Development and validation of a taxonomy to guide practitioners in the use of video feedback.

This research was motivated by observing the lack of student engagement with assessment feedback on a first year undergraduate computer programming unit. The thesis includes background information regarding current trends and issues in Higher Education assessment and feedback, a review of current literature on video feedback, and the method selection process which resulted in an overarching design science structure, encompassing case studies, implemented in an action research context. A related pair of taxonomies were developed from the literature, and validated both in practice and by experts. These were designed to aid both best practice for academic staff involved in setting up systems to produce and distribute video feedback, and researchers, when choosing which details to include in studies and papers on video feedback. By including recommended information, the connection between practice context, and perceptions, can be observed, thus maximising the contribution to best practice for the global research community, as media formats and technologies evolve

Requirements for an Adaptive Multimedia Presentation System with Contextual Supplemental Support Media

Investigations into the requirements for a practical adaptive multimedia presentation system have led the writers to propose the use of a video segmentation process that provides contextual supplementary updates produced by users. Supplements consisting of tailored segments are dynamically inserted into previously stored material in response to questions from users. A proposal for the use of this technique is presented in the context of personalisation within a Virtual Learning Environment. During the investigation, a brief survey of advanced adaptive approaches revealed that adaptation may be enhanced by use of manually generated metadata, automated or semi-automated use of metadata by stored context dependent ontology hierarchies that describe the semantics of the learning domain. The use of neural networks or fuzzy logic filtering is a technique for future investigation. A prototype demonstrator is under construction

Development of a data model for an Adaptive Multimedia Presentation System (AMPS)

We investigate the requirements and nature of data models for a multimedia learning system that presents adaptable learning objects based on a range of stimuli provided by the student and tutor. A conceptual model is explored together with a proposal for an implementation using the well-known relational data model. We also investigate how to describe the learning objects in the form of hierarchical subject ontology. An ontological calculus is created to allow knowledge metrics to be constructed for evaluation within data models. We further consider the limitations of the relational abstract data model to accurately represent the meaning and understanding of learning objects and contrast this with less structured data models implicit in ontological hierarchies. Our findings indicate that more consideration is needed into how to match traditional data models with ontological structures, especially in the area of database integrity constraints

Using IT Support to improve the quality of Peer Assisted Learning

Peer assisted learning (PAL) is one way to increase the empowerment of students through their learning practices and, hence, enhance their learning journey. PAL involves students mentoring groups of academically less experienced students; develops the quality and diversity of student learning, and enables students to become active partners in their learning experience. PAL supports student transition into higher education and there is evidence that it can aid retention in the early weeks of degree study. Retention is becoming a key issue for universities and one of the key performance indicators (KPIs) of quality education under the strategy for higher education set out by the current government. The PAL³ project is funded by Learn Higher and is an on going project investigating the use of IT support to improve the quality of Peer Assisted Learning. The project has set up a learning environment for students, and a knowledge base for PAL student mentors and PAL and other academic staff. This paper reports on initial findings from the project which can be divided into two strands. Firstly, the compilation of a staff knowledge base has highlighted the fact that PAL is known by different names and has different meanings in different places. We provide an initial classification. Secondly, the PAL student environment, which has been implemented and used by the student cohort and their PAL student mentors, has highlighted issues that were not envisaged at the beginning of the study and this has implications for future work

Blended Feedback II: Video feedback for individual students is the norm, on an undergraduate computer programming unit

The use of video feedback is popular, even usual, in fields involving social behaviour and interaction or physical performance. In other academic subject areas, the use of video as feedback is, as yet, uncommon. The work of others in this field covers group work, generic feedback, small numbers of students, samples and trials. We believe this may be one of the first studies on returning individual personalised feedback to a sizeable number of first year undergraduate students taking Computer Programming, or any other academic subject, for every assessment submitted on the unit. Student engagement with feedback is often lacking and in that case, a valuable learning opportunity is missed. Previous work using audio as feedback showed 80% of students would prefer audio to written feedback. However, the separation of submitted programming code from audio comments still limits ease of reference to the work. The next natural step was to use video screen capture to augment the student experience by improving easy reference to work by simultaneously providing contextually relevant narrative and visually referring to elements of the work