Here are the slides from Lee Fallin and Mike Ewen's presentation from the Association of Learning Technology Winter Conference 2018. This session will introduce the University of Hull’s Digital Researcher online course. The Digital Researcher was created to support postgraduate students and research-active staff navigating the territory of online publishing, social media, collection of research data, data storage, copyright and licensing - all within the context of academic study and research. While essential components of research, students and staff often find some of these to be ‘dull’ or ‘unengaging’, and so the course provided a novel way of addressing these issues through contextual learning with a focus on discussion. The first implementation of The Digital Student had an uptake of over 150 sign-ups with 51 completions, with another session due in November this year. Delivered online over the course of a calendar week (7 days), the Digital Student represented the first significant collaboration between three areas of professional services within the university. This has led to important reflections on the nature of collaboration work within professional services, and the advantages of such approaches. The instructional design approach that was taken to developing the course applied the concepts of MOOCs. As this was delivered within the institutional VLE Canvas and was opened to all students and staff at the University of Hull, it may, however, be better described as a Small Online Closed Course (SOOC). A range of technologies and tools both within and external to Canvas were used to deliver this course. This included: 1) the delivery of a digital badge through Credly to reward participation, 2) online discussions, 3) Tweet chats, 4) Collaborative Google Doc, 5) Video delivery via Panopto, 6) Content delivery via LibApps. Participants will gain an overview of: 1) Using an institutional VLE (Canvas) to deliver a SOOC, 2) Building learning communities across staff and student audiences, 3) Collaboration in delivery between three professional services areas, 4) Learning points and changes for the next run.

1. The Digital Researcher-
Collaborative delivery and
learning in practice
Lee Fallin @LeeFallin
Mike Ewen @Mike_Ewen

2. Introduction to the presenters:
Lee Fallin
Learning Developer
Based within University Library
Mike Ewen
Academic Developer
Based within Learning & Teaching Enhancement

3. This webinar will introduce
‘The Digital Researcher’
Collaboration & creation of course
Course outline & learning outcomes
Instructional design approach
Technology
Participation and outcomes

4. The Digital Researcher is a SOOC
Small Open* Online Course
Small Open Online Course
Private
images created by Freepik
Fox (2013)

5. Collaboration and course creation

6. The university needed to enhance
digital literacy support for PGR students
•We ran workshops, but these were not well attended
•Digital skills can be difficult to ‘apply’ meaningfully in a
workshop setting
•We identified a number of skills gaps in our provision
using:
• Vitae Handbook of social media
• JISC Digital Capability Framework

7. Six digital literacies were identified for the focus
of this course
Academic social
networks
Copyright & intellectual
property
Blogging & public
engagement

8. Six digital literacies were identified for the focus
of this course
Online collaboration &
cloud technologies
Social media for
research and ethics
Digital identity &
wellbeing
Created by Rawpixel.com - Freepik.com Created by Freepik

9. In developing The Digital Researcher, we realised
academics needed this support too
Created by Rawpixel.com - Freepik.com

10. The Digital Researcher was a significant
collaboration between three departments
University Library
Skills Team
Learning & Teaching
Enhancement
University Library
Research Services

11. The original intention was to develop one
course and deliver it separately
Academics Students

12. Collaborative learning for PGRs & academics
led to many advantages
• Students were placed into an environment as peers with academics
• Honesty in both groups – mitigates imposter syndrome
• Technically able students supporting academics
• Cross-faculty networking between groups of students/staff
• Identity as staff/student always apparent (leveller)
• Provided a wider range of disciplinary perspectives on topics
• Developed a community of practice with ongoing connections
Nerantzi (2017)

13. Online identity is a large component of all of
these digital literacies
The combined audience and course
content led to collaborative learning
for both students and academics

14. The Digital Research has
run twice in 2018
images created by Freepik
• Trimester 2, academic year 2017-18
• Trimester 1, academic year 2018-19

15. PGRs and academics were recruited through
email & social media

16. The Digital Researcher was
delivered through Canvas our VLE

17. Course outline, learning outcomes &
instructional design approach

18. The Digital Researcher course outline
Day Activity
Weekend before Introduction to The Digital Researcher
The course site opens and will give you opportunity to introduce yourself ahead of the course
starting on Monday 19th November
Monday Introduction to Social Media for Research Networking [core activity]
Twitter for academic use
Tuesday Building your Online Identity as a Researcher [core activity]
Academic social networks
Wednesday Online Safety and Intellectual Property [core activity]
Protecting yourself, your ideas and your computer
Thursday Online Research Dialogues [core activity]
​Academic blogging and the conversation
Friday Social Media for Research Data [core activity]
Ethics
Weekend Catch-up
The course remains open for the weekend to give you chance to catch-up and complete
activities
Week after Digital you - your online identity
Reflections and future planning, including a live twitter chat

19. This outline is a revised version from that
developed in the first run of the course
• Saturday as a formal part of the programme was discontinued
The content was merged into Friday
• Sunday as a formal part of the programme was discontinued
The content was made optional and spread over the following week
• We were clearer about the course deadlines and required elements
• We were upfront about the optional activities (no surprises!)

20. The instructional design process is influenced by
MOOCS
Collaborative
learning
Asynchronous
communication
Flexible
learning
Informal
assessment
Multimedia
content
Digital badging
& reward
Supportive of
diverse learners
Applied
practice
Bates & Bates (2015), Chauhan (2014), Deng et al. (2019) Drake et al. (2015), Fox (2013)
Guo et al. (2013), Liyanagunawardena et al. (2013) Ortega (2018) & Saadatdoost (2019)

21. The Digital Researcher course is based on
daily learning outcomes

22. Daily content was delivered through
a series of simple tasks:
Try this Watch this Explore this Read this

23. Participation is required to unlock the next
day

24. Technology

25. The whole course is delivered through the
institutional VLE Canvas

26. Springshare LibGuides, LibCal and LibWizard is used for
signup, content & evaluation

27. Digitalme + Credly is used to issue badges to
successful participants

28. Twitter is used to facilitate a series of
optional daily activities

29. This was followed with a live tweet chat to engage
wider audiences

30. Youtube and Panopto are used to deliver
video content

31. Participation & outcomes

32. Over 176 participants signed up
Only 9 people didn’t
accept the course
invite

33. There were sign ups across different
demographics
62
69
32
6
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Postgraduate taught
Postgraduate research
Academic
Professional services

34. 75 participants completed the course
through to the final day
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
Introductions Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5

35. Completion rate is 30% compared to sign up
70%
30%

36. 64 participants claimed their digital badge
11
64
11 people didn’t
claim their badge

37. Quality of discussions is high

38. The participants were VERY active
665 discussion posts
5886 content interactions
13554 page views