo15 MOOC is running again this week, the Rhizomatic Learning “cMOOC” idea. And I saw lots of tweets about a paper I’d written… Which got me thinking about what has been happening… and where things are going…

That paper looked at the Deleuze and Guattari (1988) concept of striated space (closed, hierachichally, structured, etc.) vs smooth space (open ended, non hierachichal, wandering-orientate, amorphous). And that these spaces, these metaphors, intersect… And this paper was using these metaphors in the design of learning itself. So, back in 2004 the VLEs and LMSs was pretty much what there was in terms of online learning – very striated spaces. Emerging at that time in a more smooth space – were ideas like scholarly hypertext, multimodal assessments, anonymous discussion boards (which went, but are kind of back with YikYak), wikis and blogs.

So, what has changed around 10 years later? Well in the striated space we have VLEs and LMSs, Turnitin, e-portfolios, and we have things that may be striating forces including personalisation (flexible but to rules), adaptive learning, learning analytics, gamification (very goal orientated), wearables.  In terms of the smooth spaces… we have Twitter (though some increasing striation), YikYak, real openness. And we also see augmented realities and flipped cassrooms, maker spaces, and crowd-based learning as smoother spaces.

So, what’s next? The bigger point I want to make is that we have a tendency in this field to be very futures orientated. I was also googling this week for elearning and digital education trends 2015.. huge numbers of reports and trends which are useful but there is also a change acceleration, trends and practices to respond to and keep up with. We need to remember that we are doing those things in the context, to look back a bit, to consider what kind of teaching do we actually want to do, what kind of university do we want to be. And ultimately what is higher education actually for? And those kinds of considerations have to sit alongside that awareness of changes, trends, technologies…

Using Technology to support learners’ goal setting – Prof. Judy Robertson, Digital Learning, (Education) “Using technology to support learners’ goal setting”.  Profile

I am also talking about what I am working on this week, which has mainly been data analysis! My work looks at technology use by children (and sometimes university students). I design and evaluate technology for education and behaviour change, often designing learners in the design process. There are aspects of behaviour change and concepts from games that can be particularly useful here, but games tend to have set goals built in (even if you can choose your goals from a set), and I look at learners setting their own goals.

So my research vision is about working with users to develop technology which enables them to set and monitor appropriate goals for themselves in the context or education and healthcare – that could be working with children and teachers to develop software which enavles goal setting around problem solving and physical activity, or to work with new undergraduates to help them to plan and monitor their studying, or even working with older adults to assist them to change their patterns of sedantary behaviour. But there is a risk of becoming like the Microsoft paperclip… How do we actually make technology useful here?

So I have been working on an exergame (a game where physical exertion is the input medium) called Critter Jam (aka FitQuest) which is looking at whether it is possible to motivate children to increase their activity. So the game might have you collecting virtual coins, or being chased by a virtual wolf… It is all about encouraging mainly running activities, with mainly playground game type activities. Within the game children can pick from different goals… For those with intrinsic motivation tendencies you can aim for your personal best… For some children you might set a custom points target – and how children (or indeed university students) pick that target is interesting. Some children may want to top the leader board  – that motivates some, but competition can be negative too…

So, we are also looking at fine grained log file data from around 70 kids over 5 weeks as part of a wider RCT data set. I’ve been looking on the sort of goals kids set and how they achieve them. And also looking at how self-efficacy relates to goal setting. And as you look at the data you can look at the high performing kids and see where there are patterns in their goal settings.

It turns out that kids achieved their goals around 50% of the time, which is a bit of a disappointment. And those who expect to do well, tend to set more ambitious goals – which raises some questions for us. And in terms of how goal setting relates to high performance gains we have some interesting qualitative data. We interviewed some students – all of our kids here were 10 years old – and they reported that if they had set too hard a goal, they would reset to a lower goal, but then aim to keep improving it. This seems reasonable and thoughtful for a 10 year old. At 10 that’s not what all students will do though (even for undergraduates that doesn’t even work). Speaking to another child they aimed fairly low, to avoid the risk of failure… again something we need to bear in mind with university students and how ambitiously they set their own goals.

Prof. Dave Reay, Carbon Management and Education, (Geosciences) Profile

 

– Prof. Jonathan Silvertown, Technology Enhanced Science Education, (Biological Sciences) “Virtual Edinburgh: Turning the City into a pervasive learning environment”.

– Prof. Dragan Gasevic, Learning Analytics, (Informatics and Education.) Profile

“Co-Creation: Student Ownership of Curriculumâ€� (Workshop) – Dash Sekhar, VPAA, EUSA and Tanya Lubicz-Nawrocka, EUSA

“Using e-Portfolios to recognise our student and graduate attributes” - Simon Riley (CMVM) and Prof. Ian Pirie, Asst Principal Learning Developments

Designing for Open- Open Educational Resources and new media for learning – Melissa Highton Director, Learning Teaching and Web Services, IS.

Lunch (where there’ll be some posters to explore) then Labs/practicals chaired by Marshall Dozier (this is where I may be at meetings and you may wish to switch to watching #elearninged) including:

 “Designing teaching spaces for the 21st century learner: The story of the nostalgic Dad and the horrified Son” - Victoria Dishon (School of Engineering), Stephen Dishon (IS Learning Spaces Technology)

DYNAMED: Student Led Development of a Dynamic Media Library for the R(D)SVS – Brian Mather and Rob Ward – (CMVM)

Experience with Cogbooks pilot on personalised learning. – Eduardo Serafin (Geosciences) and Mark Wetton (IS)

Offshoots and Outputs session chaired by Marshall Dozier:

CMC Vellore India partnership – online MSc in Family Medicine - Liz Grant (CMVM) and Jo Spiller (IS)

“Digital tools for lighting educationâ€� – Ola Uduku and Gillian Treacy, (ECA)

“Research, Teaching and Learningâ€� – Michael Begg (IS)

 

“Developing the Vision for 21st century learning” – Prof. Sue Rigby, VP Learning and Teaching

 

Conference closing – Wilma Alexander, Convenor, eLearning@ed Forum

 

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Jisc Digifest 2015 – Day Two Liveblog

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Today I am live from Birmingham again for Jisc Digifest 2015. Again, do keep an eye on those tweets though – all sessions will be covered on the #digifest15 hashtag. There is also some live streaming here. For those attending the event you can find me presenting in the following slot today (Hall 3):

My first session of the day is in one in the pods…

Transnational education: conversations for success – Dr Esther Wilkinson, Jisc TNE

Transnational education (TNE) is the provision of education qualifications from institutions in one country to students in another, plays an essential role in the delivery of international strategy in UK educational institutions.

There is huge interest within the sector on transnational education, and the policy around that. And here’s why. According to 2011/12 data transnational education was one of the UK’s major exports. The UK TNE Census 2014 (for HE) found the value to the UK economy at around £496m per annum. Average annual remittance per student of around £1530. We see relative stability in TNE host countries – many are around asia and the middle east. Subjects vary greatly but a real increase in engineering and STEM subjects. And TNE is growing.

So, it is growing… but what are the benefits? Traditionally TNE has grown up around partnerships at universities and relationships between universities, but we see it becoming increasingly strategically planned. Different institutions have different motivations for engaging. There are financial benefits but that’s not the motivation for many institutions. The cost of living in the UK is increasing, and visa clampdowns mean that delivery overseas increasingly makes sense. And there is a Taylor effect – when a UK presence in another country, a significant draw back to that country after graduation – estimated to be around £40m per year. The student also benefits as well. And all of these drivers are part of why Jisc has kicked off this work stream.

When we look at the UK providers of TNE (2011-12) we have to note that Oxford Brookes is so active in this space that they wholly skew the picture. But missing from that list is Nottingham… So, on that note, it’s over to Lisa Burrow, Director of global IT service delivery, University of Nottingham.

Lisa: Nottingham have had two campuses overseas for 10 years now, in China and Malaysia. We’ve been developing our 2020 strategy. Our vision within IS is for the majority of IT services to be available globally and provided on a global basis by one central team – that’s actually quite a challenge  for China in particular. So I have a team in Nottingham, and smaller connected teams in China and Malaysia. I have a team manager based with me dedicated to those campuses – we also have a business manager who is also dedicated to those campuses so both of those people spend around 2/3rds of their time at those campuses.

So, where does Jisc come in? Our current infrastructure in China and Malaysia was installed 10 years ago, but it is starting to show it’s age, especially with students coming in with all of their devices. So Jisc are supporting us to continuously improve, particularly to address issues of traffic. How do we meet those needs on an ongoing basis. So one area is Network Links – we currently use very expensive commercial links, and we are trialling possibilities from Jisc that are looking really promising, also CERNET and VPN. The other area is licensing. There are lots of opportunities for improvement there. And lots of challenges too. For instance in Malaysia a 10% charge is imposed by the government on some purchases. Lots of import and export issues. Some things are wholly banned in China. And we struggle on an ongoing basis with Google/Google Apps and some other services because of the “Great Firewall”. And there are also challenges around reseller rights. So I have been trying to negotiate a Microsoft licence, we have a global contract but the Chinese end has to be invoiced and paid in China, in yen. That is not acceptable to me, I want one global invoice, sent to Nottingham and paid there. Also reseller rights are often sold to different people, we had one provider say that unless we had a minimum spend of £1 million they wouldn’t even talk to us.

So, in summary, we think there is huge potential for working with Jisc, and we are really looking forward to that.

Esther: This is where Jisc comes in. A recent quote from Martin Hall, Jisc Chair, highlights this focus on transnational education. This area of work is not without challenges, some of which Lisa has already spoken about. Hidden costs can be a real issue in TNE. And the focus has too often been on curriculum design, academic quality, but not how we actually deliver. So when we want to deliver online courses, deliver seminars, then we start to see issues. And when things go wrong students are starting to be disappointed. We sell ourselves, the UK education sector, heavily overseas and so that student dissatisfaction can have a really problematic effect.

We have set up our Jisc TNE support strategy, to explore different models of delivery overseas, to support you in the spectrum of those services. Ideally we want to deliver you whatever we do in the UK, for use overseas. We know that may be too ambitious, but we want to aim at that… We are focusing on delivering the JANET network and connectivity overseas, that’s fundamental to getting everything else right. And we are focusing on China and Malaysia – where there is a prevalence of TNE activity.

We commissioned OBHE to run a series of research for us with UK HE providers. They ran focus groups in Scotland, Manchester and London. We ran a survey in July 2014 (38% response rate -84 universities). We did something interesting in commissioning this research. We did focus on IT staff but we also asked the international offices at institutions as well. So, we asked both types of staff what they are currently doing at the moment. A large number provising online, blended or MOOCs, many working in partnership, around 10% had overseas branch campuses. Growth likely to be online, joint working etc, likely 10% growth around branch campuses. We asked IT directors who works on the IT for overseas branches, many did not.

So, there is planned expansion fo TNE activities in the next 5 years. Branch campuses remain a minority, online/blended growing and a desire to shift to real time teaching delivery. Locations include Australia, Botswana, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia… etc. Network use was around email, browsing, access to library, registration systems and online courses hosted in the UK. And network issues encountered including poor network performance, protection of copyright data and intellectual property, integration fo IT with partner institutions. A couple of key areas for attention: a real lack of communication between IT and international offices – and we are already helping bring these groups together; and understanding what actually is happening at the branch campuses.

A lot of IT staff don’t know who is responsible at the other end of TNE at their institution, they don’t know who to go to when things go wrong. So we have models in China and Malaysia and our preference is to work with local partners. So, in China we have a strategic alliance with CERET, the Chinese Higher Education network, utilising the high-speed London-Beijing ORIENTplus connection. That gives increased bandwidth to international traffic at no additional cost.

In Malaysia this isn’t the case. They don’t have a good network so we have had to procure a commercial solution, from Telecom Malaysia. And we had three institutions approach us for assistance here – Newcastle, Southampton and Reading. This is for a local MAN established in EduCity – which is a co-located campus. But that relationship with the commercial ISP has also enabled us to negotiate a large discount for the new Heriot-Watt campus in Malaysia.

And a third example here: to provide a multi site service for University of Nottingham – to link up campuses but also deliver Eduroa and services such as telephony and video conferences. And this is a collaborative project with CERNET.

So, we are gathering evidence from the sector on what they want us to do next. We are working with Queen Mary, University of London; Heriot-Watt, Aberdeen etc. already. So far the experience has been very positive. And there are new opportunities coming. We have looked at British Council, HMG Industrial Strategy, and BIS value of TNE reports to look for concentrated areas of interest and opportunities. And we also looked to the survey responses, many already covered in that list. And together that generated out policy list, whic is:

  • South Korea
  • Mauritius – over 10 UK campuses there
  • Malta – Malta very keen to work with us.
  • Sri Lanka – aggregate of demand, there is an NREN there but their policy is to not engage beyond Sri Lanka and their HE sector
  • Pakistan
  • United Arab Emirates adn Middle East – many in Dubai, but Oman also growing
  • India – universities poised here, but policy issues at the moment
  • Africa – definitely the next big area. Difficult to connect. But the nature of TNEs is that you are not targetting well developed/connected areas
  • Hong Kong – still much to do
  • Singapore – still much to do

We are focusing on network, eduroam, video conferencing, security, cloud and data stroage. But licensing is also moving up the priority list and we are working with others in Jisc on that. And we are also working with some schools and private education providers in some of these areas, so it’s beyond HE. And we really need to be understanding these new methods and models for delivery. We also are looking at how to support for evaluation and assessment – some still paper based for TNE. And student experience also needs some work, many opportunities there. So, there is lots to do.

As we do these projects and look at new opportunities we are beginning to understand the Jisc TNE Support Programme value proposition. That is about Cost, Risk, Quality, Time. And services such as Global TNE policy development, in-country knowledge, etc.

So, we are only just beginning to understand how TNE will develop… It is critical we understand what you are currently doing so we can understand issues, things we can assist with, opportunities for the future. We have a sense of what TNE looks like now, but it’s about where TNE goes in the future…

Within your institution you need to know your own institutional international/TNE strategy; ensure IT support for TNE is fully considered and costed into the plans at the earliest opportunity.

Find out more at: http://jisc.ac.uk/rd/projects/transnational-education. And we are planning some workshops to help have those conversations across the sector.

Q: How does what you are doing compare to developed European countries?

A – Esther: On the whole there are good relationships with the rest of Europe. Some of our time is actually paid for by JALT. The TNE activities well developed in that space. But more competition coming up from the US and Australia, and that is why it matters that we do stuff well, to keep our competitive edge.

Keynote speech – Carole Goble

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Jisc Digifest 2015 – Day One LiveBlog

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Today and tomorrow I am in busy Birmingham for Jisc Digifest 2015. As I am speaking in two sessions this year I decided not to offer my tweeting services to the fabulous Jisc live coverage team, but I will be live blogging as the opportunity arises. Do keep an eye on those tweets though – all sessions will be covered on the #digifest15 hashtag. There is also some live streaming here. For those attending the event you can find me presenting in the following slots (both in Hall 3):

When not presenting I’ll be updating this blog with notes from keynotes and break out sessions. As usual this comes with the caveats that I welcome corrections and additions since this is genuinely live updating and that can mean occasional errors etc.

And we are off! Tim Kidd, Executive Director of Jisc Technologies is introducing us to the second Jisc Digifest: This year’s theme is “connect more” so please do, with each other, on Twitter, via the event app, etc. Now to formally open the proceedings I will hand over to Martyn Harrow.

Professor Martyn Harrow, Jisc Chief Executive

Welcome all, both in the room and online, to Jisc Digifest 15. But why are we all here? Well we have serious work to do together. Unprecedented challenges face UK Higher Education, Further Education and Skills, and digital technologies are some of the best tools to enhance human efficiency. And we are here to explore the potential for digital tools for higher, further education and skills.

Jisc is funded by higher and further education, overseen by the Jisc board. We are of the sectors, by the sectors, for the sectors. Jisc is dedicated to playing our part to help you achieve your success, including better exploiting existing Jisc services and support – already saving over £1/4 billion per year, but also on ground breaking innnovation. You told us you wanted more chance to do this and that is part of the reason for this event, and also why we have a new “architecture” for customer engagement. We also have a new account manager systems – for the first time every higher and further education organisation will have a dedicated account manager, there to support you, ensure you get the best out of Jisc services and activities, but also to ensure you have a voice in shaping what we do, in new activities.

We have many partners, including many strategic partners. I would like to acknowledge these relationships which are so important in what we are trying to achieve. In particular I would like to thank today’s sponsors (AM, CrossRef, Talis), supporters (Epson, Rapid Education, ?) and our media partner the THES.

Connected is the theme of our conference, we have the power to do much more for our sector, for our universities and colleges… And what we want to achieve over the next few days. That’s what we want to achieve over the next few days: a new level of ambition.

Welcome and keynote speech – Simon Nelson, Futurelearn

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GeoLocation in Learning and Teaching – LiveBlog

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This afternoon I am attending, and supporting my colleague Tom, at the GeoLocation in Learning and Teaching event at the University of Edinburgh. This is an internal event arranged by the Social and Cloud based Learning and Teaching Service (http://edin.ac/1cHRslP). The event will be focusing on Geolocation technology used in learning and teaching at the University of Edinburgh.

We are kicking off with a brief introduction from Susie Greig to the day noting that “there does seem to be some interest in using GeoLocation in learning and teaching” – something definitely backed up by a very full room for this afternoon’s session!

Dr Hamish MacLeod, Senior Lecturer, Moray House School of Education– will be discussing the INGRESS game, he will describe the many rich features, and why he thinks they are (potentially) relevant to learning.

I think there are two real approaches to learning in gaming… One you might attribute to Marc Prensky – a kind of con folk into learning approach. I have much more sympathy for John Paul Gee’s take on gaming and learning.

I am talking about INGRESS, a mobile game (iOS and Android) but it is not a casual game, it requires proper engagement. It is a location dependent game – you have to get out there and use it in the world and it demands movement in the world. It is also an “exergame” – perhaps encourages exercise. It is an augmented relaity game, and alternate reality game, and it is open to users – you can contribute, interact, actively contribute to the game.

The game itself uses Google Maps as a basis, and the deceit of the game is that bright sparkly “portals” bring exotic matter to the world… and that exotic matter powers our scanner, our mobile phone… The object is to capture these portals and explore them. There are two factions in the game: green is the enlightened; the blue is the resistance…

The Enlightened is a faction attempting to help aliens called “Shifters” in the world. The Resistance are opposed to the Shifters presence in the world. Immediately shades of post modern theory…

Looking at a player profile you see a name, you see badges for achievements… and Google sits behind all of this… You can link your playing identity to your G+ profile (I haven’t).

The game is planet-wide – at least in terms of locations that are populated. My own neighbourhood is occupied by the enlightened faction… ! You can grab portals from your desk but the object is really to go further out, to explore the world…

The portals are not placed consistently, they tend to be associated with human objects… When you are proximal to a portal you can do various things… You can “hack” the portal to deploy objects useful in the game. You can deploy resonator or recharge it… Portals decay over time… You can also choose to attack portals… All of these portals have a physical existance… When one captures a portal, one finds out about the places one is moving around in… The information about the object the portal is focused on can be edited and added to… additional views can be included… If I really wanted some exercise, I would go up to Calton Hill… They will be less heavily defended because they are more remote than those in the city centre. Unclaimed portals are white… you use “resonators” to claim it… As a player I am level 6… that dictates what type/number of resonators I can deploy… I need other people to help me defend the portal… So there is a collaborative aspect whether you know who you are playing with or not…

There is a massive amount of media associated with the game: those announcing international events around the game; something that appears to be fan fiction, but managed by Google; and there is some back story about the game and the Shapers… Very rich media background to the game…

So, here, now… here is what one might do… Near here you will find a plaque to Clarinda, the name Burns used for Alice Macleroy who corresponded with him… There turns out to also be a plaque at the Carpet[I’ve misheard this] Tollbooth… Things you don’t know about the world around you…

From this game you can expose information, shapes to remember… puzzles and sequences to be echoed back to earn points… But these are not just arbitrary shapes, these are meaningful glyphs… Once we understand what they mean, they will read as meaningful or enigmatic sentences… A lovely illustration of George Meliores mystical number 7 in which we chunk information in order to process it better…

Here we see a (tweet) visualising a Christmas tree composed of links between portals… The two factions do compete in the game but this pattern is a massive act of collaboration and organisation to do this. There are halloween variants too… So the game is played at various levels, from casual to this sort of organised community…

We can add portals, and propose portals… It can take a while for portals to be vetted and recognised… I have managed to establish some… Including Hutton’s Rock on Salisbury Crags, and sites where core samples have been taken to find changes in the magnetic field over time… I’ve been systematic… and you could do that process, of creating portals.

You can also propose missions in the game – so there are missions around Scottish Enlightenment sites, The Royal Mile, Sir William Topaz McGonigall… So these user generated activities, projects… could be taken on to engage with resources in our environment that we wouldn’t usually engage with in that way…

Q&A

Q PW: This reminds me of Geo Caching, but this seems to have far more central control. Is that good or bad?

A HM: It is controlled by Google, of course it is providing them with many points of interest. Offers of suggestions can be slow to do… Geo Caching can be more controllable activity for a group of students to use though…

Q SG: Are you thinking of using this on your programme?

A HM: We are thinking about the Games Based Learning game… We use World of Warcraft there… But we look at designs of games for learning so it is interesting in that contact. But our degree is online and interestingly INGRESS really relates to shared geographical space – WoW is better in a lot of ways.. But you could work on the pattern making aspects.

Comment FH: It could be about time rather than location perhaps…

A HM: To play with this in a geographically colocated group would be interesting, might be other uses entirely for a distributed group of learners…

Q TF: If I want students to learn about, say, medical education could I map it onto this game – or another – or does the game need to change?

A HM: You could have a walking tour of Edinburgh highlighting medical locations, historical dimensions and people associated with that… It might be forced or less forced depending on what you want to achieve

Comment COS: It might be fun for orientation sessions for colocated students.

Tom Armitage, Geoservices Support, EDINA –  will present on the mobile mapping and data collection app Fieldtrip GB.

I’m talking about FieldTrip GB, but firstly I just wanted to tell you a bit about what we do. We are a Jisc Supported National Datacentre providing services, data, support, etc. Our work covers geospatial services, reference, multimedia, access areas and tools including FieldTrip GB. Digimap is our main geospatial service, we run GoGeo that allows you to search for geospatial data and create and share your own metadata records via GeoDoc – ideal for sharing geospatial research data. We have Unlock which lets you create geospatial search tools, or to georeference your own text. We also have OpenStream which allows you to stream open data from Ordnance Survey into websites/GIS. Finally FieldTrip GB which lets you gather data in the field.

We also have projects: AddressingHistory georeferenced historical Post Office Directories; we are involved in Trading Consequences and Palimpsest projects, both about geoparsing documents and visualising that; Spatial Memories helped visually impaired learners to navigate the world through a mobile app; and finally the COBWEB project which is a large FP7-funded project with many aspects that link into data collection and citizen science.   

So, FieldTrip GB was about bringing some key fields to mobile. To be able to capture images, audio, text, location. To be able to use high quality background maps, and to be able to save maps for use “offline”. It allows you to do custom data collection forms, and to then access that form and collect data via your phone or tablet – it is available for Apple iOS devices or Android devices.

The main screen of the app lets you view online or saved maps, to capture data – both forms and GPS tracking. And the Download button lets you download mapping for use online. Login is via Dropbox… We chose Dropbox because it is free, the terms of use don’t give Dropbox access to users data – preferable to other services. And that also means the data is the property and responsibility of the user. And you can also potentially share Dropbox details to enable crowd sourcing…

So, the powerful bit of FieldTrip GB is the authoring tool… You can drag and drop different types of data capture into a form – text fields, multiple choice questions, ranges to select from, drop down menus, image capture, etc… You can drag and drop these items in, you can label and set limits/labels/choices as you wish. As soon as that is saved, it can be accessed from the app on your phone/tablet… And anyone with that Dropbox login can go in and use that form and submit data…

Those custom forms allow for easy data  management – consistent terms, single data structure, setting increments to aid estimates, reduced errors (or consistent at least!). Once you fill in a form, you click save.. and then you get to locate your data. Shown as a point on the map based on where you are standing. You can move that pin as needed, you can manually correct where the form things you are…

A wee bit about the mapping… We have combined OS OpenData, added contour mapping from other open sets of maps, brought in Open Street Maps, so we have a custom stack of high quality mapping for the UK, built on all open data sources… We have two different maps at the same scale – one is better in urban areas, one better for rural areas, so you see the appropriate mapping in the area you are in (may combine these in light of new data available openly from the Ordnance Survey).

The advantage of offline mapping is that it saves on cost in urban areas, and allows access in rural areas where there may not be internet access of any type. And everything cached loads faster too!

So, you go out, you collect data… You then can go back to the authoring tool to view data, to filter it, browse the data, edit or delete records if you need to, by uploader (if you include that in your form), to download/export it as kml, GeoJson, csv, wms. You can also share maps through Dropbox. GeoJson is good for embedding maps into websites. KML opens up in Google Earth – looks beautiful!

We’ve put together a vague practical lesson plan that you could use with a class… You set up a Dropbox account that you are happy to share. You download FTGB, you design your form, you share the form – and encourage downloading of maps, in the field you then collect the data using the form, you get back you get online and upload your forms/results, you go into the authoring tool and filter as needed (e.g. incomplete forms), then you can export your data and view them in your choice of whatever tools.

In the future release we will be releasing a global edition, based on OpenStreetMap. It will work the same way but with different background mapping. We may also be supporting upload of your own maps to use as a basemap when you are out collecting data. Similarly points of interest/waymarkers. Also extra sensor measurements – phone as a compass for instance, maybe also ambient noise via microphones. Potentially also more complex forms… we have had requests for logic to change later questions based on a form… All to come in future versions!

Q&A

Q: Some of those extra features – your own maps, waymarkers, OSM – would be really useful.

A TA: Would be great to hear that from your as evidence for those developments.

Q: YOu talked about Dropbox, have you considered OneDrive which the university now has access to.

A TA: Yes, we built it to feed into any cloud storage provider… We started with Dropbox and have stuck with because it is most flexible

Comment NO: We are using FTGB in COBWEB, so we are self hosting rather than using Dropbox, also using access management.

Q JS: Can you embed images in the app for users to use to identify what they are seeing? e.g. an image of a tree.

A TA: YEs, also looked at in COBWEB, also dichotomous trees… Will all come, probably as part of the COBWEB development.

Dr. Anouk Lang, Lecturer in Digital Humanities, School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures will discuss how she uses the SIMILE Exhibit platform, which runs off the Google Maps API, to create an interactive map to use with students to explore the literary culture of Paris in the 1920s.

I’ll be showing you a site I have built (see: http://aelang.net/projects/) using SIMILE Exhibit, using Google Maps. This is a map of Paris with information related to literature in Paris. Paris was a particularly important place for anglophone modernism – lots of Americans moves there – Stein, Joyce, Fitzgerald, and that decade was so important to modernism. The histories of this time are concerned with a linear narrative. When we see a map it is very seductive… But that is a representation, not accurate. But I was particularly keen to map those places that matter… It can be hard to understand the role of spatiality of the places in this movement (or indeed in general).

So, in this tool you can explore by person… So you can for instance view Sylvia Beech’s life, a book seller central to modernism in that time. Clicking on a place gives you more information about that place, it’s relevance.

So, how do you build this? You have a script that is free to use. You enter data into a Google Spreadsheet… There are some predefined fields here… I put in bibliographic reference to allow me to use it in teaching. I put in a person as I am interested in the social links within modernism. The reason I like this is taht in the humanities is that we aren’t really trained to use GIS, but a spreadsheet we can just about manage!

So the data is piped in from a Google spreadsheet, but you have to build the front end. I found a guide from Brian Croxall will walk you through the process – you can use his JavaScript and tinker with it…. So you get it up and running…

I originally built this for teaching. The 1920s wasn’t recognised as important until much later on 1950s/60s/70s. By then it is clear, in the biographies, who the big important players are. And those who never quite published that master work etc, insert themselves into that history. For instance we have Canadian writers (e.g. Morley Hallaghan, the only person to knock out Ernest Hemingway) who have interesting interactions with the big players. John Glassco’s Memoirs of Montparnasse, documents his bisexual adventures with both male and female writers of this tine… He locates himself close to key locations… But he has a rival, Morley Hallaghn… So he mentions meeting him but never assigns the location/space there… It sheds a whole new life in their relationships that would have been invisible if I’d looked at those works in any other way… mapping their locations was so useful.

Now I built this for research, but it does double duty for teaching. It is a framework for research, but I got students to think about sociality of modernism in Paris. I asked them to find one piece of information relevant to modernism, arts, culture in Paris, and to find the Geolocation associated with that person – the details are often vague in biographies and texts. That task took them a long time… Then the students were given access to the spreadsheet… So you can then see those entries, and visualise them on that map… And we were able to see patterning of which writers stayed where. So you can explore the locations of women versus those of men. So Paris in the 20s had a group of unusually strong women, publishing each others work… so where did they hang out? That concept is in play… That cotidillon sense of our everyday place actually shaped literary history. Place is such an interesting lens through which to consider this work. We may only have sparse information of where these people live and stay – and we may have location only for months or a few years… raises useful questions, lets us ask critical things… Mapping this stuff perhaps helps you see biases, particularly around the prominence of particular places versus others.

So, students begin to understand the research process… you have contingent data that you need to make an arguement out of.

Something I love about the Digital Humanities is the sense and culture of openness… And when you teach there is a commitment among the best teachers in this subject to share the very best students work online. That makes students very aware of this very public process – they are very serious about, it is their reputation on the line/building up, and a thing to point employers and peers, etc. to in the future…

So, we build this stuff… We need to embed it so students have to learn a snippit of HTML. Students also learn the importance of precision. If students use “1920′s” rather than “1920s” will hide their work in the faceted search. It seems like a tiny thing but in this subject changes in punctuation can be so important – whether in student work or in those writing on Emily Dickenson’s work.

The other thing that this was helpful for was bibliographic referencing… They were expected to get a proper reference… As we clicked in things in class I mentioned errors… As I did that students were editing their own references live in response. The publicness of the sharing made them keen to correct things! I also really like the serendipity of this – and other new tools – in teaching.

I should say that you can’t do spatial analysis in this. But the SIMILE Exhibit tools do let you view a timeline (and click for more data). But the map is  a point map, I would pull the data out and put it into Arc GIS to do serious spatial analysis on this data… So looking for the shapes, comparing literary to tourist areas for instance.

So, if you want to play, I have a sand box. Find it at: http://aelang.net/projects/canada.htm, just email Anouk for access. If you do edit, do include an identifier to ensure you can identify your own entries – and view just those points on the map.

Q&A

Q: Will you put in iTunes?

A Anouk: Will I make it an app? No. Firstly Google Maps Engine is going, so need to move to OSM. But also not what I need for my students!

 

Programme

Duncan Shingleton, Research Assistant/Technician, School of Design will presentation on various location based research projects Design Informatics has done:

Walking though time – negotiating the streets of Edinburgh in 1860

Comob – Networking people movements

GoGet – Objects hitch hiking on the path of humans

Treasure Trapper – Mobile game in conjunction with Edinburgh Museum and Galleries.

Mr Seels Garden – Food narratives in the city

Ghost Cinema – cinematic narratives in battersea

 

Jonathan Silverton Chair in Technology Enhanced Science Education in the School of Biological Sciences – will present on “Virtual Edinburgh: turning the whole city into a mobile learning environment”

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