HLSS Talk: 01.02.12

As part of the roll out of DIVERSE, myself and Max liaise with departments which have volunteered to use DIVERSE (HLSS and B&L). This role includes giving support and helping establish DIVERSE in modules through the use of workshops and talks etc. Today myself and Max gave a talk to a group of students studying a module in HLSS.

This talk gave us an opportunity to introduce the DIVERSE project to students and also allowed us to provide a demonstration on how to use the tool. Hopefully this talk has raised awareness amongst students, and will further help student engagment with the DIVERSE tool.

Until next time.

DIVERSE Update: 31.01.12

Apologies for the delay in updates over the last month, we have been very busy sorting out  the roll out of DIVERSE. The good news however, is that DIVERSE is now being used by Business & Law and HLSS, alongside it’s current usage within the School of Computer Science.

As part of this we are also conducting a survey about attitudes towards online learning. This survey can be found here.

From a technical standpoint, we have incorporated most of the features suggested by users. Based on feedback we received from our second workshop these changes seem to be well received. In terms of stability so far DIVERSE seems to be doing quite well; the real test however will be in the next few weeks when DIVERSE is being used regularly.

Part of the technical upgrades we have carried out also includes the addition of a statistics hub for DIVERSE. This hub is a serious of pages which produces data from how users are using DIVERSE; this data can then be used as part of our research.

In addition, this collection of statistics also allows us to work on future upgrades to DIVERSE, one such example is using these statistics to become part of an incentive program (e.g. user badges etc.) . These ideas will be covered in the future.

Until next time.

DIVERSE Workshop 2

About a month ago myself and Max ran a workshop for a class of level 3 computing students, the original post can be found here. Following on from this we ran a second workshop session with this group recently. The purpose of this session was to gather feedback about how the DIVERSE tool is progressing, and more importantly whether the changes we have been making are an improvement or not.

Overall the feedback from this session was very good, and definitely highlighted that the changes made recently are a step in the right direction.

The two graphs below highlight the difference in feedback between each sesion.

A graph showing the change in feedback between the two workshops

 

A graph showing the change in feedback between the two workshops

 

Student as Producer

One of the initiatives heavily tied in with projects like DIVERSE is the Student as Producer agenda. The Student as Producer agenda is all about putting the focus back on research at university. In their own words Student as Producer:

“Student as Producer restates the meaning and purpose of higher education by reconnecting the core activities of universities, i.e., research and teaching, in a way that consolidates and substantiates the values of academic life. The core values of academic life are reflected in the quality of students that the University of Lincoln aims to produce. Student as Producer emphasises the role of the student as collaborators in the production of knowledge. The capacity for Student as Producer is grounded in the human attributes of creativity and desire, so that students can recognise themselves in a world of their own design.”

As part of the I’m a Producer day ran yesterday, we gave a demonstration of DIVERSE and also took part in a Q & A session regarding DIVERSE and Student as Producer. Overall this session went well, and provided us a good oppurtunity to further spread the word about DIVERSE. Furthermore the students who attended this session  showed a definite interest in DIVERSE and liked the idea. All of this will hopefully prove invaluable when DIVERSE is fully rolled out and in use properly next semester.

For more information about the Student as Producer click here

DIVERSE heads Mobile!

One of the things we’ve been looking into developing here at DIVERSE is a mobile application. We’re hoping to make it even easier to access and view your clouds while on the move. For now development is underway for an iPhone app but once this is completed we’ll be looking to roll it out to other mobile platforms. On top of the dedicated app we’re also looking at making a mobile version of DIVERSE that can be accessed through your phones web browser, again this will allow for east navigation on mobile platforms..

Check out the current image of the DIVERSE app below!

DIVERSE iPhone App

DIVERSE iPhone App