virginia power mmit 2015

Function follows Form: the paradigmatic potentialities of recommender systems and the role of paradata in effective user engagement with open education

Virginia PowerComputer Science & Creative TechnologiesUniversity of the West of England, BristolMMIT Conference, Sheffield – September 2015

This resource is CC BY SA (with the exception of some images where stated)

About Me• Qualified librarian, teacher and technology

specialist with over 35 years’ experience within the educational and cultural heritage sector.

• Employed at UWE as Graduate Tutor/PhD. student

• Currently lecture on the MSc. programmes for Information Management and IT

• Worked with Jisc Digital Media as an Advisor for Managing Digital Collections

• Worked on digital projects and the development of online collections and repositories.

• Specialist in the use and re-use of open educational resources

About Me• Editor of eBooks in Libraries: a practical guide

published by Facet• Currently being commissioned to edit a collection

– Digital Skills for Digital Futures: enhancing the skillset of the Information and Library Services Professional

• External Examiner for the FdA in Information & Library Management at Coleg Llandrillo (validated by Bangor University.

• Member of the Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) and the Information and Records Management Society.

Research Interests• Metadata and Schema• Resource Discovery• Text Mining• Digital Content • Digital Curation/Management• Social Media Paradata• Open Education – concept and practice

Why Digital Curation and Open?“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”Oscar Wilde

“Nowadays, people are beginning to know the price of stuff but they struggle a bit to know whether it’s valuable.”Neil Grindley, Head of Resource Discovery, Jisc

https://www.convertwithcontent.com/anatomy-perfect-social-media-post/

There are some basic rules of engagement that apply to all networks. First and foremost, you must share to the right audience. If you are sharing the wrong content to the wrong audience, you might as well stop right there. Also divulge just enough information to peak interest and encourage click-through is standard across all networks. Stephanie Frasco

OER in Schools, OER Research Hub, 2014

Activity Data vs. ParadataWhile Activity Streams record the actions of individual users and their interactions with multiple resources and services, other specifications have been developed to record the actions of multiple users on individual resources. This data about how and in what context resources are used is often referred to as Paradata.

Centre for Educational Technology, Interoperability and Standards (CETIS, 2013)

Why Paradata and OER?Can be regarded as complementary to traditional metadata, not a replacement

Provides a separate layer of information about a resource – bigger picture

An opportunity to generate information about resource use

Practical application of social networking tools

Can help create an open source and open access data space around resources

Moves from a reactive pedagogical stance to a proactive position

Enables the accumulation of expert and user-generated knowledge

Why Paradata and OER?Enables the visualisation of a resource at the centre of its own social-style network of activity

Explicates usage patterns and inferred utility of resources

Supports the mapping of network connectivity within teacher communities

Can help create persistent, short references regarding resources

Potentially extends the lifecycle of the resource through suggestion, revision, enhancement, etc.

To what extent does the existence of recommender systems in repositories support and influence OER selection and use?

What is the relevance of paradata to recommender systems?

What lessons can we learn from e-commerce recommender systems to inform educational recommender system development?

What is the relationship between activity data and paradata in informing user engagement with OER?

To what extent can OER use inform and develop the field of learner analytics?

What is the role of library and information professionals in facilitating user engagement with ROER?

Research Question

1. Explore the value of ROER in education within an HE institution and within the

literature;

2. Interview academic staff with regard to their specific engagement with ROERs

both as users and contributors;

3. Observe the information seeking and behaviour practices of academic staff

within an ROER;

4. Analyse the features of recommender systems to determine to what extent they

are fit for purpose in an ROER;

5. Determine to what extent recommender systems influence and motivate OER

selection and use;

6. Determine the relevance and application of paradata to OER use.

Research Objectives

Research progress to date• Research proposal accepted with no revisions – July 2015• Completion of case study for OER publication on Open Data• Signed up for the OU MooC on Open Research• Thematic mapping for literature review underway• Contacts made with key activists – Jisc, CETIS, OU, LACE• Key texts identified and started for initial exploration in area• PhD. blog established – http://power4research.com

With POWER comes great responsibility!

Thank You

Virginia PowerVirginia.Power@uwe.ac.uk