As an output from the Pathfinder project a series of dissemination events, both internal and external, have been delivered. Whilst individual postings have been created for each event, here is a list with links to the relevant blog entries:

Proposals have also been accepted for the DIVERSE 2008 conference in July and ALT-C 2008 in September.

To date, over 50 members of staff, from Exeter and Cornwall campuses, have participated in a beginners workshop to prepare them for using VC for cross-campus teaching. The workshop is a small group session with no more than 7 participants, as each participant experiences what it is like to deliver lectures by videolink – from both the ‘home’ perspective and as a participant at the remote site. Staff are also introduced to other ways of using VC in teaching and supporting student learning – from virtual tutorials in real time to the potential of videostreaming to enhance students’ access to online resources.

Feedback from participants

Of the feedback received, 100% strongly agreed or agreed that they would recommend this course to colleagues.

The most positive comments were about the relevance of the content to their training needs, the clear and logical presentation of materials, and the support provided by the facilitators. Full feedback can be viewed here, or see a sample of the comments received below:

“The presentations were the most useful. They enabled me to use videoconferencing on one hand and to be in the audience (both in the home audience and in the remote one) on the other and thus to start learning and reflecting about how to use it properly.”

“Discussion and practical – facilitators were helpful and encouraging, exchanging notes with other colleagues was useful.”

“It was great to have individual practice and feedback. This was possible because there were only six of us at the session.”

“Everyone should do it as part of their development.”

Research-based Materials

Training materials have been further developed using feedback from participants and data from Exeter’s Pathfinder project. The revised PowerPoint presentation contains both student and staff views of VC’d teaching in order to raise awareness, and tips for good practice:

A resource bank of video clip examples is in the process of being created to show the real experience of video conferencing and good practice points to note.

A further series of video clips have been created to show simulated examples of how not to deliver a video conference teaching session!

Following the pre VC experience questionnaire carried out with first year undergraduates in semester 1, a follow-up post VC experience questionnaire is being carried out. The questionnaire was designed collaboratively with staff across academic schools. A post VC experience focus group has also been carried out.

Cohort 2 (Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry)

• Student interviews have been completed as part of a study of the impact of Telematic lectures and video streaming on undergraduate student learning. The sample was selected at random from the PCMD register from the four sites (Exeter, Plymouth, Truro and Torbay).· See the PCMD student interview template (N=20)

Cohort 3 (GeoVid)

• A focus group has been carried out with 8 students to find out the impact of this cross-institutional multi-way VC activity on their learning. Please visit the GeoVid blog entry to read about the student focus group: http://www.as.ex.ac.uk/eeu/vcproject/?p=260

Cohort 4 (Great Western Research)

• One student interview has been completed and two further interviews scheduled with Postgraduate Mathematics students who regularly access remote seminars using the GWR Training Network.
• GWR student interview schedule (N=3)

One of Exeter’s Pathfinder Project objectives is to research both large and small group teaching using VC technologies. A mini-project within our research is GeoVid. This is a multi-way VC teaching activity involving the departments of Geography at Exeter, Coventry, Edge Hill and Bath Spa Universities. It comprises of small group VC teaching and enquiry-led learning. A GeoVid pilot activity took place during December ‘07- January ‘08 with students at Exeter, Coventry and Edge Hill Universities. At each site students were given one component from a data set, and worked collaboratively to bring the three components together, using multi-way VC software (iChat), in order to understand the complete data set.

Following the activity, 8 students at Cornwall campus took part in a focus group to discuss their experiences and expectations of using multi-way VC for small group learning. Three interviews have also been carried out with the staff ‘lead’ at each institution, focussing on the impact of videoconferencing this activity on their teaching. This study will form part of a case-study on the use of multi-way VC for teaching and learning.

GeoVid Focus Group schedule (N=8) GeoVid staff interviews schedule (N=3)

The VC project team have been working with staff across the 4 different cohorts of the Pathfinder Project, to survey current practice and experiences of teaching using video-conferencing.

Cohort 1 (academic schools) and Cohort 2 (PCMD): 

·         9 (out of 10) academic staff interviews have been carried out with staff from schools currently and previously using VC for teaching and learning (English, Biosciences, Geography, Law, and History and Politics). Participants have very different experiences of teaching and varying experiences of using VC for cross-campus teaching, and represent lecturers who are new to the institution as well as those with significant experience of working within the instituion.  Four (out of 4) PCMD staff interviews have been completed. See academic and PCMD staff interview schedule (N=13).

·         3 (out of 3) audio-visual support staff interviews have also been completed and transcribed. See AV support staff interview schedule (N=3).

In February, two members of Exeter’s Pathfinder team attended the two-day JISC/HEA Pathfinder Programme meeting in York. A key part of the event was for cluster groups A-G to give a presentation on their projects. Click on the thumbnail below to see Cluster F’s presentation:

Proposed dissemination activity planned for Cluster F:

• Mini conference/workshop at Wolverhampton on 16th April 2008: Cluster F members will each give a presentation/workshop to showcase their work. The current working title is Technology and staff development for new teaching and learning and pedagogy.
• ALT Conference on 9th- 11st September 2008: a joint submission by Cluster F to ALT as a symposium around the theme of digital divide was proposed. The title is Exploring the Pedagogy of Visual, Auditory and Kinaesthetic engagement with learning through technology. Themes that could be addressed are:

· Pedagogies of Visual, auditory and kinaesthetic engagement with learning · Models and methods of staff development · Non-text digital literacy · Technical issues · The student experience · Learning activities with evolving VAK input and output · Curriculum design and assessment · Existing, new and emerging technology

• A ‘product’ or output stemming from work as a cluster F: Outputs that could be created as a result of Cluster F’s work were discussed. The Wolverhampton conference may be videoed, and papers / presentations etc may be put on a wiki or a website.
• Discussion on what the cluster F would like to raise as an issue from this event: some concerns were raised about sustainability, continuation funding, and being absorbed into bigger projects. Each project team felt that the HEA Pathfinder Programme branding had enabled them to raise their profile and achieve more within their institutions. However all the institutional reports illustrated that the current focus is very much on text-based materials/products, and therefore the use of the non-textual to support learning and teaching needs to be explored.
• Future collaboration between institutions: Exeter is investigating the potential for future collaboration with the University of Kingston regarding the use of voting systems and/or Internet collaboration software (Adobe Connect Professional) to help facilitate more interactive lectures and student activities, particularly where videoconferencing is being used for cross-campus teaching.

A second CAMEL meeting was held at the University of Exeter in January. Each institution gave a summary of their latest project developments. Presentations focused on (i) one teaching or other technology idea that was stimulated by the Pathfinder experience, (ii) one main output that we anticipate coming from our project that other institutions will be able to capitalize on, and (iii) some preliminary indicators of institutional impact, including how the projects are feeding into institutional change strategies.

Exeter’s presentation:

In preparation for a group presentation at the HEA Pathfinder Programme meeting on 12th-13th February, each institution shared one PowerPoint slide, showing key points about their project. Internal and external dissemination was discussed, including journals and conference papers. Betty stressed the importance of ensuring regional and institutional dissemination. The next CAMEL meeting (16th April, Wolverhampton), will include an opportunity to give a presentational seminar to the JISC’s regional group. Thanks to Megan Lawton for organising this event.

The second Steering Group meeting was held in January. Members included Allan Davies (HEA Senior Adviser) and Betty Collis (critical friend). Key points were as follows:

• 2nd HEA Progress Report: discussion focused on dissemination and data collection. Abstracts have been submitted for DIVERSE 2008 and Plymouth e-Learning conference 2008.*   A presentational workshop will be delivered at JISC Regional Support Centre SW HE conference 2008: Innovation Through Partnership. Curriculum design maps have been created to show modes of teaching delivery and where VC fits within teaching timetables. See http://www.as.ex.ac.uk/eeu/vcproject/?p=184  

• Presentation of preliminary project findings: to show student expectations of VC’d teaching, the perceived benefits and drawbacks, and findings surrounding staff experiences of teaching through VC (click on thumbnail below).
  
  
  

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  Multi-dimensional framework: shows Exeter’s position in relation to the current use of VC technologies (usually a lecture-led presentation via VC). It also shows how usage could be broadened to include student led activities/video streaming/podcasting etc (click on thumbnail below).
  
  

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  Case Studies: frameworks for 3 case studies have been developed. 
  
  

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  Continuing professional development - VC workshops: over 50 staff have participated in “VC for beginners” workshops, and positive evaluation feedback received from participants. Key issues are staff time and appropriate spaces for carrying out the training. A valuable development of the training session would be to include newer video and conferencing technologies in order to show staff what is possible.
  
  

• Observations from critical friend: Betty Collis reported that she was happy with the progress of Exeter’s Pathfinder Project.  She welcomed the broadening context of the research (considering other video and conferencing technologies beyond traditional VC teaching). 

• *On 21st February, we received confirmation that our paper, Using video and conferencing technologies for cross-campus teaching, has been reviewed very positively and accepted to be presented at the Plymouth e-Learning Conference 2008 - Digital Learning: Repurposing Education on 4th April 2008.

A very brief, pre-Christmas posting, following the second (Exeter) Pathfinder Group meeting held at the end of November. This was well attended, with representatives of all the Schools/Departments involved in the project present, as well as key members of Academic Services and – of course – the project team.

Staff and student data collection is in full swing, with the first three months of next year promising to be an even more hectic time. At the meeting, our Research Fellow Ruolan Wang gave an interesting presentation outlining some early findings, particularly concerning the perceptions of students about videoconferencing being used to deliver lectures before their experience of it. Ruolan intends to compare their responses with data collected from the same groups in February/March – by which time they will have experienced a series of videolinked lectures.

Our project involves a number of different Schools/Departments, and as such administration and organisation of activities requires careful timetabling.  In addition, we’re encountering a ’snowballing’ effect, with increasing numbers of staff being keen to get involved. By way of a brief summary, here’s some indication of the data collection alone that is taking place over the next three months:

•Ongoing academic staff interviews (N=15)

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• Ongoing VC/AV support staff interviews (N=2/3)

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• PCMD students interviews (N=20) (Nov 2007-Feb 2008)

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• Post-VC questionnaires (Feb-Mar 2008)

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• Post-VC focus groups (Feb-Mar 2008)

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• GeoVid Focus group and student interviews (N=8) (Jan-Feb 2008)

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• GeoVid Staff interviews (N=4) (Jan-Feb 2008)

• VC teaching observations

Our Critical Friend Betty Collis has been an enormous support over the past few months, and we’re looking forward to her visit for our next Steering Group, and a gathering of our F-cluster colleagues, in January. Already we’ve identified some interesting case studies, as well as opportunities for dissemination, and we look forward to discussing those as well as other project business in the New Year.

Thanks to everyone involved in our project here, particularly to Ruolan, Rachel and Sue, and to our cluster friends at Wolverhampton, Canterbury and Kingston. HELGA may not have taken off for us but we’ve really valued the additional funding provided by Pathfinder to share practice with colleagues from other institutions – which seems a good note to end on!

A very merry Christmas and a happy new year to everyone involved in Pathfinder.

Work continues on a literature review on the use of videoconferencing for learning and teaching. A summary was appended to our first HEA Interim Report, to demonstrate the scope of our searches and to highlight key themes and sources:

Literature Review Summary

On the recommendation of Betty Collis, our critical friend, the project team has created a concept map to demonstrate the scope of the literature review. Thank you to Betty and others for their feedback.

The literature review is being further developed following Betty’s visit, and an updated summary will be included with our next HEA Interim Report.