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Past projects

These are our past E-Learning Production Scheme projects. Click on the titles to find out more about them.

What do Employers Want?

School: Careers & Enterprise
Academic: Abi Gaston
Project start date: April 2019
The aim of this project is to create two 15 minute e-learning courses for UG students from QM and other UoL colleges. The material will be shared with colleagues at UoL colleges via a lesson plan and video files. All Colleges will tailor this locally and build the course locally into their own system.

Student Wellbeing Sleep Module

School: Wolfson
Academic: Catherine Marshall / Lynsey McAlpine
Project start date: April 2019
This project will develop an interactive e-learning module on sleep for medical students. The module will be part of the new MEDPRO initiative which is centred around supporting students with their wellbeing and professional development.

Interpreting Electrocardiograms

School: MBBS
Academic: Sajeev Ranmuth
Project start date: March 2019
This project will create an e-learning module where the students can interact with a virtual patient with the objectives of understanding how to setup the ECG leads, record an ECG and finally interpret the results. The objective of which, would be that each student has the chance to virtually use a machine themselves prior to or after the teaching.

Online Statistics Training

School: Researcher Development
Academic: Rui Pires Martins
Project start date: March 2019
This project is about increasing the capacity of the statistics provision for PGR research students and postdocs; an area identified as a priority from feedback and surveys. At present, face to face training does not meet demand and cannot be further increased.
• This project will create a stand-alone researcher-focused statistics resource from existing lecture materials. Although tailored to the needs of researchers, it will be accessible by anyone on QMplus.
• This resource could also be used to support the current face-to-face provision by using the videos and QMplus content to enable the instructors to explore flipped modes of teaching, and greater time for practical work in the face-to-face sessions.
• Alongside this will be the creation of a series of RD templates and work flows that will enable the RD team to get additional content – both related to this statistics course, as well as other RD provision – on to QMplus in future.

Endocrinology for the 21st Century

School: WHRI
Academic: Maralyn Druce
Project start date: March 2019
This project will enable a full update of e-learning materials for the distance-learning MSc programme in Endocrinology and Diabetes, but with materials that can also be utilised across other e-learning areas including blended-learning, campus based MSc Clinical Endocrinology and the dedicated online area for clinical trainees in the discipline. The update will improve the student experience in the discipline and will also allow the development of stand-alone, up-to-date CPD modules when enrolment and registration arrangements allow.

Baseline Standards for SEMS (Improving Student Experience)

School: SEMS
Academic: Alison Hartshorn
Project start date: March 2019
The purpose of the project is to migrate the coursework function of the SEMS intranet over to QMplus. Currently the School manages coursework through the SEMS intranet pages where assessment criteria and hand-in dates are detailed, late submission penalties administered, extensions are granted, final marks are issued and a bespoke coursework diary is produced for each student. In recent years, there has been a drive to migrate the teaching activities to QMplus to diversify the modes of delivery and introduce enhanced engagement monitoring with QEngage.

Rethinking Software Engineering Teaching (ABC)

School: EECS
Academic: Ling Ma
Project start date: January 2019
This project aims to transform the existing Software Engineering module taught in the school of Electronics, Engineering and Computer Sciences. The following content types will be developed as part of the project.
• Short animations – For important concepts introduced in lecture. 15 animations, up to 5 minutes each.
• Interactive quiz – The quiz will be used in class for instant feedback. 10 sets of quiz, each set is up to 5 questions.
• Tutorial video – For the lab (focus on using the tool, e.g. JUnit). 1 video, up to 20 minutes.
• Short videos for detailed explanation on design principle/design patterns – These videos need to be filmed, including the lecturer and the lecturer’s writing on slide/board. 5 videos, 10 minutes each.
• Programming exercises – Exercises will be supplied by the lecturer.

Bringing Virtual Patients to Life

School: SMD
Academic: Lauren Goundry
Project start date: June 2018
The project will see an image bank of photographed characters in different poses as well as some photographs of the clinical environment at Royal London Hospital. Currently, Bart’s students only attend 1 non-compulsory sexual health clinic and therefore anything to increase their exposure to the clinical aspects of sexual health is useful. By making virtual patients that are realistic, this would add significantly to their training. The project will be using the Articulate package.

QMUL E-Learning Baseline Standards

School: E-Learning
Academic: Rose Heaney
Project start date: June 2018
Baseline Standards are being developed by the E-Learning Unit in order to:
• Ensure consistency of provision of core information and resources for students across Queen Mary University of London.
• Assist course designers with providing enhanced learning experiences for students.
• Identify exemplar E-Learning activities across QMUL to be able to share across schools and faculties.
The project will ensure there are exemplar courses in QMplus in a rnage of school templates to meet the baseline standard.

Writing History: A Style and Referencing Kit for History Students

School: History
Academic: Peter Denley / Reuben Loffman
Project start date: June 2018
This project will provide a pair of online tutorials and quizzes to help students progress develop their writing skills as historians. This will be built into the compulsory first-year module ‘History in Practice’, but will also be available for students to revisit and continue to use throughout their undergraduate careers.

Distance Learning 101: Introductory Resources for QMUL Students and Staff

School: Wolfson
Academic: Dr Heidrun Bien / Michael Parkes / Johnny Finnis
Project start date: June 2018
This project will involve creating and updating video resources for Distance Learning 101: Introductory Resources for QMUL Students and Staff. Previous videos in ‘Introduction to Online Learning at QMUL’ will be updated and new help resources on subjects not covered above such as participating in online tutorials using Adobe Connect, checklist for DL student requirements, Turnitin etc., will be created.

An Online Supervision Record (OSR) for undergraduate dissertations

School: Geography
Academic: Simon Lewis
Project start date: June 2018
The project will develop an online tool to support the supervisory process for undergraduate dissertations within Geography. and enable students to document supervision meetings, reflect on their learning and record progress towards completion. The tool will also allow supervisors to provide comments on supervision meetings and for both parties to agree outcomes and set agendas for subsequent supervision meetings.

Supporting students’ learning about diversity issues in healthcare.

School: Institute of Health Sciences and Education (IHSE)
Academic: Dr Riya George & Dr Helen Bintley
Project start date: March 2018
This project intends to create an interactive learning platform which provides a repository of good practice resources and materials to support students’ learning about diversity issues. It will also create an open resource for students and teachers to explore, learn and discuss diversity issues in healthcare and to allow individuals to contribute by sharing interesting resources onto this open learning platform. Lastly, to work collaboratively and gain the perspectives and input of the Student Welfare Team in developing and formulating a repository of teaching resources to support students’ learning about diversity issues in healthcare.

Using quizzes to develop students’ understanding of cohesion, coherence and criticality in academic writing

School: School of Language, Linguistics and Film
Academic: Will Hutton
Project start date: February 2018
This project mainly focuses on the English for General Academic Purposes (EGAP) provision. EGAP provision includes large numbers of non-credit bearing modules on the in-sessional programme as well as core modules for International Foundation Programmes and Pre-masters Programmes. The project will involve creating a bank of quizzes that can be used across this provision on QMplus which focus on building students understanding of cohesion, coherence and criticality in their academic writing.

Dynamic student learning interfaces for QM Model elements in Level 4 core course

School: School of Language, Linguistics and Film
Academic: Guy Westwell
Project start date: February 2018
This project involves ensuring that the QMUL Model will be neatly and effectively accommodated within an already extremely successful compulsory/core Level 4 module. Items which need assistance are the building of a self-reporting form and the development of a series of connected resources. The items relate to the integration of QM Model elements related to i) careers planning and ii) writing for publication.

SMS QMplus Structure and Landing Page

School: School of Mathematical Sciences
Academic: Cecilia Busuioc; Franco Vivaldi
Project start date: January 2018
This project involves updating the SMS QMplus pages to make them more user-friendly and to reorganise the content in a way that minimises the number of clicks one needs to make to get to the desired destination.

How do we prepare access cavities with coronal flare during the root canal preparation?

School: Institute of Dentistry
Academic: Dr Aylin Baysan
Project start date: December 2017
This project involves designing an innovative e-learning resource on different access cavities during the root canal treatment procedure. This learning resource is aimed primarily for Year 3-5. The e-learning guide could also be used at the postgraduate level. The e-learning resource will contain images and videos of each tooth with different shapes of access cavities including the coronal flare preparation during the root canal treatment. These images/videos will be high resolution, taken from various angles and positions. Students will be assessed on different access cavities using various Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) and also Short Answer Questions (SAQs) based upon the image that is presented. A 3D view of each tooth with different access cavities could also be included.

Electronic feedback for quantitative lab practicals

School: IHSE
Contact: Mark Roberts
Start date: April 2017
As part of their degree students undertake lab practicals. Within these they collect data and the subsequently manipulate these data to gain a better understanding and to compare different data types. At present students complete these in a lab book along with some qualitative discussion of the data. Currently this is marked by a demonstrator checking through the calculations and giving the student feedback. This project aims to move the calculations to be electronically marked, giving the student feedback. This will free up demonstrator marking time to give more rich feedback on the short answer questions / written understanding of the work they are completing.

What you need to know if you want a career in law

School: Careers & Enterprise
Contact: Karen Watton
Start date: April 2017
The undergrad law careers page on QMplus will contain an easy-to-navigate curation of content necessary for a basic understanding of the steps to build a career in law. The content will be in various formats including interactive exercises, short videos from employers, recorded workshops, downloadable materials including sample documents, and links to further resources.

‘Year Abroad Experience’ Community – connecting all students on 4-year (with a compulsory Year Abroad) Languages degrees, enabling them to learn how to plan, undertake and review their Year Abroad.

School: SLLF
Contact: Debra Hurcomb
Start date: April 2017
The compulsory Year Abroad (YA) is one of the most anticipated, memorable (and for some, daunting) part of their degree – it impacts on all 400+ students of Languages in SLLF. A new SLLF Year Abroad Community Hub will provide the space we need for a big ‘YA conversation’ between students in 1st to final years across the School, also between students and staff. Connecting students in different years will provide them with important information, insight and know-how, enabling them to make informed decisions and to make the most of their YA experience.

Development of an e-learning resource to teach medical students about informed consent and communication disability

School: Centre for Medical Education, IHSE
Contact: Dr Celia Woolf
Start date: April 2017
This project will produce an interactive multi-media e-learning resource that links to and extends current teaching about communication disability and informed consent for Barts & The London medical students.

Understanding Clinical Governance

School: Institute of Dentistry
Contact: Amitha Ranauta
Start date: April 2017
This project aims to develop an e-learning module which will enable students to consolidate and enhance their understanding of ‘Clinical Governance’. The subject of clinical governance appears currently in various places within the curriculum and the aim of this e-learning module is to bring these elements together in an interactive and engaging way.

Creating Mathematics Teaching and Engagement Tools with PGRs

School: School of Mathematical Sciences
Contact: Shabnam Beheshti
Start date: January 2017
The project will result in a newly created QMplus page for the School of Mathematics PGR Training & Mentorship Programme, containing multiple teaching, learning and engagement mini-projects. These projects are intended for uptake by postgraduates in an effort to enhance their teaching portfolio. Moreover, completed projects will, in turn, enhance the quality of several key undergraduate modules in Mathematics.

An optional QMplus-embedded tool for MSc Mental Health students to learn about core methods

School: SMD, Wolfson Institute, Centre for Psychiatry
Contact: Dr Heidrun Bien
Start date: January 2017
The project will aim to develop an additional tool to be embedded on QMplus for core method-topics, which will enable students to consolidate their learning.

Virtual Tour of the Barts Health Pathology Laboratories

School: Centre for Immunobiology, Blizard Institute
Contact: Dr Duncan Clark
Project start date: January 2017
The project will create a Virtual Tour of laboratories at Barts Health Pathology and key experimental approaches that are covered in the lectures on the Molecular Diagnostics and Therapeutics Module. This is a core module on 3 MSc courses at Barts Cancer Institute and the student numbers now make an actual visit impractical. A Virtual Tour will benefit not only these students, but also the distance learning students. The creation of the Virtual Tour would be used in the delivery of this academic year’s module (semester 2, 2016-2017) and subsequent academic years.

Online Learning Module for GP Tutors

School: IHSE
Academic: Dr J. Crofton and Dr J.Blythe
Project start date: January 2017
This project will ensure all the GP tutors are up to date with fundamental aspects of teaching, assessing learning needs, giving feedback and recognising the trainee in difficulty. This would hopefully not only improve their confidence to teach in the community but also ensure there is evidence from a QA perspective that they were up to date.

Short case studies to Inspire innovation in QMplus MBBS courses

School: IHSE
Academic: Karin Fernandes
Project start date: January 2017
The project is to develop video showcases of the use of QMplus tools and activities. The aim is to place them in a context where they have been used successfully by SMD staff. The guides will give step-by-step instructions showing how these activities were created and what they have been used for.

Electronic Anatomical Teeth Morphology

School: Institute of Dentistry
Academic: Swati Nehete
Project start date: January 2017
This project involves designing an innovative e-learning resource on teeth classification, identification and morphological features. The resource is aimed principally at undergraduate, first year students, but it is envisaged that years 2-5 will use this resource as an advanced learning tool for layered learning at differing levels of learning at various points in the curriculum. The resource will have a didactic teaching and an assessment component. The resource itself will contain images and videos of each tooth in the human mouth. These images/videos will be in high resolution, taken from various angles and positions. Students will be asked to identify and classify each tooth, and answer various MCQ quiz questions based upon the image that is presented. A composite imaging to allow the student to view each tooth in 3 D could also be included.

Mathematics Project Repository

School: School of Mathematical Sciences
Academic: Dr Rosemary Harris (with Dr Lucas Lacasa)
Project start date: January 2017
The BSc, MSci, and MSc dissertations are amongst the most challenging and rewarding modules
within the School of Mathematical Sciences (SMS) permitting motivated students to have a genuine
taste of research in any of a wide-range of possible subjects offered by different staff. The idea of this proposal is to combine various lists of available BSc, MSci and MSc dissertation topics within the School of Mathematical Sciences into a single QMplus “one-stop project shop” which improves the student experience, in particular, by facilitating search by subject area or level and clearly displaying the required prerequisites and background knowledge. This will involve the creation of a dedicated Moodle database which should also be easy

Ready, steady…film!

School: School of Languages, Linguistics and Film
Academic: Dr Eli Vilar
Project start date: January 2017
The aim of this project is to produce a training resource in the form of short videos to be used as a how-to guide for our students to create short films. These clips will be made available to the college and will be dubbed in at least one language, Spanish.

Enhanced online learning environment for science practical teaching

School: Department of Chemistry SBCS
Academic: Ali Zarbakhsh
Project start date: January 2017
The project will enable a student to review the undergraduate laboratory teaching and conduct each experiment and produce a short 2 page report. This will be then used to write well-constructed briefing scripts. These will then be filmed to a high professional standard using the state-of-art recording/editing booth available at the QM ELU facility and compressed to a format that will permit online broadcasting such as MP4. Funding from both QM sources and outside sources such as Royal Society of Chemistry will be requested for the future expansion of this pilot study. The outcome of this short pilot may also be an example of “good practice” for any Science Laboratory Teaching being taught across QM.

Development of French Grammar tests in QMplus

School: SLLF, French Dept
Contact: Elsa Petit
Start date: Oct 2015
This project aims to develop a a set of up to 16 French Grammar tests for the Department of French. the main advantage of implementing the online tests will be to free-up valuable face-to-face time and thus create a more active, engaging and student-centred French I grammar class by freeing valuable contact time and allowing the instructor to take on a new role as facilitator of student inquiry. More time would also be available for serendipitous interactions as well as structured collaborative activities which help to reinforce student understanding. More contact time would allow to adapt instruction more easily to students’ needs.

Development of a digital timeline for the teaching of the Crusades

School: School of History
Contact: Dr Thomas Asbridge
Start date: October 2015
This project aims to ,…description to follow.

Development of an Online self-Directed E-learning Package in Dentistry

School: Institute of Dentistry
Contact: Noha Seoudi, Wendy Turner and John Buchanan
Project start date: October 2015
This project involves designing an innovative e-learning resource on infection prevention and control aimed principally at undergraduate and postgraduate dental students. This topic is an integral and crucial part of Clinical Dentistry but can sometimes appear dry to students and we envisage that this engaging and interactive learning resource will facilitate their learning. Additionally we are alert to the possibility of expanding the target learners to include qualified clinicians working in general dental practice. We feel that this new e-learning initiative will be invaluable as:(1) A remedial tool for students identified to have suboptimal infection prevention and control knowledge and who have performed unsatisfactorily during their LIFTUPP (an electronic clinical assessment) assessments during clinical sessions.
(2) A tool to standardise knowledge concerning infection prevention and control through the years of the dental undergraduate and postgraduate courses.
(3) A revision tool for all clinical dental students and staff.
(4) A verifiable Continuous Professional Development (CPD) course to regularly update staff and students with the new advances and changes in regulations in relation to infection prevention and control. We envisage that this electronic CPD course might also be made available to general dental practitioners and other members of the dental practice team outside the Queen Mary University of London in the future.

Online Resource for the teaching of bibliographic and referencing conventions

School:School of History
Academic: Dr Reuben Loffman and Dr Peter Denley
Project start date: October 2015
This project involves …

Development of a Materials to support laboratory-based practical sessions

School:School of History
Academic: Dr Kristin Braun and Dr Anne Hills
Project start date: October 2015
This project involves …

The virtual medical student: peer-assisted learning in Medicine

School: School of Medicine and Dentistry
Contact: Siobhan Cooke
Project start date: May 2015
This project aims to provide both students and mentors with an e-learning resource, the virtual medical student, which will support students in reaching their full potential during their medical degree.

Increasing engagement through an information hub for International Foundation Programme students

School: The Language Centre, School of Language, Linguistics and Film
Contact: Mark Holloway
Project start date: May 2015
One of the key aims of this project is to increase student engagement with their programme through the development of an information hub on QMplus. The basis will be a landing page for the students which will draw together the various elements of their program, allowing them to understand the connections and inter-relationships between these elements. This will provide a more coherent, enriched and fulfilling student experience and allow smoother and clearer communication of key programme information.

Using video resources to support students in presenting themselves to employers

Department: Careers and Enterprise
Contact: Kirsti Burton
Start date: May 2015
The Careers and Enterprise Centre is aiming to develop a library of video materials to support and enhance their existing careers information. This project aims to kick start this library by developing a number of videos to support students in understanding how to articulate and present their skills to employers. The videos developed as part of this project will form the template for others to be developed and will allow for skills transfer to staff in Careers to allow them to maintain and develop the library in the future.

A Calibration Protocol for Clinical Research in QMplus

Department:Institute of Dentistry
Contact: Cecilia Gonzalez-Marin
Start date: June 2015
This project will help develop further a protocol for clinical research use. This protocol has been designed in a paper-based format and the next stage is to translate this as a training course for potential clinicians that will be getting involve in clinical research. A second aim is to test this tool to encourage interest in clinical research by dental students and dental hygienist/therapist student and to help them improve their clinical skills.The outcome of the project is to create a module for clinical research training. This will include the information already prepared by a group of students into an interactive on-line course. The trainees will be tested and a minimum pass rate will be set. Once the course is completed, the software may be able to accrue information from the trainees to measure the degree of reliability.

Development of an E-learning package for Neuroscience teaching using Articulate

Department:Blizard Institute/MBBS
Contact: Joanna Riddoch-Contreras & Adina Michael Titus
Start date: June 2015
This project involves designing a new e-learning resource for the year 2 Brain & Behaviour module. It involves looking at existing resources and materials and restructuring and enhancing them to provide a useful educational resource for students to beused in structured timetabled sessions and during indepenedent private study.

Formative quizzes to prompt student thinking in an undergraduate Law module

School: Department of Law
Contact: Helene Tyrrell
Start date: April 2015
This project aims to develop a suite of formative QMplus quizzes for an undergraduate module in Law. These quizzes will accompany readings for topics in the module, prompting students to think about the readings before their seminars and to allow tutors to assess prior understanding. The quizzes will also provide students with a valuable revision resource.

Online journals, group work and video: a blended module in English

School: School of English and Drama
Contact: Warren Boutcher
Start date: May 2015
This project aims to develop a new QMplus area for a module in the Department of English. In particular, it will investigate the ways in which students can use online journals to support their reading and tools to support group work for their seminar preparation. Also part of the project is the development of a number of video introductions to the key module concepts to replace the traditional lecture format and allow more discussion time in face to face teaching time.

Resources to support the teaching of governance and professionalism in Medicine

School: William Harvey Research Institute, School of Medicine and Dentistry
Contact: Dr Maralyn Druce
Start date: May 2015
This project aims to produce resources on QMplus to support the teaching of governance and professionalism in undergraduate Medicine. These resources should promote a greater understanding of professionalism amongst students including not only what it is but how it is taught, how it is assessed and what happens when things go wrong. In the first instance, the resources should be easy for students to navigate and should signpost existing parts of the undergraduate curriculum.

Development of an Online Staff Induction Module in QMplus

School: Centre for Academic & Professional Development
Contact: Joanne-Marie Fowler
Project start date: March 2015
My team run college wide induction for new staff. We are aware that colleagues working irregular hours lack access to this important part of their welcome to QMUL and also believe that what is often described as a long, thin induction has great advantages over a single intensive experience.As a result of this we’d like to create an engaging induction area on QMplus supplying all the content of the traditional face-to-face induction. We also have a long term view of developing some interactivity in the area, maybe using forums for FAQs and quizzes so people could check their understanding of topics covered in induction and changing the process so induction topics are covered as people need them.

We believe the outcomes would be a more useful and accessible induction, which would benefit all staff, whether current or new.

Development of a Masters level short Course in Proteome Informatics

School: SBCS
Academic: Prof Conrad Bessant
Project start date: March 2015
This project involves working with Prof Bessant to establish a masters-level short course in proteome informatics, The course will be taught entirely online to paying customers from industry and academia around the world. QMUL will own all the rights and 100% of the course fees will go to QMUL.The course will be equivalent to one week of full time study, but can be followed by the student at their own pace over a period of up to six months. It will comprise a mixture of videos, reading material, tests and online practical tasks that will be produced by myself and colleagues from other Russell Group universities.

It is envisaged that the course will be hosted on QMplus, so assistance from a QMplus expert to optimise the student experience will be an essential part of the project. Although the content will be provided – getting it into a coherent format and onto QMplus will be a suitable task for the ELA. there are also plans for the inclusion of activities such as the Lesson tool, Forums and Moodle Book in my course.

 

New videos need to be made. These will mostly be a mixture of PowerPoint with commentary, and videos of working through data analysis tasks on the computer. Help from someone who knows what they are doing regarding video production and editing will be useful.

Reflective Writing in Community-based Medical Education

School: Institute of Health Sciences Education (MBBS, undergraduate medicine)
Academic: Maria Hayfron-Benjamin

We intend to introduce a reflective writing activity to all first-year medical students in September 2014. Maintenance of a portfolio is a requirement for medical professionals post-registration, which includes reflection in writing. Thus this is an important skill to develop early during training.

Medicine in Society is the first clinical placement for medical students, it runs through Year 1. Three hundred and forty students are allocated to 50 general practices spread across a wide geographical area from Watford to Epping; each practice has a GP and a ‘community’ tutor. Students are assessed by their tutors on a reflective learning log that they keep through the year.

With the advent of QM+ we asked students in 2013/14 to upload their work to QM+ on each of 12 occasions as an assignment, and asked tutors to give formative feedback on the reflective writing via QM+ so we could then have oversight of the tutor/student dialogue and provide additional support or training for tutors as necessary. Our overall aim is to improve students reflective writing, helping tutors provide constructive feedback is one strategy.

Student engagement this year was very good – nearly 100% submissions. Tutor engagement was much less. Some adopted it from the start and used it well, for the majority usage was sporadic, a significant number never logged in to QM+ at all. Early problems (especially with logins / permissions) meant we had to ask students to E-mail work directly to tutors at the beginning of the year, some continued to do this after everyone was able to log-in to QM+.

We learnt a lot from this including:

  • we need a single activity not a series of assessments to see student development over time; we need help to develop this ensuring it is fit for purpose and would integrate,/be exportable to any E-portfolio that might be used in the future for the MBBS course.
  • tutors need more support/guidance and training than it was possible to provide last year; we need technical help and time to help deliver this. We anticipate that having assistance with training a large proportion/all tutors in 2014/15 would mean that we could focus on the smaller number of ‘new’ tutors in subsequent years.
  • the volume of material is large – 12 pieces of work x 340 students and potentially one or two tutor comments per piece of work; with assistance we could use this to produce a training resource for ongoing use with students and tutors

extra support and guidance in setting up the portfolio and training the tutors is essential – we had a number of unforeseen hitches last year some simply due to QM+ being new, we need to manage this launch better.

Spanish Language and Culture through Visual Arts and Literature

School: Department of Iberian and Latin American Studies, School of Language, Linguistics and Film
Academic: M.Mar Encinas-Puente
Project description:

1. What pedagogical issue will be explored through the E-learning Production Scheme?
This online enhancement will be of crucial interest for students registered in the module HSP646, since this course has only 3 contact hours per week.
It will make possible a method of continuous assessment that will reinforce students’ ability for independent and critical interpretation of written and filmic texts.
It will also create a solid platform to pilot the possibility of future hybrid language courses at the SLLF where 50% of the module is taught in traditional face to face sessions and 50% is delivered as an online module.
The project will provide the undergraduate students at QMUL with a stimulating tool to learn about the language, art, history and literature of Spain through a series of online multimedia activities. Very particular emphasis will be given to audio-visual information (TV, film and radio) which will help students to enjoy the process of learning in a friendly and creative way.

2. What is the result I hope to achieve at the end of the project?
I hope to achieve an active participation of students in the online and in-class debates and discussions. I believe that the audio-visual component of the class will serve as a way to stimulate students´curiosity towards the fascinating traits of Spanish culture as it has developed from the collapse of the Spanish colonial scheme in Latin America (1898) to the present.

Creating learning objects for the teaching of Orthodontics

School: Institute of Dentistry
Academic: Padhraig Fleming
Project description:

Undergraduate dental students are taught orthodontics on new patient clinics. Fifth year students are given priority in assessing patients as they are approaching Final Examinations. Fourth years are exposed to a limited number of patients undergoing assessment. They are also encouraged to observe postgraduates to become familiar with practical procedures. These opportunities, however, are limited.

I would like to develop a bank of clinical material in short video format with commentary and discussion by academic staff. The videos would be intended primarily for fourth years but would also be used by fifth year students and would comprise of (a) diagnostic cases for relatively straightforward diagnosis and (b) illustration of the mechanics used during orthodontics with fixed and removable appliances. The videos would range in length from approximately 1 minute to 10 minutes each.

Outcomes:

  • Understanding of orthodontic diagnosis and treatment planning
  • Appreciation of indications underpinning the mechanics used during orthodontics
  • Enrichment of student experience and creation of a bank of clinical material.

Additional resources will provide expertise needed to record clinical videos and to facilitate collation of material in an on-line system (QMPlus).

Repurposing the module handbook as an interactive tool

School: School of Language, Linguistics and Film
Academic: Rosine Smyrl & Hassan Yate
Project description:

I am the Student Experience Manager for SLLF, so I have overall responsibility for Student Support. I am very keen to improve the way we provide information to our undergraduate students related to support, regulations, important documents, processes, etc. Up to now, this has been provided via our website:

http://sllf.qmul.ac.uk/undergraduate/current-undergraduate-students

 

For example, the UG Student Handbook is in a PDF over 70 pages long. It has lots of really important and/or useful information, but I know that no one reads it in this format.

 

So we have an Information Communication project

 

I would very much like to put it all on QM+, where I know it can be more accessible and more reader/user- friendly. I have been intending to start this project all year, but I find that I don’t have enough knowledge or experience with QM+ to even really get started, much less to make it dynamic and accessible in the way that I know is possible. I am aware that some other schools, like History and English and Drama have some Student Support/Information pages on QM+, for instance, but they both have dedicated IT professionals who’ve created them, and we don’t have that.

 

Hence, my asking for your support and help via this scheme.

Designing a reference resource for Undergraduates using the QMplus Glossary Tool

School: School of Physics and Astronomy
Academic: Theo Kreouzis
Project description:

During a recent focus group, existing students overwhelmingly identified a need for a glossary of terms and symbols to be made available to SPA students. As the school is designing a study only module (Study Skills for Physicists, SPA4000) the incorporation of such a glossary, which spans over the whole of the Physics curriculum (i.e. is not limited to an individual module or developmental year), would be ideal. We propose to make use of QMPlus (either as a “stand alone” resource, or as part of the study skills module) to make such an electronic glossary available. We wish to investigate the capabilities of QMPlus and related resources to create an electronic glossary of terms and symbols which would ideally be interactive, searchable and allow for cross referencing with individual modules already in QMPlus (this will, of course, require guidance from the e-learning unit). As the academic in charge of preparing the study skills module, I am a (reasonably) competent user of QMPlus, but certainly not capable of using the advanced features such an interactive resource would require

Cooking with Microchips

School: School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science
Academic: Dawn Black
Project description:

Distance learning and e-learning have progressed rapidly alongside advances in technology. However, there still exists an inability to teach the fundamentals of that technology well remotely. It is impossible to replace the supervised lab experience. Students who are 100% distance learning are not the focus of this project, as they have no access to lab equipment, although the innovations proposed here would be of use to them as well. Joint program students can be considered part-time distance learning students. They attend hardware and software labs, supervised by teaching assistants, but not attended by the academic. It is therefore difficult to ensure the same quality of experience as is provided for home students.

Although we cannot completely replace the academic presence, a series of lab ‘walk-throughs’ for both software and hardware courses would be of major benefit. This would enable students to get a detailed explanation of the lab from the mouth of the academic, perform the lab while watching the video in a ‘cooking program’ style, actually view the correct lab set-up rather than extrapolating from diagrams and screen shots and finish lab work in their own time. The provision of such recordings would go beyond the traditional supervised lab by enabling students to watch demonstrations repeatedly and to proceed at their own pace.

It is our hope that the video series may eventually be adapted into a much more integrated lab support strategy. Interactive services that link to lecture notes, example code and FAQ web sites would augment the experience and encourage deep learning.

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