Jeff Haywood

Engagement with Electronic Portfolios: Challenges from the Student Perspective

Much of the evidence and research available on the use of e-portfolios focuses on faculty and institutional perspectives and/or consists mainly of anecdotes about how useful the e-portfolio has been to learners. While it is generally agreed that e-portfolios have great potential to engage students and promote deep learning, the research that has been conducted to date focuses very little on student perceptions of value of the e-portfolio for their learning. If students do not accept the e-portfolio as a holistic means with which to document their learning in different contexts and more importantly, agree or wish to use the e-portfolio as an integral part of their educational experience, then the potential impact the e-portfolio will have on learning will not be realised. This paper highlights four themes arising out of research that is underway within an international framework of collaboration between the University of Edinburgh, the University of British Columbia and the University of Waterloo.

Computer awareness among medical students: a survey

The objective of the study was to assess the attitude of Edinburgh University medical students towards computers and to evaluate the effects of changes in the curriculum and intercalated BSc towards computer knowledge. During March to November 1995 a questionnaire was distributed in lectures, seminars and tutorials to all Edinburgh University medical students.

The End of Handwriting? Using Computers in Traditional Essay Examinations.

Most of our students complete most of their written assignments using a word processor, but they are still asked to handwrite responses in an examination. It could be argued that they have not practiced this task and the validity of the assessment could thus be questioned. This paper explores the possibility of bringing computers into the traditional essay-examination context, describes an appropriate hardware and software configuration, and provides feedback from initial evaluations with students and their reactions to the idea. Some of the implications and equity concerns that need to be considered before a decision can be made to use computers in essay exams are also discussed.

Chromaffin granule membrane glycoprotein IV is identical with Ac45, a membrane-integral subunit of the granule's H+-ATPase

Glycoprotein IV of bovine adrenal chromaffin granule membranes was purified by membrane fractionation with Triton X-114 and lectin affinity chromatography. An antiserum raised against this protein recognized the same component as one directed against subunit Ac45 of the proton-translocating adenosine triphosphatase in the granule membrane. Amino acid sequencing confirmed that glycoprotein IV and Ac45 are identical proteins, and also showed that they are derived from a larger precursor by removal of a 246-amino acid N-terminal sequence. Enzymatic deglycosylation indicated an apparent polypeptide molecular mass of 29 kDa for the mature Ac45/glycoprotein IV. Blue Native electrophoresis confirmed that this protein is a component of the membrane sector of the V-ATPase.

The vacuolar H+-translocating ATPase of renal tubules contains a 115-kDa glycosylated subunit

Kidney microsomes were fractionated with Triton X‐114, to give a fraction enriched in the renal tubule H+‐translocating ATPase, as judged by the sensitivity of its ATPase activity to bafilomycin A1, and its content of two polypeptides recognized by antibodies directed against subunits of plant tonoplast ATPases. This fraction contained a polypeptide of apparent molecular mass of 115 kDa, that was recognized by an antibody to the largest (120 kDa) subunit chromaffin‐granule membrane H+‐ATPase, and, like this subunit, was reduced in molecular weight on treatment with glycopeptidase F. We conclude that, like other mammalian vacuolar H+‐ATPases, the kidney H+‐ATPase contains a large, glycosylated subunit.

Gender & Information & Communications-Technology-A 10-Year Study of New Undergraduates

ConclusionIn terms of the University of Edinburgh, there are lessons for us from our data, plus some insights from recent surveys and interviews we have conducted with various groups around the university.New students’ reporting of apprehensiveness with respect to use of ICT in their studies has been falling over the years, but now appears to be reaching a stable baseline, perhaps reflecting a group in our population with general apprehensiveness about university life and studies. The steadily rising temale:male ratio in our undergraduate population will tend to exacerbate this issue. One approach which we could take would he to give more information to prospective students about the extent and types of use of ICT in their courses, and to focus in on this topic in the early days and weeks of the first term. Another approach is to provide more explicit guidance to students about the sorts and levels of skills we expect graduates to achieve. We know that students leaving the university for professions such as teaching, medicine and law are more confident about the match between their future employers’ needs than are other students, probably because the courses leading to professional qualifications are more explicit than are more “academic” subjects. Provision of materials to enable students to self-assess their skills against objective tasks might enable men and women to become more accurate in their self-reporting of skills. The formal demonstration (even to oneself) of one’s ICT skills may be more of a support to the technological confidence of women than of men. Although the point applies equally to any students who are anxious about their skills in this domain: self assessment is more important to those low in confidence than to those high in confidence. An example of such objective testing can be found in the European Computer Driving Licence (www.ecdl.org). At present, the university favours integration of ICT skills development into academic studies, which although good for encouraging engagement by its relevance, may well make wider and generic self-assessment more difficult.Interviews with technical support staff who come into direct contact with students in the university microlabs and who run the voluntary courses provided in the first weeks of the academic year, have provided us with useful insights into gender differences in requests for assistance. Although most students appear to turn first to peers tor help (something we have observed in other studies), females are more willing to ask for assistance, and particularly with technical problems, than are males who may view such difficulties as “something they should be able to solve”. The great majority of our student technical support staff are males, and this in itself may raise barriers for the increasing proportion of female students in the university. Seeking costeffective ways to provide appropriate assistance will continue to be an issue for us over the coming years.

Massive Open Online Courses: designing for the unknown learner

ABSTRACT University teachers are faced with a problem of ‘knowing’ their learners when teaching on a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). This paper explores and analyses what the University of Edinburgh has come to know about its recent MOOC participants, highlighting one particular course. We draw attention to barriers and enablers from co-existent understandings and expectations of course design, and from an abundance of highly qualified participants. We compare characteristics of participants who report a positive experience with those who do not. Mixed messages about teacher presence may have implications that go beyond MOOCs. We contemplate whether the participant group should be seen as a single massive multivocal entity. The paper concludes with a discussion of the potential opportunity for MOOCs to challenge standardization, homogenization and commodification of education. Shifting attention from the achievements of an individual to what can be done with a multitude, MOOCs may open up new educational arenas.

To MOOC or Not to MOOC? University Decision- Making and Agile Governance for Educational Innovation

In this chapter we review the options for offering MOOCs and the reasons why some universities have chosen to offer them. We give a brief analysis of MOOCs being offered at the start of 2014 from the growing number of MOOC platform companies. We appraise the benefits and the drawbacks of offering MOOCs, and the implications for university academic and governance processes, drawing on our experiences at the University of Edinburgh.

Walking a tightrope: IT strategies for supporting university research, teaching & administration

The importance of ICT to all aspects of university business cannot be overemphasised. However the devolved nature of university management, and particularly of research, results in tensions between the central university ICT services (including elearning), striving to provide resilient and cost-effective services for all, and the academic communities that need agile and leading-edge ICTs to serve their time-constrained and collaborative needs. Examples of these tensions are provided. Completely resolving these tensions is not realistic, but some methods, based on good practice in strategic management and knowledge management can support better partnerships that enable all to feel that their objectives are taken into account and ensure better understanding by all stakeholders of the issues.

Evaluating networked learning: developing a multi-disciplinary, multi-method approach

There has been considerable interest and activity throughout the last decade in the design and implementation of networked learning initiatives in higher education. Many of these initiatives have been evaluated subsequently at institutional or consortial/regional level and the findings disseminated. It is more unusual however to find evaluation of networked learning innovation being undertaken at sectoral level on a nationwide basis. This chapter charts the development and outlines the key characteristics of a research methodology for evaluating large-scale networked learning initiatives. The methodology was developed, and subsequently refined and adapted, through a series of evaluative research commissions undertaken by the Learning Technology in Higher Education (LTHE) Research Group in the Department of Higher and Community Education at the University of Edinburgh.