Enabling data skills for all [18-164] Home : ALT Annual Conference 2018

Public Group Active 4 years ago

Tue, Sep 11 2018, 1:30pm – 2:30pm

Authors: Janet Roberts, and Anne Robertson

Room: Rm 1.219

Theme: Participation through Learning Technology

Type: Workshop or demonstration – 60mins

Description

Session Description

A one hour workshop to explore the potential of a learning technology platform to deliver critical data skills to FE and HE students, academics and researchers. The platform and tools enable students to use and understand data, to learn how to present it and to develop critical thinking through the use and interrogation of data. The platform is relevant across a wide range of subjects areas enabling its use to be embedded in the curriculum and support delivery to teaching outcomes. Learning technologists who work closely in partnership with staff and students to deliver a technology enhanced curriculum can play a key role in ensuring that students learn appropriate data skills to apply in authentic learning task situations.
Participants will have the opportunity to understand how the platform and service is already being used through real life case studies, demonstrating the range and versatility of the service. They will also have the opportunity to explore and use the service to understand how intuitive and accessible it is for someone new to it, as well as its ability to deliver at an advanced level, providing data for research and dissertations.
This workshop will be of benefit to both FE and HE practitioners, who need to support students to gain critical data skills and spatial literacy that are already essential in the work place, as well as increase their ability to interrogate data and understand it.

Session content: evaluation and reflection

The session will be based on the use of data sets (OS, geology, historic, environment, aerial, lidar and marine) in the Digimap service, developed by EDINA, working with education sector users and stakeholders, at schools, FE, and HE through to researchers, over 18 years. The service is established and already widely used across the HE and FE sector.
In HE the service is extensively used both for teaching and research, in geosciences, architecture, planning, archaeology, engineering and history, with growing use and demand in other humanities and social sciences.
In FE the service is used for teaching architecture, construction, travel, tourism, countryside management, animal conservation, history, public services and built environment. Teaching support materials are provided, for example in construction to calculate potential solar gain of a building depending on its aspect.
In both sectors the service is recognised for its value to students of providing identical data sets and similar contexts and scenarios that they will go on to experience in the work place as architects, planners, environmentalist, engineers, surveyors, historians, archaeologists.
The value of using the Digimap service is increasing being recognised as an invaluable tool to teach students critical data handling and interrogation skills that are already required in every sector, and for which there will be a growing demand.

Because the service continues to be designed and co-created with the sector it is unique in its design to meet the needs of both novice student and sophisticated researcher:
Case studies will be shared with participants demonstrating the range of research uses of the data and service as well as how the service is being used to teach in both HE and FE. EDINA will also share the latest developments working with colleges and FEs in Scotland to develop core skills curriculum for data skills as part of a City and Region Deal, to increase data skills across the population, for students at all stages of their studies. This will include big government census data to illustrate characteristics of society, enabling and supporting critical thinking.
All attendees will gain more understanding of the capabilities of the Digimap service and how to maximise value of the service across their institution. Attendees whose institutions already take Digimap will be able to access user data to understand use levels at their own institution:
Evaluation of the service in HE is currently being measured by the number of institutional log ons, screen prints (incl PDFs JPEGs )– indicating use of annotated and or interrogation of data in course work, and downloads of data, where users are further manipulating the data, adding their own data and combining with other data sets. A calculation of the ‘commercial worth’ of the data used is also calculated as a measure of value. Value can also be considered through user case studies, where data supplied has informed REF level research and or Phd students’ research. For the FE market evaluation is similarly measured by number of sessions undertaken, screen maps created and print maps.

References

Manson, S., Shannon, J., Eria, S., Kne, L., Dyke, K., Nelson, S., … Matson, L. (2014). Resource Needs and Pedagogical Value of Web Mapping for Spatial Thinking. Journal of Geography, 113(3), 107-117. DOI: 10.1080/00221341.2013.790915

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0198971597100060

https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Map_Library_in_the_New_Millennium.html?id=IgApMa4qgOAC

http://www.geog.ucsb.edu/~good/papers/429.pdf