Research methods on a common core
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This project developed a 'common spine' post-graduate Research Methods course from reused and enhanced content to assist universities addressing large cohort numbers and English as a Foreign Language issues.
Executive Summary
This report examines a project to move some existing content relating to research methods into a new space for use by Master’s/Doctoral level students embarking on a degree where the award is through research rather than taught modules. It looks at the challenges a project can face when the institutional environment is changing, when content may superficially appear to be suitable but actually require substantial reworking and enhancement and the end use of the project outputs is ambitious in terms of re-purposing.
The project achieved its objective in terms of delivering the content promised to the programme specification in terms of reuse and with positive feedback from interested stakeholders. However it encountered some difficulties with a subsidiary project, designed to be a pilot for a series of outputs relating to the management of transitions into UK higher education by international students coming from overseas with no prior study history in the UK. The reasons for this are discussed inside the report but could be conceptualized in terms of issues around cultural differences but also perceptions of power as well as some personal issues.
The project is still incomplete in that we are still clearing copyright and have yet to complete any changes necessary to support the migration to a Moodle-based VLE, but the ongoing commitment to support this project inside the university and the interest in reuse of the content will see us complete it in the longer-term.
In terms of findings about repurposing module content we offer the following key lessons (more lessons may be found in section 8 paragraphs 70-74)
- Updating and refreshing content is more resource intensive than first appears – the choice of a clean start should always be considered
- Re-using content previously developed for a domestic UK post-graduate audience with certain demographics in order to access a wider audience in terms of demographics and educational and cultural background, can present interesting challenges
- IP issues can be time consuming to resolve
- Closer alignment of project timings with academic course delivery calendars should be encouraged
- The experience of this project supports the case for the development of a single systematic standard for indexation and tagging of data within repositories to promote better retrieval, access and thence re-use