JISC

Digital libraries in support of innovative approaches to teaching and learning in Geography

This project aims to embed a wealth of existing digital resources developed in the US and the UK into the curricula of four US and UK higher education institutions, in four different sub-areas of Geography. Geography as a subject area has been chosen because it provides a rich testbed for exploring the use of digital resources within diverse curricula and because it is a recognised subject of teaching and research excellence in the four participating institutions. The project will provide a technical infrastructure giving seamless access to Geographic digital resources and learning and teaching tools on both sides of the Atlantic, and a robust framework of support within and across all four institutions.

The project will utilize existing digital collections, including those created by earlier JISC and NSF funding, and those involving members of the project team such as the UK/US Censuses of population, other JISC Centre Holdings (MIMAS, Data Archive):  the NSF funded Alexandria Digital Library, the JISC Funded OS Digimap holdings at Edina and assorted Electronic journals.

Aims and Objectives

Two primary aims to develop:

• a distributed enabling information infrastructure for the support of learning and teaching in Geography
• innovative approaches to teaching and learning, based on this infrastructure.

Specifically, the project seeks to:

• show how the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes of study in Geography in the consortium universities can be enriched and developed through cross-national collaboration and on-line delivery
• show how major geospatial resources relevant for the study of the environment and landscape and for the study of human populations in cities and the countryside can used in student programmes of study
• show how important skills in the analysis of spatial information through use of Geographical Information Science and Earth Observation software and functions can be taught on-line and made available in undergraduate programmes
• to develop online learning and teaching resources for use on campus so that relevant Geographical courses can be delivered to students in other disciplines, overcoming timetabling problems

This project will deliver shared UK/US electronic resources associated with four courses across four topic areas, namely: Human Geography (based on the Census); Geographical Information Science (applied to retailing); Geomorphology (based on river catchments); and Earth Observation (for land cover and land use inference).

Supporting information

• Nugget developer guidance toolkit
• ConceptVISTA

Project progress

May 2007

The DialogPlus video was an opportunity for the project team to describe our work and experiences. It highlights some key issues and illustrates some of the tools and approaches taken.

August 2004

Evaluation

The Southampton Education team has produced a major document on the DialogPlus Evaluation Strategy which can be found on the project Swiki pages. The team is working on a baseline evaluation strategy with three main strands:  development and use of the digital resources; development and use of the toolkit; and project processes and procedures. They are collaborating with colleagues in Geography to identify opportunities for formal evaluation of student experiences with DialogPlus nuggets, and have some initial if tentative results which are encouraging. For this reason the report is included below as an appendix. 

Dissemination

Penn State

DiBiase and his assistant are preparing an article about outcomes associated with the academic integrity nugget for publication in 'Journal of Geography in Higher Education' and presentation in a suitable venue.

Leeds

The Leedsteam has not been involved so far in Programme Support as opposed to Project activities. In 2004/5 we intend to make presentations on our work within the School of Geography at Leeds, within the University (a Learning Development seminar is to be held on 19 October) and Phil Rees will give a seminar at the University of Queensland entitled 'Adventures in online learning: from campus practical to transnational masters programme' while on a visit in January-February 2005.

Southampton

The DialogPlus team of Prof David Martin, Dr Steve Darby, Prof Mike Clark, Dr Sally Priest and Dr Samuel Leung convened and presented a Continuing Professional Development workshop for other members of the School of Geography and Faculty of Engineering, Science and Mathematics on 12 May 2004 entitled 'Embedding E-learning within the geography undergraduate curriculum: opportunity or obstacle?' This half-day event comprised presentations and discussion on the DialogPlus project and the specific workpackages within it.

Professor Conole has been disseminating the project informally amongst the teaching and learning community in the UK. There is a lot of interest in the toolkit.  Karen Fill gave a presentation to the Post Compulsory Education and Training research group at theUniversityofSouthampton.

The project has been mentioned in two World Universities network (WUN) seminars at the UniversityofSouthampton.