Date:

1999-

Themes:

Accessible Technologies, ELearning, Platforms and Tools, Learning Technologies

Funding:

IBM

The Liberated Learning Consortium is dedicated to advancing speech recognition technology and techniques to create and foster barrier-free learning environments to improve accessibility to information. Consortium partners work collaboratively to find solutions to challenges, generate new knowledge, test, research and develop speech recognition technologies and actively raise public awareness about the Liberated Learning concept.

Primary investigator

• Mike Wald

Partners

• Liberated Learning Consotium Members
• IBM

Associated research group

• Learning Societies Lab

Date:

2007-

Themes:

Technology Enhanced Learning, ELearning, Platforms and Tools, Learning Technologies

Funding:

University of Southampton Student Centredness Fund

This project, with the help of students, aims to explore successful 'e-skills' and supporting strategies, including the use of assistive technologies, in a world of complex computer-based interactions introduced by e-learning and on-line social networks.

The project has now been extended with the support of the University of Southampton Student Centredness Fund.

Primary investigators

• Mike Wald
• E.A. Draffan

Secondary investigator

• Russell Newman

Associated research group

• Web and Internet Science

Date:

2007-2012

Themes:

Human Computer Interaction, Semantic Web, Interaction, Web Science

Funding:

EPSRC, Royal Academy of Engineering

>Introducing doingPad

The doingPad project (doing is pronounced "doyng") is about looking at ways to better capture (and then find again) all the little bits (and bigger bits) of information that inform our lives - the phone number quickly scribbled down on a post-it, the time of a movie, the address of that web site and the big idea we had while talking with that person we only just met.

Getting these thoughts into a laptop is often a challenge: the percieved cost of entry - openning up a file, typing in text, naming the file, saving it, then remembering where it is - is usually too high to make the capture worth while. Then try to find the file later - perhaps months later. What was it called? what was it about?

DoingPad is reconsidering:

• the way we enter information into the computer to begin with
• what information can be associated with the info automatically (where was i? what was i doing? who was i with? what is this likely about?)
• how this new interaction and association can facilitate rediscovering that information

The Collaboration

This project is the first collaborative research work that is part of the Web Science Research Initiative between MIT and the University of Southampton.

Support

Initial support for the project has also been provided by the Royal Academy of Engineering (UK) and the EPSRC (UK).

Primary investigators

• monica schraefel
• Max Van Kleek, MIT
• Michael Bernstein, MIT
• David Karger, MIT

Partners

• Web Science Reseasrch Initiative
• MIT

Associated research group

• Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia Group

Date:

2007-2008

Themes:

Assessment, ELearning, Platforms and Tools, Educational Enhancement

Funding:

JISC

This short assessment project is a collaboration between Cambridge, Southampton, the Scottish Qualifications Agency. It is taking an existing prototype, to develop the Minibix item banking system to meet JISC's requirements for a QTI v2-based item banking system capable of supporting both high-stakes private item banks and low-stakes item banks for sharing questions suitable for formative assessment.

The development work will be carried out by Cambridge in CARET during the first phase of the project (March 2007 to September 2007). The project will draw on additional use cases supplied by the SQA for private banks and Southampton University for public banks (drawing on experience with e3an). During the second phase (October 2007 to March 2008) the team at Southampton will carry out a case study of the use of Minibix for e3an and CARET will document their experiences in using the item bank to support TSA.

The resulting system will be available as an open source demonstrator with documentation enabling further development by the JISC community and beyond. The project will document and demonstrate a set of services suitable for the integration of item banking systems with authoring and delivery systems (in collaboration with the companion projects in the JISC programme).

Primary investigator

• Steve Lay, University of Cambridge

Secondary investigators

• saw
• hcd
• Mhairi McAlpine, Scottish Qualification Agency

Associated research group

• Learning Societies Lab

Date:

2007-

This is a dummy project to enable topic specific lists of publications to be generated.

Primary investigator

• Klaus-Peter Zauner

Associated research group

• Science and Engineering of Natural Systems Group

Date:

2007-

This is a dummy project to enable topic specific lists of publications to be generated.

Primary investigator

• Klaus-Peter Zauner

Associated research group

• Science and Engineering of Natural Systems Group

Date:

2007-

This is a dummy project that enables topic specific lists of publications to be generated.

Primary investigator

• Klaus-Peter Zauner

Associated research group

• Science and Engineering of Natural Systems Group

Date:

2006-2009

Theme:

Agent Based Computing

Funding:

DTI

High performance systems need to be highly optimised to meet their demanding requirements. However there is currently a paradox in achieving robust systems (insensitive to variation in their manufacture and environment) that also have the high levels of performance and innovation, essential for competitiveness. Design Simulation and Modelling (DSM) of components and systems is key to resolving this HIPARSYS paradox and optimising performance with reliability and risk. However, to fully tackle this issue and achieve reduced time scales, DSM also needs to be extended to the organisations and processes that produce the systems. The organisation needs to be considered part of the system, and itself needs to be made high performing and robust. This multi-industrial sector and multi-disciplinary team will therefore seek to apply DSM to components, systems and organisations.

Primary investigators

• rmc
• trp

Secondary investigator

• yws01

Partners

• Rolls-Royce
• Jaguar Cars Ltd
• DePuy International Ltd
• EDC, University of Cambridge
• SES, University of Southampton
• Leed Buisness School, University of Leeds

Associated research groups

• Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia Group
• Agents, Interaction and Complexity

Date:

2007-2007

Themes:

Research Led Learning, Student Centred Learning, Educational Enhancement

Funding:

University of Southampton: Learning and Teaching Enhancement Fund

The project will establish a working group which will investigate good practice, identify studentship opportunities and identify sources of funding for future years. The project’s core activity will be running and evaluating a set of 15 novel internships across the university during the summer vacation of 2007. These activities are designed to:

• Provide a proof of concept for the benefits of internships for undergraduates;

• Explore models of our understandings of research and learning;

• Identify opportunities for multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary undergraduate research;

• Identify sources of future funding for sustaining and growing the activity.

• Provide a focus to develop expertise and collaborations in research led educational activities across the university

A key objective of the project will be to establish working partnerships across the university which develop and share expertise. The activities and outcomes of the project will be widely disseminated internally and externally though practical activities, events and electronic and paper based publications in appropriate academic communities.

The benefits of undergraduate research internships or vacation research projects have been recognised. Amongst the potential gains, students can increase confidence, build on existing skills and develop new areas of expertise. They have opportunities to mature intellectually, may contribute positively to existing research activities, make significant career decisions and enhance their employability.

Typically, internships and summer projects are found predominantly in science, engineering and technological areas. Given the increasingly multidisciplinary nature of research and the potential benefits to the arts humanities and social sciences of scientific literacy it may be beneficial to extend traditional opportunities across a wider academic area. Furthermore it may be possible to identify appropriate internship opportunities which are relevant to the undergraduate experience in the arts humanities and social sciences.

The School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) already operates its own internal summer internship programme. In addition, research projects in ECS sometimes identify summer vacation work which is offered to undergraduate students. Other schools have undergraduates who engage in summer internships, sometimes with external employers. An opportunity exists to consolidate existing expertise in student internships and to identify new areas of application along with sustainable sources of funding which could significantly contribute to the University’s realisation of a research led and student centred education.

Primary investigator

• saw

Secondary investigator

• Fiona Grindley, LATEU

Associated research group

• Learning Societies Lab

Date:

2006-

Themes:

Computer Science Education, Educational Enhancement

Funding:

HEA-ICS

This in an ongoing project, now in its third year. Its purpose is to address the learning and motivational needs of more advanced undergraduate students studying programming in their first year at university. It is unusual to find any first year programming class solely composed of novices. Typically students possess a range of prior experience, which generates challenges as to the best way in which to manage and teach the class. Specific issues include how to ensure the maximum benefit and engagement for each of the participants. Maintaining motivation for both neophytes and the most experienced whilst ensuring that students receive a sound introduction to software engineering practices may be particularly difficult. Various differentiated approaches to teaching have been developed and their implemented and evaluation has been analysed and well documented. TOPS is a collaborative initiative. It was originally initiated across four universities who had already implemented specific practice to accommodate the variety of student needs; but who wanted to further develop understanding and good practice in this important area. Over time the participating group has grown incorporating a wider range of institutions, acting as a proof of concept for aninnovative and effective approach to differentiated teaching specifically addressing the needs of the more able student. The TOPS project is designed as a vehicle for educational development, building a community of practice and incorporating activities such as sharing of current practice and peer observations across universities. It uses collaborative problem setting and intra-university programming competitions as a means of extending the most-able students in programming classes. Although independent competitions can be used to motivate students, activities which are designed in the specific context of existing curriculum have greater educational strengths. Furthermore students learn as they are engaged in the collaborative task of setting a challenge to their fellow competitors. Students complete the challenges in teams of two under time-constrained conditions. Their work is presented to fellow competitors and judges with explanations of the process and decision making undertaken. The activity and judging process has been designed to retain student motivation and to promote and value the integration of professional and technical skills.

Primary investigator

• saw

Secondary investigators

• David Millard
• Les Carr
• Eric Claude Cooke

Partners

• University of Kent - Janet Carter
• University of Leeds - Tony Jenkins

Associated research group

• Learning Societies Lab