Changing the Learning Landscape #cll1213

May 16, 2013
by Lisa Harris

Yesterday Fiona Harvey, Graeme Earl and myself headed for London Town to present at the HEA Changing the Learning Landscape event.

This event offered an opportunity for those involved in teaching to find out more about the role that social media can play in enhancing the student and tutor experience. It was therefore a chance for us to wax lyrical about digital literacy, digichamps, cool social media tools and of course MOOCs :-)

Fiona’s review of the day is here on the CITE blog

Multidisciplinary Research Week 2013- Success

May 9, 2013
by Alison Simmance

The University of Southampton sprang to life during the 17-22nd March when over 1050 attendees joined us for the 3rd annual Multidisciplinary Research Week.

This year’s week long celebration was built on the best cross-disciplinary science and arts from the University of Southampton’s staff and students with a packed programme of talks, hands-on science demonstrations, exhibitions, debates and a film screening. We were also joined by key external speakers who brought insights into policy applications and cutting edge research in relation to our University Strategic Research Groups.

See the full programme here.  The energy and intellectual alchemy of the week certainly inspired ‘ideas worth spreading’ and far exceeded our expectations. Thank you to all our speakers, demonstrators, supporters, volunteers, digital champions, sponsors and attendees for enabling this annual cross-disciplinary event at the University of Southampton to be a huge success.

The week in numbers- see the statistics from MDR Week 2013 below or in the MDRWeek 2013 Final Statistics Flyer.

Blog posts about all our events at #MDRWeek will be coming shortly! Watch this site for news.

Did you miss MDR week 2013?

See all our multimedia outputs online now!

• Full webcasts (videos of all talks).
• Interviews and on the floor views (by ICM Reporting).
• YouTube #MDRWeek (all interviews and videos).
• Blogs from the week.
• See all the power point presentations on slideshare.
• In pictures on pinterest.

Did you miss TEDxSouthamptonUniversity 2013?

• All videos now on YouTube (TedxSotonUni).
• In pictures (Flickr).
• Website for full details.

MDR Week 2013 STATISTICS-

• 23 events (incl. 2 exhibitions and 1 interactive art session) from 17-22^nd March 2013.
• 1057 actual attendees (approx. 10% external).
• First TEDx at the University of Southampton- tickets sold out; new website; IBM sponsorship; 15 speakers; >1000 hits so far on YouTube.
• Prof Mohan Munasinghe- Vice Chair of IPPC/Nobel Prize Winner 2007 (BBC Radio Solent Broadcast & future collaborations).
• First formal celebration of the World Water Day 2013 (150 attendees).
• >70 people attended the ‘Litmus Project: Science & Poetry Exhibition’.
• >120 people attended ‘Question Time: The Brain & Society’, (incl. 40 6^th Formers)
• 15 people created an eco-friendly bag from 60^th Anniversary campaign banner material at ‘Be a Green Shopper’.
• Collaborations: UoS Science & Engineering Festival, WSA, WUN, IBM, Google, Marwell Wildlife, three 6^th Form Colleges.

First year that social media was used!

• 11 blogs (>300 hits in the 1^st week);
• 26 interviews- >500 hits so far on YouTube;
• 17 webcasts from all talks;
• Tedx 15 Videos- >1000 hits so far on YouTube.
• >370 hits to the multidisciplinary website;
• >630 tweets #MDRWeek;
• 3 storifys;
• 3 pinterests.

MDR Week 2014- Your Views

We are now already planning next year’s research week and welcome any suggestions for a possible theme on this. If you have an interesting cross-disciplinary project/initiative or idea and/or wish  to get involved in other ways then please contact us: multidisciplinary@soton.ac.uk

Full details available at: www.southampton.ac.uk/multidisciplinary

Share your experience with us on Twitter #MDRWeek @Multisoton

Raspberry Pi workshop

April 26, 2013
by Lorraine Warren

Really enjoyed last night’s Raspberry Pi Workshop at Southampton University, which was sponsored and organised by the Institution of Engineering and Technology, in collaboration with the Centre for Strategic Innovation and Dirk Gorissen, then part of Engineering and the Environment here. The session began with a demo from Simon Cox and an excellent introduction to parallel processing. 25 folks then got down to business, setting out the basics of getting a Pi up and running with Python and GPIO.

Full report and more pictures on Lorraine’s blog

#Digichamp Flo Broderick on learning to be a Reporter

April 26, 2013
by Lisa Harris

Only a month ago I spent my Monday morning at university attending a Digichamps workshop on creating and editing video on smartphones with David Willox and Simon Morice of icmReporting.  After learning about conducting video interviews, we exchanged contact details and a month later I found myself working as a news reporter at Digital Media Europe 2013, a conference organized by WAN-IFRAon digital trends within the media industry.

Given that I had absolutely no experience in reporting, I was somewhat surprised when Simon and David sent me off to interview business leaders with a smartphone, an ALM, a microphone and lights on the first morning of the conference.  However, their simple four question approach and their refreshing confidence in a student’s maturity and capabilities enabled me to conduct 11 video interviews over the three days at 200 Aldersgate in London.

As a digital marketer, I’ve come to value the importance of instantaneous coverage and with the help of the iPhone app, Voddio, I found myself conducting an interview, gathering some B-Roll (video lingo for extra footage), editing the piece and uploading it to YouTube in about 30 minutes.

In order to interview effectively, I was encouraged to listen to all of the presentations some of which focused on themes such as paid-content strategies, digital advertising growth and open data.  My highlights included Matt Gierhart’s (Global Head of Social at Ogilvy Action) insightful presentation on “Stories from the Frontline of Consumerism” and hearing from Andy Wiedlin, Chief Revenue Officer at BuzzFeed who spoke about monetization on their social news platform. Impressed by my smartphone interviews, Simon and David threw me into the deep end asking me to present the conference’s live stream channel interviewing Gierhart.  No second takes, no second chances:

I might be set on a career in digital marketing in the technology sector, however, having the experience as a reporter reminded me that there are other fields I am interested in and that exploring as many sectors as possible whilst you are still in education can be exceptionally useful and rewarding going forwards.  I may even be lucky enough to work at the next WAN-IFRA conference in June in Bangkok (Digital Media Asia 2013). If any other Digichamps or students are interested in working with icmReporting then please email flo.broderick@gmail.com

To see my interviews at #DME13 please check out the icmReporting YouTube channel here.

The 2013 Digital Literacies Conference #sotonMOOC

April 25, 2013
by Lisa Harris

Written by @garethpbeeston and first published on the #digichamps blog:

The #SotonMOOC conference held today was host to a number of prestigious people from UK businesses and Universities, hoping to debate the challenges involved with building, moderating and launching a MOOC.

The event was kicked off by our very own @HughDavis who spoke about the projects in which @CITESoton is involved with across the University and how we can develop online education to cater to the digital arena. Following this, presentations from @CMSinclair, from Edinburgh University, and @Sheilmcn, from CETIS, gave their thoughts on how MOOCs should be developed and to what extent these challenges play a part in the MOOCs that they each have been involved with.

Many famous faces of the MOOC world enjoyed their well-earned coffee break as they recessed for pastries and hot drinks, provided by the University of Southampton catering department. Lovely grub!

To recommence the event, the #Digichamps, @GarethPBeeston and @RenaldoBLive, took to the floor providing a #DrawMyLife video on how the Digichamps came to be and how they can help staff around the University to become more digitally literate. Following on from this were two amazing sessions which focused on various projects around the University that are involved with digital literacies and the use of Web tools for an engaging and enthralling experience online.

A session on “Cool Social Media Tools” was conducted after the presentations that showed us how plugins on @Wordpress can provide an increase in functionality and interactivity on various sites involved with research, education and business. @katieonthetweet, another #Digichamp, also presented an inspiring presentation on an app that allows for the coordination of class recordings, richer media, timetables, notes and support for students at University.

The mixture of cool social tools carefully led onto a session conducted by Prof. @mweller from the Open University. This presentation was streamed online via a Google Hangout, showing practically the extent of the use of Web tools within education. This fantastic presentation inspired many around the room giving a great insight into the running of #H8170Open and Open Educational Resources through MOOCs.

After the lunch break, many delegates took part in a break-out session where various people would debate on the certain challenges, strengths and affordances involved with the creation, development, maintenance and distribution of content and MOOCs themselves. These included using video for further engaging tools, staying safe online and awesome apps in the classroom.

A final presentation to close the event was performed by Mark Lester, who is currently the Head of Strategy & Development at the Open University and a member of the Executive Team @FutureLearn (an initiative to drive open learning on the Web).

Many of the delegates were engaged, inspired and satisfied with an all-round successful event organised by our very own @LisaHarris and @FionaJHarvey. Many thanks to the digichamps, video teams and all delegates were announced to close the event. We wish everybody every success in creating their online learning tools and courses in the future.

Digital Economy Success Stories

April 22, 2013
by Lorraine Warren

Readers of this blog might be interested in some of the activities going on at the Centre for Strategic Innovation which has really bedded in since our launch  in November 2011. I wanted the CSI, in the spirit of innovation, to be a bit disruptive – my vision was, recognition for top-quality research, externally and internally, but also, to be experimental, to reach out and be interdisciplinary, and to connect with industry on leading edge knowledge exchange. I also wanted the ethos to be open to new suggestions, accessible, bottom-up and fun.

Anyway we’ve had a good start, particularly gaining new  research recognition internally and externally in the EPRSC/Digital Economy/New Economic models strand. For example, I just obtained a 3K literature review grant, “Digital Disruption of the Value Creation Ecosystem– How new business models emerge”. This extends my earlier work as part of Creator  which was again funded by the EPSRC and addressed business models in the digital domain.

But more importantly, there’s news of a significant £780,000 EPSRC research grant award to Prof. mc Schraefel of ECS and our own Dr. Stephen Rhys Thomas, leading a multidisciplinary team from Southampton drawn from ECS, Management and Economics. The successful bid was in response to an EPSRC Digital Economy call for New Economic Models. Congratulations to all concerned!

This EPSRC/DE/NEMODE research strand (value creation, lean/agile business models, underlying processes)  has been complemented with  a seminar series,  Temporality and value at the intersection of arts and technology: advancing theoretical and methodological development and two collaborative events with ECS and the Digital Economy USRG (thanks to Lisa and Graeme), SXSC1and 2 that have brought in 00s of people from across the university, region, and industry, exciting interest as a rapid-platform for knowledge exchange, future research collaborations, especially in ECS, and also, check out the link to see the fun  part, some great vids here.

As well as that strand, there are many, many other areas of interest, publications, grants, developments and initiatives I could have included here – this is just to give  a flavour. Again with ECS we’re hosting an IET-sponsored Raspberry Pi event on April 25 (sold out), and a lunch meeting with Qinetiq in May. I’ll be organising a lunch meeting down the line to discuss these developments and future collaborations, so watch out for the date.  So please do get in touch if there’s anything we can usefully collaborate on.

The Elephant in the Room: When did data get so big? 03.06.2013

Presented by Ian Brown, Projects Director, Web Science Trust.

 The “Elephant in the Room” in this case is a huge and rapidly growing volume of fast-moving unstructured “stuff” generally known as “Big Data”.

- What is it?

- How do I recognise it when I see it?

- Should I be worried about?

- Is this a fad or should I be gearing up to know more?

This is an introductory talk (experts will have heard this all before) for those who are unsure about the definitions and relevance of the big data phenomenon in which we try to leave you a little clearer on what all the fuss is about, where to go if you want to get more detail and what might be next for Big Data.

Ian Brown is a 25 year veteran IT project manager, consultant now studying the Web Observatory at Southampton (you’ll need a separate ticket for that talk) and who also works as projects director for the international research charity the Web Science Trust.

Open Data Developments 10.05.2013

The University Open Data Service is now well established and starting to become part of our “Business as Usual”. Christopher Gutteridge and Ash Smith from ECS will talk about the new services, the problems encountered, and plans for the future including the recent launch of www.data.ac.uk

This event also provides an opportunity for extending the discussions at the last DE lunch about openness, copyright, social media policy etc.

#WebSci13 is just 3 weeks away…

April 10, 2013
by Lisa Harris

It is not too late to book your place in Paris :-)

The Web demands new ways of working across traditional academic disciplines. Web Science builds skills and expertise in the technical underpinnings of the Web, the social processes that have shaped its evolution, and the impact of the Web on society. The presentations at #WebSci13 will address these contemporary issues across a wide range of applications from healthcare to cybersecurity.

While the deadlines for presenting have now passed, registrations from businesses, academics, policy makers and students who would like to attend the event are most welcome.

Some of the highlights you can expect at the Conference are:

Day 1 – Thursday 2nd May

Keynotes from Vint Cerf,  co-inventor of TCP/IP and “Father of the Internet”, and Cory Doctorow, novelist, technology activist and co-editor of the popular weblog Boing Boing. There will also be paper presentations on a wide range of cutting edge Web Science projects,  a lively Pecha Kucha session of short sharp talks and an evening Reception.

Day 2 – Friday 3rd May

A full day of poster sessions, papers and panels – followed by an evening banquet on the Seine.

Day 3 – Saturday 4th May

Debate how the web is revolutionising society, and the event concludes with a final selection of papers.

A draft programme is now available

Digital Literacies Conference 2013: Online Learning and MOOCs

March 22, 2013
by Lisa Harris

The second Digital Literacies Conference will take place in Garden Court, Highfield    Campus on 24th April. This year’s theme is “Online Learning and Massive Open Online Courses” (MOOCs)

There will be contributions from people involved in the development of MOOCs from Edinburgh and the Open University (including Futurelearn) as well as the student perspective of what it is like to participate in a MOOC.

On the theme of online learning, we have contributions from students on the Curriculum Innovation Module ‘Living and Working on the Web’ about their experience as “blended learning” students.

We will be demonstrating educational uses of some new social tools such as Google Hangout, with the help of the Student Digital Champions

For more details of the timetable and speakers, and to reserve your place,  see Fiona Harvey’s CITE post.