Users' trust in information resources in the Web environment: a status report

This study has three aims; to provide an overview of the ways in which trust is either assessed or asserted in relation to the use and provision of resources in the Web environment for research and learning; to assess what solutions might be worth further investigation and whether establishing ways to assert trust in academic information resources could assist the development of information literacy; to help increase understanding of how perceptions of trust influence the behaviour of information users

Opening teaching landscapes: The importance of quality assurance in the delivery of open educational resources

Scholars are increasingly being asked to share teaching materials, publish in open access journals, network in social media, and reuse open educational resources (OER). The theoretical benefits of Open Educational Practices (OEP) have become understood in the academic community but thus far, the use of OER has not been rapidly adopted. We aim to understand the challenges academics face with in attempting to adopt OEP, and identify whether these are related to or stem from the functionalities afforded by current repositories of OER (ROER). By understanding what academics and experts consider good practices, we can develop guidelines for quality in the development of ROER. In this article we present the findings from a study surveying academics using OER and experts who develop and/or work with ROER. We conclude by suggesting a framework to enhance the development and quality of ROER

Overview and Analysis of Practices with Open Educational Resources in Adult Education in Europe

OER4Adults aimed to provide an overview of Open Educational Practices in adult learning in Europe, identifying enablers and barriers to successful implementation of practices with OER. The project was conducted in 2012-2013 by a team from the Caledonian Academy, Glasgow Caledonian University, funded by The Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS). The project drew on data from four main sources: • OER4Adults inventory of over 150 OER initiatives relevant to adult learning in Europe • Responses from the leaders of 36 OER initiatives to a detailed SWOT survey • Responses from 89 lifelong learners and adult educators to a short poll • The Vision Papers on Open Education 2030: Lifelong Learning published by IPTS Interpretation was informed by interviews with OER and adult education experts, discussion at the IPTS Foresight Workshop on Open Education and Lifelong Learning 2030, and evaluation of the UKOER programme. Analysis revealed 6 tensions that drive developing practices around OER in adult learning as well 6 summary recommendations for the further development of such practices

Feedback 2.0: An Investigation into Using Sharable Feedback Tags as Programming Feedback

Objectives: Learning and teaching computer programming is a recognised challenge in Higher Education. Since feedback is regarded as being the most important part of the learning process, it is expected that improving it could support students' learning. This thesis aims to investigate how new forms of feedback can improve student learning of programming and how feedback sharing can further enhance the students' learning experience. Methods: This thesis investigates the use of new forms of feedback for programming courses. The work explores the use of collaborative tagging often found in Web 2.0 software systems and a feedback approach that requires examiners to annotate students source code with short, potentially reusable feedback. The thesis utilises a variety of research methods including questionnaires, focus groups and collection of system usage data recorded from student interactions with their feedback. Sentiment and thematic analysis are used to investigate how well feedback tags communicate the intended message from examiners to students. The approaches used are tested and refined over two preliminary investigations before use in the final investigation. Results: The work identified that a majority of students responded positively to the new feedback approach described. Student engagement was high with up to 100% viewing their feedback and at least 42% of students opting to share their feedback. Students in the cohort who achieved either the lower or higher marks for the assignment appeared more likely to share their feedback. Conclusions: This thesis has demonstrated that sharing of feedback can be useful for disseminating good practice and common pitfalls. Provision of feedback which is contextually rich and textually concise has resulted in higher engagement from students. However, the outcomes of this research have been shown to be influenced by the assessment process adopted by the University. For example, students were more likely to engage with their feedback if marks are unavailable at the time of feedback release. This issue and many others are proposed as further work

Young people and the evaluation of information on the World Wide Web: Principles, practice and beliefs

A recurrent theme in LIS literature is the tendency of young people not to evaluate rigorously the information with which they come into contact. Although many information literacy models stress the need to take a critical approach, the reality of behaviour is often very different. Recent research conducted in an English high school has explored the importance that teenagers attach to ten particular evaluative criteria. 149 youngsters contributed data via an online questionnaire. Participants felt that information on the Web should be current/topical, free from spelling and grammatical errors and easily verifiable elsewhere but authorship was much less of a priority to them. The findings are likely to be of special relevance to information literacy teachers who are defining priorities for their own programmes

Contextualisation of learning objects to derive meaning

One's thinking becomes different when exposed to new and unfamiliar worlds. Certain common ideas become inexpressible, whereas other previously unimagined ones spring into life, finding miraculous new articulation. In some instances, that which cannot be adequately articulated in one context may in another, become fully comprehensible. It is at the juncture of prior and new understandings that the potential for creativity arises (Quinton, 2005)

The potential role of ePortfolios in the Teaching Excellence Framework

Current debates on HE policy in the UK are dominated by the evolving Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) which will soon involve the government establishing key metrics.  In this context, and seizing this valuable moment in policy formation, we here provide a brief foray into the multiple aspects of ‘teaching excellence’ (TE) as a basis to highlight both the complexity of identifying ways to measure it and the shortcomings of existing official developments.  In the absence of a clear conceptual understanding of the learning processes and the role of teaching which apparently underpins the TEF, we present a model of the learning process to which the indicators currently proposed by the authorities can be related.  We propose that ePortfolios can play a special role in the TEF in capturing the qualitative outcomes of learning processes which, importantly, reflect the student perspective in terms of goals, learning experiences and achievement.  These are both crucial yet missing elements of the proposals to date. Finally, we provide some examples of how information from ePortfolios could be used by HE institutions to enhance their institutional submissions to the TEF.

eduGraph: A Dashboard for Personalised Feedback in Massive Open Online Courses

Learning Analytics is concerned with the design and implementation of tools and processes for collecting, analysing, and communicating information about teaching and learning. It is enabled by data, but not driven by it, rather it tries to empower human judgements by presenting meaningful facts. This thesis explores the data generated in Open edX courses to understand how it can be analysed and used to impact learners' motivation in online courses. It is carried out using Design Science, a research methodology aiming to produce artefacts that can improve the interaction with problems. In this thesis I present the eduGraph dashboard, a dashboard that uses Learning Analytics to present meaningful insights about learners' learning process in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Results indicate that learners perceive the dashboard as useful and effective at motivating them to take part in online courses, and that it enables them to keep track of their progress in the courses. I posit that the biggest problem facing Learning Analytics today are the lack of accessible data, and that it is possible for reasearchers to create more accurate learner models by using Learning Anaytics theories and methods in combination with the iterative and technical process of Information Systems development.Masteroppgave i informasjonsvitenskapINFO390MASV-INF

Technologies to enhance self-directed learning from hypertext

With the growing popularity of the World Wide Web, materials presented to learners in the form of hypertext have become a major instructional resource. Despite the potential of hypertext to facilitate access to learning materials, self-directed learning from hypertext is often associated with many concerns. Self-directed learners, due to their different viewpoints, may follow different navigation paths, and thus they will have different interactions with knowledge. Therefore, learners can end up being disoriented or cognitively-overloaded due to the potential gap between what they need and what actually exists on the Web. In addition, while a lot of research has gone into supporting the task of finding web resources, less attention has been paid to the task of supporting the interpretation of Web pages. The inability to interpret the content of pages leads learners to interrupt their current browsing activities to seek help from other human resources or explanatory learning materials. Such activity can weaken learner engagement and lower their motivation to learn. This thesis aims to promote self-directed learning from hypertext resources by proposing solutions to the above problems. It first presents Knowledge Puzzle, a tool that proposes a constructivist approach to learn from the Web. Its main contribution to Web-based learning is that self-directed learners will be able to adapt the path of instruction and the structure of hypertext to their way of thinking, regardless of how the Web content is delivered. This can effectively reduce the gap between what they need and what exists on the Web. SWLinker is another system proposed in this thesis with the aim of supporting the interpretation of Web pages using ontology based semantic annotation. It is an extension to the Internet Explorer Web browser that automatically creates a semantic layer of explanatory information and instructional guidance over Web pages. It also aims to break the conventional view of Web browsing as an individual activity by leveraging the notion of ontology-based collaborative browsing. Both of the tools presented in this thesis were evaluated by students within the context of particular learning tasks. The results show that they effectively fulfilled the intended goals by facilitating learning from hypertext without introducing high overheads in terms of usability or browsing efforts