Major funding boost for Learning Societies Lab

As it reaches its third birthday, the ECS Learning Societies Lab (LSL) has secured almost £1M of funding for projects which will greatly enhance student learning experience.

LSL has just been awarded £800,000 from the UK Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) for projects to improve student assessment and to develop light-weight YouTube-type repositories with easier access for students. ‘As a university, we have a major interest in improving the e-learning environment and setting up systems so that students can have more access to materials from which they can learn more independently,’ said Dr Hugh Davis, who heads LSL.

'Today's students expect high-quality teaching,' said Dr Davis. 'As customers they expect to get their materials quickly and a YouTube-like repository is an easy way to access them.'

LSL has been developing light-weight repositories under the EdShare initiative, a resource for collaboration and sharing materials used in teaching and learning across the University.

Dr Davis and his team have also developed the Language Box, the first lightweight repository for language teachers in the UK.

The newly-funded e-Assessment in Higher Education (EASiHE) project will work towards accelerating the electronic assessment process and Dr Davis and his colleagues also contributed to the successful grant application for eAssignment System, a new process which will make it possible for students to get immediate feedback electronically when they submit assignments, which will be rolled out over the University as a whole this year.