2. DIVERSE – Development and
Integration of Varying Educational
Resources and Student Engagement
Ben Trott & Max Woollard
Dr. John C. Murray – PI

3. What is DIVERSE?
Academic Research
• A cross-departmental study of the use of ‘resource
clouds’ for subject research, peer-review and
validation of materials.
• A 'learning analytics' project that will study students'
use of web resources and provide real time data to
Academic Tutors, Educational Developers and
Subject Librarians.
• A Student as Producer project that aims to make
students become collaborators in their course design.

4. What is DIVERSE?
Student Focus
• DIVERSE
– Development and Integration of Varying Educational
Resources and Student Engagement.
• DIVERSE is a social collaboration based
virtual learning tool.
– Combines social networking aspects with research
within education
• DIVERSE is all about getting students more
involved with their studies.
– Student as Producer vs Student as Consumer

5. Student as Producer
• Spear-headed by the University of Lincoln
• Shift in paradigm from consumer to producer
• About getting students actively involved in
their studies
• Making student research more dominant in the
role of teaching

6. The basis of DIVERSE
• DIVERSE is a tool for constructing resource
clouds.
– A collaborative store of resources and materials.
• DIVERSE allows students to share and
interact with resources, collaborating together.
• DIVERSE aims to make the student
experience more interactive.

7. Resource Cloud
• A resource cloud is created for each topic
• Students add new resources to this cloud
– Those they feel are relevant to the ‘cloud topic’
• A link icon is automatically added depending
on the resource type
• Icons are easier to interpret compared to a list
of resources
Facebook BlogMarks YouTube RSS Feed Digg

8. Cloud Dynamics
The icons within a ‘Resource Cloud’ have
several meanings:
• The image indicates the type of content by source
• The size of the icon determines its subject specific
‘usefulness’
• As voted by the students themselves
• Smallest – deemed least useful/relevant
• Largest – deemed most useful/relevant

9. Resource Clouds

10. Linking with VLEs

11. Towards 'Learning Analytics'
• DIVERSE not only provides a resource rich
environment created by and for students.
– Learning analytics can be harvested from
DIVERSE
– Currently Tracked Stats (per cloud):
– Number of users (over time)
– Number of Resources (over time)
– Individual Resource usage
– Individual Resource ranking
– Percentage of ‘type’ of resource

12. Example Data

13. Benefits for Students and Staff

Promotes democratic, agile course design
- gives students a voice

Provides insight into student digital literacy

More relevant and timely library acquisitions
based on analytics

More integrated educational development
based on tight feedback loops

Evidence-informed teaching and learning

New starting point for assignments and
revision

14. Resource Clouds

15. DIVERSE Site
http://diverse.lincoln.ac.uk
http://diverse.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk

16. Questions?
?