Google is probably a big part of your life, one way or another. But when it comes to that single box on the home page, waiting for your keyword input, what do you type in? A recent US study suggested that many Google searches don’t dig deep enough.

“Throughout the interviews, students mentioned Google 115 times — more than twice as many times as any other database. The prevalence of Google in student research is well-documented, but the Illinois researchers found something they did not expect: students were not very good at using Google. They were basically clueless about the logic underlying how the search engine organizes and displays its results. Consequently, the students did not know how to build a search that would return good sources.”

Rather than type a word or two in the search box and hope for the best, there’s a whole host of ways you can make Google find you far better results to suit exactly what you’re looking for. Here are 10 simple ideas to get Google working even harder for you:

1. Go beyond the first page of results

When Google returns about a billion results, you’re not even skimming the surface if you stay on Page One. Dig deeper. You may be surprised at what you find. Used with the tips below, it works especially well, because you’ll be getting more targeted results. What used to return a billion hits may now produce a million. Or a thousand. Or a hundred.
But even if you get a hundred results back, that’s still ten pages of Google goodness going on. If you ignore Page Two and beyond, who’s to say you weren’t amazingly close to finding exactly what you wanted?

2. Find similar words with a tilde (~)

With a WHAT!? The tilde looks like this:

~

Yes, a tilde looks a bit like a curly moustache.
But wait, its powers don’t stop at imitating facial hair. A tilde also tells Google to put a thesaurus to your word. For instance, if you search for “study tips”, you get one set of results. But search for “study ~tips” and you get results for study tips, study skills, study techniques, study guides, and so on.

3. “Use quotes”

When you’re looking for an exact set of words together, put them inside quotes so Google searches for the phrase in its entirety rather than as separate words. You can still add other words outside quotes.

4. Use ‘OR’ in your search

With a few interchangeable words in mind, the ‘OR’ operator lets you search for one or more of the words you choose. Sometimes you want to search a core topic, but with several separate sub-topics. By using OR between each of the sub-topics, you don’t need to bother with multiple searches. [Make sure OR is in capital letters, otherwise Google considers it as the word 'or'.]

5. Use Google Scholar, Books, and News

Google offers other services that give entirely different results, which can be especially useful when you do academic research.
Google Scholar searches for scholarly papers. You can search within a timeframe, limiting the search to just the recent academic papers if you wish.
Google Books looks at content inside, you guessed it, books. When you need a juicy quote or want to read more about a technical detail, this type of search is great. You can also study a book before you even have the physical copy in your hands.
Google News looks at current events, making it great for relevant links about what’s happening right now in your area of interest. You can even set up email alerts every time new articles are published.

6. Search over a particular time

On the left hand side of your search, click on the text that says ‘More search tools‘. New options will appear to let you search the past year, the past month, the past day, even the past hour. You can also search a specific date range if you like.

7. Filter more

Also on the left hand side of your search, you can select various filtering options on your results. One good (though not perfect) option is to search by reading level (basic, intermediate, expert). You can also look at a search timeline, which can be hit and miss, but arranged differently to the standard search results.

8. allintitle:

Want to search for words that are so important they have to be in the page title? Just add ‘allintitle:’ before your search.

9. intitle:

If you want to search for a specific word in the title, but also drill down further with words that’ll only show up elsewhere on the page, add ‘intitle:’ before the word you require in the title of the page. Type the other words as usual. Google will do the rest of the magic.

10. filetype:

What if you only want to search for Word documents or Adobe Acrobat files? No problem. For Word files, add your search terms and include ‘filetype:doc OR filetype:docx’. For Acrobat files, add your search terms and include ‘filetype:pdf’.

—

These search tips are quick and easy, especially after you’ve used them a couple of times. But Google search goes further than that. If these examples have got you hooked, check out Google Guide for a complete overview of everything available at your fingertips.

Happy searching!

What if a tutor started using Facebook for some of your academic work? Would you feel comfortable letting the professor in to your profile? Maybe not.

Anouk Lang undertook a project to find a way to build a learning community within a social networking situation, but without infringing on students’ more personal space.

Lang wanted to overcome the barrier whereby students were negative about using Facebook to study. Even those who weren’t so daunted, they usually got uncomfortable past minor administrative and timetabling communications.

Lang chose to experiment with a set of peer mentors, who formed a distance between the student and tutor. Final year students would talk with second years and pass on their own experiences and knowledge, acting as a bridge between the student and the academic.

Conversation was able to grow academically because “those giving this input and doing this moderation were still peers and therefore not sufficiently different or forbiddingly unknown to the extent that their difference would stand in the way of other students participating”.

Even better, Lang’s experiment didn’t bother with annoying applications. This stuck with the basics, like posting on walls and sending private messages.

Peer mentors started conversations informally, with friendly chatter; something Lang highlights as important for the process to work effectively:

“…getting this right can be a powerful tool in increasing the attractiveness of the group by strengthening its relational interests.”

Students were happy to ask questions. In turn, the final year student mentors were equipped to give answers, because they had been in a similar position in the past.

Better still, anxieties were quickly tempered by mentors. Situations wouldn’t have necessarily been addressed so quickly and effectively using other methods. Facebook win.

But what if Facebook got overtaken by another service? It wasn’t that long ago when Myspace was dish of the day…

Lang explains that proper mentoring requires understanding of online social worlds in general. Methods of communication are key, rather than being an expert in Facebook or any particular service:

“The peer mentoring model is, then, a way of ‘futureproofing’ the resource, as students will be more likely than academic staff to know which technologies are most popular with their peers, and once a framework for online mentoring is established, the SNS can if necessary be migrated in future years to different sites or applications as students’ usage patterns change.”

Can social networking sites benefit learning and student support? Lang argues that they can, “if such sites are conceptualised not as virtual versions of classrooms but rather as places where individuals come to participate in communities of practice”.

Online services are simply tools. They can be used in a number of ways. You can’t effortlessly blend social life and academic work without feeling a bit uncomfortable. But, as Lang demonstrates, it is possible to keep enough distance to enable the social and academic to operate on the same platform without muddling together.

If you didn’t have to sacrifice your informal digital identity, would you be happy to be a part of a social networking learning community? And if you are already, how is it working out for you?

Bombardment means actions come before questions.  Bombardment means overwhelming detail overtakes information filtering.  Bombardment means that a rush to be first appears more important than sustained concentration and focus.

photo by underminingme

Our ability to be connected to so much all the time is both a blessing and a curse. Information overload isn’t a new thing, but it’s becoming a standard for most of us. The bombardment only increases, fuelling an even greater sense of now, Now, NOW. We try to find more time in the day to consume as much as possible. If we can speed up this and gloss over that, we’ll have even more detail to play with. Or that’s the thought, anyway.

Alain de Botton sums up how it’s easy to believe that more and now is best:

“The obsession with current events is relentless. We are made to feel that at any point, somewhere on the globe, something may occur to sweep away old certainties. Something that if we failed to learn about it instantaneously, could leave us wholly unable to comprehend ourselves or our fellow human beings.” [Source]

This simply isn’t true. But we’re blinded by the panic that we might miss something game-changing.

No matter how much we immerse ourselves, we’ll never catch everything. The game is changing all the time. You don’t need to be a part of everything in order to cope. You don’t even need to be a part of everything in order to make a difference.

I don’t particularly subscribe to the idea that things like the Internet rewire our brains in a scary way. But a lot of what Nicholas Carr says still makes sense.

Carr is author of “The Shallows“, a book which suggests that we’re losing our ability to concentrate and reflect. We’re training ourselves to skim over detail and accept interruption when we should be focused.

Carr explains why constant bombardment isn’t useful:

“The development of a well-rounded mind requires both an ability to find and quickly parse a wide range of information and a capacity for open-ended reflection. There needs to be time for efficient data collection and time for inefficient contemplation, time to operate the machine and time to sit idly in the garden. We need to work in Google’s “world of numbers,” but we also need to be able to retreat to Sleepy Hollow. The problem today is that we’re losing our ability to strike a balance between those two very different states of mind. Mentally, we’re in perpetual locomotion.”

Carr’s blog, Rough Type, is also a great resource. Recent posts include those on moderating abundance and how short is the new long.

I believe the ‘always on’ attitude is more a choice (perhaps unconscious) than a dangerous assault on the evolution of our brain. By recognising that it’s okay to switch off the noise, it only takes a bit of getting used to before you can once again distance yourself from bombardment and distraction.

If you’re used to realtime feeds and never-ending information beating at your door, the move away from it won’t be easy. But that’s based on habits, rather than an altered brain that is now unable to deal in any other way.

Steven Connor’s description of the present is a good explanation to why these habits aren’t easy to break:

“The present has become impossible not because it has become more ungraspable or fugitive than ever before, but because it has become more than ever available to itself, just as it has proportionately made other times available to it.” [From "Literature and the Contemporary", p.15]

The subtitle of Nicholas Carr’s book is “How the Internet is Changing the Way We Think, Read and Remember“. But I wouldn’t like to blame the Internet. Steven Connor’s description of the present seems more fitting, because all aspects of now are implicated.

This morning, as I was writing this piece, I had my Twitter feed rumbling past my eyes with regular updates. But I ignored it because I’m used to ignoring it when I’m concentrating on other tasks.

But I did suffer other distractions. Distractions that weren’t Internet related. But they did involve the present. And one distraction, ironically, involved Nicholas Carr.

Typing away, I heard the thud of post as it came through the letterbox. Among the post was the latest copy of the London Review of Books. I decided to have a flick through before continuing to write this piece.

When I got to page 9, imagine my surprise when I spotted a review of “The Shallows”.

My very first thought upon seeing the review was, “Thank goodness I’ve seen this now, before publishing anything. I may find something new that’ll change my point of view.”

My second thought came soon after: “Don’t be daft, Martin. This is exactly the type of distraction that shouldn’t matter. Let it go. Deal with it later. Don’t be distracted by it.”

I was distracted, not by the Internet, but by something posted through my letterbox. By the printed word. By a desire to consume something new, just because I knew it was there and had access to it.

The point is, the book review is bound to bring me new information, even if it doesn’t change my overall opinions. Everything we consume can have that effect.

Life is distracting. But it’s still within your power to reign in your concentration. You have the choice.

And now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to read a book review.

More importantly, does a decline in blogging matter?

Blogging Tips examined data from a study by Pew Internet that found very few people blogging themselves and fewer than half of respondents saying they read blogs.

But a blog is just a type of website. Past surveys have discovered that some people who say they’ve never read a blog don’t realise when they are. After all, it’s just surfing the web and finding content that you like.

And I’m fine with that.  Definitions don’t matter.  Neither does the popularity. A blog is a published part of you and an opportunity to shine.

Writing - photo by JohnONolan

What if nobody else is doing it?  The main question to ask is: “Am I making or can I make good use of my time and resources by publishing my content online?”

If the answer is ‘yes’, it doesn’t matter how many other people are doing it. You can still make good use of things, so go ahead and be brilliant.

A blog is a way of building up a portfolio. You don’t even need loads of readers and traffic. Once you’ve written something, you have achieved something. There are all sorts of ways you can flag up those achievements.

Before I started writing on TheUniversityBlog, I didn’t have a huge portfolio of writing on higher education matters.  I hadn’t started publishing advice for students.

Fast forward three years and now I have an archive of articles for all to see. I did it in my own time and in my own way. Not only is this portfolio now visible, it also demonstrates my genuine interest in a particular field.

Before I went to university myself, I was interested in higher education. That interest has never gone away. It only grows. Yet before I started this site, got tweeting, and generally took things public, I was never able to show the true extent of what’s important to me.

Anyone can say they are passionate about a subject. Anyone can feign interest in a topic. But not everyone can highlight a growing example of work as a clear indicator that they care and know what they’re talking about.

You’re not just blogging…

You’re writing. You’re communicating. You’re creating.

In the film Julie & Julia, office worker Julie starts a blog and it becomes a hit. In less than a year, the character is getting offers of book deals, TV shows and the like. In response to her surprise success, Julie tells her husband, “I’m going to be a writer!”

Julie’s husband replies, “You ARE a writer!”

And that really is the point. Even if blogging declined until you were the only person doing it, the decline would be irrelevant.

Do stuff because it works for you; not just because it’s popular.

Clark asked why students are still lectured to. He suggested that a complete rethink is necessary, not just the odd tweak.

Would you like to see the back of these? (photo by iwouldstay)

@GeoShore sums things up amusingly via Twitter:

#altc2010 keynote summary: “Lectures don’t work. Lecturers can’t lecture. Everyone’s been doing it wrong. Arse. Feck. Nuns.”

Despite a couple of questions from the audience asking about alternatives to the lecture, no specific answers were forthcoming.  Clark replied at one point that the answers are “staring us in the face”.

I’ve attended both great lectures and awful ones.  That suggests lectures aren’t automatically a bad thing.

The lecture is just one part of the learning process.  We read, we’re lectured to, we participate in seminars, we have one-to-one tutorials, we form study groups, we have online participation…

Clark said he enjoyed TED talks and appreciated their production values, but he seemed to be looking for more.  TED talks are still, essentially, lectures.

Same with podcasts and videos.  Clark agreed that it’s better to record a lecture than do nothing at all.  However, he argued that this method merely results in a load of poorly delivered lectures streaming out, providing no further value to learners.

Other than end lectures altogether, I’m not entirely sure what is required.  A complete rethink may result in new delivery methods, so will they look like lectures at all?

If new techniques do resemble lectures, why have other delivery styles so far been given a lukewarm reception (if that) by Clark?

If new techniques don’t resemble lectures, the result has been to abandon lectures, not rethink them.

Clark suggested that there needs to be more collaboration and discussion present in this type of learning.  That’s what seminars and tutorials are all about.  This isn’t an either/or situation; different methods of teaching and learning are delivered.  If lectures were the single focus for all information intake, we’d be in trouble.  But they’re not.

Over to you.  Are lectures dead?  Is the lecturer to blame?  What are the alternatives? Are podcasts and video lectures good, or not good enough?  Is the physical process of attending lectures a hardship in itself?

I’d love to hear your views!

How would you feel if professional social networking could get you better job prospects?  What if you might fare better with an open profile?  What would potential employers see when they typed your name into Google?

photo by constantine✖belias™

Internet psychologist, Graham Jones, recently mentioned a University of Wisconsin study that gave social networks like Facebook a positive spin for employment:

“[The report] shows that users of social networks are more likely to get a job and when they do get the job they get higher starting salaries than people who do not engage with online social networks.”

Even better, it’s good enough just to focus on friends and family.  There’s no need to talk business or cover topics you don’t feel belong on your Facebook profile:

“There was a twist in the study; the social networking profiles were written in three ways. One group of profiles were business-like, another were focused on friends and family, while a third group concentrated on the alcoholic exploits of the candidates…! Needless to say, the alcohol-related applicants were rejected – but the other two were treated equally. This squashes the myth that you should separate your social networks into one for friends and another for business. Employers, it seems, are just as happy to take you on if your profile is family related.“

A professional profile doesn’t mean ‘business-related’.  It means that you have a positive online presence.

There are tales of ‘friending’ the boss and then making work-related remarks that end up in getting fired.  But you can still be yourself without resorting to status updates about hating work or throwing a sickie.  Do those comments truly represent you, or are you making hastily written, throwaway comments?

Unless your life is not complete without hate-filled comments about work, it’s time to get the rest of your profile in shape.  You don’t need to sacrifice the person you are.  At least, you won’t sacrifice the positive stuff that you want everyone to see anyway.

Take steps like these to make sure your Facebook profile is professionally personal:

• Filter the photos – First, filter your own snaps.  Don’t just upload everything you take.  If you want people to respect you, then you need to respect them too.
  Second, filter other user photos by deleting your name tag against any photos you don’t want to be associated with.  Even if someone else takes a photo of you and they publish it with your name tagged to it, you can delete that tag.  Of course, you can ask beg for them to take the photo down too.  Either way, you aren’t required to have your Facebook name associated with it.
• Filter your friends – Do you know everyone you’re following?  Do you want all your old schoolmates listed as friends, or were you just thinking about the numbers?  Be selective, or at least choose what each friend gets to see on your profile. Like this…
• Put your friends into lists – Click the ‘Friends’ tab on Facebook.  At the top of that page there is an option to “+ Create a List”.  Make different lists of friends based on who they are and what type of information you want to send their way (or not).
• Mind your language – There’s a difference between dropping an occasional f-bomb and using it every other word.
• Think before you update – Are you saying something in the heat of the moment?  Slow down and make sure you feel it’s necessary to post an update.
• Log out or lock your computer when you go away. And don’t leave your phone alone! – Mates will be mates.  If you leave an open Facebook profile unattended, you may find a nasty surprise when you get back.  In my update streams, it’s always the same people who don’t protect themselves.  Again and again. As if they want it to happen.
• Don’t be controversial – Status updates to stir up trouble are a no-no.  Joining groups or liking things that are not publicly acceptable is asking for trouble, even if not amongst your closer friends.  Same for doing anything as a joke.  People won’t understand unless they’re in on the joke.
• Lock down updates – If you must update your friends on something controversial, use the padlock under the text box to customise who sees it.  You can specify who you don’t want seeing the less savoury updates…although it’s still not the safest option.
• Keep private and/or personal details exactly that! – Send messages when you’re talking to a select few people and sharing non-public details.  It’s the easiest way for the sake of you and your friends.

These are just a few ideas.  How do you keep your profile looking respectable while staying true to yourself?

In many ways we take the Internet for granted.  It’s easy to forget the need to be secure and safe online.  And it needs more than some anti-virus software.

What do you do to stay safe online?  If you rely on anything that I miss in the list below, let us know in the comments and share the wealth!

Here are my 20 top tools and tips to remain secure while you browse.

1. Firefox – My web browser of choice.  Do me a favour, if the only browser you’ve used is Internet Explorer, please at least try Firefox.  If you’ve tried Firefox and didn’t like it (I promise not to judge you.   ) then try some of the other browsers out there.  Check Google Chrome or Opera perhaps.  Internet Explorer tends to be targeted more due to the bigger base of users.  I hope you do like Firefox, because several of the security choices below are Firefox plugins that are crucial for the safest browsing experience.
2. USB stick – Don’t want to leave a personal trail on a public computer?  Want to make sure your setup is as safe as your home one?  Simply install software on a USB memory stick.  A huge range of applications mean you can have a choice of software similar to your home computer, resting in your pocket. Check out Portable Apps for a great suite of programs and Gizmo’s Best Free Portable Applications for most top software.  Armed with portable Firefox and the safety plugins I’m about to mention, and you can secure yourself pretty well in the process.
3. Encrypted USB – Go even further to securing yourself by protecting your USB stick.  Try USB Safeguard or TrueCrypt for an even safer ride.
4. Anti-virus – Protects you from viruses. I use Avira and I haven’t been let down by it yet. Fingers crossed it stays that way!
5. Firewall – Keeps intruders out.  I use COMODO Firewall.
6. Sandbox – A sandbox lets you run files and programs in an isolated area of the hard drive so any dodgy stuff can’t harm the computer.  If you browse the Web in the sandbox and you get a virus, you can clear the sandbox and come away without a problem.  I use Sandboxie for this.
7. RequestPolicy – Firefox plugin that stops cross-site requests.  You’d be amazed at how often your information travels between different websites.  When you visit a site, it often connects to many other sites to gather information on screen.  You’ll be amazed at just how many sites some pages want to get information from.  RequestPolicy puts you in control of which sites you allow contact with.
8. NoScript – This Firefox plugin blocks malicious scripts and stops potentially dangerous content from running unless you allow it.  Again, you’ll be amazed at just how much this tool stops from automatically loading without your knowledge!
9. Delete Cookies & identifying information – I tend to allow cookies, but have them delete each time I close the browser.  It’s convenient and more private than keeping those cookies lurking about forever.  Configure how you use cookies in Firefox by selecting the Tools menu, clicking ‘Options…’ and checking the ‘Privacy’ tab.
10. Better privacy with BetterPrivacy – Think you’ve deleted all your cookies? Think again. There are stealth cookies now that live in Flash.  You can’t get rid of these without BetterPrivacy.  I suggest you get it now and banish those tough-to-remove cookies once and for all.
11. KeyScrambler – Keyloggers can be installed without your knowledge, which track every key you press on the keyboard.  In the (hopefully) unlikely event your keystrokes are being monitored, KeyScrambler encrypts each press into nonsense.
12. AdMuncher – A lot of people use Adblock Plus for Firefox, but I prefer the standalone software AdMuncher to get rid of adverts.  Not strictly a security tool, but it stops the adverts and stops many connections to ad services.  Can’t be a bad thing, can it?
13. Different passwords for all services – Don’t use the same password for everything you use.  Yes, you won’t forget.  Yet once one service is compromised, it’s every service compromised.  It’s bad enough being inconvenienced once, so don’t get inconvenienced many times all at once.
14. Stronger passwords – Lifehacker gives some tips on great passwords.
15. Use a master password in Firefox – Explained here by dkszone.
16. LastPass – A password manager.  Helps when you’ve got a lot of passwords on the go and don’t want to remember them all (see Point 13!).  If you’re not keen on this one, try KeePass, another popular manager.
17. Awareness of what’s private & what’s not – It’s easy to forget which Facebook pages are open for everyone to read and which are private.  Don’t make a mistake and write something stupid (or worse) for the world to see.  Always think about who is able to access the text and content you’re uploading.
18. Set sensible privacy settings – See above. Facebook has changed its settings a few times recently.  Even if you think you set your profile to completely invisible to anyone except friends, check again now.  Regular checking of privacy settings is required for any website that publishes personal information of yours.
19. Private Browsing – Some browsers, including the latest Firefox, have a private browsing function so you can surf the Web without the software recording any details and saving any information.  You may need this for some personal surfing, not just looking for weird porn and dodgy downloads.
20. Use your own caution – Nothing is failsafe.  Even with all the protection above, you may still fall foul of viruses, hacking, and so on.  Exercise caution in everything you do online.  Don’t be casual as you browse and be careful what you choose to download.  If you choose to grab all sorts of pirated software off a messed up torrent and it doesn’t get found by the anti-virus software, all your safe browsing is in vain.

Title image: original by tiffa130 (cc)  /  Bottom image: kreg.steppe (cc)

Among many measures, one thing Mandelson wants is greater funding and more priority given to science and technology subjects.

So…is it worth studying subjects in Arts and Humanities any more?

The Chronicle says “Just Don’t Go”.

Savvy Student says it “Isn’t Such a Bad Idea”.

What say you?

Next Generation Talent is a competition sponsored by Panasonic that will award one person a 42-inch High Definition TV, HD Camcorder, digital camera and Blu-ray player.  On top of that, they’ll get a 2-week placement at a creative agency and a portfolio review.  Not bad going.

To enter, students around the country were asked to submit an advert for Panasonic Viera HD products.

Last year, the prize went to James Fox at Loughborough.  Here’s his video:

Now you see how the bar was set.  This year, I am looking at four videos to choose from.  I’m willing to be swayed by your thoughts.  So what do you think?  Here are the four shortlisted videos:

Paul Bryan

Steffan Harrison

Romaine Reid

David Childs-Clarke

What’s your favourite?  Who do you think is most creative?  From the videos, which person seems to have most potential?

Let me know what you think in the comments.  I’ll send over my opinions to the competition peeps at the end of the weekend.

Over to you!  May the best vid win!

Among other things, a new taskforce is hoping to, “work to increase the quantity of learning resources freely available for all institutions to use”.

For you, as students, the more quality information available for free online, the better it should be.  That’s even if you live on campus and aren’t studying online as such.

You can already access a huge number of wonderful resources for free, but much of the content originates outside the UK.  For the UK to retain a world-class status, more effort is required to increase the amount of quality material placed online.  Better scope to promote lifelong learning and the constant updating of skills is also required.

Now more than ever, we want to find material that speaks to us. It’s not good enough to find a particular resource dry and difficult to study from, yet have no option but to carry on regardless.  More content available in different formats means we have more chance to effectively digest information in whichever way suits us.  And generally at our own pace too.

Lammy said, “Education must be increasingly personalised to meet the needs of the student as the student requires it and wherever the student requires it.”

David Lammy

At the same time, a new report, supported by JISC, has been released.  Called “The Edgeless University“, the report calls for universities to embrace technology and make the most of the tools available online in order to be at the forefront of Web2.0, social networking and communication.

Online study activity is becoming more important for students, as is easy access to material and content online that is openly available to all.  I know not all students are happy to interact online in the same way they check Facebook and chat with mates, but the game is changing fast.

The ‘Edgeless University’ report mentions Dr Michael Wesch, who has worked wonders at the University of Kansas with his Digital Ethnography programme.  Wesch says, “What I need to do is inspire [students] and give them the tools to harness that information and harness the skills of other people to do the things they want to get done. And that transforms the way you approach the classroom.” (Page 37)

And there really is a transformation.  Not all academic material need come from the confines of a university, especially as online collaboration becomes more common.  However, since the greatest amount of research can take place in HE institutions, it’s sensible to see the uni as the best place to make as much world-class information accessible as possible.  This is where the new learning innovation fund hopes to come into play.

Interactivity is a big deal too, which the ‘Edgeless University’ report supports.  When students see a tutor who is open and available online to talk to students, the demand to engage with that tutor face-to-face actually grows. So students demand more exposure face-to-face as opposed to less.

And face-to-face learning is so important, especially for those who have just left school.  While distance learning should be embraced as a good thing, I still see the student experience of 18 (ish) year olds spending three or so years on campus as a worthwhile and fulfilling encounter that should not be ignored.  Living on (or around) campus is important for the social element, the extra-curricular element, the lifestyle element, and so on.  Do everything online and you could miss out a great chunk of what’s possible.

Nevertheless, the ‘Edgeless University’ report states:

“We are having to reassess the stereotypes associated with ‘being a student’ as something that teenagers do after school and before they start work. It’s a three-year experience – you arrive with a suitcase and leave with a degree. In fact this model of higher education – residential, fulltime and pre-employment – now only reflects the experience of a minority. Two out of five higher education students are currently studying part-time; 59 per cent are mature and almost 15 per cent come from overseas; and there is every indication that the student population will continue to grow and change.” (Page 18)

It’s clear that things are changing, but I hope the ‘stereotype’ remains a big deal, even if student numbers overtake in other modes of study.

Whatever the future holds, the materials that should arise out of the new learning innovation fund would hopefully be of use to each and every student, regardless of their circumstances and the materials they already have access to.