On Monday the 3rd of September, fellow Spoken Word colleague Caroline Nokaes and myself attended the Caledonian Academy Learning Communities Forum event here at Caledonian University. The guest speaker was Dr Rob Philips from Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia.

The event was based around Student and Staff Perceptions of Web-based Lecture Recording Technologies, in particular looking at staff and student data figures and examining the difficulties both groups encountered when using such technology.

Studies to date on the use and uptake of web-based lecture technologies have explored the technical and operational issues surrounding access and use. It is well documented that these technologies provide flexible access to lectures for students for a variety of reasons relating to students’ personal circumstances and timetabling arrangements. However, there are changes in usage and attendance patterns which have not been investigated that are thought to impact on the learning environment. Some lecturers report poor attendance, loss of contact with students, disruptions to the continuity of the learning experience and poor results. Others have reported no apparent changes. This raises questions of: Why is this happening? What other changes are taking place in the environment, from both a teaching perspective and a student learning perspective? Are these changes having a negative or positive impact on learning?

The presentation gave Dr Philips a chance to present the findings of the first stage of such research, a survey of students and a survey of staff:

The student survey investigated:
i. changes in lecture attendance;
ii. how lecture recordings are used;
iii. strategies for supporting learning;
iv. perceptions of effectiveness in relation to learning and the achievement of better results.

Significant differences were recorded across several variables for different cohorts: between net generation students and those born prior to 1980; between on-campus and distance students; and between surface and deep learners.

The staff survey investigated:
i. individual approaches to teaching,
ii. the role of lectures,
iii. the ways in which web-based lecture technologies have been used,
iv. their impact on teaching practice.

You can read more about Dr Rob Philips and look at his published papers here.

As part of the SHERPA Plus project SHERPA is holding a series of half day roadshow events across the UK. In this half day session speakers from the SHERPA organisation will explore various key issues surrounding Open Access, institutional repositories, scholarly publication and authors’ rights.

As well as sharing experiences garnered from their various projects and extensive network of partner institutions, there will be an opportunity to hear about the latest developments in the SHERPA suite of supporting websites including OpenDOAR, SHERPA/RoMEO and JULIET. There will be an opportunity to engage in informed debate with the team members presents, as well as to share practical advice with other interested parties in attendance.

The full events programme and booking details are available at http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/guidance/roadshows.html

The closest event to GCU will most likely be at my alma mater St Andrews University, date TBA

Over 10,000 individuals sign petition to European Commission to guarantee public access to publicly funded research

January 29th 2007. Nobel laureates Harold Varmus and Rich Roberts are among the more than ten thousand concerned researchers, senior academics, lecturers, librarians, and citizens from across Europe and around the world who are signing an internet petition calling on the European Commission to adopt polices to guarantee free public access to research results and maximise the worldwide visibility of European research.

Organisations too are lending their support, with the most senior representatives from over 500 education, research and cultural organisations in the world adding their weight to the petition, including CERN, the UK’s Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, the Italian Rector’s Conference, the Royal Netherlands Academy for Arts & Sciences (KNAW) and the Swiss Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences (SAGW), alongside the petition’s sponsors, SPARC Europe, JISC, the SURF Foundation, the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Danish Electronic Research Library (DEFF).

Full JISC Press Release