Maren Deepwell

Category: Conferences

  • The quality of metrics matters: looking ahead to #EdTechIE18

    The quality of metrics matters: looking ahead to #EdTechIE18

    I am really looking forward to taking part in ILTA’s upcoming conference, TEL Quality Matters – People, Policies and Practices, 31 May – 1 June at IT Carlow. You can see the full programme here http://programme.exordo.com/edtech2018/ .

    Working with ALT’s new strategic working group for the development of the Open Access journal Research in Learning Technology, I have been working on understanding more about alternatives to the established Impact Factor for independent Open Access journals generally and more specifically for researchers in Learning Technology (revisit my first and second post on this subject) and next week’s conference is a valuable opportunity for me to meet some of the colleagues who are part of the group and find out more about their experiences.

    Meanwhile I have come across two new interesting articles (thanks to Neil Morris for making me aware of the blog post).

    The first is another interesting post from the LSE Impact Blog: The academic papers researchers regard as significant are not those that are highly cited . The authors describe the current perspective as follows:

    Citations, JIF, and h-index have served as the triumvirate of impact evaluation for many years, particularly in STEM fields, where journal articles are frequently published. Many studies have pointed out various flaws with reliance on these metrics, and over time, a plethora of complementary citation-based metrics have been created to try and address various proficiencies. At the same time, we see altmetrics emerging as a potential alternative or complement to citations, where we can collect different data about the ways in which research is viewed, saved, and shared online.

    The authors share useful insights from their work surveying chemistry researchers to “gauge their perceptions of significance, importance, and highly cited materials. The results, while not truly startling, were nevertheless a stark illustration of how different these concepts are.”

    The post ends with reflecting on how meaningful assessment of research can be developed within individual disciplines and I think this is a useful approach for Learning Technology in particular, given the diversity of research and research active professionals as well as the broad range of media and technologies we utilise.

    Another interesting post I have come across is this from the Scholarly Kitchen which examines the role of preprint repositories and their impact on journal citation rates https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2018/05/21/journals-lose-citations-preprint-servers-repositories/ . The article in itself is interesting, but in particular I found it helpful to look at how some of the practices in Open Access publishing have developed. What I am particularly interested in is the messiness that results in different versions of the same research being linked to and cited on different platforms and how this impacts on citation rates and access to research over time.

    One of the questions in the post is why people keep linking to and citing pre-prints even when the published version of an article is available. There is no tidy way of making everything link up in one place and so whichever platform is used most becomes the most useful even though the life cycle of publication is designed with a different aim in mind. The post uses the example of bioRxiv to examine how this, but this can easily be applied to other, similar platforms formal and informal.

    The post concludes with this:

    A citation is much more than a directional link to the source of a document. It is the basis for a system of rewarding those who make significant contributions to public science. Redirecting citations to preprint servers not only harms journals, which lose public recognition for publishing important work, but to the authors themselves, who may find it difficult to aggregate public acknowledgements to their work.

    I am looking forward to exploring these and related questions next week. You’ll be able to access all details of my presentation via the conference website http://programme.exordo.com/edtech2018/delegates/presentation/1/ . I’d also like to add a note of thanks to the wonderful Bryan Mathers for making his Visual Thinkery available under Creative Commons licences and thus enabling me to use (and credit) them in my presentation. Thank you.

  • Critical Perspectives on Blended Learning: Hong Kong Polytechnic University BOLT Symposium

    Critical Perspectives on Blended Learning: Hong Kong Polytechnic University BOLT Symposium

    This week I contributed to the BOLT Symposium at Hong Kong Polytechnic University as keynote speaker. The symposium brought together colleagues from universities in the region to disseminate outputs from the BOLT project, showcasing successful collaboration, shared provision of staff development and initiatives to ensure that the sustainability of what has been achieved. As part of my work for ALT I have supported the project in a small way for a number of years, mostly around the CMALT accreditation framework and it was very rewarding for me to be able to meet the project team in person. 

    In my talk I focused on critical perspectives on blended learning, using some common technology focused reports and frameworks as a starting point, including the recently published preview of the 2018 Horizon Report. Using insights from the findings from the ALT Annual Survey 2017 I went on to examine the enablers and drivers being the adoption of learning technology, and shared an update on the developments of new pathways to CMALT accreditation. In the last part of my talk I looked at the bigger picture, drawing on historical perspectives to assess the validity of the claims made for technological innovation including sharing the work of Audrey Watters’ Teaching Machines timeline. My talk concluded with a reflection on the importance of equity for the future of blended learning and empowering staff and students in their relationship to learning technology. We had time for a brief Q&A session and I was grateful for the engaging questions from participants.

    I also want to mention a particular highlight of the trip for me, which took place the day before the symposium, as I was able to present two members of staff with their newly awarded CMALT accreditation.

    As well as a warm welcome and great hospitality I was inspired by the many conversations with colleagues from the different institutions taking part in the event. It was interesting to hear and see how each institution contributed to the collaborative project as well as finding strategic alignment with organisational priorities.

    Whilst the context may be very different, there seemed to me to be a lot of commonality between what is being achieved here in the provision of staff development to help scale up use of blended learning and the kinds of projects I am familiar with in the UK and elsewhere. I returned with a suitcase full of ideas to take back and share with the community here, having gained a new perspective on how the work of ALT can be of value to Members all across the world and inspired by the shared questions we have about the future of learning technology.

  • Professionalisation and accreditation in Learning Technology #digifest18

    Professionalisation and accreditation in Learning Technology #digifest18

    Together with colleagues we are talking about professionalisation and accreditation in Learning Technology today. You can access all slides and links to resources from our talk at http://go.alt.ac.uk/altcDigifest .

  • Technology Enhanced Learning #IGHETech18

    Technology Enhanced Learning #IGHETech18

    I was invited to participate in an interesting event this week, “Embracing Technology Enhanced Learning”. Lots of very useful resources were shared on Twitter, so I’d encourage you to browse #IGHETech18 to pick up great resources.

    One of the highlights of the day for me was seeing and listen to colleagues whom I work with for ALT, but whom I don’t often get to see on a stage talking about what they do best!

    And both Sheila and Peter as well as Chrissi Nerantzi gave great talks that have really inspired me to follow up on a number of new initiatives.

    We also joined into a brief periscope session as part of this week’s BYOD4L: AN OPEN LEARNING EVENT FOR STUDENTS & TEACHERS, check https://byod4learning.wordpress.com/ for full details and to catch up on what’s been happening.

    The day really inspired me, but it has also left me with some questions: first, it’s reminded me of how unevenly we, as individuals and institutions, take up Learning Technology. There’s a general sense of scaling up, but it feels that there is always a wide distribution across a rather steep curve of adoption – from those who are reluctantly facing change to those who embrace new processes, tools and ways of thinking and empower each other in the process. That is why, I think, we return to talking about the potential, rather than the reality of technology for learning, teaching or assessment. How can we move on?

    Also, Peter really struck a chord with me when he emphasised how the one concern that brings everyone together is for students and the desire to improve things for them. I agree with that and my experience working in any sector proves that time and time again. But how can we actually put that concern first when we are faced with ever more complex technologies? How can we ensure that we can understand, interrogate and shape machine-led processes sufficiently to put students’ benefits first?

    Last, I was left with considering how we can increase the impact of all the work we are doing? There is such a wealth of experience, resources and insight that everything we are already doing seems insufficient to really leveraging its impact fully.

  • Coming up #oeb17: Re-articulating what we value – a new vision for Learning Technology professionals

    Coming up #oeb17: Re-articulating what we value – a new vision for Learning Technology professionals

    I am looking forward to a panel discussion at Online Educa Berlin 2017 this week, as part of the Business EDUCA: Learning L&D Needs session. The session is about:

    Creating learning solutions which enable workforce development is no easy feat. And becoming an effective instructional designer will often require a degree, courses and field experience. This session will discuss the skills practitioners need for the L&D department of the future, as well as how we can learn the profession and remain relevant to our organisations.

    You can view the full programme of the conference and more information about the session here.

    My contribution is focused on professionalisation of Learning Technology in the UK informed by results from ALT’s Annual Survey and the development of the CMALT accreditation framework (slides).

  • Talking about #FELTAG: keynote on workforce development in Learning Technology

    This week I am contributing to a conference called FELTAG 2017: Embracing Digital Technology in Further Education and I am pleased to have been invited to give a short keynote as part of the programme. My talk (slides) will focus on workforce development to maximise Learning Technology impact in three ways: first, I set out what questions we need to ask about skills and capabilities, second, I explore how and open online course can support workforce development and third I showcase how ALT’s accreditation scheme, CMALT, can help increase intelligent use of Learning Technology.

    This sets out the context for the talk and draws on other things I have recently written, first for FE News in an article about Digital Skills development in the workforce , and then also on the Efficiency Exchange in a post called Accreditation fit for a (digital) purpose?

    ALT Strategy Aim 3 (visual thinkery)

    The ALT strategy places a form emphasis on professional development and recognition for different roles in Learning Technology and the broad range of professionals who need different levels of skills and capabilities is something I am particularly interested in. CMALT, ALT’s accreditation framework is one of the topics I will be exploring in my talk.

    One of the projects I am involved in via ALT is the development of the Blended Learning Essentials courses, led by Prof Diana Laurillard and Prof Neil Morris. These open online courses run on the FutureLearn platform and the next one to launch has a focus on developing digital skills.  It’s a useful example of how such initiatives can support individual and institutional CPD across the sector.

     

    As I was part of the original Ministerial FELTAG Group and a contributor to the recommendations made in 2014 the opportunity to speak about what’s happened since and how much progress we have made is welcome. However, while I can see much positive change, there are also mounting challenges not just in relation to Learning Technology, but the FE system more generally.

    Using technology for learning, teaching and assessment continues to be of increasing importance and its potential grows  each year. Yet technology by itself is no answer to some of the larger, structural challenges facing learners, teachers and providers and those continue to mount. So whilst I am looking forward to being part of a conference that encourage participants to embrace Digital Technology in FE and look forward to contributing, I think it is the people, the teachers and trainers, that we really need to focus on.