The authors investigate the potential of semantic web technologies to enhance "Virtual Fieldwork" resources and learning activities in the Geosciences. They consider the difficulties inherent in the concept of Virtual Fieldwork and how these might be reconciled with the desire to provide students with "authentic" tools for…

Open education resources (OER) are taking centre-stage in many higher educational institutions globally, driven by the need to raise institutional profiles, improve the effectiveness of teaching and learning and achieve universal access to education. Many academics attracted to the idea of turning teaching materials into OER have, however, found…

This article will discuss the issues concerning the storage, retrieval and use of multimedia technology in dance, and how semantic web technologies can support those requirements. It will identify the key aims and outcomes of four international telematic dance projects, and review the use of reflective practice to engage students in their learning…

Social and mobile technologies offer users unprecedented opportunities for communicating, interacting, sharing, meaning-making, content and context generation. And, these affordances are in constant flux driven by a powerful interplay between technological innovation and emerging cultural practices. Significantly, also, they are starting to…

This paper presents a new laboratory-based module for embedded systems teaching, which addresses the current lack of consideration for the link between hardware development, software implementation, course content and student evaluation in a laboratory environment. The course introduces second year undergraduate students to the interface between…

hapTEL, an interdisciplinary project funded by two UK research councils from 2007 to 2011, involves a large interdisciplinary team (with undergraduate and post-graduate student participants) which has been developing and evaluating a virtual learning system within an HE healthcare education setting, working on three overlapping strands. Strand 1…

Is it possible to educate a fire officer to deal intelligently with the command and control of a major fire event he will never have experienced? The authors of this paper believe there is, and present here just one solution to this training challenge. It involves the development of an intelligent simulation based upon computer managed interactive…

Replies to Watts's article concerning computer-aided careers guidance systems (1993). Reviews the U.K. experience of computer-aided guidance systems, comments on the development of PROSPECT which Watts uses as a case study, identifies strengths and weaknesses of existing research, and sets out a research agenda. (JPS)

Learner centred design methods highlight the importance of involving the stakeholders of the learning process (learners, teachers, educational researchers) at all stages of the design of educational applications and of refining the design through an iterative prototyping process. These methods have been used successfully when designing systems…

This paper reports on research to investigate design features of asynchronous discussion systems for higher education. The research aims to identify features that increase the benefits of discussion systems and reduce the problems. The paper focuses on a major theme that emerged from interviews with learners and teachers: information overload.…

We present principles for the design of an online system to support computer algebra enabled questions for use within the teaching and learning of mathematics in higher education. The introduction of a computer algebra system (CAS) into a computer aided assessment (CAA) system affords sophisticated response processing of student provided answers.…

With the expansion of e-learning, the understanding and evaluation of already created e-learning environments is becoming an extremely important issue. One way to dealing with the problem is analysis of case studies, i.e. already created environments, from the reuse perspective. The paper presents a general framework and model to assess UNITE, the…

Examines the development of the main computer-aided careers guidance system in North America, along with the U.K. PROSPECT system. Discusses the roles of government, of the private sector, and of guidance professionals, in relation to the future of such systems, particularly in relation to guidance in Europe. (JPS)

Describes the design and implementation of an interactive video system using existing videodiscs and Apple's Hypercard for use in the teaching of cell biology to undergraduate biology students. Hypertext and hypermedia are discussed, the hardware configuration is described, and a preliminary evaluation of the completed system is reported. (five…

Describes efforts to modernize the firefighting training facilities of the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom through the use of computer-controlled simulations of ship fires. The structure of a prototype compartment and the control system that sets up various training scenarios and modulates the environment in response to actions by the trainees…