Projects

jeff haywood - recent & current projects

LeAM Hamish Macleod, Tim Smith and I within the School of Education are responsible for the formative and summative evaluation of the university-level implementation of an intelligent maths tutoring system. It makes use of a natrual language dialogue inteface and an explicit modelling of learner knowledge and skills to aid progression. This EC Framework Programme 6 funded LeAM project is led by DFKI at the University of Saarland, Germany with the Universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Malaga, Munich and Einhoven as partners. Ends summer 2007.		LeAD With colleagues drawn from Physics, Veterinary Medicine, Divinity and Education, this JISC-funded project (2007-8) is exploring the experiences of new students at the University of Edinburgh in their use of technology to support their learning. Working with students before they arrive in Edinburgh and through their first year we will capture their experiences, their views about the role of technology in their studies, and the relation of these to their social use of ICT.
VICTORIOUS A large project under the EC eLearning Programme, VICTORIOUS explored the experiences of Erasmus and other European exchange students with ICT before, during and after their visits to other universities. Their experiences enabled us to develop pilots that tested ways in which universities might support their own outgoing students and incoming students from other universities in their mobile use of ICT. The project ended in 2007 with a substantial report and recommendations to stakeholders in the exchange process. Academic coordination was from Edinburgh, with partners in Bristol, Turku, Tartu, Siena, Pavia, Granada, Leuven, Groningen and Brussels.		MASSIVE Another large EC eLearning Programme project and a sister project to VICTORIOUS, MASSIVE developed and tested a methodology for peer-reviewing in e-learning, with particular emphasis on traditional universities across Europe. Peer review visits were carried out with reports and analyses, and were evaluated through several workshops and conference sessions. Led by Granada, the partners were Edinburgh, Leuven, Bergen, Budapest, Erlangen, Barcelona, Tavistock, SCIENTER and SDAE, Madrid.
SUMIT We are taking the findings of the VICTORIOUS Project to a wider audience in the new member states and accession countries of the EU through a conference in October 2007, with a subsequent publication. SUMIT is funded under the EC TEMPUS programme, with UNICA Network, University of Warsaw, Brussels Education Service and the University of Edinburgh as partners.		VM-BASE This EC-funded project is exploring ways to use ICT to support Erasmus and other exchange students before, during and after their visits to other universities. It follows on from the preliminary work done in the VICTORIOUS Project. Led by the Catholic University of Leuven it has as partners Edinburgh, Laurea Technical University Helsinki, Helsinki University of Technology, and two European Student Associations (BEST and ESIB)
SCROLLA The Scottish Centre for Research in On-Line Learning & Assessment began January 2001 and was initially funded by the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council (SHEFC) under its Research Development Grant programme to enhance the Scottish research infrastructure. The Centre is a distributed between Heriot Watt, Glasgow and Edinburgh Universities. It is creating a focus in Scotland for research into ICT in learning and teaching, spanning all sectors of education.		EUCEBS Building on the work of the CALABAT project which produced a set of competences in basic skills that could be applied across Europe, the EUCEBS project is funded by the Leonardo programme of the EC from Jan 2002 - Dec 2005. Its aim is to use ICT to support basic skills trainers and learners in 7 European countries, and to provide a central on-line register of records of achievement.
Undergraduate ICT Literacy studies With colleagues in Higher & Community Education, I have been collecting data from new students at Edinburgh as to their knowledge, skills and atttudes to ICT, both in their studies and more generally. This information has been used by us to develop and progress an ICT literacy policy, that underpins the provision of equipment and support for students. Recent publications summarising much of our data are available here & here		SEEQUEL The SEEQUEL project is exploring the theoretical thinking that underlies quality in e-learning in all educational sectors and working on production of tools to enable quality to be evaluated by both providers and learners. The project is funded by the EC as one of four working on different aspects of quality in e-learning.
UNI-GAME A project to explore the use of computer-based gaming in higher education, EC funded for 3 years until September 2004. In Edinburgh we have been working with colleagues in the Management School to develop and on-line version of a business game ('Oakland Furniture') using WebCT.		SIG-GLUE A special interest group focussed on digital games for education in universities and lifelong learning. It aims to promote better games design and wider appreciation of the role of games in education.
SEUSISS A 24 month project funded under the European Union's SOCRATES-MINERVA programme to investigate the ICT skills, experiences and attitudes of students and academic staff at seven European universities. We also examined employers expectations and the strategies used by the seven universities to develop ICT skills. The project ended in April 2003 and the final report is available here The project builds upon ICT literacy data collected in the University of Edinburgh since 1990 - read more		SPOT+ This EC-funded Socrates-Minerva project is collecting the views of European students about the use of eLearning in universities. It ran from 2002-4 and is led by SCIENTER in Bologna. We will organise paper- and web-based surveys, an on-line discussion between students in several countries and background research in each partner country. The various reports produced during the project are here.
HECTIC Funded by the EC in 2001, this one-year project was led by the Coimbra Group to consult experts and leaders in European higher education about the challenges and opportunities in the use of eLearning. A workshop in Brussels in September 2001 produced a report which was further refined by comment by Rectors and Vice-Chancellors across the sector. Download report here		Scottish Qualification for Headship The Faculty of Education at Edinburgh is running a course for experienced teachers which leads to the new SQH. It is mainly work-based with some F2F events, and is supported through MALTS by a WebCT course environment. I have been working with my colleagues and the course leader Danny Murphy to evaluate the effectiveness of the ICT component of the course. Download report here
First Aid English In MALTS we have been working with the Edinburgh University Settlement's Second Chance to Learn team to pilot use of computer-aided assessment to assist adults who wish to improve their use of english. We are building materials in QuestionMark Perception for web delivery. The project is funded by the National Grid for Learning for one year.		Evaluating Institutional Strategies for Use of ICT in Learning and Teaching This project was organised by the Association of European Universities (CRE - now EUA) under EC funding to develop a methodology for universities to use when evaluating their strategies for use of ICT in learning and teaching. Edinburgh provided a case study for the project. Download report here
GOLD During 1999-2001, we carried out a formative evaluation of the TLTP Phase 3 project 'Guidance On-line for Learners at a Distance', a joint venture of the Royal College of Nursing Institute (RCNI), University of Bath and the Open Learning Foundation. The project explored the use of ICT in a previously paper-based distance education MSc in Nursing. Download report here		ARKS & CALABAT Two projects funded by the European Union under the LEONARDO programme involving the University Settlement. Dr Hamish Macleod (Higher & Further Education) ) and I provided the ICT skills training and support to the projects to enable them to develop better communications and sharing of materials between partners via email, FTP and Netmeeting, and also to disseminate their project outcomes via the web The theme of both projects was improving basic literacy and numeracy for adults, and both are continuing into new projects developing on-line assessment and self-assessment materials with our support.
ALT C 2001 I was coordinator for the conference of the Association for Learning Technology (ALT) which was hosted by the four universities in Edinburgh from 11-13 September 2001.		MARBLE This was one of the early projects to develop interactive web-based learning materials. Funded by SHEFC under its Uses of the MANs Initiative in 1995-6, it was an Edinburgh-lead collaboration between staff at Napier, Heriot Watt and Edinburgh universities in a wide range of subject areas. Although the website has now been dismantled, the learning materials have been developed further by al partners and are still in use in teaching. A Powerpoint presentation from the Webnet 1996 conference showing some of the products is available here.
Uses of TLTP Materials in UK HE This 1998-99 project for the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) surveyed the use of various types of ICT in teaching in all departments of every UK university and college, with particular emphasis on the products of the TLTP programme. Staff views of the value of ICT in learning and teaching were also collected. Download report here		SCWEIMS I was project leader for a 1999-2001 SHEFC-funded project to build a web-based student portal which can be adopted by any university or college. The partners were the universities of Abertay, Edinburgh, Paisley and Queen Margaret University College. The portal was designed to give students at the four universities access to their personal details, course enrolments and grades, library records, announcements, and link them directly to courses hosted in the central university virtual learning environments. Eventually, on-line enolment and financial transactions will be possible via the portal for those universities that wish to use these. The model has been explicitly created to work without modification of the legacy back-end databases present in all HEIs. The project homepage is archived here.

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