Studentship Vacancies
Learning from structured collections of digital resources
The aim of this project is to investigate ways in which collections of digital resources can be organised in order to support learning and teaching. This is important in contexts, for example, where the learner has to carry out some task that involves drawing on a number of resources and understanding relationships between them. The resources may provide alternative perspectives on the same issue, illustrate the development of an idea or support different stages of a scientific procedure that the learner needs to undertake.Previous research has shown that organising resources into linear pathways or trails can be pedagogically effective (Peterson and Levene 2003; Karadkar et al 2004). Other work has shown how organising resources into clusters can better support their exploration (Käki 2005). Some of own research has investigated how resources can be interactively organised into linear structures (Wolff et al 2007; Zdrahal et al 2006) or other kinds of presentation format (Collins et al 2005, Mulholland et al 2005).
This research will be conducted within the context of the EU funded Eurogene project that aims to develop methodology and technology for sharing and reusing educational resources on human genetics. The consortium coordinated by the European Genetic Foundations (EGF) in Italy, includes 16 European universities from 8 countries that offer courses in human genetics, the European Society of Human Genetics (ESHG), two companies providing language translation services and two technological partners. KMI as the leading technology partner will develop tools for the search, browsing and integration of educational resources.
Within this context, the PhD research may address one or more of the following questions:
- How can teachers be supported in building learning structures that scaffold student use of resources?
- How can students use and interpret these structures as part of their learning?
- How can students build their own structures as part of a learning process or to demonstrate their understanding?
Dr Paul Mulholland
+44 (0)1908 654506
Background Reading
Collins T., Mulholland, P. and Zdrahal, Z. (2005). Semantic browsing of digital collections. International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC'05), Galway, Ireland.
Käki, M. (2005). Findex: Search result categories help users when document ranking fails. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems (CHI '05), Portland, Oregon.
Mulholland, P., Collins, T. and Zdrahal, Z. (2005). Bletchley Park Text: Using mobile and semantic web technologies to support the post-visit use of online museum resources. Journal of Interactive Media in Education (Portable Learning: Experiences with Mobile Devices. Special Issue, eds. A. Jones, A. Kukulska-Hulme and D. Mwanza)
http://jime.open.ac.uk/2005/24.
Peterson, D. and Levene, M. (2003). Trail records and navigational learning. London Review of Education, 1, (2003), 207-216.
Karadkar, U., Francisco-Revilla, L., Furuta, R., Shipman, F., Arora, A., Dash, S., Dave, P. and Luke, E. (2004). Metadocuments Supporting Digital Library Information Discovery. International Journal on Digital Libraries, 4 (1), 25-30.
Wolff, A., Mulholland, P., Zdrahal , Z. and Joiner, R. (2007). Re-using digital narrative content in interactive games. International Journal of Human Computer Studies, 65 (3), 244-272.
Zdrahal Z., Mulholland P. and Collins T. (2006). Exploring Pathways Across Stories, 2006, Technical report.
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Additional Information:
The Knowledge Media Institute (http://kmi.open.ac.uk) is home to internationally recognised researchers in semantic web, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, human-computer interaction, information retrieval and multimedia processing. KMi offers students an intellectually challenging environment with exceptional research and computer facilities. You will be joining a dynamic PhD programme with about 15 other students in KMi, plus peers in the Computing department and Institute of Educational Technology who together make up the OU's Centre for Research in Computing (http://crc.open.ac.uk/).KMi sees PhD students as critical to its mission, and awards Studentships (£12,978/year tax free for 2008/09), with no additional fees, compulsory examinations or teaching required. Participation is required in CRC PhD events and thesis milestones, as specified in the KMI Research Degrees policy (http://kmi.org/studentships/policy.php). Additional training courses to develop your generic research skills are run across the OU, attendance at which is agreed with your supervisor.
The Open University (http://www.open.ac.uk) is UK's only distance learning university with a dedicated mission for excellence in teaching and research. PhD programmes are residential, however, and the student would carry out their research at the KMi in the Open University's central Milton Keynes campus.
Milton Keynes (http://www.mkweb.co.uk/), located in the triangle Cambridge, Oxford and London, is an exciting and vibrant place to be. It is one of the fastest growing cities in the country with fantastic shopping facilities, Xscape Snow slope, new skydiving centre and much more. Milton Keynes is also home to some major employers with Abbey National, Argos and The Open University having headquarters in the city. With more businesses continuing to locate here, unemployment levels are among the lowest in the country. Milton Keynes has excellent transport links with the M1 motorway and A5 running alongside the city and a fast train link into London Euston (35 minutes).
Applications
This studentship is available for immediate start. The deadline for applications is 18th January 2008. Applications should comprise an application form, C.V. and a proposal outlining how you would tackle this project. They should be submitted to:Research School
The Open University
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes
MK7 6AA
UK
