Slides from a presentation given at the Enhancing Student Learning Through Innovative Scholarship Conference (Durham, July 2015) about the AudioVisuals In the Disciplines (AVID) project. #ESLIS15 The presentation describes the rationale and initial outcomes of a project to develop libraries of subject-specific recommendations of TV and Radio broadcasts available to UK Universities via the Box of Broadcasts service.

1. AudioVisuals In the Disciplines (AVID):
Developing libraries of recommended
TV and radio-based resources
University of
Leicester
Enhancing Student Learning, Durham (July 2015)
Gemma Mitchell (Sociology),
Alex Moseley (Leicester Learning Institute),
Ruth Page (English),
& Chris Willmott (Biochemisty).
University of Leicester.

3. What is BoB?
• Box of Broadcasts
• Giant TiVo box for education
“An online, off-air TV and radio archive
& recording service from BUFVC”
• > 1 million TV & radio programmes
• > 60 TV & radio channels (30 day buffer)
• All BBC content since 2007
• All staff & students (inc. 5 orders-per-day)
• Clips & playlists
• UK only (issues re Distance Learning)

5. AVID: Objectives
• Develop recommendations of audiovisual resources
for teaching and learning in 4 subjects:
- Bioscience
- Chemistry
- English
- Management
• Two types of resource planned:
Blog – for wider community
Viewing lists – module specific
• Flipped classroom
• Students as partners

6. AVID: Timeline
29/10/14 Teaching Enhancement Fund invitation
25/11/14 Deadline for submission
05/12/14 Successful application confirmed
14/01/15 Email to students in four Departments
28/01/15 Launch event
02/02/15 Deadline for student applications
07/02/15 Successful applicants notified
30/06/15 End of project

7. Outcomes
• ChemistryOnTheBox & ManagementOnTheBox
- no posts
• In both cases some students registered interest
weak link = academic lead for the discipline
• Reasons for non-involvement:
• Chemistry clear on purpose, but too busy
• Management unclear, passed from 1st choice to
inappropriate substitute (also too busy)

8. Outcomes
• BiologyOnTheBox.Wordpress.Com
- >50 posts total
- 20 student-authored posts (4 students x 5 each)
- vast majority about TV
• EnglishOnTheBox.Wordpress.Com
- ~35 posts total
- 33 student-authored posts (4 x 5, 1 x 13)
- ~50% radio
- less well tagged & annotated

13. Issues with BoB
• Search tool clunky
- known a priori, endorsed by student experience
• Clipping tool
- students liked potential to make clips
- frustrated by limit of 5-a-day

14. Topics: free choice or allocation?
• Different models applied in English v Biology
- Biology = free choice of programmes
- English = allocated topics (modules)
• Free choice?
 Ownership
 Risk of >1 student choosing same
• Allocated?
 Less risk of overlap
 Less ownership?
• Ideal balance?

15. Delivery of posts?
• Wordpress v Email v Google docs
• Initial “application posts” via Google docs
- could see what people had chosen
- fields with reminders re required content
• Email:
 convenient
 can’t see what others are worked on
• Wordpress:
 students & other academics reported difficulties
e.g. setting tags

16. Audience and Purpose
• Important, overlapping questions:
- who is the primary audience?
- what is the purpose of the post?
• Audience?
Some conflation of role ‘blog’ & ‘viewing lists’
Posts addressed towards local audience
“If you are taking module EN1020…”
• Purpose?
- Outputs and resources?
- Process of development for participants?
• Has bearing on appropriate extent of editing

17. Editing by academics?
• Students liked fact material checked by staff before
publication
• Time spent editing as actual or perceived drain on
academics’ resources
• Motivation & extend of intervention?
- Accuracy?
- Expansion?
- Language?
- Tags & categories?
- Clips?
• Students as editors/blog managers?

18. Failure
• No resources for 2 out of 4 disciplines
• Generation of applied teaching-related resources
over-ambitious
• No formal usage possible yet
• No viewing lists – next academic year?

19. Success
• Students have ability and motivation to select and
review appropriate audiovisual resources
• Two discipline-specific blogs have been started
• Intrinsic value of these blogs
• Template for other subjects
• Broader lessons learned
re cross-disciplinary projects

20. Time and Timing
• Scheduling of the project identified as problematic
by both students and staff
• Would have preferred summer vacation and/or first
semester
• Driven by conditions for funding
- being improved for next round
• In hindsight, might have been
better to delay launch
http://tinyurl.com/pfa4uhs

21. Incentives for involvement
• Course credit?
• Financial?
- not most important
- five-post initial contract useful
• Publication record, grist for CV?
• Experience?
- writing for different audience
- writing in different style
• Subject knowledge?
- used in exam answers

22. Briefing of participants
• Better briefing of academics from other disciplines
• Written briefing sheet for all participants
- checklist for things to include
- search strategies
• More example posts, including broader range of
genre (not just documentaries)
• Better prepared = “on same page”
- greater uptake at start?
- less intervention at later stages?

23. Acknowledgements
• University of Leicester Teaching Enhancement Fund

24. Any Questions?
E-mail: cjrw2@le.ac.uk
Twitter: cjrw
Slideshare: cjrw2
Delicious: chriswillmott
Blogs: www.bioethicsbytes.wordpress.com
www.biologyonthebox.wordpress.com
www.biosciencecareers.wordpress.com
www.lefthandedbiochemist.wordpress.com
University of
Leicester