Reporting research

Last year I was asked to convene a research network for the Faculty of Education here at the University of Plymouth. I was given a small amount of money to promote a culture of research within the field of e-learning. Tomorrow I will be reporting on progress to the 'top brass' during our Faculty research day, and will tell them that we now have 30 members (mainly academics and researchers from education, but also from 3 other faculties, and several learning technologists and computer professionals). We are planning our e-learning conference for April next year, and I have booked Professor Mark Stiles (Staffordshire University) as our keynote speaker, after we met up at ALT-C 2007. The group has produced an impressive output of papers, book chapters, journal articles and a book, and I have arranged a series of research seminars featuring internationally recognised speakers including Mike Sharples, John Traxler, Steven Warburton, Avril Loveless, Palitha Edirisignha, Jane Seale and Steven Furnell.

I'm also going to talk about the six research projects we have started since the group formed, including our Second Life project for which we recently received a free one year land grant. The details of all of these activities and outputs can be found on the group's wiki space. This coming year is going to be very busy (but I guess it keeps me off the streets...)